King’s Quest 6 Curiosities

WARNING: Spoilers!

If you have played King’s Quest 6, you may have noticed some strange and interesting things that may not have much to do with the main plot. We definitely have noticed some and decided to post them here, and would love your comments, remarks, or even neat stories concerning these curiosities. 

The moon in the background of the shipwreck scene in the game’s introduction is a crescent moon, but when Alexander is one screen away from the Gates to the Underworld, it is full moon! What happened? Was there some kind of time warp? — Akril (5-6-2000)

The pawn shop owner seemed to know perfectly well that the old hooded man was the genie, and kept the mints in his shop. Yet he seems to act as if he is unaware. Was it perhaps to insure that nosy genie would be too drunk to report anything he had seen to the Vizier? Also, the pawn shop owner apparently knew something about Daventry, judging by the items in his shop and his reaction to Alex’s ring and copper coin. — Allronix (2-16-2003)

Just who was that mysterious wizard who enchanted the map and owned the ink? Perhaps it is the same fellow who owned the spell book in Ali’s Bookstore, since Ali commented that it was the “one and only wizard this island has ever had.” Did he die, or did he “poof himself into an aardvark?” — Allronix (2-16-2003)

How did Alexander know which genie lamp to pick from the street peddler? You, the game player, see the scene with the correct bottle, but not Alexander himself! — Dini (8-10-1999)

  • In the King’s Quest Companion, Jollo tells Alexander that the only description he had of the lamp was that it was blue. Not much help, so our prince pretty much had to take an educated guess because it is difficult to tell what is going on in another location when your heart has temporarily stopped beating! — Akril (2-12-2000)

How did the knight, whose remains can be found at the realm of the dead, perish? Considering the location of the corpse, he was neither eaten by the gate nor touched by zombie or Samhain nor drank from the river Styx. So what killed him? — Templeton (1-12-2002)

Why did Cassima not tell her guards that she was in the tower against her will? Alhazred may have successfully convinced them that she was in mourning, but a direct order from the princess or a demand to see Captain Saladin might not have been ignored. Was Cassima just biding her time until she could score evidence and put the pieces together later? — Allronix (2-16-2003)

Nice touch with who accused who of stealing what in the Green Isles: — Allronix (2-16-2003)

  • The logical and restrained Winged Ones would naturally distrust the chaos and nonsense of the Isle of Wonder, so it makes sense to blame them for the fleece’s absence.
  • The Romans and the Celts often battled to stalemates (Hadrian’s Wall, Boadaceia), so the Druids accusing the Graeco-Roman-inspired Winged Ones of swiping their oak is a nice touch.
  • The Druids are magically-inclined and would be capable of breaking the traps if they willed it. They are also as mysterious and hard to contact as the Beast. Hence, the accusation that they swiped the Coat of Arms. It also doesn’t hurt that the Beast is French-inspired. The English (closest equivalent is the Druids in-game) and the French have had a long-standing rivalry through history.
  • This leaves the Queens to accuse Beast of swiping their stone. More out of default, and also because the Isle of Wonder and the Isle of the Beast might otherwise be close allies, seeing as they’re both lands of storybook enchantments.

Mannanan, Alhazred, and Mordak are part of the same “dark society”. Is it possible that Alhazred could have crossed paths with Alexander before? After all, Alexander was Mannanan’s trusted slave. Between that and the mention of King Graham, he might have known how dangerous Alexander was capable of being from the start. — Allronix (2-16-2003)

I was charmingly amused at the Isle of Wonder’s Chessboard Land rendition of Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass, especially the faithful subtleties in the movements of the sentinel knights, jumping in an “L” motion, and the queens, traversing large swaths of squares, indicative of their powerful characters in the board game. The queens also have no end to their argument even when Alexander provides a mutually beneficial solution, mimicking the behavior of the Red Queen who runs all day only to stay in the same place. Their motions, arguments and gifts also parallel one another as in a mirror. Interestingly enough, the white queen’s representation of “truth” and “virtue” are opposed by the irrational passion of the red queen’s embodiment of “love” (The red queen starts up the next fight regarding the size of the coal when both should logically be satisfied).

However, some oddities remain. In chess, white is privileged with the first move, yet both the red knight and queen speak first. The dissimilarity is furthered by the mismatch of chess pieces to the chess board: Chess Land is colored white (or pinkish, depending on the light) and dark blue while the pieces are red and white. There is also no red or white king – an attribute to the power struggle between the queens and the apparent stalemate of their quarrel. And in furtherance of this inequality, the white queen has no comparable scarf to the red queen’s, though the latter ends up losing hers and never inquiring about it afterwards. — Sami (8-10-2008)