(Images of characters that only appear in books can be hard to come by. This one is from Inan's page on the Children of Blood and Bone wiki.)
*Inan-related spoilers.*
Once several major points were established about Inan in Children of Blood and Bone, I had a pretty good idea of where his story was heading. And sure, we’ve seen twists and feints from him during the first two books of the trilogy, and the endgame waters have gotten more uncertain, but I still have very specific ideas about his trajectory. The issue is, it’s not one I’m really interested in seeing.
Inan. The prince of Orïsha. Raised by King Saran to loathe divîners, viewing them as a plague on Orïsha and signing off on their oppression. Taught to be ruthless in the name of putting the so-called good of Orïsha above all that, even if that means slicing his sister open during a training exercise. When word gets out that someone has fled the palace carrying a critical maji artifact that could restore magic to the social underclass, Inan leads the soldiers sent to apprehend the thief with extreme prejudice. That’s when things start to get complicated.
1) The thief is his sister Amari.
2) Coming into contact with the stolen scroll awakens Inan’s heretofore unknown titán powers, turning him into the very thing he reviles and filling him with terror at the thought of his father discovering his magic.
3) He can’t get Zélie’s silver eyes or the scent of her “sea-salt soul” out of his head.
It’s that last point that I want to focus on. There’s some good story to be mined from Inan’s inner wrestling over the thought of having to hurt his sister a second time, and the series does a fine job exploring what happens when his fear and hatred of magic is turned in on himself. As he’s pulled between duty, conscience, and making his father proud, as he’s suddenly forced to reckon in a very real way with the humanity of divîners/maji, he goes on an intense character journey. Zélie is a key part of that, first taunting and poking at his fears when she learns his secret, and later helping him understand how to control his new powers.
But do they have to fall in love?
I’m far from the first person to take issue with ships like this, but it bears repeating. “Bad boy/heroine” ship are one thing, as are “from two different worlds” ships and “enemies to lovers” ships. “Oppressor/oppressed” ships are a different ballgame. It’s uncomfortable to read about Inan’s early fixation on Zélie, the way he keeps forcefully reminding himself how much he hates her and her kind as he finds himself continually drawn towards her. (This, by the way, is after his soldiers have burned her village to the ground. Inan didn’t give the order, but still.) And it’s even more uncomfortable to see Zélie’s feelings change from fear to pity to wary understanding to tentative attraction.
Like, his dad’s soldiers viciously executed her mother in front of her when she was a child. The royal family keeps her living in fear, forces her family to pay an ever-increasing tax for her mere existence, employs soldiers who threaten her with rape. The whole country is scarred by Saran’s poisonous thoughts toward maji, and that poison has been poured into Inan’s ear for as long as he can remember. I get that he’s a victim of Saran too, and good on Zélie for recognizing that he needs help, but a ship between them is unsettling.
I swear, I don’t just say this because I prefer Roën to Inan. I do, vastly so, and it’s mindboggling to me that Roën seems to be set up as just the midgame love interest. But understanding the bile that Inan has been raised in and wanting to help him break those patterns, seeing that he’s terrified of his own magic and wanting to help him understand it, isn’t the same as falling in love with him. Why? There’s no need for any of this.
Fingers crossed so, so hard that book three (coming out this fall!) takes the curve I want and allows Inan to reckon with the decisions he’s made and grow as a person without being “rewarded” with Zélie’s love.
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