56 pages • 1 hour read
Victoria AveyardGlass Sword
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2016A 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
The Different People We Become
Through both aging and life experience, people change as they grow and learn. The characters of the Red Queen series have changed greatly since the beginning of the first book, and they continue to evolve throughout Glass Sword. Through the arcs of Mare, Cal, and Kilorn, Glass Sword examines who people are at any given moment and how they change over time.
Mare’s behavior and outlook on life have shifted many times since the beginning of the series. In Red Queen, the emergence of her powers brought her into the Silver world as the long-lost Lady Mareena, and forced her to learn that Silvers weren’t simply evil and power-hungry. At the end of the book, Maven’s betrayal shatters Mare’s trust, setting her up for who she is at the beginning of Glass Sword. After feeling deeply for Maven and wanting to believe change for Reds was possible with his help, Mare is now reluctant to trust anyone or anything except her own strength and power. She pushes everyone but Cal away, and she only offers Cal more trust because he was also betrayed. As the book progresses, Mare realizes that her distrust of everyone is doing her a disservice. She begins to rely on others to help with newblood recruitment and rescuing those imprisoned by Maven. Shade’s death turns her cold and reckless, so she lunges headlong into rescuing the child soldiers without wondering if it could be a trap. Giving up her freedom to save her friends is selfless, but it’s also the ultimate moment of trust. She trusts them to continue the rebellion without her, showing her dedication to them and the cause.
Cal undergoes a similar transformation. Having been betrayed by the brother he loved, Cal begins Glass Sword motivated by only revenge. He wants to hate Maven for what he did but can’t fully do so because a lifetime of deception made him protective of his brother. In Red Queen, Cal trudged toward kingship, preferring to tinker and invent. In Glass Sword, Mare feels like different parts of herself have died and notices something similar in Cal. The prince who wanted to invent and explore is gone, and Mare feels that “I killed him, just as I killed Mareena” (48). While Mare is right that part of Cal is gone, just as her former selves are no more, she is wrong about being the cause. Cal’s experiences and feelings lead to his change, not Mare’s actions or treatment, and Cal’s character arc shows how people are responsible for who they are.
While Cal and Mare have shifted through the different worlds of Silver and Red, Kilorn has lived his entire life like a Red, showing that people can change even while their world remains somewhat constant. After Mare entered the Silver world in Red Queen, Kilorn joined the Scarlet Guard, choosing to become someone who fought for what he thought was right. While he intentionally put himself into more high-risk situations by doing so, his Red existence was already fraught with danger, meaning his life didn’t drastically change. In Glass Sword, Kilorn is uprooted from his hometown, and he truly begins to change, fully immersed in the Guard and, later, the newblood training camp. Kilorn was once Mare’s constant, showing that constants can change. Mare tries to keep him the same to help herself feel better, but Kilorn’s growth shows that no one can hold a person back when circumstances force change.
Mare, Cal, and Kilorn all change in different ways, and the people they become only partly resemble who they used to be. Their arcs show that change is inevitable and that when people change, it affects those around them, especially those they’re closest to. Like Red Queen, Glass Sword ends at a moment of significant change, which sets the characters up for more changes in the sequel.
The Line Between an Enemy and an Ally
Enemies and allies may shift depending on the situation. The characters and situations of Glass Sword show how these lines may move and highlight the narrow border between an enemy and an ally. The novel shows how enemies and allies may switch places through Mare’s views of Cal and Maven and her relationship with the Scarlet Guard.
In Chapter 5, after the Colonel takes Cal prisoner, Mare visits her family for the first time since she snuck out of the palace at the beginning of Red Queen. After all she’s been through in the Silver world, she no longer feels like the person she once was, and while her family used to feel like her allies, they no longer seem to be on her side. By contrast, she feels that Cal and Maven know her well now, even though both are more like her enemies, noting, “Strange, my enemies know me best, and my family doesn’t know me at all” (60). This observation prompts Mare to start noticing how her relationship with Cal has shifted. In the Silver palace, he was one of many enemies forcing her to live in a way she hated. As time passed, he became a tentative friend, and by the end of the book, they were allies in a fight for their lives. They begin Glass Sword as a type of team—the only two in a Red world who understand the complexity of the Silver landscape in the wake of Maven’s power grab. As a result, Mare feels closer to Cal, even though he is a Silver and, technically, the enemy of Reds. Her relationship with Cal shows how conflict dehumanizes people. For Reds, Silvers should be the enemy, but for Mare (a Red), Cal (a Silver) is her best ally.
Mare’s relationship with Maven is similarly complicated. Though she only sees Maven a few times throughout Glass Sword, Mare indirectly converses with him through her reaction to the notes he leaves her at the sights of dead newbloods. His betrayal, combined with his ruthless hunting of newbloods, should firmly make Maven her enemy, but Mare cannot let go of the boy she thought Maven was for most of Red Queen. Though threatening, his notes show that Maven still thinks about Mare, if in an unhealthy way, and rather than see the notes for what they are, Mare clings to the hope that they mean Maven isn’t all bad. Maven clearly works against Mare and the rebels throughout the book, so Mare has no reason to consider him an ally. Her draw toward Maven’s understanding of her shows how emotions influence who people choose as allies. Without her past with Maven, Mare would not hold out any hope.
Mare also struggles with her relationship to the Scarlet Guard. In Red Queen, Mare treated the Guard as a tool—something she used to get the outcomes she wanted. At the end of Red Queen, Mare is forced into the Guard’s ranks when they save her from the arena, but she still doesn’t consider them allies. She wants to believe she and the Guard fight for the same things, but when the Colonel takes Cal captive, Mare realizes Cal is too important to give herself over to the Guard fully. As a result, Reds that should be her allies become her enemies as she escapes the island and goes against everything the Colonel stands for. Like Cal, the Scarlet Guard shows how enemies and allies aren’t always obvious and that a person shouldn’t ally with someone simply based on similarities. Mare and the Scarlet Guard want equality and freedom for Reds, but the ways they go about it are too different for Mare to ally herself with them until the end of Glass Sword.
Enemies and allies seem like simple concepts at first glance, but when studied, they reveal their complexities and the many factors determining whether someone is a friend or a foe. Mare’s many relationships show how enemies can be viewed as allies, even to one’s detriment, and how allies are not always those who share the same beliefs.
Differences Are Not “Wrong”
Throughout Glass Sword, the characters grapple with the different abilities and blood types (silver, red, newblood). Concerning differences, the word “wrong” is frequently used, something that is dissuaded. Through the newbloods themselves and the actions of Silvers, Glass Sword explores how differences don’t make something wrong and often can be viewed as strengths.
In Chapter 10, Mare tells Shade the rest of their family is “normal,” to which Shade says she shouldn’t think newbloods aren’t normal because “we’re different, yes, but not wrong” (136). Mare feels something is “wrong” with her because she has internalized that only Silvers have powers and that using their powers to oppress Reds is wrong. Thus, anything that’s Silver-like is wrong, including newblood abilities. In truth, Mare’s thinking is shaped by the world she lives in. Her powers are not right or wrong—they simply are—and they may be made right or wrong at any given moment by how she chooses to use them. The same goes for all newbloods, even Cameron’s ability to silence. By the end of the book, Mare has not come to terms with her newblood powers being a natural progression of life and the evolution of a species. However, she has learned to capitalize on the powers, transforming them into strengths in the rebellion. Part of her may feel like she deserves to be imprisoned because she has powers when she’s not supposed to, which may contribute to her choice to give herself to Maven.
Shade’s perspective in Chapter 10 also speaks to how change comes about and is introduced to a society. It’s possible that when Silvers first evolved from Reds long before the events of the series that Silvers were thought of as “wrong” by Reds because they were different. Further, it may be that this attitude of “wrongness” partly influenced Silvers to use their powers against Reds. Aveyard never details exactly how Silvers rose to power, and within the confines of the story world, Silvers would likely twist the history to show themselves in a favorable light. Regardless, the possible scenario described here illustrates the problem of attributing wrongness to differences.
During the Red Queen series, Mare is forced to confront Silvers as real people rather than the monsters she wants to believe they are. Through her interactions with Cal and Maven in Red Queen, she learns that Silvers are not so different from Reds; they have feelings, hopes, and fears just like anyone else. These lessons are carried forward into the beginning of Glass Sword, but as Mare spends more time with the newbloods, she forgets that Silvers are people. She recalls specific people who were kind to her in the palace, but when she comes across Silvers who haven’t spoken against Maven, she considers them wrong, no questions asked, and doesn’t hesitate to kill them, such as with the prison guards in Chapter 26. She sees only the wrongness of what they are doing and doesn’t consider that they or their families may have been threatened if they didn’t comply. Mare’s actions show another danger of not accepting differences. She wants to take out her anger on someone, and since Maven isn’t available, she lashes out at the closest Silvers because they are “the same” as Maven and thus “different” from her and “wrong.”
Another element of this theme is illuminated by the diversity of powers found in the newbloods. As Mare recruits newblood and tries to form a cohesive rebellion, she encounters people with different powers. Because she is predisposed to the newbloods since they are Reds like her, she does not struggle with viewing their powers as “wrong.” Instead, she ensures that they learn to understand their powers and gain proficiency in using them. This scenario demonstrates that, as the narrative progress, the differences are less about the powers themselves and more about who has the power: Silvers, Reds, or newbloods.
Differences are not wrong by nature; they are only made “wrong” by how people view them. The characters and social classes of Glass Sword show how differences may lead to violence, but this doesn’t have to be the case. Differences can offer new perspectives and learning opportunities when they are accepted for what they are and not demonized.
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By Victoria Aveyard
