Throne of Glass

Celaena, Dorian, and Chaol have traumatic and/or antagonistic relationships with their parents, isolated from parental instruction on the precipice of adulthood (Chaol is 22, Dorian 19, and Celaena 18). The absence of positive familial influence makes it difficult for each character to navigate moral complexities. Celaena notes this similarity early in the novel, musing that “Both she and the prince had grown up under strict, unforgiving fathers” (71)—in her case, the assassin Arobynn Hamel, as her biological parents are dead. Meanwhile, Chaol’s father disapproves of Chaol abdicating his inheritance to be Captain of the Guard; Chaol feels more at home with Dorian at Rifthold than in his home city of Anielle. In Celaena’s case, her traumatic rupture from her ancestry via the murder of her parents presents a different kind of obstacle; unlike Chaol and Dorian, she does not face the challenge of rejecting her parents’ worldview. On the contrary, Celaena must overcome the pain of her past in order to reclaim her birthright, facilitated by the appearance of her distant ancestor Elena. 

Two prominent architectural structures, the clock tower and the glass castle, symbolize evil and empire. The clock tower, decorated with gargoyles and surrounded by Wyrdmark carvings, makes Celaena uncomfortable as soon as she arrives in Rifthold, foreshadowing its role in Celaena and Cain’s final duel. Celaena feels its menace instinctively: “The numbers were like war paint on the white face of the clock, the hands like swords as they slashed across the pearly surface” (53). Later series novels will reveal that the King of Adarlan built the clock tower to banish magic from Erilea, indicating his violent nature and evil motives.

The glass castle symbolizes the power and wealth of the Adarlan Empire and is closely tied to the character of the King of Adarlan. Built hubristically out of the most fragile material, the glass castle is a testament to the King’s certainty that Rifthold will never be destroyed. Celaena fears the castle when she first arrives, unconvinced that the glass can support her—just as she distrusts the people of Rifthold. At end of the novel, the glass castle’s symbolic power endures: wind may blow “against the glass spire, but it [can] do nothing to shatter the walls” (403), symbolizing the difficulty of resisting the King’s oppression.