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Chapter Forty-Five
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 and Tzain are still tied up in a tent. There are only a few days left until the solstice. Zu enters the tent and, wordlessly, uses Healer magic to heal Tzain’s wounds. Amari tries to tell her story and again Zu does not believe her. Amari realizes they must be in a settlement of divîners who had their powers awakened by the scroll, and somehow managed not to be killed by Admiral Kaea.
Kaea, like Saran, killed most of the divîners she encountered with the scroll because she believed that they would all use their magic for evil. Zu’s use of magic to heal someone she considers an enemy shows that violence is not the only way to use magic, and that evil is, of course, not the primary characteristic of maji.
Themes
Zu says that though she can’t remember the Raid, she can remember the horror of watching her family cut down by Kaea after the scroll resurfaced. Because Amari is a noble, Zu distrusts her. Zu calls Kwame back into the tent to start the interrogation in earnest.
Saran’s violence continues to leave a lasting mark on the citizens of Orïsha, keeping them fearful. Like Zélie, Zu is haunted by the memory of her lost family. But, she also knows the bitter truth that she must sometimes use violence herself for protection and to fight for what she believes in.
Themes
