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Chapter Nineteen
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
At the end of a long tunnel, Amari sees three mountains covered in temples and towers. Mama Agba explains that the original elders created the Ile Ijosin sanctuary centuries ago. The landscape is lush; young divîners splash in a natural bath. Mama Agba gestures to a new infirmary and says they’re converting old towers to dormitories. Amari whispers to Tzain to imagine cities across Orïsha like this, but Tzain reminds Amari that when she’s queen, she can build these cities. Mama Agba grabs Tzain and sends him to go find Kenyon, an old friend who’s now the elder of the Burner clan. Khani and Imani are here too; Khani is the elder of the Healers.
It’s worth noting that Tzain is embraced by the maji in the sanctuary. As a kosidán, Tzain doesn’t pose a threat to them, and he’s clearly not aligned with the monarchy in any way (except for his romance with Amari, which might not be obvious yet to the maji). Amari’s desire to build cities that draw from the sanctuary’s architecture reads as both innocently idealistic and potentially problematic: she wants to take architectural ideas from a culture that is in no way hers.
Themes
Mâzeli takes over the tour and Amari begins to count the sleek soldiers. A beautiful young maji woman walks up and introduces herself as Nâo. She tells Mâzeli that Zélie needs to meet Ramaya and the other elders and drags her away. Amari starts to follow, but Mâzeli holds her back and points out that the elders aren’t fans of hers. Mâzeli explains that they run the Iyika. Amari says she needs to meet them.
When Amari expresses interest in meeting the elders, it shows that she’s aware that she’s going to need to be diplomatic. She’s in the minority as the only tîtán and is vulnerable as a hated monarch, so she’ll have to demonstrate that she’s trustworthy and not just a young, female version of Saran.
Themes
