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Chapter Eighty-Two
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Children of Blood and Bone, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Prejudice and Inequality
Duty to Family vs. Self
Faith and Tradition
Cycles of Violence
Summary
Analysis
Amari thinks about all the fighting Saran forced her and Inan to do as children, pitting them against each other so that they would be stronger than his first children.
Saran’s obsession with violence left his children terrified and damaged. For Amari, it has always been a source of conflict between her own desire for peace and her father’s wishes.
Themes
Amari says that Saran raised her to fight monsters, but only now is she realizing that he is the biggest monster. She fights him with her sword, feeling strength and courage she didn’t know she had. But then she thinks that if she kills him, she is no better than him. As she stumbles past him, Saran slashes his blade across her back.
Amari has begun to come to an important realization: it is possible for her to break free of her father and his many crimes, and to avenge those crimes by fighting back against him directly. She is torn, however, about using violence to that end. To Amari, killing Saran feels like she is simply perpetuating the cycle of anger and killing that he tried to force her into. Saran has no such hesitations.
Themes
Amari realizes Saran does not care about spilling his own children’s blood. This is his choice. She plunges her sword into his chest. Although tears fill her eyes, she knows she has done the right thing. She tells her father this will make her a far stronger queen, echoing his old refrains.
Realizing that Saran will always place his own power above his family, and always resort to violence, Amari decides that in this case, violence is justified—to end more killing and oppression, she will kill.
Themes
