48 pages • 1-hour read
Captive Prince
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of graphic violence.
Damen’s Scars
Damen has two scars: one on his shoulder, where Auguste stabbed him at Marlas, and one on his stomach, where Kastor stabbed him during “practice.” The use of scars to highlight military prowess and experience is common in literature, and a scar, though the mark of a wound (which could indicate poor performance in battle), is usually associated with tenacity. Surviving the wound shows the soldier’s quality, and many scars indicate many battles survived. In Damen’s case, only one scar reflects a battle in the military sense, but the other reflects the battle Damen fought within his home country with his half-brother. A third scar, implied by the whipping Damen endures on the cross, has this same value: It reveals the tenacity and resilience of his character. However, the two initial scars each have their own meaning.
The scar on Damen’s shoulder symbolizes his fight with Auguste, specifically revealing how Auguste and Damen were evenly matched, though Damen ultimately won the fight. The Veretians call Damen the “Prince-Killer,” but this title doesn’t acknowledge the struggle of his fight with Auguste, in which Damen could just have easily been killed, making Auguste a Prince-Killer himself. Though the Veretians see Auguste’s death as evidence of the Akielons’ violence and barbarism, Damen’s scar highlights how close battles can be and how people’s reaction to news of the battle is driven less by reality than by their desires to frame wars in their own favor.
Damen’s scar on his stomach, conversely, symbolizes Damen’s naivete, since he didn’t realize Kastor’s viciousness in the training grounds. Unlike the scar from Auguste, earned in battle, the scar from Kastor happened in Damen’s home and reflects Damen’s inability to engage in subterfuge or deception in politics. Essentially, Damen lacks the ambition and competitive spirit that requires more than martial prowess among royalty. He wouldn’t trick someone into taking a wound, so he can’t imagine someone tricking him into the same. Nevertheless, Kastor succeeds in severely wounding Damen, who only feels pride at his genuine engagement with his brother, not realizing how the scar foreshadowed Kastor’s coup.
Laurent’s Horse
When Laurent hunts boar with Torveld, he kills his own horse by pushing it past its limits in pursuit of the boar. Laurent’s horse symbolizes his ambition: He’ll sacrifice anyone and everyone to achieve his aims. What’s important to Laurent isn’t that the boar is killed but that Laurent himself kills it, reframing the hunt as an opportunity for to help create an image of strength and determination. However, everyone else sees the horse’s death as a warning that Laurent’s determination is dangerous. The horse is comparable to the symbolism of sacrifices in chess, specifically, in which players often need to allow one piece to die to secure a favorable position in the broader game. Laurent’s determination isn’t to win certain battles within the complex web of Veretian politics but to establish himself in an unassailable position at any cost.
In the context of Damen and Laurent’s relationship, the horse represents Damen’s value to Laurent, which changes from one situation to the next. Damen acknowledges how Laurent’s horse isn’t suited to hunting, which suggests that Laurent values the horse more for its appearance. This difference in value reflects Laurent’s perception of Damen, too, whom Laurent sees as an impediment at some times and an asset at others. In the end, Laurent chooses to take Damen with him to Delpha, forcing readers to question whether Damen is suited to the job Laurent is giving him, or whether Laurent intends to sacrifice Damen to protect himself against the Regent, as he sacrificed the horse.
The Cross
A reminder of power and the threat of punishment, the cross is a large wooden structure on which a person is tied against a piece of padding with their face pressed to the wood and their back exposed. The cross keeps the person suspended above the ground and spread out so that they cannot move or resist in any way while another person whips them. After Damen makes an advance on Laurent, Laurent orders Damen strapped to the cross and whipped, while Laurent stands on the opposite side of the cross to see Damen’s face. More broadly, the cross is a symbol often tied to religion, but in this case, it functions solely as an instrument of torture. As such, the cross symbolizes dominance and the use of force to ensure obedience, but its symbolism transcends simple torture by the novel’s end.
The cross becomes a symbol of tenacity and cunning, as Damen notes the path to the cross and its position relative to the Veretian capital, using it as a landmark to plot his escape. The cross represents Damen’s endurance and resilience in captivity, since he’s still plotting his escape even as he’s being tortured for disobedience. In addition, it reveals how ineffective torture is in ensuring loyalty. At the end of the novel, when discussing Damen’s escape, however, Laurent, recognizing Damen’s attempts to strategize, correctly guesses that Damen used the cross as a landmark. This perception undermines the cross as a symbol of tenacity, instead marking it as a tool to ensure obedience beyond violence by creating the illusion of a path to safety.
Unlock the meaning behind every key symbol & motif
See how recurring imagery, objects, and ideas shape the narrative.
- Explore how the author builds meaning through symbolism
- Understand what symbols & motifs represent in the text
- Connect recurring ideas to themes, characters, and events