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
Zélie watches the party and regrets leaving her room. She can almost hear Mâzeli’s giggle and remembers him asking her to not be sad. Mama Agba appears and begs Zélie to join the party for the Reapers. She invites Zélie to join her in the garden and apologizes for breaking the connection between Zélie and Mâzeli, but Zélie insists she can’t forgive Mama Agba. Zélie asks Mama Agba to pretend she died and runs from Mama Agba’s sobs. Upstairs, Zélie finds Roën outside her door with big bags. He says that he needs Zélie to come and help him and calls her “zïtsōl” as he teases her. They ride for hours on a cheetanaire and Roën refuses to answer any questions.
Now, Zélie is so overcome with grief that she can’t even engage in effective, open communication with someone she loves and trusts more than most. This shows how the violence inherent to the way that Orïsha works can stop or damage communication even between allies, thereby not allowing Zélie or Mama Agba to heal from their grief. Choosing to trust Roën with this shows that Zélie does, however, have the capacity to trust others—she just chooses not to.
Themes
Roën stops his cheetanaire at the coast and leads Zélie to a small boat. He steers the boat out to sea, drops the anchor, and undresses. Zélie leaves her wrap on as Roën fastens a mask around her face and tells her to not let go of him. He pulls on his own mask, throws a bag overboard, and pulls Zélie into the water. It’s freezing, and the bag pulls them deeper down. Zélie holds onto the anchor’s chain as Roën opens the bag.
This experience with Roën shines as one of the few spots of genuine delight and intimacy in the novel. Zélie isn’t entirely sure if she should trust Roën with her life or her emotions, but she’s willing to play along for the thrill of doing so and because Roën’s affection probably makes Zélie momentarily forget her trauma.
Themes
The bag contains orbs of light that illuminate thousands of fish. It almost takes Zélie’s breath away, but Roën fixates on something huge rapidly swimming closer to them. It’s a whale. When the whale gets close, Roën shoots a rope and a hook so the hook loops around the whale’s flipper and grabs Zélie. The whale pulls them through the water until they reach the surface. Roën lets go of the whale and Zélie laughs and screams with joy. She asks why Roën did this. He says it’s been to long since he’s seen Zélie smile.
Taking Zélie for a ride on a whale shows Zélie that even though her world is falling to pieces in a lot of ways, there’s still magic in it—and she can still find joy and laugh, if only she chooses to look for things like this. Roën’s insistence that he did this just to make her smile suggests that he’s pulling away from his mercenary crew and now, his goals are different: he’s focused on the girl he loves, not his jobs.
Themes
