77: Esoteric symbolism & language in The Tripods TV series, published: 24/09/2025
Written & published by Linden Alexander Pentecost & published on the 24th of September 2025. This publication is unrelated to any of my other publications. This publication was published in the UK and only on this www.bookofdunbarra.co.uk website. Note that yesterday I published an unrelated article on one of my other websites. This article contains spoilers about the Tripods TV series and John Christopher’s “The Tripods” series of books more generally. This article contains 1731 words
The Tripods was a BBC TV series which ran for two seasons, based on the trilogy of books by the science fiction author John Christopher. One of the most intriguing things about the TV serieses for The Tripods is their rather blatent use of esoteric symbolism and themes, some of which are not in the books; whether this was deliberate or otherwise by the BBC, I have no idea. But let us look at the story as presented in the two TV serieses in some detail. Note, spoiler alert.
The Tripods Series 1 begins with the strange moment that we are told through subtitles that we are in the year 2089, and yet we immediately see a horse and cart go past. At the age of 16 (or 14 in the books), everyone has to have a ”cap” placed onto their head, a metal divice said to control the emotions, the general implication being that this is ”good” for humanity, removing our need for war, aggression, rebellion, and thereby providing humanity with a mental balance, which, alongside nature, maintains the wellbeing of humanity.
We hear that the previous age was one of war, when mankind was not in control of its emotions and when humans were barbaric, as opposed to the modern ”peaceful” times of The Tripods.
Soon, the main characters come across ”vagrants”. The vagrants in The Tripods are not just vagrents in the sense of being homeless. These are the people who were capped, but where the capping procedure was not successful, leaving these people mentally traumatised, and to the ordinary ”capped”, they appear mad, crazy. However, one of the vagrants takes a particular interest in Will.
This vagrant, Ozymandias is his name, turns out not to be a vagrant at all, but rather, he ”acts” the role of a vagrant, using what might be termed a reflection of the ”sacred clown” concept, to deceive the Tripods and men into thinking that he is capped. In fact, Ozymandias turns out to be one of the Free Men, people living in the mountains near the ”White Mountain”, where there are no cappings or tripods.
Before moving forward, let us briefly look at the symbolism here. The name Ozymandias is very symbolic here, because this name was associated in the 1900s with a particular poem, even though the name is Demotic Egyptian in origin. The poem, Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley, relates to a king, who’s empire and memory have been largely forgotten and obscured. This might well be a way that John Christopher was relating Ozymandias in The Tripods, a freedom fighter, one of the last to know the truths of an ancient civilisation, to the idea of a Demotic king, who’s civilisation is also barely remembered. In Demotic Egyptian, the name is attested as wsr-mꜣꜥ.t-rꜥ, which means something like ”The virtue of Ra (The Sun God) be(comes) powerful”, which is interesting considering the mission that Will and Henry are on, to essentially free humanity from The Tripods.
The fact that Ozymandias gives Will a pocket watch is also interesting. Throughout the two Tripods TV serieses, we see the symbolism of the clock or watch repeated on numerous occasions. In the aforementioned part of the story, the watch may symbolise both a reminder of the past, and a reminder that in some way, Will’s world and humanity is running out of time – which one discovers later in the stories.
Will and Henry Parker then go to the fishing village of Rhymney on the English channel, which totally doesn’t sound similar to ”Romney”, as in Romney on the coast of Kent, where they meet an attractive, rosy-cheeked, older blonde cockney bar maid, and are essentially abducted by a bearded cockney sailor and his blonde, suspiciously-posh sidekick.
I find it interesting that this bearded sailor outwardly displays a lot of harshness, as does the ”Captain Curtais” who is meant to be taking them to France. This is interesting, because when I lived in Kent, I found that the mentality of men down in Kent could be more openly aggressive than in say the north of England. There is a whole rabbit hole behind this I think, and it does in my opinion have to do with the way in which Kent and East Anglia in general may represent late survival areas of indigenous, ancient peoples. I have discussed this with regard to Cockney and Kent, Norfolk and Essex culture and language elsewhere.
The trauma of having Norman (Danish) kings, and then English royalty, the church and hierarchies abuse and break these people’s spirits over hundreds of years, arguably worse than in some other places, is I think partially why the people in the southeast of England can come across a bit more reserved and unsociable sometimes. If this does connect to what we see in the Tripods with the men aboard the Ship The Orion, then this is interesting, because it draws a paralell between what is supposed to be a fictional ”future” and our very own present. I will go back to this later on.
We learn that the two cockneys who abducted Will and Henry are in fact, also free men, but like many people in England today, seem to have lost a lot of faith, and abducted Will and Henry onto the ship, perhaps so that Will and Henry would not draw more attention to them in the town of Rhymney.
The ship they are on, is called The Orion. This name is symbolic in itself, especially in terms of a ship name, for Orion is associated with the sky, space, and with the most holy of beings, and thus the ship baring this name, taking them across the sea, is akin to a divine journey to the earth goddess Sophía. See this other article for more information about this name: https://www.bookofdunbarra.co.uk/website-articles-70-77/70-the-cintama-i-the-auryn-and-related-language-and-philosophy-topics
When Will and Henry reach France, they are immediately imprisoned by the ”Black Guards”, the human servents of the Tripods. Jean Paul, a Frenchman, helps them to escape, and then the three continue their journey together, encountering, among other things, a railway, and the ruined city of Paris. The ruined city of Paris is interesting here, because it can also be connected to our present time with regard to the ”Tartaria theory” and the destructions/dismantling of the Paris World Fair, of which the Eiffel Tower and a couple of other monuments remain.
Then comes what is in my opinion the most boring part of the series, where Will, Henry and Beanpole take up residence with a French aristocratic family in the Chateau Ricordeau. The name Chateau Ricordeau is from the French words chateau – ”castle”, and ricordeau – a French surname connected to French record, and Italian ricordo, a general translation being that Chateau Ricordeau means ”Castle of Memory”, ”Castle of Remembering” or ”Castle of Reminding”. This is clearly relevant to the story, both in terms of the French aristocrats retaining a memory of the Old World, but also in reference to that Will falls in love with a capped girl, and then, when she is taken away, ”remembers” his mission and purpose, even though it took the loss of the girl he loves to make him realise that.
The name Eloise is likely related to the Latin verb eligo, which means to collect or to ”pick out”, just as Eloise was ”picked out” to be chosen by both Will, as a lover and wife, and by the Tripods (with the help of a jealous, pompous duke).
They then encounter the Vichot family. This name Vichotis possibly related to French vichy, meaning gingham cloth, a cloth which sometimes bares a similarity to Tartan patterns in Scotland. Madame Vichot is Scottish, and is also a kind of vagrant in that her capping was not completely successful, and Will, Henry and Beanpole take her into their confidence. I wonder if on some level her being Scottish, and having some strong understanding of the Old World, is akin to the way in which the Gaels of Scotland have preserved a large amount of Old World heritage and knowledge. Henry’s relationship with Kirsty, one of Madame Vichot’s daughters, is pretty touching and sweet. I think it’s far more romantic than Will’s relationship with Eloise in a lot of ways; and when Henry and Kirstie have to part ways, it is genuinly quite sad and emotional; so, top marks for acting and being authentic to that actor and actress!
I will not say much more here, I feel that I have discussed this series enough. But I will say that this ”Sacred Clown” concept pops up again towards the end of Series 1, when our three main characters meet a band of vagrants in the forest, some of whom are dressed and have makeup akin to that used by sacred clown figures. The ”sacred clown” aspect also pops up at the end of Series 2, where Will and Beanpole discuise themselves as circus workers, and where Will meets a slightly younger (than him) girl called Raquel, who is again I think a more interesting character than Eloise – but I digress. If they had produced a third series, I wonder if Will and Raquel would have eventually become a couple, as in the books, Will does not get Eloise back – although series 2 does imply that this might have happened in Series 3, I think. Anyway, I hope this article was an interesting read – and I highly recommend watching these two series to see their symbolism in more detail, of which I have only covered a small amount. And I have barely even touched upon the symbolism of the Tripods and Masters themselves, and the cognoscs. But if you watch the two series, the triangular, pyramidal and “3-fold” symbolism to their alien universe is very familiar, especially if you have also watched “The Dark Crystal” for example.