48 pages • 1-hour read
The Traitor's Game
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Themes
Content Warning: This section includes discussion of graphic violence and death.
Coming to Terms with Identity and Heritage
Many events in The Traitor’s Game turn on associations with a specific group or lineage, with heritage and identity often defining characters’ relationships or loyalties. Both Kestra and Simon struggle to understand their own identities and their place in the world, especially as their sense of self changes. Throughout the novel, both must come to terms with their identity and heritage as they come of age.
Kestra undergoes a series of important revelations about her parentage, all of which present new obstacles and introduce a new understanding of her relationships and role in the world. Her initial understanding of herself as a Dallisor, the daughter of the king’s chief advisor and enforcer, makes her arrogant and an unthinking supporter of the regime’s cruelty. When Kestra is angry at the Coracks for kidnapping her and announces she will see them all executed, she—and they—view this as a sentiment befitting a Dallisor. Kestra’s initial understanding of herself as a Dallisor corresponds with her assumption that her place in the world is one of power and privilege.
However, new information about her heritage changes Kestra’s ideas about her identity and role in the world. The first revelation, that her mother was the Endrean Anaya, means Kestra has a magical bloodline and is also considered an enemy by almost everyone else. This revelation reinforces her sense of being an outcast and confirms her belief that she needs to act alone. The later realization that her birth father must have been Darrow, the man who mentored and protected her, adds Halderian to Kestra’s bloodline and confirms her role as the Infidante, which requires Halderian blood. Her new bloodline places conflicting loyalties on her: She has been chosen by the Olden Blade to vanquish Lord Endrick, but her Endrean blood exposes her to additional dangers, exemplified by the suggestion that learning magic will corrupt her. Thus, in keeping with coming-of-age or chosen one narratives, Kestra discovers attributes of her past and qualities about herself that present adult challenges and conflicts; learning to accept these is a mark of her maturity.
Simon also faces conflicts tied to his changing sense of identity. He is revealed to be the chosen heir to King Gareth of the Halderians, the foster father Simon knew as Garr. This changes Simon’s status from orphan and Corack rebel to inheritor of the Halderian throne—a position which, at the end of this novel, he does not feel prepared to assume. Furthermore, his identity as a loyal Corack is also shaken, as he starts to wonder whether or not he can truly obey the Corack injunction to kill all Endreans if it means killing Kestra. In these ways, Simon must also seek to redefine his identity on his own terms, just as Kestra must.
Altogether, the struggle to come to terms with their bloodlines and inheritances represents, for these characters, the questioning of identity that comes with young adulthood. While the novel ends with these issues still unresolved, both Simon and Kestra have already undergone serious changes in their conception of themselves, and will continue to do so throughout the series.
Recognizing and Choosing Moral Good
Various characters in the novel must wrestle with the problem of doing what is just instead of conforming to what is merely expedient, advantageous, or expected of them by others. Both Kestra and Simon begin the novel firmly conformist in their thinking, but they soon learn to question whether or not they are truly doing the right thing. As the novel progresses, they become more aware of the importance of recognizing and choosing moral good.
Kestra wrestles with the problem of moral good as she confronts the impacts of Lord Endrick’s reign on Antora. As a child, her distrust of Lord Endrick was merely personal, a wariness instilled in her by her mother, Lily. Once she becomes acquainted with the Coracks, Kestra increasingly observes and questions the burdens borne by the common people. She witnesses poverty in the town of Pitwill that forces her to confront the dark side of the privilege she has enjoyed. Meanwhile, Tenger’s emphasis that she refer to the Halderians by their chosen name—and not the name of the enemies, who call them “the Banished”—alerts her to the fact that there are other perspectives contradicting what she has always assumed is right. Learning of the concessions Basil is making to try to protect his kingdom also confirms for Kestra that Endrick is a cruel leader who must be stopped.
Whereas she initially agrees to deliver Tenger the Olden Blade because she is coerced by his threats against Darrow and Celia, Kestra gradually comes to feel a personal responsibility to ensure the Blade ends up in the right hands. Her motivation of fighting for and protecting her country—which she identifies as Antora, the place where she was born and raised—demonstrates her new commitment to choosing what she believes is the greater good. This is the same reason she prohibits Trina from claiming the Olden Blade: She wants to be sure the Infidante, and the ruler the Infidante appoints, is a person who will act for the benefit of all.
Several of the rebels act out of personal alliance or allegiance to a people or nation. Gerald, for instance, is a Halderian who wants to see Kestra succeed because he hopes the Halderians will be restored to a place within the kingdom. Darrow acts out of personal interest, trying to protect Kestra, while Trina acts in her own interests, trading on her heritage as Risha Halderian’s daughter to try to find a place among the Coracks, then the Halderians. In contrast, Simon questions his alliances when he sees Tenger’s tactics threaten Kestra’s well-being. He reflects on the model of his foster father, Garr, and the kind of masculinity that Garr tried to instill—that of strength that is used to protect life and further a just cause.
Ultimately, Simon resolves his own questions about moral good in a different way; his motivation becomes his love for Kestra, and his loyalty is not to upholding her cause, but protecting her safety. This suggests that moral good can be an ideological notion like fairness—as is the case with Kestra—but may also be influenced by emotional attachment, like love, which adds another element to the ethical stakes.
The Importance of Challenging Injustice and Abuse of Power
As with the theme of choosing moral good, the epic scale of the conflict in The Traitor’s Game invites an examination of the workings of power and the ways power can be enforced or challenged. When personal loyalties are set aside, the characters unite in the goal to remove Lord Endrick and install a better system in his place. Their decision to rebel reflects the importance of challenging injustice and abuse of power.
Lord Endrick’s unquestioned cruelty and absolute grip on power reflect how the abuse of power can harm innocent people. His murder of other Endreans to steal their magic shows his selfish disdain for others’ rights and freedoms, while his exercise of that power results in further crimes. His plot to marry Kestra to Basil of Reddengrad and then force Basil to kill her before invading the country anyway establishes him as a villain whose rule is indisputably unjust. Kestra also observes the widespread poverty in the town of Pitwill—which Simon explains is the result of Endrick’s economic policies—and, in microcosm, the extortion of the young girl Rosalie, whose employer intends to punish her because a starving child stole a loaf of bread from her stall. When she later finds Rosalie among the supposed Corack rebels that Henry Dallisor ordered arrested, Kestra has no choice but to acknowledge that her father’s and Endrick’s policies harm the innocent.
Basil provides a smaller but salient demonstration of challenging injustice when he subverts Endrick’s plot by advising Kestra to flee Woodcourt and providing a horse for her escape. He confirms that authorities who cause harm to their subjects should be defied. Simon additionally questions the tactics of challenging or subverting power when he reflects on whether Tenger’s power-hungry actions while in rebellion to Endrick’s rule make him any better than Endrick. He becomes disturbed by Tenger’s casual attitude toward loss of life, and especially his cold-blooded attitude toward Kestra, whom he seeks to use for his own ends and has no real qualms about killing if need be. For Simon, the ends alone do not justify the means, and he hopes anyone who replaces Endrick will be an improvement.
Kestra, Basil, and Simon’s growing awareness of power and its abuses thus furthers the novel’s underlying argument that abuses of power should be resisted, and that the role of those who wield power should be to ensure the greater good.
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