Legenborn (The Legendborn Cycle # 1)
“Typical anger can hinder or help. But the kind that burns in your gut? That’s fury. And fury is meant to be used.” (331)
“I don’t want war,” I reply. “I want the people I love to be safe.” (446)
When power is abused, it awakens a rot that spreads to everything. But nature responds, and offenders are no match for her vigor and might. Even as resignation gradually takes root and the soul grows weary, she protests humanity’s propensity for violence, summoning a resistance that rages through generations. Bree Matthews, the FMC, embodies nature’s will, her mission to extract the devastation and make flowers grow. It’s this alchemical component to rebellion that demonstrates nature’s refusal to cower, and as a product of nature, perhaps the duty of humankind is to show the same self-preservation. Bree Matthews is nature’s anger—powered by generations of the stuff—and yet, she acts without malice, which only feeds the sickness that must be uprooted. Anger can easily become corrosive if left unchecked, but when armed with empathy and courage, it’s restorative magic.
Unfortunately for Bree, the righteous indignation she carries is demonized to keep her in an acquiescent cage. The Order would see her erased from their world, expects her to put her anger and grief away to preserve their sense of righteousness. Then, members from her own community villainize her errant spirit…her pain to perhaps bury the shame of kneeling to this oppressive system. Patricia, in a show of self-righteous disapproval, informs Bree that she will not “endorse” her quest for justice. Not only does she sneer at Bree for affiliating with bloodcrafters and having powers that resemble their colonizer magic (powers she never even asked for to begin with), Patricia also diminishes her heartfelt intentions. But revenge and justice are not the same. One is certainly rooted in malice. The latter, however, stems from a desire to stop a rot that proves eternal. This MC instinctively rejects complacency because it is a corruption of sorts, of the spirit…most definitely. Nature chose Bree… the one with resistance filling her blood and bones to rise up and renew. It is her duty to fight those who would tame her pain or force her into hiding because no one deserves that kind of brutality; a life bereft of agency. It is every person’s right to be who they are without the constant fear of persecution driving them into a primed grave.
Bloodmarked (The Legendborn Cycle # 2)
“You are the living embodiment of our resistance.” (4)
“So, if you can’t stop all evil, there’s no point in stopping any evil, is that it?” (249)
“But you know nothing of a trapped life. A bound life.” (450)
The undercurrent of powerlessness that pervades the series bleeds from two sources. As weapons, Sel, Nick, and Bree aren’t just trained to abide by someone else’s will, they are also forced to inherit extensive emotional trauma that isn’t entirely theirs either. Both streams clear away all sense of control, and they’re condemned to feel like they don’t belong to themselves. The storm raging within Bree has been bolstered by the grief and fury of generations. Similarly, Sel is the product of endless Merlins who have succumbed to a sickness “beyond their control”. He bleeds their angst, their indignation, resents the promise of imposed ruthlessness. The fear they feed pushes them both closer and closer to resignation. In fact, it takes the resolve right out of them because where’s the sense in fighting when failure feels inevitable? Failure, however, is not the end; it’s a start.
But there’s the rot. The conception that a soul is doomed to wither and die, which eliminates the desire to defend it, hinders the urge to repair it, making the bearer more than willing to renounce it. That is what keeps the cycle of hate well-oiled and mobile. Merlins have been told they can delay their “inevitable” decline by forfeiting their agency and shackling themselves to another’s will. A potent oxymoron that makes them consenting players in their own undoing, but cuffs aren’t designed to offer control or protection…they’re cuffs. Sel’s mother was persecuted because she knew just that. They needed her, need Sel and other Merlins to believe they have no other choice but to helplessly endure The Order’s will, and the “fated” death of their humanity. But Sel’s mom undoubtedly fought this vicious ideology and chose her own destiny. Because, alas, the key to resisting moral decay is by rejecting the oppressor’s spoon, and learning not to fear what they fear but to take pride in one’s own identity.
Keeping the rot from entering the heart is a battle Bree and her ancestors have been fighting for centuries. Bree is supposed to believe a life of repression, running and hiding, is her destiny, too. She, like Selwyn, has resigned herself to the belief that her life will never be her own. Fatalism is part of their MO, which is built in by a bigoted ORDER, forever wreaking decay and destruction. But it’s Bree and Selwyn who have the power to make it stop, to fight and believe in something better. And yet, they don’t believe this to be true, which is why he forfeits his entire soul to the rot, whereas Bree sacrifices only a piece. They have both been manipulated into believing that relinquishing agency grants a semblance of it. But erasing who she is at her core, an identity they deem a threat, along with Selwyn succumbing to the self-loathing they planted, that’s a surrendering to evil; a voluntary imprisonment.
At the end of the novel, Bree’s parting words are “this world wants my suffering and I cannot keep giving it” (550). But that’s the choice we get to make, right? We can choose to stop the rot from stealing our hopes, our joy, our agency, and replacing each with resentment and spite. Sel speaks with wisdom when he vehemently assures Bree that the world would be doomed without her light, essentially inferring that she is essential to its growth. Nature does not make mistakes. She coronates the Brees of the world, full of flame, to burn away the corruption that hate and greed breed.
Oathbound (The Legendborn Cycle # 3)
“How many Lieges have witnessed the Order’s corruption and, like Gill and Samira, chosen the path of resistance… and how many have seen the evil up close and, like Jonas, chosen the side of the monsters?” (109)
“A soul like yours is something to kill and die for, Briana Matthews. Your soul is the engine behind a power that could change the world..And you gave it away like it was nothing.” (571)
“They all look to me, waiting, and for once, I don’t feel like their expectations, their hopes, are a burden. They’re… an honor.” (608)
Emotional growth is directly related to social change. The fight against oppressive power is won by defending the conscience like brave knights. When people nourish what’s inside, their whole environment changes in response. The moment they give that up…the soul… hate wins. There’s nothing righteous about renouncing one’s humanity. Whatever the reason. Selwyn failed to understand that, and with all the nods to the Star Wars franchise, it was a truth Anakin never learned either. But Ahsoka Tano, a student and teacher from the start, she knew. Resigning the heart to corruption, to the ravages of trauma, isn’t a romantic or heroic practice; it’s a senseless loss and a betrayal…to the individual and the forces counting on them to bring balance.
Even with a sliver of her soul severed and left behind…along with the battered remains covered in marks that may never heal entirely…magic could not erase Bree’s selfless heart or the fight burrowing deep within. She tried to forget her conscience, but couldn’t bring herself to forsake the missing rootcrafters, forsake Nick. Bree made her descent, gave herself over to it as eagerly as Selwyn did. Difference is, she pulled. herself. up, unwilling to give evil the satisfaction of seeing her quit. In the previous book, Bree had watched someone she’d grown to love relinquish their soul in her name. Selwyn’s misstep was believing she’d be honored by this needless and violent defeat when it’s precisely what prompted her own spiritual decline. He becomes fully afflicted with the Order’s moral decay, slaking their lust for his suffering and death. Then he made her watch as he became something unreachable, unrecognizable…a monster. He didn’t just rip out his own heart before her very eyes; he marred Bree’s and had the indecency to declare it was all for love. Knowing better the second time around, Bree chose differently.
At the crossroads, faced with an ultimatum presented by the devil himself, Bree chose not to follow Selwyn back into the shadows. Even if it’s where she accomplished the most arduous phase of her spiritual metamorphosis. Fact is, after everything that has transpired, never in a million years would Alice Chen fault Bree for such uncompromising bravery. Bree didn’t take the perilous road of martyrdom that often dips into apathy, understanding it wouldn’t be for virtue or love but something selfish and meek. Therein lies the paradox of removing our capacity to love for love’s approval. Alice Chen would be proud that Bree didn’t succumb to her own type of demonia and protected her rebel heart…a heart that was duty-bound and forged to heal a rotten world. After all, what an honor it is to possess the power of empathy.
Key Takeaways:
Greed and hate can’t take what we refuse to give; we don’t have to feed it. We can choose to keep our own fires burning, our hearts bright, resolve sharper still. Anyone who has seen Star Wars understands that as humans, we have the potential to be better. As strong as our capacity for evil is, our hearts prove to be stronger. During oppressive times, we don’t have to join the monsters, and if we happen to submit, allow ourselves to slip into the dark, we can choose to fight our way out of the shadows.
Honoring a code is not always the same as honoring your conscience. You can feel righteous in fulfilling a duty, but that doesn’t mean the actions themselves are justified.
When life whispers that it can’t get better, remember that the world heals when we do.
Rating 4 out of 5 : If you don’t walk away feeling angry, read it again. In today’s world, we are bombarded with one calamity after the other, which is purposed to snuff out the fight within…books like this put it back. I walked away with anger in my heart, but also with an understanding that if everyone picked up a book about an MC who looks different from them, the world might look very different, too.
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