The Jasmine Throne

Malini is a point-of-view character and the secondary protagonist of The Jasmine Throne. She is a princess who is imprisoned by her brother Emperor Chandra after she conspired to overthrow him and refused to die on the pyre meant to “purify” her. Her character arc focuses on the societal expectations placed upon her as a woman in her culture and her determination to seize control of her life, regardless of the moral and personal costs. She is defined by her ability to adapt, manipulate, and use whatever means available to stay alive and continue her pursuit of freedom and revenge against Chandra. Even while imprisoned in the Hirana and subjected to doses of the needle-flower drug, she still calculates potential methods of escape or ways to leverage her circumstances. This sets the tone for her character: Malini does not simply react to events but actively shapes them, even when it appears like she has no agency.

Malini initially views Priya as a means to an end; she recognizes the power within Priya that everyone else overlooks, and Malini wants to use it to her advantage. However, as the power dynamics between Malini and Priya shift, Malini allows herself some moments of vulnerability with Priya. Her attraction to Priya is complicated by her desire to reclaim her agency and return to her brother Aditya. This initially puts her at odds with Priya, who is concerned with protecting Ahiranya and resisting the oppressive forces of Parijatdvipa. However, for Malini, her attraction to women is also a source of defiance. Parijatdvipa is patriarchal and restrictive, and same-sex relationships are forbidden. Malini tells Priya, “I’ve avoided marriage. I’ll never willingly beget children with a man” (399). Her sexuality, therefore, is a mode of resistance.

Once Malini separates from Priya and meets Aditya at the lacquer gardens, she becomes increasingly willing to embrace ruthlessness in her quest for power, reflecting the theme of The Corrupting Influence of Power. Her cold pragmatism reaches a peak when she is faced with the threat of Chandra’s soldiers; she comes up with a plan to trap them in the monastery and burn them. While Aditya is troubled by the violence of this act and cannot bring himself to order it, Malini takes control and gives the order instead. She believes that power must be seized, not bestowed. When Aditya repeatedly fails to take the opportunities that she provides for him, she ultimately decides to claim the crown for herself instead. Ironically, while she does not believe in fate, her actions align her with Rao’s prophecy.

Bhumika is a character who embodies duality. She is married to Ahiranya’s regent, General Vikram, and is pregnant with his child for most of the novel. However, she is also one of the three surviving temple children—the other two are Priya and Ashok. While Ashok and Priya both escaped from the Hirana on the night of the massacre, Bhumika had left before the massacre began. Her uncle, Lord Govind, had taken her to his home.

Bhumika’s perspective on power and leadership differs from the other characters. While she plays the part of a dutiful wife, she exploits the empire’s tendency to overlook women like her. She uses her position to help the people of Ahiranya and subvert the empire’s oppressive rule from within by using subterfuge, patience, and personal compromise. Her pragmatic leadership style is rooted in her understanding of people and their needs. She knows when to be compassionate and when to be ruthless, always balancing the two to ensure the survival of her people. Bhumika also surrounds herself with loyal servants and soldiers within the palace.

Bhumika grows her power slowly; she is patient and deliberate as she waits for opportunities. She uses magical roses that she grew to protect herself and her people during the attack on the palace. Her quiet form of power puts her in conflict with her brother, Ashok, who takes a more extreme and idealistic approach to leadership that comes at the cost of his followers. Bhumika also serves as a voice of reason and guidance for Priya. While the sisters’ relationship is strained by their differing personalities and positions, they unite at the end. In the book’s closing chapters, a coronation celebrates them after they become thrice-born. Priya makes Bhumika the lead elder by crowning her with the sacred wood crown mask, deferring to her.

Ashok is a supporting point-of-view character in the novel. He is one of the trio of surviving temple children, along with Priya and Bhumika. Since he was ill on the night of the Hirana massacre, he did not eat any of the drugged food and so was able to lead Priya to safety. However, he later abandoned her in the city, which led her to believe that he was dead. In the present, Ashok is the head of the militant Ahiranyi rebellion and is attempting to oust imperial control. His ideals are twisted by his desire for vengeance against the empire. His narration reveals a brutal logic where failure is attributed to weakness, while strength is equated with the ability to endure and make hard decisions. He believes that “Ahiranya [i]s worth any price” (79). To save it, he is willing to destroy and sacrifice everything in his way, including Priya. His character embodies the theme of The Corrupting Influence of Power.

As one of the few temple children who survived the massacre, Ashok sees himself as a successor to the thrice-born who wielded great magic during the Age of Flowers. Ashok is twice-born; this means that he can connect to others through the meditative state known as the sangam and has some control over nature, but he doesn’t have full power. He and his followers rely on their few remaining vials of the deathless waters to give them greater strength. However, taking this water that is broken from the source always results in death if the person stops taking it. While Ashok leads attacks against the empire, his main goal is to attain the deathless waters. This becomes an obsession that leads him to manipulate Priya into revealing the waters’ location. His need for the waters ultimately leads to his downfall. By the time he reaches the source with his sisters, he is dying from the waters’ effects. While Bhumika and Priya emerge as thrice-born, Ashok drowns within the waters. His character arc shows how revolutionaries can become as tyrannical as the regimes they seek to overthrow. His failure to survive the deathless waters reveals the limitations of this strength; he is not invincible, and the magic that once set him apart is what undoes him in the end.

Rao is the nickname of the nameless prince of Alor who serves as a supporting point-of-view character. He is one of the main people working to crown Aditya and overthrow Chandra. In The Jasmine Throne, he is in Ahiranya to convince the nobility to support their cause, as some other vassal states of the empire have joined him. While Rao sympathizes with the Ahiranyi cause, his actual goal is restoring the empire. He is also in Ahiranya to free Malini from her imprisonment. While many characters believe that his dedication to her stems from a romantic attraction to the princess, this is not the case. Rao and Malini share a bond over the death of his sister, Alori, who was one of the ladies-in-waiting burned by Chandra. The second and more important reason why Rao prioritizes Malini’s safety is due to the Aloran belief in fate and prophecy.

While he is referred to as “nameless,” Rao does have a name, which is revealed at the end of the novel. His name and the names of his siblings were whispered to them by priests at their birth. While Alori’s name prophesied her own death by fire, Rao’s name is a prophecy about the person who will take the Parijati throne. His full name says that “the hand that lit the pyre” will “sit upon the throne” (521). When Malini fires the first flaming arrow on the lacquer gardens, Rao realizes that his name refers to her.