Silverwing

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1997

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Themes

The Beneficial and Destructive Nature of Belief

The beneficial and destructive nature of belief is a prominent theme throughout the novel. Shade’s colony believes in a bat god named Nocturna; they think that she created all bats. Frieda believes that one day Nocturna’s Promise will allow them to live in the sunlight again. This faith in the Promise gives the bats who believe in it hope, and this hope gives them a reason to keep going, despite their oppression at the hands of the much-larger, violent owls.

At the abandoned house, the colony of banded bats’ beliefs are detrimental to their survival. They believe that the Promise involves the banded bats transforming into humans. Shade thinks this belief is uncanny and weird, especially because it causes the house bats to do strange things. Their chanting and the leader bat’s eerie trick seem to keep the house colony in a delusional daze, where they are helplessly vulnerable to Goth’s attack. Instead of giving them a realizable hope, their belief and obsession with their version of the Promise ultimately gets them killed.

Goth’s belief in Zotz fuels his egocentric and violent tendencies. He believes that Zotz made him a strong cannibal, and he thinks it’s a gift that allows him to absorb the strength of the creatures he eats. This causes him to look at other creatures as nothing more than meals or a means to his own ends. His belief leads to the destruction and downfall of everyone around him.

While Shade is on a journey of self-discovery in which he questions long-held beliefs (about the danger of sunlight, the fairness of the owls’ oppression, etc.), he never questions the existence of Nocturna. Oppel’s choice here deviates from traditional coming-of-age tropes and seems to suggest that Shade’s religion will come into play in a larger way through the rest of the series.

The Transformative Nature of Friendship and Belonging

Friendship is an important thematic catalyst that develops Shade’s inner character and resilience. In the beginning of the novel, Shade doesn’t have any friends. He feels like an outsider compared to the other younglings in his colony because he is a runt. Without friends, he makes unwise choices in an attempt to show off and make the other younglings think that he is strong and brave. The only person in his life that gives him guidance is his mother, but he often goes against her commands because of his curiosity. This happens when he stays outside to see the sun, despite that his mother explicitly told him not to. This disobedience put his life and the lives of every bat in the colony in danger.

Shade’s friendship with Marina has a transformative effect on him. She accepts him for who he is, not because of what she can gain from their friendship. He is weaker, smaller, and younger than her, but she likes his personality. This friendship allows Shade to see that he doesn’t have to pretend to be someone he’s not to earn someone’s friendship and respect.

By the end of the novel, Shade’s character growth in facing violence and trials alongside Marina results in him becoming brave and resourceful: He faces Goth and Throbb, establishes a rapport with Goth, and is able to escape the cannibalistic bats using Zephyr’s plant concoction. At the novel’s close, Shade’s intense desire to belong is replaced by a desire to help his colony and find his father. Rather than self-interested motivations, the good of his colony and the good of his family now motivates Shade.

Marina, too, develops because of her friendship with Shade. As a bat whose colony cast her out because of her band, she wants badly to belong to a colony again. When she meets Shade, she identifies herself by her band, believing the band makes her in some way special. After many adventures together, Marina turns down an opportunity to join a colony of banded bats because she prioritizes Shade’s friendship. She finds the belonging she needs with Shade, and she discards the idea that her band is what defines her.

Romulus, the rat/bat hybrid, also struggles to belong among his fellow rats. It’s only when he meets the bats who look so similar to him that he feels a sense of kinship. His desire to belong causes him to help Shade and Marina escape, saving their lives.

For both Shade and Marina, their desire to belong often leads them into trouble. It’s only after they decide that they are happy with who they are that their desire to belong blossoms into a healthy acceptance of themselves and who they are in relation to others.

The Importance of Perspective in Determining Values

Along Shade’s journey, he meets with many different perspectives that cause the characters to establish divergent sets of values. Oppel first emphasizes the thematic importance of perspective in the way he formats the book; he writes sections from the perspectives of both the protagonist and the antagonist, giving the reader insight into the different value sets that guide these characters.

Shade offers the perspective of a coming-of-age character. He is both firm in some of his childhood beliefs, such as the belief in the god Nocturna, and he’s questioning of other colony values. He does not believe that his eyes will burn up when he sees the sun, and he risks angering the owl overlords to do so. We see that he values the religion of his colony and bravery, but he doesn’t value the owls’ oppression nor the rules they have put into place.

Similarly, Goth values his own god, Zotz, and uses his belief to affirm his other values—killing and eating other animals. He believes that Zotz sends him the idea to enslave Shade’s colony in his dream, and he believes Zotz spares him from death: “Zotz must have been protecting him from that bolt of lightning” (204-05). In paralleling these two gods, Oppel suggests that perspective creates a moral grey area that can allow for what another perspective might see as reprehensible. Goth doesn’t consider the morality of eating other animals, he considers it his god-ordained right.

The different perspectives concerning the bands also develops this theme. Marina’s original colony saw the bands as a bad omen, while the colony in the abandoned house sees it as a transformative token that will make them human. Shade sees the bands as a way to stand out and as a divine connection to Nocturna and the Promise, while Marina herself sees them as special, despite becoming an outcast because of her own band. In this way, the characters’ opinion about the band is dependent on their values.

Goth’s relationship with the bands changes many times throughout the novel. First, he sees them in a negative light because of their connection to humans. Later, he sees them as trophies from his destruction, and finally, the bands attract the lighting, killing Throbb and causing Goth grave injuries. Goth doesn’t blame the bands after he’s struck by lightning. Instead, he focuses on the fact that Zotz spared him, proving that his perspective and values are unchanged.

The reader’s perspective of the bands also plays a role. Oppel uses dramatic irony—a literary device in which the reader is aware of facts that the characters are unaware of—frequently in the novel. The reader is aware that the humans are likely banding the bats to monitor them or to use them for some research purposes. This makes the bats’ beliefs about the bands somewhat comedic, since we know the answer behind the bands is ridiculously simple.