Bloodmarked

The Regents are the authoritarian organization at the top of Legendborn society. They represent hegemonic social structures such as patriarchy and white supremacy. William, and the Lieges are Order-affiliated people who see the Regents’ oppression and misinformation for what it is and are loyal to Bree. People in Rootcrafting society, like Patricia and Mariah, are largely Black people who have been hunted by the Order. Their magic is informed by resilience, survival, and decolonialism. Finally, there are “rogue” aether users like Lucille and Valec. These three models of resistance ask questions about the most effective ways to operate outside of authority.

After the Regents frame Sel, William figures they will do anything to “control the war’s narrative” (97). The list of atrocities they commit grows: imprisoning Bree, Sel, and William, drugging and planning to experiment on Bree, killing Lord Davis, and plotting to kill Bree and Nick. As these actions grow more extreme, Bree finds parts of the Order who aren’t loyal to the Regents, like Gill, Samira, and their trusted Lieges. Samira says, “We are Legendborn. Our allegiance is to one another” (188). While they still ultimately buy into the Legendborn structure, they value a system like the original Round Table, which was round so no one person sat at the head of the table and power was distributed across the knighthood. This sense of democratization is somewhat contradictory, as even within this paradigm Arthur remains the undisputed authority. Samira indicates this herself when she says the Regents have constructed a “false kingdom,” and they “follow the Legendborn, ruled by a king” (199). Though these Lieges operate outside of the Regent’s authority, they do still want a single ruler.

The Order “used to hunt and imprison ‘rogue’ aether users for using magic they didn’t understand and didn’t control” (303). Valec points out to Bree that her “ancestors were considered property […] your body a means to an end” (339) by the people she’s trying to lead. Valec is pointing out injustices inherent to the Order, whether or not the Regents lead them. Valec, the Morgaines, and eventually Nick, don’t think the Order can be reformed. Black lesbian feminist Audre Lorde famously wrote, “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change” (Lorde, Audre. “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House.” Catalyst Project: Anti-Racism for Collective Liberation). This means that you cannot use the tools created by a system of power as a means of taking down that system, even if they seem to do so temporarily. Nick points this out when he says, “even if the Regents are disposed of, the Order’s logic will still stand” (462). The Order are descendants of enslavers and, as Valec tells Bree, they still uphold those traditions (339). Using the “tools” of the Order to dispose of the Regents will only bring about short-term change; it won’t genuinely change the system that keeps Scions, Squires, and Merlins bound, without consent, to power that robs their life force.

Genuine change must dismantle the “master’s house” entirely. This is what the Morgaines want to do when they fight Arthur in Bree’s body. Their leader Ava says, “while we came here to fight the Regents, you are the heart of the Order, Arthur. And for it to truly die, so must you” (525). The Morgaines want to dismantle the entire system, but they haven’t yet figured out how to do it without harming Bree. While the novel holds several models of people operating outside of authority, no one model takes pre-eminence. This foreshadows a probable conflict of how to permanently dispose of the Order in the final book of the trilogy.

While Erebus is clearly an antagonist, it is difficult to categorize him as a “monster” just because he is a demon. After all, so are Sel and Valec. However, Sel and Valec use their power differently than Erebus uses his. The Regents ultimately have less power than any demon, but they use what they have for authoritarian, oppressive reasons. Ultimately, what makes someone a monster has nothing to do with their nature, but with the way they wield their power when they have it.

Erebus tells Bree that all Merlins are “marking the days until we become your villain” (122). In Erebus’s case this is foreshadowing of the fact that he is the Shadow King. However, for the other Merlins, this denotes their fear of succumbing to the blood, which progresses as they age. Merlins are taught to hate the “monster” inside of themselves and to fear their demonia overtaking their humanity.

It is vital not to make people into monsters just because of their natures or who they inherently are. This type of dehumanizing categorization was used for centuries in the US to justify actions like the enslavement of Black people. Initially, Sel differentiates himself from Valec based on the proportion of demon in their blood. He thinks you can measure someone’s humanity and monstrousness based on “the actual, active evil in someone’s blood” (425). Bree points out the similarity between his logic and “white supremacist bullshit” (424) by asking, “Is this a one-drop rule thing?” (424). Alice adds, “So, what percent actual, active evil are you, then?” (424). The girls are using sarcasm to draw attention to the absurdity of Sel’s claim. He is only echoing what he has been taught to fear and hate about his own nature as a Merlin, but they point out the flaws in that logic.

William uses his medical authority to say, “evil deeds are not written in hemoglobin” (425). As the existences of Natasia and Valec prove, there is nothing inherent to being part-demon that makes someone a monster. Though Natasia is never physically present, Bree knows that she protected her mother, Faye, while Faye was alive. Valec took on his role as a broker of human-deals because he wants “to see to it that humans aren’t taken advantage of” (416). Valec is Operating Outside of Authority for Moral Good. He doesn’t follow the rules of the Order or of Rootcrafters, though he has strong ties to the latter. His demon lineage has no bearing on his humanity: His actions demonstrate his fairness.

After her first bloodwalk, Arthur tells Bree, “We both fight monsters, be they demons or humans” (138). Humans are just as likely to act in a monstrous fashion as demons are. Bree tells Arthur, “One of your ‘kin’ was a monster” (137). She refers to Samuel Davis, who raped and hunted down Vera, forcing her into the Bloodcraft oath. His was an act of abuse, dehumanization, and racial and sexual violence that began a cycle of generational trauma that stretched hundreds of years. Though he is a human, Samuel’s actions are far more monstrous than Sel or Valec’s.

After Bree and Alice are racially profiled by the white men in the gas station, Alice asks, “These are the people the Legendborn are supposed to save from demons? The humans you’re sacrificing yourself for?” (299). Bree responds, “Can’t fight every demon” (299). This exchange further complicates what it means to be a monster. The Legendborn used to categorize demons as monsters and humans as good. However, morality is much more complicated than that. Not every demon is a monster and not every human is good. The novel complicates what it means to be “good” or “bad,” and what those categorizations say about the social systems that determine them.