Skeksis
fictional character
The Skeksis are a fictional species that serves as the main antagonists in the 1982 film The Dark Crystal and its related franchise. The word "Skeksis" serves as both singular and plural form for this species, with the singular being pronounced and the plural . They are described by concept artist Brian Froud as "part reptile, part predatory bird, part dragon". The Skeksis are represented by puppets engineered under the direction of Jim Henson. Henson said that in the development of the Skeksis, the creators drew inspiration from the seven deadly sins.
Concept and creation
Jim Henson was inspired to design the Skeksis by an illustrated edition of a Lewis Carroll poem showing two elegantly dressed crocodiles in a bathroom. He became intrigued with the idea of a reptilian race assuming control over a formerly splendid past society, and developed the Skeksis with the concept that they represented the darker side of human nature. Numerous names were proposed for the species, including Skekses, Reptus, Karackt and Skek-sis.
Henson himself commented on the difficulty of performing as a Skeksis:
There were days I could work 'inside' my Skeksis character, the High Priest (Ritual-Master), without noticing the weight. But if I was feeling the least bit tired or run down, it was as if a building had caved in on me.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7534352. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1982.
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This entry incorporates text from “Skeksis” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.