Blood Over Bright Haven

Thomil is the deuteragonist of the novel and the other viewpoint character, although his perspective is given much less space than Sciona’s. He is also Sciona’s love interest, although their romance is a minor subplot.

Thomil is outwardly quiet and dependable; he struggles to express himself due to the repression required to survive as a Kwen person in Tiran. Although Thomil is internally tormented by grief and anger due to his loss of his tribe and family, he is capable of deep and intense love for others. Unlike the ambitious Sciona, Thomil has few goals for the future. Before his participation in Sciona’s revenge plot, Thomil mostly wants to keep his adopted daughter Carra safe and to help her hold on to her identity as the last member of the Caldonnae tribe. Thomil is so invested in passing on this legacy to Carra that preserving the culture of his people in this way is the only thing keeping him alive.

Thomil can never get over the traumatic loss of the Caldonnae people, but through the course of the novel, he learns to trust and love others in new ways. He falls in love with Sciona despite their cultural divide and the harm she has unwittingly done to his people and land while highmage. He also develops a new dynamic with Carra, learning to treat her as an equal and an individual, rather than as his surrogate. Finally, Thomil begins viewing all Kwen people as allies, regardless of tribe affiliation. While he resents the way the Tiranish people lump all Kwen people together as a single cultural monolith, he recognizes that the Kwen tribes must stand together to resist assimilation and destruction.

Thomil’s 14-year-old niece and adoptive daughter Carra is an occasional antagonist and foil to Sciona. Carra is spunky, angry, and rebellious, with precocious self-awareness about her own predicament and rage at being mistreated by the Tiranish people. Being a teenager informs her often rash and violent behavior, such as attempting to kill Sciona without considering the consequences for her and Thomil. Carra is also shown to be brave, intelligent, and extremely capable, adapting to changing situations and supporting Sciona and Thomil’s efforts. By the end of the novel, Carra is shown to be more patient and dependable, adopting her uncle’s ideals without being held back by his tendency toward repressing emotions.

Gender is also important to Carra’s characterization; she begins the novel with internalized misogyny, but ends it with a greater understanding of women’s potential. She identifies as a girl, but dresses as a boy for her work and to infiltrate the Magicentre. Conversely, her long, red hair symbolizes Kwen resistance to Tiranish oppression; unlike Kwen men, who are forced to cut their hair to assimilate in a way that recalls the short hair forced onto the Indigenous peoples in 19th century US and Canadian boarding schools. Carra resists bonding with Sciona because they are both women, but eventually classifies Sciona’s anger as specifically female, which shows her growing respect for her gender. This shift also plays into the weight Carra feels at being the sole future of the Caldonnae tribe. She is burdened by having to preserve her heritage.

Archmage Derrith Bringham is Sciona’s mentor and father figure. He is also revealed to be a secondary antagonist. Bringham is characterized, initially, as warm, kind, and understanding, with a unique belief in Sciona’s capabilities despite her gender and an interest in employing women despite the gendered restrictions of their culture. However, when his true nature is explained, Bringham turns out to be a cold pragmatist, with ambitions as intense as Sciona’s and a disregard for human life, particularly the Kwen women he uses as a labor force in his dangerous factories. Sciona correctly surmises that he has promoted her education and career to balance his exploitative abuses of other women.

Bringham’s true character is foreshadowed by the contrast between Sciona’s worshipful love for him and Thomil’s discomfort in Bringham’s presence. Sciona’s unquestioning acceptance of Bringham at face value shows her naivete: She struggles to accept that people ulterior motives and hidden negative traits. Just as her Freynan Mirrors show Tiran the evil reality behind the ostensibly positive magic they use, so too does Sciona learn to uncover the ruthless cruelty underlying Bringham’s progressive and avuncular façade. Sciona’s changing view of him reflects her descent into nihilism. He is the lynchpin to her faith in magic; when Bringham’s real self is revealed, her world falls apart.

Renthorn the Third is the primary antagonist and a foil for Sciona. Like Sciona, Renthorn is filled with ambition and desire for power. However, while Sciona’s self-interest is tempered by compassion and some awareness of how the world works, Renthorn is arrogant and bloodthirsty. As Bringham’s prized students, Sciona and Renthorn show how the same mentor can develop different sides of those he teaches: Sciona has adopted Bringham’s more positive traits, such as his relatively progressive views of the capabilities of Tiranish women, while Renthorn has absorbed only Bringham’s negative traits, such as his determination to succeed at any cost and his disregard for human life.

Renthorn grows increasingly more overtly violent throughout the narrative. At first, he is cruel and dismissive verbally. Then, he sets an explosive trap for his colleagues for his own gain. Then, he attempts to rape Sciona out of a desire to dominate her and feel firsthand the power of siphoning human life. Finally, he is revealed to have been abusing and sexually assaulting Kwen workers. Renthorn’s vicious behaviors remain unchecked because nobody cares to confront him due to his standing within academia, his social elite status, and his family’s political power.

The novel ends with Renthorn’s incredibly violent death at Carra’s hands—a plot point that is satisfying to readers and represents a fitting end to a brutal, racist man.