Memory, Forgetting, and the Future Theme Analysis

The world of the novel is one that’s about to reach a tipping point: as young enmagicked Luna approaches the age of 13, her magical power grows, while Xan’s power wanes; the sleeping volcano in the woods is about to erupt after 500 years of restless dormancy; and after 500 years of acceptance and complacency in the Protectorate, Antain decides that it’s time to confront the Witch who demands infants as sacrifice and save the Protectorate’s children. For Xan and Glerk, these events are, to a degree, things that they’ve experienced before—but they begin to run into problems when they find that they’ve purposefully forgotten what happened last time. With this, the novel suggests that while forgetting may be a useful tool to protect oneself emotionally, it’s absolutely necessary to remember the past—distant and not so distant—in order to effectively plan and fight for a better future.

When the reader first meets Xan, she’s content and certainly not upset that she doesn’t remember her past (though she does remember that it wasn’t necessarily happy). This outlook on life changes, however, when Xan accidentally enmagicks the infant Luna by feeding her moonlight instead of starlight, making it so that at some point, Luna will be a witch capable of performing magic. At this point, Xan recognizes that she must remember her past, which contains important parallels: like Luna, Xan was enmagicked as a child, and she knows that she’ll need to remember what happened to her mentor Zosimos, since this, she believes, is likely what’s going to happen to her as Luna’s mentor. These leaps in understanding make an important point: while it’s not necessary or healthy for a person to dwell on their past, it’s still important to remember past events. History will, no doubt, repeat itself, and a thorough understanding of the past means that a person will have a better chance of being prepared for the future.

Importantly, the novel suggests that when a person isn’t in a situation where they’re forced to live with past trauma day in and day out (as in the Protectorate), it’s a natural inclination to want to forget the past. The narrator notes that both Glerk and Xan—and to a degree, the dragonling Fyrian—were there for the volcano’s last eruption and the havoc and destruction it wrought. But within a year, Xan and Glerk happily chose to forget, and Fyrian inexplicably remains a dragonling and doesn’t remember the particulars of what happened. Remembering, this implies, is far more emotionally difficult than forgetting. The novel supports this by showing how, as they begin to remember, both Xan and Glerk experience moments of intense remorse and guilt for not keeping the past easily accessible in their minds. They understand that, had they done so, they would’ve been in a better place to protect everyone—themselves, Luna, and those in the Protectorate.

To make the importance of memory to the future even clearer, the novel plays close attention to the consequences of how Xan handles Luna’s volatile magic by placing a spell on five-year-old Luna, which traps Luna’s magic in a rice-grain-sized casing in her brain. The idea, according to Xan, is that with Luna’s magic contained, Luna will be able to learn how to appropriately use it and so be prepared when she turns 13 and her magic is unleashed—but Xan’s spell doesn’t work as planned. Rather than turn Luna into a safe and compliant student of magic, it makes it so that she cannot see, hear, or understand anything concerning magic, as mentioning it sends her into an odd trance that can last for days. In Luna’s case, being physiologically unable to remember magic or learn about it has dire consequences—Xan knows that she’s going to die not long after Luna turns 13, and therefore won’t be around to teach her. Because of the way that Luna and Xan’s respective magics are linked, this means that as Luna gets close to her birthday, Xan becomes increasingly ill as Luna begins to remember odd things and, finally, is able to read the word “magic.” Luna is effectively on her own to figure things out due to Xan’s failing health and the spell. While the narrator makes it very clear that Xan cast this spell on Luna for her own protection, the degree to which Luna struggles without assistance as her magic begins to break free makes it clear that interfering with a person’s memory—especially when that entails forcing someone to forget—is an inhumane and unsafe thing to do.

Luna, Xan, and their friends aren’t able to effectively triumph until they are all able to remember who they are, who they were, and what they’re capable of doing. Because they are ultimately able to remember, Luna is able to save the Protectorate and the Free Cities from the volcano. She’s also able to help her mother, who long ago forgot her name and is known for most of the novel as the madwoman, remember who she is. With this, the novel shows that remembering is important for more than just securing the future and learning how to harness one’s power—it is, in many cases, essential to healing and discovering who a person truly is.