The Knight and the Moth

Prophecy and fate play a crucial role in The Knight and the Moth. Six’s role as a Diviner makes her a prophetess; she drowns and dreams in the spring, seeing signs from the Omens that supposedly tell the future. At the beginning of the novel, Six believes that it is her fate to be the tool of prophecy, regardless of the pain it causes her—she believes in the higher purpose of what she’s doing. The invented history of Traum reinforces Six’s belief in her fate, as she recalls that the first Diviner was a foundling child “like [she]’d been when [she]’d come to Aisling Cathedral, lying in dark water before transfixed onlookers. It ma[kes] [her] proud that a foundling—like [her]—should be the most important figure in Traum’s most sanctified story. Even if that child didn’t have a name” (17). Like the original foundling child, Six has no name, and she follows in the supposedly hallowed footsteps of this nameless child. The abbess’s false historical narrative cements Six’s belief that her role as a Diviner is her Omens-given fate and that the prophecies she divines are real. However, over the course of the novel, she realizes that the concept of fate has been used as a manipulation by the abbess to control the Diviners and the residents of Traum and finds equal power in the use of her free will.