Aughra: Encyclopedia - Aughra

Aughra

Aughra is one of the supporting characters in Jim Henson's imaginative 1982 fantasy classic film The Dark Crystal. In the movie, she is portrayed primarily by Frank Oz in a costume. Oz also voiced Aughra originally (making her sound very similar to a hybrid of Fozzie Bear and Yoda), but later her lines were re-dubbed by Billie Whitelaw.

Aughra - About Aughra

A horned, one-eyed, wild-haired Seer, Aughra is the sole member of her race. She is known as the Watcher of the Heavens and the Keeper of Secrets. An astronomer, she maintains her observatory set at a cliff's edge atop a mountain, which houses an enormous, working orrery that shows all the worlds that surround Thra's Three Suns. It is because of this orrery that Aughra was able to predict the coming of the Great Conjunction. Also, it is Aughra who holds the Shard of the Crystal, which is why urSu, wisest of the Mystics, sends Jen to find her.

Aughra - Character Information

According to the book The Song of Aughra (alternately titled The World of the Dark Crystal), Aughra is the essence of Thra itself. Born from the need of the rocks and trees to have an eye to see the world, the roots made the rocks split and from them Aughra came to be. The novel The Dark Crystal mentions that Aughra is both male and female. The part of her that has withered is male, and the part that remains is female. Because she is the essence of Thra, she posesses the power to control tendrils, bushes, tall grasses, and other flora. Aughra can also unscrew her heavily bloodshot eye from its socket and hold it in her gnarled hand for extended view. Her brisk voice is harsh, broken and short of breath, which is loud, rasping, rheumy, and has a dank stench.

Her exact age is undetermined, though the novel says that Aughra is three times three ages old. Old enough to know the world that existed before the race of Gelflings came to be, Aughra can recall life before Mystics and Skeksis evolved their separate codes. She studies the movements of planets in the heavens and lost an eye one thousand years earlier observing the last Great Conjunction of the Three Suns. She laid down on the top of the mountain directly above the Crystal. She looked directly up into the beam of light from the three suns. This not only burned out her eye, but also burned her body. During this time she also witnessed the arrival of the urSkeks. It was the urSkeks that healed her body and built her observatory and orrery upon High Hill.

Aughra's temperament is nothing if not unpredictable, and she is very prone to mood swings. Angry one minute, and calm the next, it is disconcerning how abruptly she can become taciturn. An example of this is described in the novel. When Jen reaches for something out of curiosity in Aughra's observatory, she angrily pins his hand down to the table with her fist and growls at him not to touch anything. She then proceeds to continue with what she was doing, as if nothing had happened.

Aughra is supposed to appear in the sequel, The Power of the Dark Crystal, scheduled to open in theaters in early 2007. She will once again be voiced by Billie Whitelaw.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Aughra", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki