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
Luna wakes up and feels different, though she can’t identify why. She listens to birds sing, doesn’t understand them, and then wonders why she would in the first place. Luna tells herself that she’s silly and looks around. Fyrian is on her bed, which isn’t allowed but is normal, and wonders why Fyrian isn’t allowed on her bed. Xan is in her own bed and Glerk is asleep on the floor, which is strange—Glerk usually sleeps in the swamp. Luna’s head hurts and everything feels weird. She changes into a dress, puts Fyrian in her pocket, and steps outside. Her steps don’t cause flowers to grow, but she reasons that it’s silly to think her steps should grow flowers. She sits down when her head starts to feel fuzzy.
Luna’s odd thought processes suggests that there are major consequences of Xan’s spell—Luna is missing major pieces of information that would tell her something has changed. Forgetting in this moment is more confusing and painful than anything else, though considering Luna’s prospects for the longer term, it suggests that she’s going to go through her childhood with serious, confusing gaps and bad headaches—something that calls the ethics of Xan’s spell into question.
Themes
Xan finds Luna sitting outside. This is odd, but Xan thinks that Luna will now be able to learn. She greets Luna, but Luna doesn’t answer. Fyrian crawls out of Luna’s pocket, greets Xan, and Luna suddenly perks up. She says that it feels like it’s been days since she saw Xan. Fyrian tries to explain why, but Xan hushes him and pulls Luna into the workshop. Xan has rearranged it into sections with their own books and tools. Xan sits down and conjures her magic into a shining ball. She begins to explain how her magic works, but Luna can’t see the ball. Her face is blank until suddenly, Luna snaps out of it and asks for something sweet. Confused, Xan gives her berries.
As far as Xan is concerned, now that Luna’s magic isn’t volatile, she should be able to grasp the theory behind the magic and eventually be able to channel it. However, the fact that Luna enters into these odd trances whenever Xan mentions or shows Luna magic suggests that this isn’t actually going to work. Instead, Luna will effectively be on her own to figure out magic when it erupts in eight years, since Xan has inadvertently made it so that Luna cannot learn anything at all.
Themes
Luna asks why they’re in the workshop. Worried, Xan says that she was giving Luna a lesson, but Luna drops off into a trance again. Xan puts her hand on Luna’s cheek. She can feel the encased magic. She asks Luna if she knows what magic is. Again, Luna goes blank. When Luna comes to, she asks if she fell asleep. Xan gets up and grabs a few items. She thinks of the mechanism in Luna and wonders if she did the spell wrong. Xan assembles a scrying glass and as she tells Luna a story, she watches Luna through the glass. The story is about a witch who found a baby in the woods. Xan sees her words enter Luna’s head. The word “baby” flies around in Luna’s memory centers.
Xan is likely telling Luna some version of how she came to rescue her as a baby—but now that Luna is unable to retain anything that has to do with magic, Luna is also inadvertently cut off from her own history. This means that Luna isn’t able to learn any theory of magic, and she’s also not able to know anything about herself, something that will become a major problem as Luna begins to mature.
Themes
Xan says that when Luna was tiny, they looked at the stars and Xan fed Luna starlight. At this, Luna’s eyes go blank. Xan continues and says that she fed Luna moonlight one night, thereby enmagicking her. Luna looks blank and absent for most of the morning after this. Xan and Glerk discuss this and Xan hopes it’s temporary. However, Xan discovers that this is the consequence of the spell: Luna can’t hear or see anything to do with magic. Xan doesn’t know if Luna is internalizing it or if it disappears. Glerk asks how Xan will teach her when Luna turns 13, knowing that Xan will die. Desperately, Xan suggests that she did the spell wrong—Luna won’t grow and her magic won’t appear. Xan says that the alternative is too sad to think about.
For Xan, even though she knows she made a grave mistake somewhere along the line, it’s more comfortable to tell herself that Luna simply won’t be magical. In this way, Xan not only keeps Luna from learning anything about magic; she also keeps herself from puzzling over how to deal with Luna’s erupting magic when Luna does turn 13 and needs to know the truth. This shows that Xan’s desire to forget sad or difficult things doesn’t just harm her—it harms everyone Xan comes into contact with, if only by accident.
Themes
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Glerk begins to push back on this, but Xan snaps that sorrow is dangerous. They discuss this several times but soon, Xan convinces herself that Luna was never magic and if she is, that the magic won’t be a problem. She tells people in the Free Cities that Luna is allergic to magic and asks them to never mention it. Meanwhile, Luna learns science, math, poetry, and philosophy. Glerk insists that Luna has to know about death and magic, but Xan continues to insist that Luna is normal and too young to know about sorrow, since it’s dangerous. Glerk asks why they think sorrow is dangerous, but Xan doesn’t know.
Interestingly, Glerk and Xan link knowing about magic to knowing about death—a connection that makes it clear that Xan is controlling what Luna knows about through more than just the spell. When Xan admits that she doesn’t know why sorrow is dangerous and doesn’t seem interested in figuring it out, it also shows that Xan is trying hard to ignore all of this herself—she believes that it’s better to be happy and ignorant than face difficult realities and have to develop hope.
Themes
