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Chapter Fifty-Three
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Children of Virtue and Vengeance, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Power and Systems of Oppression
Cycles of Violence
Tradition and History
Love vs. Duty
Summary
Analysis
Zélie and Mâzeli’s incantation brings hundreds of monstrous animations out of the dirt. Though Jokôye’s wind takes out some of the animations, Zélie and Mâzeli keep going. Zélie can feel Mâzeli’s heartbeat and her body burns with the strain. Mâzeli begins to scream as strips of skin peel off of him, but Zélie summons more animations. It’s excruciating, but the animations kill Jokôye. Zélie triumphantly turns to Mâzeli, but he stands limply, blood dripping from his mouth. He collapses and Zélie does too.
Mâzeli’s fate makes the violence and sacrifice inherent to using the moonstone very clear for Zélie: if Zélie is going to use this power, she has to be willing to hurt the people she loves. In some ways, this makes her not so different from Jokôye as she kills her tîtán soldiers, except Zélie believes she is fulfilling both duty and love by joining with Mâzeli.
Themes
