“Her body leans into mine, and I smile behind my mask. I knew she’d be this way. Desperate. She’s been trained for years—groomed to be a Lord’s whore by her mother and her father. Even if they didn’t mean to, it’s just a part of our world. You serve regardless of whether you have a dick or a pussy. A dick just has more power in this scenario.”

Sin’s brief analysis of the Lords society exposes the explicit hierarchy between men and women. Sin was groomed to see women as sexual objects for his personal use, while Elli was groomed to see herself as an object for Lords to use. There is a clear imbalance of power between men and women, reflecting Gendered Social Grooming and the Commodification of Women.

“He’s dark, mysterious, and a complete stranger. I’ve never seen his face, but I don’t need to. In a way, he saved me. He just doesn’t know it. And I’ll never tell him, but my life would be very different if he hadn’t shown up at my parents’ house that night.”

Elli reflects on the masked man, whom she does not know is Sin. This foreshadows the later reveal that James, Elli’s stepfather whom Sin killed, was sexually abusing her. Even though the masked man also sexually assaulted Elli, she sees him as a protector figure. She subverts the sexual abuse she faced with James, Lincoln, and Liam by engaging in similar acts with consent.

“She doesn’t have a clue what I’ve done to her. And I’m not sure if I’ll ever tell her, either. I don’t feel guilty or ashamed. A Lord is taught that he can have whatever he wants, even if that means they have to take it. That’s exactly what I’ve done with her, and she gets off on it.”

Sin manipulates Elli, though he claims it is for love. He is more explicitly malicious in this passage: He does not plan to tell her that he is the masked man with whom she has been having sex. He does not feel guilt or shame because he sees Elli as an object with which he can do as he pleases, and he rationalizes this behavior through Elli’s sexual pleasure.

“And second, I learned that just because your body craves something doesn’t mean you should give it what it wants. So I pushed everything my body begged for to the back of my mind. But that didn’t last very long.”

Elli’s reflections explore The Impact of Trauma on Attachment and Self-Image. She struggles to reconcile her desires, her traumatic past, and her image of herself. She resists her sexual desires because they deviate from the perceived social norms and recall the abuse she faced as a child. Elli’s journey is about both embracing sexuality and working through trauma.

“‘Tomorrow morning, you will drop her from your class.’ This son of a bitch sits at his desk while she stands in front of his class reading off her deepest, darkest desires, and then he fucks her in secret. He uses his students, exploits them. Elli isn’t the only student he’s been fucking, and the Lords have found out.”

Sin and the Lords execute David for having sex with his students. This counters Sin’s claim that the Lords can take what they want whenever they want. David, who is also a Lord, behaved the same way as other Lords. This exposes how The Privileges and Prohibitions of Elite Societies benefit and disadvantage members without always having a clear cause.

“The journals are for class. It’s to make people uncomfortable. To desensitize them for what’s to come. For me, it’s much more than that. I’ve been writing in diaries since I was a kid. It was about what I heard my mother and her clients talk about […] My fantasies have just gotten darker and darker over the years. I had to get my desires out, and I had no one that I could talk to them about. So I chose to write them.”

Elli’s fantasies explore the depths of her conscious and unconscious desires and trauma. She notes how her experiences with journaling differ from the intention of David’s class. Elli wants to express, discuss, and resolve her feelings and fantasies; she understands that writing them down is a healthy way to explore them without exposing herself to danger. Elli’s traumatic childhood has already “desensitized” her to other people’s sexual desires, leaving only her own to analyze.

“He’s been dead for two years, and he still makes my skin crawl. That was the first time he ever touched me. Years later, I’d willingly given him my virginity. I’m used to being someone’s secret. Someone’s whore. That’s what I’m good for. My body was made to serve men. He told me all the time how pretty I was. How sexy I was. And how much I turned him on. I hated that he made me want him. I hated how good he made me feel. It was a sickness for us both.”

This passage explores The Impact of Trauma on Attachment and Self-Image. Elli struggles to reconcile her feelings for James because he manipulated her into seeing him as her sole source of validation. When she says that she “willingly [gave] him my virginity,” she is talking about child sexual abuse, in which she could not have consented. The fact that she still sees herself as an active participant in her own abuse reveals the extent of her trauma and the lasting impact it has had on her self-image.

“Why did I drink so much? I know why. To drown out the memories screaming in my head. But they always come back. You can’t erase real life. No matter how much you try.”

Though characters like Sin, Laura, and Liam often describe Elli’s drug use as an addiction, Elli describes it as a form of unsuccessful self-medication. She drinks alcohol and takes ecstasy to run away from the memories of James’s abuse. This creates a cycle of abusing substances, which often leads to situations of abuse, then coping with the abuse by taking more substances.

“My eyes go from hers to his. She glares at me while my best friend’s eyes soften with…regret? Maybe that’s wishful thinking. How could he not tell me this? He knows how I feel about her being involved with a Lord. It’s unacceptable. My parents have spent their lives hiding her from our world. Why would he agree to this?”

Sin’s perception of the Lords society is replete with contradictions. He sees Kira becoming a Lady as a disaster, and yet he wants to make Elli a Lady for his own purposes. Part of Gendered Social Grooming and the Commodification of Women is how men assign different roles to women. For example, Sin decides that Elli is his “whore” but Kira is “innocent.” These roles endanger women and restrict men’s ability to form healthy relationships with them.

“Why that day? Why this banister? Why no note to say goodbye? Had he decided he was going to end his life when he kissed me goodbye that morning before his driver took me to school? Did he have it planned the night before when he tucked me into bed and read me a bedtime story?”

Elli’s struggle with her father’s death by suicide echoes Elli’s own mental health concerns. She often thinks of suicide as an option for herself, and she wonders what sparked her father’s decision to die by suicide. The lack of evidence for Nicholas’ motivations foreshadows the reveal that he is not dead. The series of questions aim to create momentum and emphasis, and show Elli’s sense of urgency.

“My heart races, my stomach in my throat. I want to deny it, but it was right there in front of my face. He wore the same clothes he left our house in just this morning. He lied to me and told me it was Lord- related. But was that a lie? She’s his chosen because he’s a Lord. I just never questioned what it was.”

Elli panics when Amelia shows her the video in which it appears that Sin is about to have sex with Amelia. Elli shifts Sin into the framework of the Lords society, in which it is suddenly obvious that Sin would be with Amelia instead of Elli. Her willingness to believe the limited evidence in the video also reflects her low self-esteem.

“Elli needs constant reminding that she’s owned. That she belongs to someone. Otherwise, she feels lost like a child roaming the streets looking for their parents who don’t give a shit about them.”

Sin objectifies Elli. He does not see her as a person with agency and autonomy, and reduces her to a “child” who needs to be “owned.” His infantilization and objectification recall James’s decision to abuse Elli when she was a child, highlighting how all Lords engage in Gendered Social Grooming and the Commodification of Women.

“I wanted him to stop me. Grab my hair, drag me back to bed, and force me to stay. I know what I did was wrong. I need to be punished. He needs to remind me that he still wants me. Needs me. It’s the fucked- up part of me that wants to be owned. I don’t know who I am without him.”

Elli echoes Sin’s thoughts about her need to be “owned.” Elli notes that this desire comes from the “fucked-up part of me.” This suggests that she is actively trying to resolve her feelings of guilt, which requires punishment, and her struggle with identity, in which she does not “know who I am without him.” Unlike Sin, who describes Elli’s feelings as an immutable part of her personality, Elli sees them as transient elements of trauma that need to be resolved.

“Her Lord drags her to the cathedral kicking and screaming. He strips her naked and ties her down at the altar in front of the congregation. Then an offering basket is passed around to his fellow Lords who fill the pews. But instead of collecting money, they pass out razor blades. Then, one by one, the Lords stand, go to the altar, and cut his Lady. Blood is a price we all must pay.”

This passage exposes how Ladies are more restricted in their behaviors than Lords. Lords are expected to have affairs, but their wives are publicly humiliated, tortured, and sometimes killed over infidelity. Though Sin claims that “Blood is a price we all must pay,” he describes a system in which women pay this price more often and more intensely than men.

“I can’t let them strip him of his title. Not because of me. I’m tired of being the reason people get hurt. This is my future. Being passed around and used. They’re all right. I’m the whore. I’m nothing. Sin has a future, and I’m not going to let him lose it because of me. I’m not like them.”

As Elli tries to reconcile her self-image and ongoing trauma, she increasingly describes herself in degrading and self-effacing terms. In this passage, being “passed around and used” represents how men, specifically Lords, objectify and abuse Elli. It also recalls the phrasing of Elli’s fantasy from her journals, in which three men “use” her. These two sides to Elli’s desires and trauma form the foundation of her character.

“Bile rises at those words. While wallowing in my own self-pity, I forgot that he’s married to my mother. I’ve officially fucked two of my mother’s husbands—while they were married to her. I’m a horrible person.”

This passage explores The Impact of Trauma on Attachment and Self-Image. Much like Elli’s reflection that she “willingly” had sex with James, Elli internalizes Lincoln and James’s abuse as her own fault. She struggles to see herself as a person with agency and accept that her abuse was outside of her control. As a result, she resolves that she is a “horrible person,” taking on the immorality of her abusers as her own.

“‘Yeah, but at what cost?’ Will she forgive me? No. Do I care? Also no. She’s mine now. No one can ever take her from me. I’ll spend the rest of my life—no matter how short that will be—fighting to protect her.”

Sin’s perception of Elli wavers between protection and objectification, rarely allowing space for Elli to be her own person. He does not care whether she forgives him because she is an object he plans to use with or without her consent, which is the rationalization of abuse. Sin claims that he abuses Elli and betrays her trust to “protect her” from other men who would be more abusive, begging the question of why anyone needs to abuse Elli, at all.

“I’ll never learn, but I want him to think I can. That I’m somewhat able to be saved. Even though we both know, deep down, I’m too broken to change now. Sin may be the devil, but I’m the sinner. Doing the same thing over and over, knowing that I can’t be saved.”

Elli alternates between wanting to grow and deciding that she is incapable of growth. Just as Sin sees Elli as a permanently damaged person, Elli sometimes sees herself the same way. Here, Elli even sees herself as the manipulative partner, convincing Sin that she is capable of growth while inwardly claiming that she cannot change.

“I flinch at her words and hope that she doesn’t notice. ‘I’m not going anywhere, little demon,’ I lie to her. The last thing I need is for her to think I’m leaving. That I’ve made a deal that I can’t go back on. It’s for her. Everything I do is for her, but she won’t understand that.”

As with Sin’s other schemes, he lies to Elli because he assumes that she cannot understand anything or assume agency in her life. As Sin prepares to go to Carnage, he sees himself as a martyr, giving up his life for Elli, even though neither Elli nor Nicholas agree with his decision. This passage exposes how Sin deludes himself to create a heroic image, just as Elli wavers under doubt that leads her to see herself as a “whore.”

“Taking in a deep breath, I square my shoulders. This is what I agreed to. For her. She deserves this. I deserve this. We are not forgiven of our sins just because we are Lords. In the real world, Lords are gods. Here at Carnage, you’re nothing. Long gone, a forgotten soul. I’m not sure what my wife will say to the world when asked how I died.”

Furthering his heroic, martyred self-image, Sin enters Carnage. He thinks about how The Privileges and Prohibitions of Elite Societies will no longer apply to him. He insists that he is acting in Elli’s interest, but he still wonders what Elli will say about him when she finds that he is gone. This exposes Sin’s vanity; he wants to be seen as a hero in other people’s minds as well.

“Like I figured, Elli doesn’t want anything to do with it. She wants to follow in her mother’s footsteps as a sex therapist. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that at first, but she explained to me that she wished she had someone to talk to all those years, and I couldn’t deny that I wished she had that too.”

Sin comes to understand the importance of discussing and resolving trauma through Elli’s decision to become a sex therapist. Nonetheless, the division of Sin and Elli’s responsibilities in the final chapters and Epilogues follows the theme of Gendered Social Grooming and the Commodification of Women. Sin takes on Nicholas’s former role, while Elli steps into the same role formerly occupied by Laura.

“‘We want the baby,’ my wife rushes out, spinning around to face the room. ‘We’ll take them both.’ ‘Whoa. Whoa.’ He pushes off the wall, uncrossing his arms. ‘Your mother is ours. She’s not going anywhere.’”

Though Elli and Sin frame taking Laura and her child as an act of mercy, they are unwittingly perpetuating Gendered Social Grooming and the Commodification of Women. In this moment, Elli sees Laura as an object that can be used to produce children, rather than as a person with agency and desires of her own. The Spade brother’s response fits within this framework, establishing Laura as their property and the child as an object they are willing to give Elli and Sin.

“‘The baby will be our brother and sister?’ she whispers. ‘Yes.’ Looking back over at me, I see the first tear run down her face. I reach out and wipe it away, pushing the wet hair behind her ear. ‘I hate them,’ she whispers, her body shaking. ‘I hate them so much.’ Placing her hands in her face, she lets out a sob, and I reach across, pulling her to me.”

Laura’s child represents the years of trauma and manipulation Sin and Elli faced from Liam and Laura. Liam and Laura’s affair is at the root of the abuse Elli faced and the trials Sin encounters across the novel. This passage ties together these various threads of trauma into a single child, whom Elli and Sin hope to give a better life.