Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Girl Who Drank the Moon, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Family and Love
Storytelling, Censorship, and Control
Memory, Forgetting, and the Future
Sorrow vs. Hope
Summary
Analysis
Xan grabs armloads of books, maps, recipes, and artwork and takes it all to her workshop. For nine days, Glerk watches from the windows as Xan experiments and makes notes. Fyrian expresses concern to Glerk one evening, and Glerk assures him that Xan is just unused to not knowing what to do. He offers Fyrian a poem from the Poet. Fyrian asks if the poem is real, and who made it. Glerk snaps that it’s real and came from the Poet, the Bog, the World, and him, which are all the same thing. He refuses to explain himself.
For five centuries, Fyrian has never really seen Xan have to grapple with anything difficult. This is a new experience for him, and given his sheltered life, it’s likely very uncomfortable. Fyrian’s reaction offers some insight into why Xan has kept the truth from him—if Xan struggling over a spell is his biggest worry, he’s not worrying about much larger and more dangerous things out there.
Themes
At the end of nine days, Xan bursts out of her workshop and begins to map out a 13-pointed star on the ground. Glerk has no idea what Xan is talking about as she goes on about a clock on a 13-year cycle, which will go off when Luna reaches age 13. Glerk squints. Magic feels nonsensical to him. Xan continues and says that the spell will encase Luna’s magic in a tiny grain in her brain. Glerk looks at Luna sleeping, and in a thick voice asks if it’ll hurt her. Xan says that it’ll just buy them time to teach her how to use her magic before it erupts. As Xan finishes the star, the air feels suddenly heavy.
The sense of purpose that Xan exhibits here shows how positive it can be for a person to remember their history and be able to use those memories to create the future. Xan now understands that she needs to partially censor Luna’s magic so that Luna will be able to learn, offering the possibility that censorship does have its place. Glerk’s uncertainty, however, suggests that Xan may be incorrect in her assumption that placing limitations on Luna is in the child’s best interest.
Themes
Glerk asks Xan if this will stop the fact that her magic is transferring to Luna and weakening Xan. Xan says that it’ll slow it down until Luna turns 13, at which point Xan will die. She says that she’d rather do that than die slowly like Zosimos. Glerk wants to hug Xan, but he knows she wouldn’t like it. Before Glerk places Luna in the center of the star, he asks Xan to confirm that this will work as planned. Xan insists that it will and that she’ll be ready to die when Luna’s magic erupts—500 years is more than enough of a life. As the smells in the air change, Luna cries out once. Glerk’s heart cracks and he tries to keep it from breaking entirely.
Glerk recognizes deep down that what Xan is doing to Luna is going to change her in major ways, even if they can’t foresee those changes yet. While the consequences of this kind of censorship aren’t explicitly stated, this makes it clear that there will be consequences regardless of Xan’s good intentions. It’s significant, then, that Xan is ready to die when Luna turns 13. This shows that it’s possible to greet sad events with hope and understanding—and that doing so makes these sad events easier to handle.
Themes
