Lemarchand's box
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Lemarchand's box (or a Lemarchand box) is a fictional lock puzzle or puzzle box appearing in horror stories by Clive Barker, or in works based on his original stories. The best known of these boxes is the Lament Configuration, which features prominently throughout the Hellraiser movie series. A Lemarchand box is a mystical/mechanical device that acts as a door — or a key to a door — to another dimension or plane of existence. The solution of the puzzle creates a "Schism" or open pathway to another realm through which beings may travel in either direction. The inhabitants of these other realms may seem demonic to humans. An ongoing debate in the film series is whether the realm accessed by the Lament Configuration is intended to be the Judeo-Christian version of Hell, or simply a generic dimension of endless pain and suffering.
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[edit] Philip Lemarchand
The boxes were created by Philip Lemarchand, who is just mentioned in The Hellbound Heart (the novella upon which the movie Hellraiser was based) as a maker of mechanical singing birds.
He first appeared as a character in the Epic Hellraiser comics series and was portrayed as an older man, though still a creator of toys and singing birds. This version, created with the support of Clive Barker, was a mass murderer who used human fat and bone in the construction of his boxes. He was aided by a material given to him by the Cenobite known as Baron.
The film Hellraiser: Bloodline, written several years later, portrays the character as much less morally reprehensible. In this version, Lemarchand is a young ingenious toymaker known for his intricate mechanical designs. The character Paul Merchant says in the film that the Lament Configuration was commissioned from Lemarchand by the Duc de l'Isle in 1784.
[edit] The Lament Configuration
The Lemarchand box that has become known in the film series as the Lament Configuration was introduced in The Hellbound Heart as "the Lemarchand Configuration". It appeared as an antique black lacquered cube, stylistically patterned after ancient Chinese puzzle boxes, of unparallelled workmanship. A clever individual with a passion for solving the puzzle might spend the better part of a day loosening the first piece. As described by Barker on the first page of the novella,
- The interior surfaces were brilliantly polished. Frank's reflection — distorted, fragmented — skated across the lacquer.... Lemarchand, who had been in his time a maker of singing birds, had constructed the box so that opening it tripped a musical mechanism, which began to tinkle a short rondo of sublime banality.
The tune continues to evolve as each additional piece is moved:
- And there was music too; a simple tune emerged from the box, played on a mechanism that she could not yet see. Enchanted, she delved further. Though one piece had been removed, the rest did not come readily. Each segment presented a fresh challenge to fingers and mind, the victories rewarded with a further filigree added to the tune.
The puzzle draws the player onward until suddenly the puzzle is solved and the gateway is opened. As the puzzle is nearly completed, the sound of a large bell can be heard tolling mournfully. The sound comes from the realm of the Cenobites, and announces their impending arrival. Once the gate is opened, the box begins reassembling itself.
An important difference between the book and film versions — aside from the name — is that the film version of the box is merely twisted into new alignments or shapes, whereas the version in the novella is completely disassembled and reassembled. The film version is also trimmed in brass or gold, and appears to have arcane symbols etched on its surface. The novella version is completely smooth and has no obvious designs save for an almost imperceptible etching along the seams between the pieces, but seems to display the faces of its victims in the reflection of light over its surfaces.
[edit] Solutions
The novella version of the Lemarchand Configuration allows for only one solution. By running the fingers over its facets and probing of loose pieces, one slowly manages to disentangle the parts of the box until the core is exposed. The ingenuity of the box is that at each stage only one piece can possibly be removed and in only one way. Additionally, the lacquer work is so perfect that the seams are hard to find, making the solution still harder. Once the puzzle is solved, the hellish gateway opens.
The movie version, the Lament Configuration, offers several alternatives. Primarily, the box is triggered to summon the Cenobites. To do so, one first runs a thumb or finger counterclockwise around the largest circle on the cube, possibly several times. A smaller circle on another face is a button that must also be pushed. Sometimes, one of the corners is rotated. Finally, most of the faces are partially pulled away and pushed back in a different alignment. Other steps are implied to occur, but the above is what usually appears on screen. The cube then operates itself, sectioning off into radial segments from the central core. Alternating segments lift up the entire depth of the box, then the two bundles of segments rotate 45 degrees from each other before sliding back together. The resulting form is more like a jagged column than a cube. This generally ends with hooked chains springing from the cube and the arrival of the Cenobites, although the timing of each varies widely.
Alternatively, when individual Cenobites are to be summoned or banished, partial solutions have some effect. In the first Hellraiser, the protagonist, Kirsty, could move two or three parts in the presence of Cenobites to banish them. The configuration could also alter itself to call up a particular Cenobite, who disappears when the alteration is reversed.
In the second and third movies, with extra effort, the Lament Configuration can be transformed into a "diamond" alignment composed of six acute-triangular faces. In this form it is sharp and gray with poor contrast among features. One makes as if to open the box in a traditional sense, but two sharp spikes spring out from opposing corners. Several pyramidal sections are rotated and the ends are then "pulled" into the final shape. This form seems to allow for a "link" to form with Hell. After the gate to hell was opened in the second movie, the Pinhead Cenobite solved for the diamond alignment while a sustained link between Hell (the Labyrinth) and Earth was maintained. When the box was reformed, the link broke and the gate to Hell closed. In the third movie, the protagonist, Joey, was able to banish lesser Cenobites with small changes to the configuration, but she could only banish the superiorly powerful Pinhead by stabbing him with the diamond arrangement.
[edit] Other boxes
Other Lemarchand boxes appear throughout the Hellraiser film series. Dr. Channard is depicted as a collector in Hellbound: Hellraiser II; he has several on display in his study. The Host in Hellraiser: Hellworld also possesses several. Most of the boxes seen in the films are not named or used onscreen, so their powers — if any — are unknown. They may simply be fakes.
The Hellraiser (unofficial) GURPS game makes a reference to the "Pandemonium Configuration." While it doesn't state its effects directly, it implies the cube doesn't bring on sudden effects so much as a gradual displacement from the world. This configuration is seen as a comfort among the homeless and marginalized.
[edit] External links
- Pyramid Gallery, reconstructions and fictional backgrounds to a range of Lemarchand's boxes
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