Rose in Chains

“Rory was always so humble when the possibility of victory was brought up. As if he wasn’t the one prophesied to be the victor. As if he didn’t quite believe it himself.”

Soto quickly characterizes Rory in the very opening chapters as the insecure, feckless prince seeking to win the war. His disbelief in his own prophecy further contributes to Briony’s guilt about her role in pushing forward the narrative of Rory’s destiny.

“The Bomardi men who were in her father’s castle—The men who watched her brother die—The men who were hunting Eversuns—They were the men to whom she grew up curtsying, the men she greeted at state affairs, the men who shook her father’s hand just weeks before Mallow took the Seat and struck him down. She likely knew them all.”

The Bomardi invasion is analogous to historical events like the Rwandan genocide and the Balkan Wars, in which political demagoguery leads to horrific violence against people who were formerly seen as friends, neighbors, and colleagues. The men currently killing and enslaving the Eversuns are the parents of Briony’s friends and former colleagues of her father, and the sudden eruption of violence shocks her.

“Briony’s skin tingled. She gave her magic to Rory all the time. She’d never thought of it as something that could be taken from her, only shared.”

The issue of consent is central to Rose in Chains. The Eversuns are enslaved to become heartsprings for the Bomardi enslavers, who take their magic and their bodies without consent. Briony consensually gives her magic to Rory to make him look more competent, and her thought about her magic being taken from her foreshadows Briony’s eventual enslavement, though Briony is not forced into a heartspring bond with Toven.