63 pages • 2-hour read
Oathbound
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Themes
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of bullying, racism, gender discrimination, mental illness, graphic violence, illness, death, and emotional abuse.
The Need to Interrogate Systems of Power
Early in the novel, Erebus tells Bree, “Greedy men collect what they cannot understand, and weak men destroy what they cannot control. A man who is both will attempt to recreate that which is beyond his comprehension, obliterating the original in the process” (18). Throughout Oathbound, Bree and her friends see how systems of power allow greedy and weak people to subjugate others, often destroying the very magic they claim to venerate. Various systems of power exist within the magical and human worlds of Oathbound, overlapping and intersect to impact the characters in complex and multifaceted ways.
The Order of the Round Table is the most corrupt system of power in the novel—ironically, given its claim to represent goodness and truth—and the power of its Council of Regents begins to crumble at the end of the previous novel. When the Legendborn discover the Regents’ imprisonment and assassination attempts on their own, they begin to question why the Regents are in power, especially when they “mock the very values that keep [them] relevant” (117). Nick interrogates the Order’s power even further by reproaching the Legendborn as a whole, forcing them to reckon with their own privilege when he tells them, “We have to know these sins. We have to name them. Not only in Bree’s presence […] but in her absence, too” (132). By questioning systems of power like those underlying the Order, characters in the novel have to reckon with how they benefit from or even receive their own power from these systems. For example, after Nick’s statements at the curia, William begins to feel shame for how he has benefited from this harmful system, and he pushes back against it to help Bree. Nick, too, is aware of how his role in the Order has made him privileged, and he uses his elevated role to speak out against its injustices.
Though the Order exemplifies a system of corrupt power, this magical organization draws its prejudices from those of the real world. For example, Bree, Zoe, and Elijah all acknowledge the Rootcrafter girl’s kidnapping was horrific, yet they also understand that Rootcrafter girls “make a good target, because a missing Black girl won’t raise the alarm bells the way a missing white girl would” (230). Bree notes how Erebus is “taking advantage of human bigotry and apathy” (230) when she believes he is the one kidnapping the Rootcrafters, yet this is even more true of the Order when they begin to experiment on the Rootcrafters to understand their power and rob Bree of hers. It is because of the racism and misogyny inherent in the non-magical world that Erebus is able to auction the Rootcrafters as objects, not unlike how their ancestors were sold at slave markets. In this way, corrupt systems like the Order build on the systemic racism of the non-magical world to gain more power, while continuing established cycles of exploitation. As the injustices that make these people powerful are revealed, so is the need to question how these people obtained power in the first place.
Resistance Through Community-Building
Those who wield oppressive power in Oathbound often do so by dividing people. Like the human world, the magical world in Oathbound is marked by hierarchies and enmities both between and among its communities. Bree is part of two of these communities—the Legendborn and the Rootcrafters—and the former oppresses and exploits the latter. However, it is only by bringing the people of these communities together in a shared cause that Bree can fight against the corrupt systems that govern them. Through the important bonds and relationships Bree forms, she builds a support system that ultimately helps save her when she is in need. In Part One of the novel, the different narratives from William, Mariah, and even Natasia show the ways that Bree’s friends are fighting for her. Mariah and William’s journeys parallel one another, and when they enlist each other’s help, they are able to take care of Alice and form a support system for Bree upon her return. At Penumbra, the group of Legendborn, Rootcrafters, and demons must understand that the prejudices they have learned to harbor against one another are only getting in their way. Once they decide to tell the complete truth and trust one another, Bree, Nick, Zoe, and Mariah can join together to get the crown and save the Rootcrafter girls.
All these acts of community-building are symbolically significant, as they resist the divisive rhetoric of powerful structures like the Order. Even Nick’s unsuccessful plan to consort with the Morgaines allows him to gain valuable information that can help him take down the Order. These acts of friendship and teamwork all put people above power structures. In his effort to control Bree, Erebus takes her memories of the people in her life. This act symbolizes the importance of community as a form of resistance, and Bree’s efforts to recover those memories throughout the novel serve as an allegory for the act of resisting oppression through community. When she trusts in the people Erebus would want her to fear, she regains her powers. By contrast, Erebus is solitary, and his court has turned against him. When Erebus acknowledges that Bree is his equal as a king, Nick remarks, “Unlike you, she stands with a court” (638), which gets under his skin. As a whole, Oathbound is a novel about the importance of relationships and taking care of one another, and the kinship Bree and others show toward one another is what helps to destroy the systems that wish to tear them apart.
The Importance of Selflessness in Leadership
Leadership is an important facet of Oathbound, as two of its main characters are considered kings. The Shadow King, Erebus, is not only an antagonist but also a foil to protagonist Bree, as their leadership styles are antithetical, with Bree exemplifying a selfless, service-oriented mode of leadership in contrast to Erebus’s hunger for personal power. At the beginning of the novel, Bree has lost nearly everything she has and grieves the loss of the people in her life. Even so, she still feels guilty about losing them and about how she treated them when running away. After the events at the Rat, Bree also begins to worry about the Rootcrafter girl she saw get abducted and the others that have gone missing. Though Bree has many issues to contend with throughout the novel, her attempts to find the missing Rootcrafter girls drive the novel’s plot and guide her decision-making. Throughout the novel, Bree puts the Rootcrafter girls above her own safety and comfort, risking Erebus’s return to power when she agrees to get his crown so he will return to the demon plane and stop consuming root. Bree’s actions are greatly contrasted with those of Erebus, whose motivations are purely selfish and often involve exploiting other people for his own benefit. Though he agreed to help Bree control her powers, he is only doing so to make her stronger so he can ultimately kill her and take her powers. Bree and Erebus’s interactions with the twins in Chapter 20 highlight this: While Erebus berates the twins for going against his orders, even though they benefit him, Bree stands up for Zoe and Elijah, risking Erebus’s wrath to make sure they don’t have to face it as brutally.
As Bree escapes Erebus’s seclusion and begins to reunite with her friends, her selflessness becomes even more evident. She puts herself at risk time and again at Penumbra, where she is still fighting to save the Rootcrafter girls. She hates that Nick had the shard of the crown implanted so he could risk his life for hers, believing she should be the one to die for him. Bree also feels guilty when she learns that the Regents were experimenting on the girls rather than her, despite having already been tortured at the Institute herself. Ultimately, Bree’s thoughtfulness and selflessness are what save the Rootcrafter girls, which Nora admits even when Bree tries to downplay her role in the situation. When he looks into her soul, Valec tells Bree, “Even in your own grief, even without your community, you healed over the raw break the King left behind, patched it up, and kept going. You used your soul again, risking reinjury, for a group of girls you didn’t know, when nobody else was watching, just so you could sleep at night” (620). Similarly, Nick points out, “Even when you choose yourself, you turn hope into something tangible for the rest of us. Even when you choose not to fight, you turn the tides. If you ask me, that right there is the soul of a king” (620). Even when she is fighting her own battles, Bree shows her leadership through her selflessness, putting herself in danger for the sake of doing what is right for others.
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