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 25-27Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 25 Summary
At the palace, Mare and Maven find Walsh has been captured and that a crowd has gathered to watch her punishment. Before the royals can torture information out of her, Walsh takes a suicide pill and dies.
Later, Cal joins Mare on a balcony. Mare orchestrated it so he would find her, and she reprimands him for his attitude toward Walsh and Reds, even as she knows she can’t alienate him if the plan is to work. She asks why Cal helped her back before he knew she was different from other Reds. Cal responds, “You were different to me” (322). Mare shrugs this off until Cal compares her to his mother. As hard as she tries to hate him, they are more alike than they are different, and she leaves him feeling torn.
Early the next morning, she and Maven meet Farley. Farley gives Mare an earring from Kilorn, a match for the other three Mare wears. She pierces her ear and even in the dim light, sees the “crimson stain on my fingers” (326). Using his powers of fire, Maven collapses the bridge leading between the east and west sides of the capital. Patrols, including Cal’s, respond, and Mare confronts Cal, begging him to call off the war, dethrone his father, and save her before she is identified as the one who helped the rebels escape.
Instead of siding with her, Cal believes her actions have added to the bloodshed. He sends his soldiers after the Red rebels and arrests Mare and Maven. Mare throws names of her loved ones back at him—loved ones she’s lost to the war and to Silver cruelty. Cal says, “I wish things were different” before turning his back to her (330).
Chapter 26 Summary
Cal and the guards lead Mare and Maven in shackles to a soundproof room without cameras, where the king and queen wait. Elara dismisses all the guards except Arven, who keeps a hold on Mare and Maven’s powers. The truth of Mare’s and Maven’s involvement with the Scarlet Guard comes out. The king orders Mare and Maven be executed, but Elara uses her power to subdue him and Cal before nodding to Maven. He uses his power to burn off his shackles and joins his mother.
In a flash, Mare realizes Maven only got close to her on his mother’s orders, and the knowledge stings “like knives running along skin” (338). Using her powers, Elara forces Cal to kill his father, and then the room’s cameras turn on to broadcast Elara throwing herself over the king’s body while Maven yells how Cal murdered their father. Arven releases Mare’s power, and she drags Cal away. They make it to a banquet hall, where guards surround them, and they surrender.
Chapter 27 Summary
Mare and Cal are brought to the Bowl of Bones, a cell where public executions take place. They ponder how they will be killed and how Elara and Maven tricked them. Cal sits beside Mare as she sobs, and the warmth of his body brings the tiniest bit of comfort, the “last bit of warmth in a world turning to dust” (349).
Later, Maven comes to see them. He confirms that Elara masterminded the death of Cal’s mother, which leaves Cal feeling broken and sorry he didn’t listen to Julian. Mare tries to appeal to Maven but to no avail. He tells her everyone she loves and the other Reds like her will die slowly and leaves her hopeless.
The next morning, the execution battle takes place. Cal will be given an honorable death, but Mare’s powers will be suppressed so she dies as a traitor. Screens show a carefully crafted series of moments between Cal and Mare that had been recorded by cameras, ending with the king’s murder. High above, Maven, Elara, and other nobles watch as Maven sentences Mare and Cal to execution. Five opponents step from the opposite end of the ring, Evangeline among them.
Chapters 25-27 Analysis
Mare’s world falls apart in these chapters. Maven reveals his and Elara’s plan and how he lied to Mare from the very beginning. Mare realizes she believed Maven because she wanted to. Elara found all Mare’s insecurities when she probed Mare’s mind in Chapter 8, and she and Maven used those weaknesses to trick Mare.
Cal doesn’t choose Mare, something Maven likely knew, and that Mare doesn’t want to believe. Cal doesn’t see Mare’s actions as those of a freedom fighter standing up for her oppressed people; he sees the bloodshed left in her wake. Mare wants to believe her actions were good because they brought death to privileged people while promoting Reds. Cal, by contrast, sees all death as problematic, whether it is a Red or Silver’s.
Cal is permitted to battle with his powers to give the audience a show. Mare’s powers are suppressed because her blood will be drawn. The message will be that though Mare managed to trick the Reds for a time, she was found out, and trying to oppose the Silvers’ reign is futile. From the beginning, Mare has been a tool for Elara to manipulate, and even Mare’s death will be used to promote the truth Elara wants known.
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By Victoria Aveyard
