The failed attempt to use Daylight against the troll

The failed attempt to use Daylight against the troll is a rescue effort that turns on a stark mismatch between technological promise and immediate physical danger. Emma Valentine uses the app to fill the chamber with light, hoping it will destroy the troll, but it only makes the creature stagger. With Brian Kagwa exposed to the glare and the troll still alive, the failure forces Emma and Apollo Kagwa to improvise rather than rely on the device.

The proposed tool

The plan begins with a practical question to Patrice Green: Apollo asks whether Daylight is available in the App Store. Patrice explains that its most important limitation is that it can be used only once, and that it drains a great deal of battery power. The warning establishes the app not as a dependable weapon but as a scarce, costly opportunity: if it does not work on the first try, there will be no second use.

Apollo finds Daylight in the App Store and taps to purchase it. By then, its price has changed. He squats beside Emma, and they watch the download bar progress together. Emma immediately questions the usefulness of a one-use app when the park is half a mile north. Apollo answers that an old man told him a story, then asks what kills trolls. The exchange makes the intended tactic clear: the app’s artificial light is being treated as a possible substitute for daylight, while the distance to the park remains a problem the app itself cannot solve.

Emma activates Daylight

When the moment comes, Apollo is walking back toward the troll. Emma has to choose between running after Brian and trying a different strategy. She activates the iPad; its home screen lights her face, and the troll senses the change in the gloom and turns toward her. Brian also turns back. Unaccustomed to the glow, he throws an arm over his eyes and cries out. Emma and Apollo register the distressing resemblance between his cry and the troll’s bellow, but Emma does not stop to dwell on it: she searches for Daylight, turns the screen toward the others, stands, and raises the device to spare Brian’s eyes as much as she can.

She taps the icon once. The chamber flares with light. Brian screeches and pitches forward onto his face, flailing in a reaction that seems to combine surprise with pain. The troll also stumbles and slumps backward, producing its foghorn-like sound. For an instant, the app appears to have affected both of them. Its effect, however, is not the decisive one Apollo and Emma need.

The attempt fails

The troll does not turn to stone. That failure overturns the expectation on which the purchase and the single use depended. The light has disrupted the creature, but it has not destroyed it; the text emphasizes the app’s blunt inadequacy as the danger resumes. The pair cannot treat the device’s momentary effect as a victory, and they need another plan before the troll recovers its balance and reaches them.

The attempt also makes the cost of the tactic visible in Brian’s reaction. The screen’s brightness is not harmless to the child standing in the chamber: he throws an arm over his eyes, cries out, and falls forward when the app flares. Emma has tried to direct the light away from his eyes, but protecting him and using the device are happening at once, under pressure. The scene therefore refuses a clean distinction between tool and solution: Daylight gives Emma a brief opening, while also adding another immediate danger to manage.

A new plan

Emma runs to the center of the chamber and shouts, "The sun is rising!" Apollo understands her idea at once. If the troll fears the sun, he reasons, it may run from the light; if he can draw it outside, Emma and Brian can slip out as well. He runs for the tunnel and repeats her warning, "The sun is rising!" The failed app attempt thus redirects the rescue from trying to kill the troll with a simulated flash to exploiting its fear of sunlight and moving it away from the others.

The episode’s decisive reversal is not that light has no effect—the troll staggers—but that a one-use digital tool cannot deliver the expected ending. The download completes, the icon is tapped, and the chamber is illuminated, yet the creature survives. In that gap between an apparent weapon and an effective plan, Emma and Apollo have to rely on judgment, coordination, and the troll’s vulnerability rather than on the purchased app.