61 pages • 2-hour read
The Traitor Queen
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Symbols & Motifs
Content Warning: This section of the guide contains discussion of violence.
Sharks
Sharks symbolize guilt and innocence in the novel. Aren explains to Lara how traitors are fed to the sharks in Ithicana. In a process that mirrors medieval trials for heresy and witchcraft in the real world, Ithicanian courts determine a person’s guilt or innocence by subjecting them to a trial by ordeal. The accused is suspended in shark infested water. If they are eaten, they are presumed to have been guilty. If they are left alone—which has never happened before—they are innocent.
Lara is supposed to split from Aren long before his journey to Ithicana. However, an attack from Silas’s men prompts Aren to bring Lara with him and Jor to Ithicana. During the journey, a shark rises from the water to look at them before diving back down. Jor calls this a “bad omen” which Aren ignores (279). The shark’s monitoring presence suggests that they travel with a traitor—Lara. Furthermore, Aren’s decision to ignore Jor mirrors an earlier instance, when Jor insists they drop Lara off at Maridrina’s shores before continuing to Ithicana. Here, too, Aren ignores Jor. The decision is risky, as his people aren’t inclined to let Lara live, but Aren ignores common sense in favor of his feelings for her.
The sharks appear again when Lara travels with the Ithicanians to reclaim Gamire Island. The sharks swim beneath them while Lia prepares to dive in to reach the entrance of the pier they intend to seize back from Maridrina. However, increased soldier presence forces them to detour to Snake Island, where Lara is given the opportunity to earn back their trust by risking her own life with the venomous snakes to access the pier. In doing so, she makes progress with the Ithicanians in their entourage, earning some begrudging respect and potentially some trust, lessening her reputation as a traitor. In this instance, the sharks don’t come to the surface. They barely acknowledge the group, their lessening interactions also signifying the changing perception of Lara’s loyalties.
Toward the end of the novel, after Lara has killed Silas and jumped from his ship, sharks swarm the waters, killing all the Maridrinian men within but leaving Lara untouched. Hundreds of Aren’s people witness this apparent miracle, after which “no one [calls her] the traitor queen any longer” (378). The sharks repeatedly spare Lara’s life, symbolizing her innocence in accordance with Ithicanian cultural practices.
Aren’s Former Home on Midwatch
Aren’s former home, built by his father for his mother, and given by Aren to Lara decades later, symbolizes the costs of war and imperialism. After reclaiming Midwatch from Maridrinian soldiers, Aren visits the house. He remembers giving it to Lara “back when he’d had ambitions and dreams for a better life for his people. A fool’s dreams” (326). During the time the Maridrinians have held Midwatch, the front door has been broken from its hinges and the interior reeks of filth, spilled wine, rotting food, and death. Venturing further inside, Aren notes that “The floor was covered with dirt, the paneled walls cracked, artwork either missing or destroyed. The table in the entranceway was overturned” (326). The home once symbolized love, family, ambitions, and dreams but has since been destroyed by the war Maridrina waged on Ithicana. This resembles the same lack of care the Maridrinians took in destroying the lives of countless Ithicanian people.
Aren is numb regarding his former home, unable to feel sadness or anger. In response to the wreckage, Aren “walks into the courtyard, striding to the center where he’d once stood in the eye of a storm and made the most catastrophic decision of his life,” burning the house to the ground (327). This moment is a visual symbol of how Maridrina’s war and Silas’s ambitions have irreparably destroyed lives, but it also symbolizes potential rebirth. Aren is mourning the loss of his previous life, but all that falls can be rebuilt, and though he currently believes most of what he and his ancestors have worked for is gone, he also is in a position to rebuild something new in the aftermath.
Lara’s Letter of Betrayal
Lara’s betrayal of Ithicana was a message written in invisible ink on the back of Aren’s stationery, delivered to Silas by accident when Aren sent a letter to the Maridrinian king. Since then, Aren has carried the letter around with him as a reminder of Lara’s betrayal, reading it over and over again to stoke his hatred for her but also to agonize over the details until he understands why she betrayed him. The letter serves as a motif for The Long Road to Redemption. Silas presents the letter to Aren shortly after he is taken captive: “On one side, she betrays me,” Silas says, “On the other […] she betrays you. A puzzle. I must say, we were uncertain what to make of it […]. Tell me, where do you believe Lara’s loyalties lie?” (9). This question from Silas mirrors the same internal conflict Aren has about Lara. Neither is certain where her loyalties lie and, thus, neither can offer her redemption for her perceived betrayal—not that Silas ever would.
During their journey to Valcotta after Lara rescues Aren, he presents her with the same letter while demanding her explanation for the betrayal. As he accuses her of fabricating their entire relationship and manipulating him for her own ends, Lara realizes that he is angrier at himself than at her:
You had your reasons for doing what you did. What’s my excuse? Every detail you learned, every opportunity you had to spy—those were my mistakes. Bringing you to Ithicana was my mistake. Trusting you was my mistake. Loving you was my mistake […] Ithicana fell because of me, and if you think it will rise again under my rule, you are sorely mistaken (162).
The letter represents his inability to offer redemption for either Lara or himself. In the Red Desert, after Lara risks everything to get him to safety, Aren’s resolve begins to waver, and he burns the letter. This begins both their paths toward true redemption.
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