Time is quite literally of the essence today, folks! We’re diving into the wibbly-wobbly world of fantasy clocks, in which time can be molded, anthropomorphized, or simply measured with remarkable flair.
Examples of intriguing clocks, watches, and timepieces abound in fantasy worlds. I’m certain the five below, though they’re my personal favorites, don’t begin to cover the many ingenious time-related devices in the fantasy pantheon. So, as always, please hit me with your own favorites in the comments below!
Tock, The Phantom Tollbooth
When an apathetic Milo stumbles into the Lands Beyond, he soon meets the intrepid watchdog, Tock. Indeed, Tock is a dog with a clock for a body. The canine/clock companion prowls the Doldrums, where people are known to waste copious amounts of time.
Tock comes to represent the value of time itself. He lives up to his job as a watchdog (one of my all-time favorite literary puns, I might add) but dutifully ensures that time isn’t frivolously wasted. There’s so much of it, but also so little!
A deeper reading brings up a sad contradiction, though. If you, like Tock, spend all of your time worrying about time, have you spent that time productively? Pining for more time or pouting over lost time may themselves be unproductive uses of the thing itself. Tock sheds some of his rigid ethos when he decides to accompany Milo on his journey through the lands beyond. The jury’s out on whether he thinks that’s a great use of time (but reading The Phantom Tollbooth certainly is).
The Wunschtraum Clock, The Night Circus
At first glance, the Wunschtraum Clock may seem mundane, but a closer or longer look reveals its unique magic. The Night Circus brims with magic of a mysterious and intangible flavor. How it works and why it exists aren’t the right questions to ask. How does it make you feel? Can it move people? There’s a better approach.
The Wunschtraum Clock serves as a focal point for all entering the circus. It’s a constant reminder of the event’s ephemeral nature. Once a night ends, there’s no telling whether the circus will make its flight in the dark and pop up in a new location days later.
I know you didn’t ask, but I’ll tell you anyway: If I could have one clock from this list, it’d be the Wunschtraum Clock. I don’t need outright magic in my timepiece, but some semblance of it—in the form of beautiful craftsmanship—would do just fine.
The House With a Clock In Its Walls
You’ll NEVER guess where this clock is…
Real talk, though, it would be a disservice to write a list about fantasy clocks without at least one timepiece counting down toward a terrible fate, and this one hits the mark. John Bellairs’ novel—adapted into a completely serviceable 2018 movie starring Jack Black—tells of orphan Lewis Barnavelt, who goes to live with his uncle in the titular house. Then the clock comes into play.
The ticking resounds throughout the house, and the mysteries of the book begin to unravel. The clock, hidden somewhere within the walls of the mansion (surprising, right?), ticks and tocks in an attempt to align the magic of the world. Turns out this could lead to the end of the world as Lewis knows it, so he embarks on a race against time to find and disable the clock.
Even though the title might be a tad on the nose for our purposes, The House With a Clock In Its Walls fills a classic space in the fantasy clock canon.
The Pocketwatch, Return of the Obra Dinn
Before we discuss this entry, consider this my plea for you to play the game before reading this entry. If you have any designs on enjoying Return of the Obra Dinn, I recommend you do so.
Still here? In Return of the Obra Dinn, you play the role of an inspector sent to investigate a ship that has mysteriously returned to shore, its crew and passengers dead and/or disappeared. You’re armed with the Pocketwatch, introduced as the “Memento Mortem,” which has an eerie skull emblazoned on it. When you approach one of the many bodies on the ship, the watch lets you see the brief moments leading up to their death. Your job, then, is to determine exactly what happened on the Obra Dinn and who the passengers were. Let me tell you—it’s a spooky and wonderfully-spun tale.
The Pocketwatch is horrifying and powerful and dangerous. As a game mechanic, it works incredibly well and drives the story while allowing you, the player, to solve the puzzles on your own. As a timepiece, I’m glad it exists in the realm of the game and nowhere else.
The 75th Hunger Games Arena, Catching Fire
The Quarter Quell commences in a circular arena, and the Hunger Games play out across massive clock rigged with obstacles and enemies that activate based on the time of day. Acidic fog, tidal waves, vicious apes, jabberjays, and an unknown terrifying beast are among the challenges on offer.
Of all the clocks on this list, the arena is the most threatening on an individual scale. In Catching Fire, it also adds a layer of mystery and problem-solving into an already fraught narrative. The competitors don’t know what the arena does, and they’re left to figure out how the clock functions through trial and error. It ramps up the already considerable suspense that’s been mounting throughout Suzanne Collins’ story—one of the many reasons why this series became such a phenomenon.
Cole Rush writes words. A lot of them. For the most part, you can find those words at The Quill To Live or on Twitter @ColeRush1. He voraciously reads epic fantasy and science-fiction, seeking out stories of gargantuan proportions and devouring them with a bookwormish fervor. His favorite books are: The Divine Cities Series by Robert Jackson Bennett, The Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers, and The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune.
