“Your brother? How could I fight for him? If I had, the Witch would have killed us all and then where would we be? Sacrifice one or sacrifice all. That is the way of the world. We couldn’t change it if we tried. Enough questions. Off with you. Fool child.”
At the beginning of the novel, the parent reveals that one of their sons has been sacrificed to the witch. However, the parent does not appear to be sad about this; instead, they have accepted their fate and consider sacrificing their child their duty that they must perform for the benefit of the protectorate. Little do they know that this practice is merely a way for the governing class to secure their rule.
“Let’s go see the world, shall we?”
When the witch Xan picks up the sacrificed child, she plans to bring it to the Free Cities, as she does every year. However, this time she deviates from her path and feels the need to keep this child as her granddaughter. Therefore, right from the beginning, it becomes clear that this baby is special.
"Glerk."
At first, the monster Glerk, who lives with the witch, does not like the idea of having a baby in the household. In fact, he even tries to resist loving Luna. However, the baby is able to melt his heart and change his mind with this one word--his name--which the narrator indicates may not even have been spoken but rather cooed or gurgled.
“We deserve that honor. I mean you deserve it, my dear son.”
The narrator says that Antain would never have become an apprentice of the Elders, were it not for his aggressive mother. Indeed, this quote shows that the mother only wants Antain to become an Elder to improve her own status, and does not care about her son’s own ambitions, which are clearly different from hers.
“In any case, by denying access, we give our people a gift. They learn to accept their lot in life. They learn that any action is inconsequential. Their days remain, as they should be, cloudy. There is no greater gift than that. Now. Where is my Zirin tea?”
The Grand Elder reveals to Antain one of the strategies the ruling class employs to stay in power: Denying their subjects the right to follow their own dreams. Instead, as they are also preoccupied with poverty, they do not try to question the status quo and potentially threaten the ruling class. Staying true to the strategy of using positive language to describe something negative, the Elder calls this a “gift,” when it is actually oppression.
By ending his statement with him asking for tea, he subtly reminds Antain that he is merely an apprentice and stops him from questioning the way he runs the Protectorate. Moreover, he shows that he cares more for his own wellbeing than for his people.
A story can tell the truth, she knew, but a story can also tell a lie. Stories can bend and twist and obfuscate. Controlling stories is power indeed.
Ethyne thinks this to herself before she decides to leave the Sisters of the Star because she realizes that the stories told in the Protectorate about the Witch bring great benefits to the Head Sister and to the Council. She's suspicious about the origin of the stories, and this is doubly significant because it is Ethyne's understanding about the stories her mother told her that allows her to see through the veil of Sorrow in the Protectorate and to the truth.
How many feelings can one heart hold? She looked at her grandmother. At her mother. At the man protecting his family. Infinite, Luna thought. The way the universe is infinite. It is light and dark and endless motion; it is space and time, and space within space, and time within time. And she knew: there is no limit to what the heart can carry.
This is Luna's realization at the moment she defeats Head Sister Ignatia: that the power of the heart will always prevail. This nod to human complexity is the major argument of the book.
