74 pages • 2 hours read
Victoria AveyardRed Queen
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2015A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 17-19Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 17 Summary
Mare refuses the challenge, but Evangeline attacks, forcing the fight. Evangeline forms a team of metal spiders, and Mare pulls electricity from everywhere, making the lights flicker. She cannot let Evangeline draw blood and reveal Mare truly is a red and goes on a strong offensive. For a moment, she has Evangeline on the run and feels for the first time “what it’s like to be one of them” (205).
Evangeline knocks Mare to the floor, and the spiders converge, scratching Mare’s skin and opening a wound. Maven and Cal intervene, ending the fight, and Maven takes Mare to Julian while Cal rages at Evangeline. Maven and Julian hate each other, but neither will explain why. Mare’s injuries are tended to by a silent healer, and Maven leads her from Julian’s rooms. In the hall, they encounter Queen Elara, who warns Mare to be more careful about her blood. Mare snaps, and the queen almost kills her. Maven pulls Elara off Mare, and Mare runs, leaving Maven and Elara in a silent battle.
At lunch, Mare finds a regimen of soldiers who are preparing to ship out. These soldiers will go into battle alongside reds so they can surprise the enemy with their powers, and Cal will lead them, which leaves Mare feeling deathly afraid for him. That night, Cal comes to Mare’s room and offers to help her learn to dance for the ball. Mare knows she shouldn’t but fears she may never see him again once he goes to war. Silently, she agrees and shakily puts “my hand in his and let him pull me out of my room” (216).
Chapter 18 Summary
Cal sets out a speaker that plays upbeat music. It’s different from the tunes Mare’s heard in protocol lessons or back home, and she finds herself easily moving to the beat. The music fades, and a slower song plays. Cal leads Mare in a dance, commenting that Maven fixed her wound nicely. Mare explains it was Julian and his healer friend, which makes Cal tense. He dislikes Julian and the healer for reasons he won’t say. He tells Mare to be ready to practice the same time the next night and leaves her “alone in a room full of echoes” (220).
Mare returns to her bedroom, where she finds Maven waiting for her. Farley made contact, and Maven gave up four names of Silvers whose deaths would cripple the war effort and leadership. The impending death makes Mare feel sick. The single spot of hope is that the deaths will likely result in the king keeping Cal away from the front lines, which relieves Mare for reasons she doesn’t quite understand.
The night before the ball, Cal comes to Mare’s room for more dance lessons. Cal admits he doesn’t want to rule and would rather be an inventor or soldier. Mare expresses her concern at him going to the front lines. Cal shrugs it off but says he’ll miss her. Mare backs away, but when Cal pulls her close and kisses her, she doesn’t stop him. She wants to feel cared about and not think about how she and Cal are on different sides of a war.
Chapter 19 Summary
The following night at the ball, Mare watches the interplay between Maven and his parents. Though Elara is wicked, it’s clear she loves Maven and that Maven loves her back. The king lectures Maven about finding his calling and being more like Cal, which reminds Mare of how her parents would constantly compare her to Gisa.
Mare stands in line with the royal family, greeting guests. As she shakes hands with the four targets Maven gave Farley, she feels increasingly uneasy about what will happen, until Maven escorts her from the room before she gives them away. He says he is no more comfortable with their deaths than she is but knows it will be the catalyst for change. Mare agrees, even as her “heart twists and bleeds” (237).
Mare dances with Maven until it’s time to signal the members of the Scarlet Guard hiding high above the party. She drinks a glass of golden liquid—the signal—and a minute later, four gunshots ring out, followed by screams.
Chapters 17-19 Analysis
Maven and Elara are the antagonists of Red Queen. Despite this, they have moments that appear genuine and caring. In Chapter 19, Mare sees how much Elara loves Maven in the way she attends to his hair and clothes. Maven and Elara are both accomplished liars, so it’s possible that these feelings are part of a larger performance meant to deceive Mare. However, Elara and Maven are working together to dethrone the king and Cal, and it’s unlikely, based on Elara’s personality, that she would fake caring about anyone. It may be that some of the moments that helped Mare believe Maven’s story weren’t orchestrated as part of the plot to trick her. Maven pulls Elara off Mare in Chapter 17. It may be that part of Maven truly cares for Mare and doesn’t want to see her harmed, but it’s equally likely that Elara just snapped, and Maven stopped her because killing Mare would ruin their plan.
Up until this point, Mare has denied feelings for Cal because he doesn’t seem willing to help the Reds as much as she wants him to. In these chapters, Mare sees Cal’s bravery for the first time. His willingness to go into battle disguised as a Red and place himself in as much danger as the Reds shows he does believe in the inherent equality between Red and Silver life, something Mare doesn’t yet consciously understand. Their dances and kiss force Mare to confront her feelings for him. The kiss scares her because she believes they are on opposite sides of the war, which turns out not to be true. Cal’s stance is on the side of the Reds, though he doesn’t know it yet, and at the end of the book, he is literally among the Scarlet Guard and firmly against Maven, Elara, and the Silvers.
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