The John Palifox Key Mystery/Hoax Part 3

…they were watching a Dickensian paranormal epic unfold.

Ferabo or Leguay appeared on the JPK forum scene a little over two months after the initial post. He knew latin and would captivate the other posters with his well…latin. Apparently knowing latin is as good as a mensa membership in the internet world, so no one questioned Leguay’s intentions or his actual existence for that matter.

Before I let my entire train of thought derail I have to inject an observation. For those of you that have seen the movie Good Will Hunting, I think you’ll know where I’m coming from. When Will (Matt Damon) is involved in a conversation with Robin Williams’ character over the strength of his intellect, Will’s Achilles heel is revealed: although he is learned, it is a book smart based intelligence that has rarely seen the outside of a library or bookstore. There was something about Ferabo’s posts that rang of this exchange and it stuck with me the entire time. For those less cinematically versed, let’s imagine Homer claiming he was Ulysses and writing under the pseudonym Achilles…which now brings us back full circle.

So Ferabo, battle hardened scholar and armchair adventurer, played an interesting and integral role as our protagonist. I say interesting because I felt the “development” of the character was crucial to the stories ongoing draw. Ferabo was initially played as a skeptic. Sure, his belief in JPK and his book were real and unwavering, BUT, he questioned the validity of the statements and overall ideas of the author. This is a very important facet for a character, especially if you’ve just paid your 199.95 for Joseph Campbell’s Build- A- Hero course. Taking the focus off of the debate of the actual crux of the story and placing it on other details gives the reader a choice that is immediate and yet imperceptive. To follow the story and its new offshoot, you are conceding to the story’s foundation. It’s a great device that leaves the starting gate so far in it’s wake that the principles of the story itself are no longer questioned; midgets, upright reptiles, die-hard Latinists all inclusive.

So we have a hero, a supporting cast and a goal (Childe Rolande’s quest for the ever elusive Dark Tower), but where is our opposition ahhh….the plot develops at the same time as what some might call an “alternate reality game” construct starts to weave itself into the narrative. The opposition becomes the very skepticism that was so craftily avoided through the lynchpin role of Ferabo. To now question the very essence of the plot is to remove the momentum of new insights and debates that drives the engaging heart of the story itself; and engaging is exactly what it had become. By now we had our gnomes, upright lizards ,our bumbling, yet masterminding professor (sorry kids, no Flubber), a repentant gnome murdering biker (yepper) and a leather-bound book that also served as a passport to Middle Earth…but, all tired kitchen sink jokes aside, we seem to be missing something: a vast conspiracy that extends to the ends of the earth and just possibly…one with implications so vast that it can shatter the very core of the guardians of our future…topless dancers!!!

(continued in part 4)