Critique: Children of Virtue and Vengeance 3/3 (Tomi Adeyemi)

*****SPOILERS*****

 

Speech

Amari, ‘one speech away from taking the throne’, delivers it to a packed auditorium.

            I have to give credit to Amari: it was crafted beautifully. She spoke of Binta because even though the audience didn’t know her name, they ‘know her story’. That was a truly powerful line.

            But then Nehanda, Amari’s mother, comes in and literally tears the place down. She simultaneously claims Amari’s using tricks to gain the throne whilst she’s killing innocents to keep it. The sun may have been rising on Orisha but Nehanda ‘set it’. This analogy was nicely done.

            So, you were one speech away from the throne, did you say?

 

Attack on the Iyika HQ

Iyika want Inan dead but Amari doesn’t. The nobles want to annihilate the Iyika but Inan does not. So the siblings negotiate in secret.

            This takes place within the Iyika HQ so that Amari isn’t gone long enough for others to notice. But Inan has to travel a lot further which risks him being gone long enough to notice.  Now, he’s the king, so if he’s gone he’ll be noticed a lot sooner. Especially when compared with Amari who is ignored by the Iyika.

Also, kings get shadowed. In this case, Inan’s followed by the army. How oblivious do you need to be to not notice an army is following you? We know from book one that you are a capable tracker! What happened? (And naïve Amari for thinking that the king wouldn’t be followed.)

Iyika lose one member but the army can’t count how many they’ve lost (and yet Amari thinks the Iyika are losing!) Inan thinks the army will be wiped out so the only option is to annihilate them. Um excuse me but your army just tried to wipe them out so perhaps now’s not the time to flip flop?

 

The (Almost) Referendum

We learn that there was almost a referendum to join the maji with the monarchy.

Nehanda thought the throne needed protecting from this. So she got Burners to kill the royal family, leaving only Sarran alive. (Earlier she said she would burn the crown if she could. Was this shadowing or pyromania?)

Considering Ojore is Inan’s paternal cousin, why isn’t Ojore considered a royal? His royal parents were burnt in that same fire, after all. Perhaps I’d understand if Ojore was a distant cousin, but if that was the case, why would his parents be in the palace and why wouldn’t the author mention he was a distant cousin? To use ‘cousin’ by itself is almost always a reference to first cousins.

We later learn Ojore walked in on the queen telling Inan this and thinks Inan celebrated in it. (Yet when you read Nehanda’s revelation to Inan, Inan is clearly disgusted.) Then Ojore says Inan isn’t a leader because all he’s done is rip the country apart. Um, you were the one convincing him to go further. Shock does to funny things to our brains, though.

 

Ibadan

Inan is hiding in Ibadan, Zelie’s birthplace, and the elders plan to sneak in.

            Amari thinks Inan, Nehanda and her father Sarran are monsters. And because Inan’s a monster, Sarran’s command, ‘Strike, Amari’, comes through. Um, if he’s a monster then perhaps don’t listen to him?

Amari concludes she must fight like her family to defeat her family. So she concocts a secret plan with Jahi, Winder Elder, and Imani, a Cancer, to gas Ibadan to death. Zelie manages to save some people; Inan left before this happened. So Amari had Ibadan’s population killed for nothing.

Jahi and Imani aren’t reprimanded, let alone punished, for agreeing to Amari’s plan. No one even mentions they were involved, let alone that it was by their hands that Ibadan was exterminated, not Amari’s. This confused me to no end.

Amari has been determined to be a better queen than her father but she wonders when Sarran became her guidance. You’ve been chanting ‘Strike, Amari’ throughout the novel, so it’s been always.

 

Finale

Inan decides to dissolve the monarchy because Amari’s actions clearly show it corrupts people. (Just a side note: power corrupts, not the crown. Entitlement can be as strong, if not stronger, in an elected leader.)

            This gave me pause for thought: there’s no way he could have known it was Amari because it wasn’t her magic. Unless the monarchy had a spy in the Iyika? But if that’s the case, why haven’t we seen them before? But then it hit me: Roen’s gang. We know they’ve been working for both sides and Roen clearly knew what was coming.

            I hope it was Roen’s gang and not Roen himself who passed the information onto the monarchy. Knowing Zelie, she’ll blame Roen either way.

 

The end is super-fast. Everything flitted before your eyes which built up a sense of anticipation to make the reader feel as lost as the characters do at the end.

Zelie, Tzain, Kamaru and Khani join their life forces and their combined magics are fascinating. They need to sacrifice a loved one: can’t let go of Tzain or Roen (finally admits it to herself!) so has to be Amari. Instead, Mama Agba becomes it.  

Amari turns her back to her mother and to my surprise Nehanda doesn’t strike her daughter.

Zelie slowly takes the life out of Inan but does she take all of it?

Roen comes to save Zelie from white gas but Zelie and Amari end up leaving Orisha on what I guess is a slave ship. Maybe this is why Nehanda didn’t kill Amari: a princess would fetch a high price and after a civil war Orisha could do with the money.

 

Conclusion

Zelie and Agba both say they’re children of the gods. The title of the first book was physical (bones and blood) and the second is abstract (vengeance and virtue) so a spiritual/magical title for the conclusion seems fitting.

The book started out lethargic: I wasn’t gripped until the end of chapter three. I had to push myself to continue reading. Beyond doubt, this was worth it (the book as a whole was another power hitter), but the start was still a disappointment.

Throughout the book, both sides have opposite opinions on who has the advantage. Every single time one of them changes their mind, so does the other side. If you’re to flip flop several times, at least stagger the changes (unless something decisive happens so it’s clear to both sides that one side has the advantage). It’s like Inan and Zelie’s opinion on magic in book one, but on steroids.

The three perspective characters are all tinged in grey. Not neutral but their thoughts, actions and intentions range from good to horrific. It’s definitely one of the most successful ways I’ve seen a writer balance their characters to reflect the imperfections of human nature.

Now I just have to be patient for book three. The wait will be too long but I have high hopes. From what I’ve seen so far, Adeyemi will produce another work of genius.