Night #7 - Keeping Prisoners

"Yell all you want, Pharaoh. You've been in there fifty-four years, you're not getting out tonight."

But why? After all, when Ahkmenrah is released, it's revealed all he really wants is a breath of fresh air, and after decades of being stuck in a sarcophagus, who can blame the guy? In fact, it's a miracle he's not insane at this point. But before his release, everyone in the museum seems to avoid him at all costs except for only a few: Teddy Roosevelt, due to intrepidity; Cecil Fredericks, out of greed; Nicky, out of curiosity; and possibly Dr. McPhee, as a regular course of his duties. Dr. McPhee likely keeps everything he does concerning the museum restricted to the daylight hours, for various reasons, and any fears he have are probably due to his desire to avoid whatever goes on after hours as much as possible.

Teddy Roosevelt willingly approaches the pharaoh in order to explain to Larry why the museum is in chaos and why the exhibits are moving, but he urges Larry not to make eye contact with the jackal guards and tells the pharaoh point blank that he won't be released. He sounds brave, sure, but that mask could hide any number of emotions toward the pharaoh. It's a good thing Larry doesn't quite understand the fear the other exhibits seem to have for the pharaoh prior to his release, because the absence of that motivation against releasing the pharaoh ultimately contributes to Ahkmenrah's freedom. In fact, Larry releases Ahkmenrah because the latter is most connected to the tablet and would be of some help getting it back and getting the museum back under control. He's right.

Cecil Fredericks also willingly approaches Ahkmenrah's sarcophagus, but he is sure to do it when he is sure he won't be accosted by the guards or have to deal with the pharaoh's constant screaming and banging against the lid of his sarcophagus. He is sure to give Larry the tour before closing time, and he steals the tablet and rotates the middle piece while the sun still shines. But he and his cohorts are all very well aware of what the tablet does for them when it comes to energy, and Cecil implies by "planning on a long retirement" that it will help them live forever (a statement I will go into on another night). Where other museum artifacts are stolen for their worth or as tools to help frame Larry, the tablet is stolen for its power to "give new life" to whatever it touches which can be given life (basically anything humanoid/animal-shaped).

Nick Daley first approaches the tablet when he sees it in a cart full of other museum goods, after hearing of it some time before, thinking his dad was losing his mind and such a thing didn't even exist, and expressing a desire to go home. Nick is actually the first to spot the guards prepping to rip off the museum, and when he picks up the tablet, he becomes a game changer in a game he doesn't even begin to understand. Cecil and Larry both urge him in different directions, the one to put the thing down and the other to turn the middle piece and restore the magic, and Nicky ultimately chooses to trust his father. In doing so, he learns that Larry is not insane and was right the whole time about exhibits who were brought to life every night, but initially, he just wanted no part of any of this.

So why do only a few parties approach the pharaoh and his tablet, and even then under very specific sets of circumstances? Teddy Roosevelt expresses leeriness regarding Ahkmenrah's jackal guards, discussed last night, but the tablet in and of itself is very powerful. I discussed on the fourth night that the tablet has powers centering on life, specifically granting what was dead renewed life, which came with the caveat that everything caught outside the museum would turn to dust at sunrise. The tablet is therefore capable of indirectly causing death, and if opening a gate and bringing exhibits to life are the tip of the ice berg as Kahmunrah claims, then maybe the exhibits don't want to take their chances, and even Cecil is playing it safe. Since he was the one to give Larry the tip to "brush up on [his] history a little bit," chances are good that's what he did to adjust to what exactly was going on, and he picked up bits and pieces about the tablet that made him nervous.

But the tablet in and of itself is just a slab of gold with rotating pieces and pretty symbols on it. When it does anything really interesting, useful, or cool, it's because it's being manipulated by an external party, in both visible cases someone who speaks and/or reads Egyptian. The only thing it does on its own is give exhibits life every night within its designated "domain" (usually a building of some form, in modern times museums). Therefore, to do anything of value beyond its inert power (which is implied, at least by Kahmunrah, to be pretty weaksauce in comparison to everything else the tablet does), someone must be involved to utter an incantation, enter a combination, perform a ritual, or any combination of the three. In all likelihood, if the exhibits fear for the lives that have been given to them by the tablet, they fear that their lives will be taken not by the tablet itself, but by Ahkmenrah, the only exhibit in the museum who can work the thing.

But those jackal guys can be pretty intimidating in their own right.

Next on "For the Love of Night at the Museum": Does it really suck that bad? Opinions on the first two movies of the franchise and a few on the upcoming third. My take, and I explore the question, does it really matter?