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
It takes four days for the Iyika to make it back to the sanctuary. Nâo kisses the sanctuary’s grass when they arrive, but Amari falls into Tzain’s arms. Amari squeezes him, hoping that being a cênter won’t distance them even further from each other. She fills Tzain in on what happened and then asks if he’ll carry her to a bath. Jahi stops them and says they have work to do. Amari asks Jahi to wake Mama Agba.
Especially given the amount of power Amari now knows she has, it’s essential that she put duty over her love for Tzain in this instance. However, this doesn’t detract from the fact that choosing duty right now means that Amari gives up on this opportunity to deepen her relationship with Tzain. There are still major tradeoffs.
Themes
In the council room, Mama Agba studies Zélie’s new tattoos. She scribbles translations and finally says that the tattoos are the mark of the moonstone, the sister of the sunstone. It’s a power that the gods give, rather than a physical stone, and the gods likely gave it to Zélie during the solstice. She explains that it ignites on command and has the ability to bind life forces, so it likely explains why Nehanda and Amari are cênters. It’s possible to make more cênters, but Mama Agba says that there’s a price. She confirms that Amari and Nehanda sacrificed Saran for this and says that a sacrifice is necessary. Without one, the magic is volatile and people bound together are bound to each other’s death. Mama Agba says that there are weapons too great to use and leaves.
What Mama Agba has to say about the moonstone makes it clear that connections and relationships formed through it come with a price, while relationships like those among the maji as a whole are almost exclusively positive. Especially since the moonstone can be so volatile, it shows that violence and pain are baked into even the maji traditions and customs—there’s violence and pain either way, whether it’s because of volatile magic or having to sacrifice a loved one to make it less volatile.
Themes
Amari says that this is their answer: they can build an army of cênters and force the monarchy to concede. She asks to go to Lagos to speak with Inan. Kenyon and Nâo refuse and point out that they’d have to sacrifice people. Amari begs Zélie to let her speak to Inan and points out that he let her and Mâzeli escape, but Zélie snaps that she still wants to kill Inan to keep the maji safe. Amari refuses to fight if Zélie insists on killing Inan. Amari realizes that their plans for how to win are very different, and something changes between them. Zélie tells the others that they have the scrolls and they should be enough. Amari runs outside, thinking that she must fight for the kingdom.
Amari’s insistence that they can build an army of cênters is a red flag that she’s still far too comfortable thinking ruthlessly like Saran: creating any cênters requires sacrifices, so she’s essentially suggesting they murder lots of their own or other innocent people in order to win. Though Zélie expresses sentiments that are similarly violent, notice that her targets are people who, in her mind, deserve to die. This is the difference that Amari picks up on here.
Themes
