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
As they ride away, Amari thinks that she and Nehanda should be mourning Inan. They pull off the path into a clearing. Zélie tells Tzain about the majacite gas, which makes Amari wonder why the gas didn’t hurt her. Amari reaches for Zélie, but Zélie recoils. Shattered, Amari sits across the clearing and Roën insists that it’s time to pay up. He mocks Amari, but she insists that she just needs time. Amari thinks of Nehanda and knows that there’s more to all of this, as Nehanda doesn’t cause spectacles for fun. Roën threatens Amari for payment, but Amari calls on her ashê and Roën backs down. Harun and the men ride up and Roën announces that they’re moving out. Zélie shouts after him and crumples. Roën comforts her and it seems like they’re the only two people in the clearing. Then, Roën mounts a cheetanaire and rides off.
The revelation that the majacite gas didn’t harm Amari makes it even clearer that the tîtáns in the novel have significant advantages, as they’re more like their kosidán counterparts in distinct ways. Amari’s thought that she and Nehanda should be grieving for Inan shows that she desperately wants to exist in a loving, trusting family, and this is the moment in which she realizes she doesn’t have that—and probably can’t with the family she has. Instead, she should focus her attention on figuring out how to best Nehanda so she can create that family for herself.
Themes
