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
Amari vomits from the pain that she feels when she tries to use her magic. Zélie catches sight of Amari’s blistered palms and points out that Amari could die if they keep trying, but Amari thinks of Ramaya and knows that the Iyika won’t respect her unless she can prove herself. With a sigh, Zélie leads Amari to a river. At a small dam of rocks, she asks Amari to think of the water as ashê and explains that when maji use incantations, it’s like lifting one rock. When tîtáns use magic, it’s always powerful blood magic, so it’s uncontrollable—it’s like removing the dam altogether. If Amari releases too much ashê, it she’ll die. Zélie admits that she has no idea how Nehanda wields her ashê.
Zélie’s explanation of the differences between how ashê works in maji versus tîtáns shows again that the tîtáns may have a lot of potential, but magic isn’t something that comes naturally to them. It’s something they got by accident when Zélie messed up a ritual in the last book, and in Zélie’s eyes, she likely sees tîtáns’ magic as something they got without doing anything to earn it. Clearly there are ways to wield it more successfully, given that Nehanda does so, but the Iyika’s relative weakness means they don’t have that information yet.
Themes
Amari insists that she can gain control by using an incantation, but Zélie tersely insists that Yoruba is sacred to the maji and not something Amari can just learn. When Amari insists that they’re at war, Zélie shouts that Yoruba is the history of the maji and exactly what Saran tried to destroy. She won’t let Amari steal it too; Amari just shouldn’t use magic. When Zélie ascertains that Amari wants to trust Inan, she says that she still wants to crown Amari, but she won’t trust Inan. Amari believes that Inan is genuine, but says nothing. She says that she has to fight back and save those Nehanda is killing, especially if Inan won’t. Zélie sighs and agrees to teach Amari an incantation if she promises not to use it against maji. Amari agrees.
Here, Zélie introduces the idea that magic isn’t just power. For the maji, magic and everything connected to it—especially Yoruba—are how they build their identities, both as individuals and as a community. Allowing Amari to learn Yoruba represents letting Amari into that community, but it likely remains in Zélie’s mind that Amari doesn’t have any right to really do so. All the Yoruba does is make Amari even more powerful and give her even more control, something that Zélie surely doesn’t want to see happen.
Themes
