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Chapter Seventy-Seven
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
Inan wakes slowly in a moving caravan. Physical pain hits him, as well as the emotional pain of Ojore’s hatred. Nehanda soothes Inan and says they did it: they captured the main Iyika force at Lagos. She encourages Inan to not grieve for Ojore, since he was a traitor who couldn’t handle his emotions. Inan sits up and says that Nehanda killed Ojore’s family and by extension, Ojore himself. Inan thinks he should’ve been there for Ojore. Inan whispers that Ojore was right—he and Nehanda are poison. Nehanda says they’re victors and can spread peace, but Inan realizes that he hasn’t been the king that Saran couldn’t be. He just finished Saran’s work.
Accusing Nehanda of killing Ojore because she pretty much murdered his parents shows that Inan finally understands how the cycle of violence in Orïsha works. Children have to deal with the grief of their parents’ deaths, which they can never recover from because they must continually face their parents’ killers—and so those children feel they have no choice but to become violent. The realization that Inan finished Saran’s work shows that Inan has undergone this cycle too, as his name is on all of this violence.
Themes
