Myst in Retrospect
The Book of D'ni
Myst: The Book of D’ni1 is a highly ambitious book, one which attempts to tell a sweeping, epic story of clashing civilizations and profound moral dilemmas. Many of the themes it introduced would prove to be extremely significant to the later games. Yet the novel just doesn’t quite come together. The characters seem vaguely defined, the morality play is awkward, and it often seems not to notice contradictions in its own messaging. It’s decidedly a weak link in the series, a largely forgettable book whose events are rarely mentioned again. But some of what it has to say is interesting, and merits a closer look.
The events of The Book of D’ni take place between those of Riven and those of the next game, Exile. Atrus has recruited some people from an Age called Averone to help him search for D’ni survivors. In the first act, Atrus and the Averonese (and Catherine, though she’s rarely mentioned) travel throughout the ruins of D’ni, linking to various Ages, and occasionally finding survivors. There are occasional mishaps and small subplots, none of which contribute much to any sort of larger arc.
Eventually they discover a hidden chamber below a building and a long-lost Linking Book, one that leads them to the Terahnee, a flourishing civilization that shares a common ancestry with D’ni (both are descended from a civilization called the Ronay, who invented The Art). It seems at first to be a great stroke of luck: the Terahnee welcome the D’ni survivors with open arms. The survivors, likewise, are eager to return to a high standard of living and be part of a larger society again.
However, it is soon revealed that the Terahnee society is entirely dependent on slave labor. This is intended to set up a moral conundrum for Atrus, who now must decide between joining a civilization that he finds morally abhorrent or retreating back into the lonely ruins of his own people. But the dilemma is quickly rendered moot, because Atrus and company accidentally brought a pathogen to Terahnee, and the resulting plague destabilizes the society, paving the way for a massive slave revolt. The final chapters of the book are primarily concerned with various violent power struggles between the Terahnee and their former slaves, with Atrus doing his best to guide the events in the direction of justice. But eventually it becomes clear that this situation is not one that can be resolved by any amount of good intentions on Atrus’s part, and he and his people elect to leave Terahnee and seal the Linking Book away again. The book closes with a monologue from Catherine about some sort of prophecy that relates to Atrus’s life somehow, a detail which the series never revisited.2
Where The Book of Atrus was largely character-driven, The Book of D’ni is more plot-driven, which is unfortunate as the plot is not particularly compelling. The question of what happened to the D’ni citizens who survived The Fall is an interesting one, but it’s not by itself a story. Most of the action of the book consists of aimless wandering in D’ni followed by a completely unrelated story about Terahnee.
What most strongly ties the book to the rest of the series is its central theme, which is the corruptive power of the Art. The ability to create links to any possible world creates infinite temptations, which is why it was a highly elite and restricted profession in the D’ni civilization. While by this point the series has already shown us numerous characters who were corrupted by this power (namely Gehn, Sirrus, and Achenar), The Book of D’ni was the first to raise the question of whether the Art is inherently pernicious, whether it corrupts necessarily. This theme would later become a cornerstone of the later games (Uru and End of Ages), which come down hard on the Art as all-corrupting. The Book of D’ni, is less sweeping in its judgment, instead taking the position that the Art can corrupt people, but that some people manage to resist its temptations.
Foremost among the book’s moral actors is Atrus, whose principles insulate him from becoming corrupted. Or at least, that’s how the book depicts him, but even Atrus’s actions are more complicated than the telling would have us believe. He too uses the Art’s power to his advantage, and shows little concern for his influence on the worlds he links to.
There is an analogue here to Star Trek’s Prime Directive, which holds that civilizations with complex technology have a moral obligation not to interfere with societies whose technology is less advanced. But Atrus does not adhere to the Prime Directive. If he needs laborers to help him in his quest to find D’ni survivors, he writes a link to an Age where he will find willing workers. Granted, he doesn’t enslave the Averonese (his workforce consists entirely of volunteers), but by exposing them to a world beyond their wildest dreams, he has irreversibly altered their entire civilization. The Averonese elders are suspicious of Atrus, and while the book attempts to paint them as shortsighted, one can’t help but see the situation from their point of view: Atrus has effectively appeared out of thin air and filled the people with feelings of inadequacy. They are no longer content with their one world, and their entire way of life is now at risk of disappearing; being assimilated into the fabric of New D’ni. This is especially apparent when Atrus, later in the book, proposes migrating the Averonese to Terahnee, along with the D’ni survivors. His “objective” observations lead him to believe that life in Terahnee is superior to life in Averone, and that it then follows that they should move. But Atrus is not Averonese, and therefore not qualified to make decisions on their behalf. In effect, Atrus has completely destroyed the Averonese way of life just by interacting with them. Yet the book doesn’t seem to recognize this, and continues to paint Atrus as wanting the best for everyone, even as his reckless application of the Art accidentally reinforces the book’s point.
The primary abusers of the Art, though, are the Terahnee, whose misdeeds drive the primary storyline of the book. Terahnee at first appears to be a flawless paradise, a trope which any astute reader will recognize as a sign of hidden sins. From a thematic perspective, Terahnee largely serves as a counterpoint to D’ni. The original schism that separated the D’ni from the Terahnee in the first place was disagreement over the proper way to incorporate the Art into their societies. The D’ni concluded that it was best to suppress pride, establishing their capital city in a cave to instill humility in themselves. The Terahnee instead made pride their defining virtue, creating a world which exalted their own beauty. This contrast is played frequently throughout the book: D’ni is dark but moral, Terahnee is bright but immoral. The situation is completely black-and-white: there are no bad people in D’ni, and there are (with one exception) no good people in Terahnee.3
While the book’s treatment of the Art is mature and well-reasoned, its characters are consistently and unapologetically naive. Atrus makes endless unfounded assumptions: that the Averonese don’t mind his influence, that any D’ni survivors will be glad to see him, and that Terahnee really is as perfect as it looks. Furthermore, he shows no sign of ever having been hurt, despite the fact that at this point he’s survived attempts on his life by both his father and his sons, not to mention years of solitary exile. Atrus’s ability to live through so much evil and still trust everyone he meets defies belief. None of the other characters are any better. Even Catherine doesn’t seem to think the Terahnee might be hiding anything, and the Averonese simply assume that Atrus knows best.
The only character who doesn’t come across as woefully naive is Ymur, a former slave who becomes the primary antagonist in the book’s final chapters. At one point early in Ymur’s character arc, Atrus proposes a plan to rebuild Terahnee and give it to the slaves, basing its new government on that of D’ni. Ymur bristles at this, saying that Atrus’s plan amounts to swapping out the old masters for a set of new masters. Atrus denies this, but Ymur is insistent:
“Why should we listen to you, Atrus of D’ni?”
“Because I have your interests at heart!”
“Our interests, or yours?”
Atrus stared at Ymur, understanding suddenly that whatever he said he would not convince this one. Ymur was set against him, set against reason itself.
This passage in particular highlights the naiveté that afflicts most of the characters in this novel. Ymur is not set against “reason itself,” he’s just the only character who learns from his past experiences. He has been beaten down too many times in his life, and he is not about to let someone else take the reins now that he’s finally on top. He doesn’t know Atrus at all, and therefore has no reason to trust him. This is another major shortcoming in this book: the only characters who are actually thinking are generally depicted as misguided, while the ostensible protagonists blunder around under a misconception of their own enlightenment.
Near the end of the book, Atrus reaches a crucial turning point when he concludes that trying to rebuild D’ni in its own ruins is a mistake. It’s one of the few moments in the book in which the reader can feel for him as a character, someone who is thinking and considering the meanings of his actions. Atrus’s decision to abandon the fallen City is sudden but nonetheless deeply personal, a conclusion reached by soul-searching and the lessons of his recent experiences. The decision is final and far-reaching: D’ni the city will be forever abandoned, but D’ni the people will move on. What exactly this will entail, the book doesn’t say. But The Book of D’ni leaves us with this tiny thread of hope, one which will continue through the rest of the series.