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Chapter Twelve
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
The last time Zélie was in Inan’s dreamscape, King Saran had just carved “maggot” into Zélie’s back. She kissed Inan to help with the pain. Now, the landscape of reeds is wilted and dying, and Inan lies, thin and groaning, in the reeds. As he says Zélie’s name, Zélie begins to cry. Inan insists that they weren’t supposed to shoot and Zélie falls backwards into the memory of Inan shouting and Baba’s body falling onto her, dead. Inan apologizes and promises to make it right, but he’s promised Zélie things before. With a roar, Zélie’s magic bleeds into the dreamscape. Trees shoot up and black roots coil around Inan, scraping and choking him. Zélie promises to make him wish he’d died that day. His collarbones snap and the dreamscape shatters as Inan loses consciousness.
Inan is apologizing for what happened in the last novel, when he orchestrated a handover of Baba to Zélie in exchange for the items to bring magic back, but Saran killed Baba anyway. Even though Inan didn’t mean to double-cross Zélie, here he still has to deal with the consequences of trusting Saran to follow through when Zélie conjures the violent roots. Trying to strangle Inan in retaliation drives home again that Orïsha is a fundamentally violent place. There’s no culture of talking these things through—the wounds are too deep for that.
Themes
