Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Mortal Engines, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Social Class
Sacrifice
Dangers of Technology
The Importance of History
Prejudice and First Impressions
Friendship
Summary
Analysis
Far away on the Jenny Haniver, Miss Fang realizes that the smoke they see in the distance must be MEDUSA (although she still isn’t sure what MEDUSA is). They land in an air-harbor, and the residents there gossip about how London has destroyed Panzerstadt-Bayreuth, possibly with a weapon that the old American Empire used during the Sixty Minute War.
The passage draws further parallels between MEDUSA and the atomic bomb, with both of them originating in the United States (as the “USA” in MEDUSA suggests). The Sixty Minute War suggests that such powerful weapons can have spiraling consequences.
Themes
The people in the air-harbor accept Tom’s London money, so he buys a shawl for Hester. She doesn’t know how to react because people rarely give her gifts. She admits that Tom might have done the right thing by killing Shrike.
The Jenny Haniver takes off again the next morning. Miss Fang gives Tom and Hester a red paste to help them deal with the altitude as they fly over some mountains. It takes several days, but they finally make it to the Shield-Wall. After flying over the wall, they come to the static settlement of Batmunkh Gompa, and Tom is surprised to see that it looks beautiful, since he learned in London that all static settlements were backward slums. Soon after landing in the settlement, they all meet Khora, who says the leader of the settlement, Governor Ermene Khan, is eager to hear Miss Fang’s report.
Tom has already begun to leave behind some of his old prejudices from growing up in London, but seeing Batmunkh Gompa and the people behind the Shield-Wall is a major turning point for him. Tom’s growth isn’t a linear journey, and he hasn’t fully turned against London, but he finds it impossible to deny that Batmunkh Gompa isn’t the ugly, backwards place he grew up believing it was.
Themes
Governor Khan welcomes back Miss Fang and her guests, Tom and Hester. But he doesn’t believe at first that London poses a threat, even with MEDUSA. Khora mentions that scouts have reported an unfamiliar black airship in the mountains, which likely belongs to Valentine. Miss Fang suggests bombing London before it gets in range for MEDUSA but Tom protests that innocent people will die. He starts arguing until, at last, Miss Fang sends him away.
The presence of Valentine’s airship suggests that he has arrived on his secret mission from Crome. Despite Tom’s revelation earlier that the people in Batmunkh Gompa aren’t the stereotypes he learned about in London, he still resists fully abandoning his old city, showing the difficulty of drastically changing one’s outlook.
Themes
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On his own, Tom decides that he’d like to see Batmunkh Gompa before London gets there. He takes a balloon-taxi down into the main part of the city. As he explores the city, he notices a holy man in a red robe. While these men are common in the city, something about this one catches Tom’s attention. Tom follows the red-robed man until finally he catches a glimpse of a London Guild-mark on the man’s forehead. The man is Valentine.
Tom’s curiosity about seeing Batmunkh Gompa suggests that he hasn’t necessarily committed to London’s side, despite his words earlier. Valentine’s disguise as a holy man is one of many other ways that evil characters in the story have used the external appearance of religion to disguise their real intentions (such as how St. Paul’s houses MEDUSA).
Themes
