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Chapter Thirty
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 elders are silent as Amari enters the sacred council room. She ignores them and takes in the 10 bronze statues depicting the original elders. Zélie falls into conversation with Nâo and Kâmarū while Na’imah and Dakarai, the Seer elder, play with Na’imah’s butterflies. With a frown, Khani invites Amari to her quarters to be healed later. She insists it’s wrong to refuse to help, but Kenyon mutters that it’s the fault of people like Amari that maji are dying. Amari apologizes as Folake, the elder of the Lighter clan, enters. She’s the final elder to arrive. To begin the meeting, Jahi, the elder of the Winders who’s supposedly seeing Ramaya, suggests they all ignore Amari since she’s not a maji.
The bitterness and rudeness on the part of the maji is, again, understandable given the maji’s history of oppression under Amari’s family—but given their circumstances, cutting Amari off denies them the possibility of drawing on any of Amari’s gifts or knowledge that might help their cause. The sense of awe that Amari feels in this sacred space indicates that the history of the maji is something beautiful and awe-inspiring for anyone, even if they’re not a maji themselves—the power of the history shines through.
Themes
Amari rises, thinking of how Nehanda can always command a room. She apologizes and says that what happened during her battle with Ramaya is why they must make peace with the monarchy. Zélie hisses for Amari to stop, but Amari persists. Jahi suggests that Amari wants to sell them to Inan, but Amari insists that if they’d listened to her, they wouldn’t have lost in Lagos—and points out that she managed to put Ramaya in a coma with little knowledge of her power, and everyone they’re fighting has that kind of power.
Amari continues to make good points, but by insisting on making her voice heard like this and speaking over others, the maji will be even less likely to listen to her or take her seriously. Standing up and channeling her inner Nehanda may give Amari strength, but it also makes her look like her mother, which isn’t a good thing in this instance.
Themes
The other elders turn to Zélie, who says that Amari is right, but Nehanda is something more. Amari suggests that to achieve peace, she needs to be able to talk to Inan and work out a deal. Zélie looks at the table and says that Inan isn’t trustworthy and tîtáns’ magic is reckless. She suggests they go to the temple of Chândomblé and retrieve the scrolls stored there so they have an arsenal of spells. The other elders plan in excitement as Zélie whispers to Amari that they need backup in case peace doesn’t work.
Though Zélie tries to convince Amari that this is just a backup plan, Zélie also seems very intent on never trusting Inan—and along with that, never taking Amari’s desire for peace talks seriously. Zélie is essentially trying to combine love and duty here by attempting to appease Amari, while still doing what she wants to do in terms of this fight.
Themes
