61 pages • 2-hour read
The Traitor Queen
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Content Warning: This section of the guide contains discussion of violence, torture, suicide, and suicidal ideation.
The Burden of Legacy and the Will to Change
Silas’s continued manipulation of Lara, her sisters, and Keris demonstrates the lasting influence of parental control, learned ideology, and political inheritance. Even after Silas’s daughters recognize and reject the nihilistic violence of his regime, they struggle to overcome the false beliefs he has planted in their minds since childhood. As Lara and her sisters struggle to overcome the burden of legacy and forge a new path forward, Aren grapples with losing his much more positive legacy when his kingdom is conquered.
Everywhere she goes, Lara is scorned for her dual identity as both the daughter of the hated Silas and the “traitor queen” who brought about Ithicana’s downfall. Valcottans and Harendellians bow to Aren and Ahnna but either regard Lara with outright disdain or wish her dead. Throughout the novel, Lara must work to overcome the negative perceptions that come with this legacy. When she returns with Aren to fight for the liberation of Ithicana, the Ithicanians reject her until they see her repeatedly risk her life for them. Even after she kills her father and saves Ithicana, her legacy as the traitor queen is not forgotten, and Aren tells her that she will have more work to do to atone for the destruction her accidental message unleashed.
Sarhina is called a monster and murderess in her adopted home of Renhallow. The residents are skeptical that she’ll ever be a good mother, and she believes they aren’t wrong given who her father is and how she was raised. She believes “none of them were wrong to believe that Veliant blood bred individuals who did more harm than good” (385). Even though she is the most compassionate of her sisters, Sarhina worries that her terrible legacy is inescapable.
With his ambiguous political ambitions, Keris exemplifies the difficulty of changing entrenched systems of power. He speaks philosophically to Aren during his imprisonment, stating: “To rule is a burden, but perhaps especially so for a king who enters his reign desirous of change, for he will spend his life wading against the current” (53). This not only foreshadows the challenges Keris will face as king once Silas dies, but also the current issues Aren faces. Though he inherited an important legacy from his parents, there have been changes he’s worked tirelessly to enact, though outside forces have worked against him with equal vigor. Silas’s invasion of Ithicana is only the latest in a long string of unfortunate setbacks in Aren’s goal of enacting change, not only in the bridge kingdom but between all kingdoms.
Aren has all but given up during his imprisonment and even after he is saved by Lara. He is riddled with self-doubt, constantly wondering “what good had he done before he’d been captured” (90). It isn’t until he forgives Lara, and when faced with the Valcottan Empress’s deal—an alliance with Valcotta in exchange for Lara’s death—where Aren recommits to his values. He expresses hope that all nations can become friends even whilst the Empress dismisses this optimism as naive. Aren simply states that “Ithicana cannot continue as it has” and “to endure, [they] must change [their] ways” (253).
The Responsibility that Comes with Power
In The Traitor Queen, nearly every major character is forced to make painful sacrifices. However, it is those with the most power who make the most personal sacrifices in the name of duty. Lara risks her own sisters to save Aren and liberate Ithicana. Her sisters risk their lives to rid their nation of their despotic father. Aren sacrifices his love for Lara to appease his people.
When Lara hears that Aren’s people are being captured, killed, and their bodies displayed in front of him, she worries about his wellbeing. She imagines him “taking his own life in a desperate attempt to keep any more of his people from dying” and is terrified by the possibility because “he was no coward” and “if he thought there was no other way, he’d do it” (63). This worry suggests that Aren is willing sacrifice his own life to protect his people, the ultimate expression of his selfless leadership.
As Aren’s heart thaws toward Lara along their journey, he repeatedly puts his emotions aside to prioritize Ithicana, believing that his people will never forgive her and that “to ask them to would be to spit in the faces of all his people who’d lost children and parents and sisters and brothers. He couldn’t do it, no matter how he felt about her” (183). Even when he gives in to his feelings, having sex with Lara the day before they plan to take Midwatch, Aren must again give her up for his kingdom. Jor reminds him that he has to choose “between her and Ithicana” because he can’t have both (320).
When faced with Aren’s disgust after she admits she’s willing to kill innocent merchants to ensure he makes it to Valcotta safely, Lara admits that she knows hard choices better than anyone. She knows “what it feels like to sacrifice the lives of innocents in order to save the lives [she] care[s] about” and though it haunts her, she’d do it again and “just because a choice is hard doesn’t meant mean you don’t make it” (189). Lara has sacrificed her innocence, her morality, and more to survive and to ensure the same of her loved ones. And when the Valcottan Empress refuses to ally with Ithicana as long as Lara lives, she is even willing to sacrifice her life to ensure that Aren and his people are liberated: Like Aren, she is prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice for the people who depend on her.
This theme emphasizes that true leadership often requires relinquishing personal desires or sacrificing oneself for the greater good. It also places into question whether such sacrifices are noble acts of service or the tragic costs demanded by endless conflict.
The Long Road to Redemption
Lara’s betrayal at the end of The Bridge Kingdom sets in motion the events of the sequel. In The Traitor Queen, her journey is one of undoing the damage she’s done and mending the broken trust between herself and Aren—and his kingdom. In this novel, redemption is possible, but the path forward is a long and winding one, requiring accountability, sacrifice, and consistent action.
Early on, when Jor blames himself for Aren’s capture, Lara tries to comfort him by insisting it’s not his fault, after which Jor turns on her, claiming, “You’re right […] It’s yours. And there is no we. There is us and there is you, so don’t think to lay any sort of claim to the men and women who’ve fought and died trying to undo your… mistakes” (27). Though Lara is entirely aware of how severe her betrayal is and how impossible it will be to become worthy of redemption, this is the first time she’s hearing it from a close friend since Aren exiled her.
She accepts that she deserves “their ire, their distrust, their hate, because it was her fault that Ithicana had fallen” but she desperately hopes that someday she will be able to atone even if she can’t undo all that’s been done (27). After Lara saves Aren, he tells her that nothing has changed between them as he doesn’t “value [his] own neck enough for [her] saving it to undo the damage [she] caused” (127). This cracks the mask of optimism that Lara has clung to since the moment of her betrayal, effectively informing her that nothing she does might ever be enough.
After this confrontation, Lara changes her technique and finds a different motivation to continue forward. When reaching Ithicana and being greeted with outright hostility, she tells the Ithicanians:
My father raised me on lies so that I’d hate Ithicana. So that I’d hate you enough to dedicate my life to your destruction. But when I came to understand his deception, I turned my back on my father’s schemes. Except that means little because the damage was already done […] I’m not here for forgiveness. I’m here to ask you to allow me to fight because I assure you, I hate my father more than any of you ever could (282).
Instead of doing whatever she can to help Ithicana because she must atone for her mistakes, Lara authentically claims herself as a victim of Silas, actively positioning herself as an ally of Ithicana, if not as one of them. This authenticity allows her the opportunity for redemption. By fighting alongside Ithicana and repeatedly putting her life at risk for its people, she proves the sincerity of her desire to atone. Even so, her redemption is incomplete at the end of the novel, as Aren invites her not to resume her position as Ithicana’s beloved queen, but to continue working to earn the people’s forgiveness.
Unlock every key theme and why it matters
Get in-depth breakdowns of the book’s main ideas and how they connect and evolve.
- Explore how themes develop throughout the text
- Connect themes to characters, events, and symbols
- Support essays and discussions with thematic evidence