A Few Thoughts on Inan (Legacy of Orïsha)

(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.

Relationship Spotlight: Roën & Zélie (Legacy of Orïsha)

*Zélie/Roën-related spoilers.*

Quick note: Since this is from a book series with a film adaptation still forthcoming, there aren’t any official images of Roën. So have this fanart care of seaweedbrainfood on Tumblr.

I’ve never been an enormous shipper—when it comes to Peeta or Gale, I’m unapologetically Team Katniss—but over the last few years, I’ve found an increasing number of ships that really garner my loyalty. Excellent writing and/or acting have gotten me invested in everyone from Leslie & Ben (Parks and Rec) to Kaz & Inej (Six of Crows) to Stede & Blackbeard (Our Flag Means Death.) Zélie and Roën, though, might be the first time that I’ve had such a definite allegiance in a love triangle, and it’s the one that I’m almost positive won’t be end game.

Yes, Children of Blood and Bone sets up this love/hate thing with Zélie and Inan. It’s all very Reylo, as it starts with him tirelessly pursuing her to capture or kill her, there are psychic meet-ups involved, and these two can’t fully quit each other even as they’re frequently on different sides in the war between the nobles and the maji. There’s lots of angst, lots of confusion and self-loathing on Inan’s part, and lots of betrayal and heartache.

But late in the book, we’re introduced to Roën, a pirate/mercenary that Zélie and Amari hire to assist them in their mission. Roën is immediately revealed to be hard and cynical but charming, and he flirts with Zélie between reminding the girls that he doesn’t really care about their quest to bring magic back to Orïsha, he’s just there to get paid.

Naturally, in Children of Virtue and Vengeance, things get deeper than that. The ritual works, but not the way Zélie and Amari were expecting. The maji have their magic back now, but magic has also been awakened in a number of nobles, creating a new class called tîtáns. Things have gotten a lot more complicated, and Amari doesn’t have the resources to keep paying Roën. But surprise, surprise, for all his posturing, he doesn’t really want to leave.

I love the dynamic between these two, by turns exasperating, playful, and honest. When Zélie and Roën argue, it’s not about whether she has the right to exist as a maji, or the pros and cons of trying to find a compromise with the oppressive, genocidal aristocracy. Rather, it’s about tactics in the fight. It’s about Zélie throwing herself into danger without thinking it through. It’s about whether Roën actually believes in anything or if he’s just in it for the payday (shades of Han Solo, but Roën feels like his own character.) It’s about Zélie’s fears and self-doubts, worrying that she can’t be the elder her people need. It’s about the scars they’ve kept from each other.

These types of conflict lead to growth, for the characters as well as their relationship. Roën isn’t from Orïsha and doesn’t have skin in this war for his own sake, but he believes in Zélie and fights for her. Zélie, after initially shutting herself off from Roën and only seeing him as a ruthless opportunist, realizes there’s much more to the mercenary than she expected. They encourage each other in low moments and see each other’s damage without thinking that’s all that they are.

Best moment for me: throughout the books, Roën calls Zélie “zïtsōl,” a word in his native language that he refuses to seriously translate for her. Every time she asks, he gives her a different answer, usually one teasing her about different traits of hers. It’s not until the two are in dire straits, when Roën is on the brink of death, that Zélie learns the real meaning from his half-conscious mumbling. Zïtsōl, she realizes, means “home.” I mean, come on! How am I supposed to not adore this ship?

Children of Virtue and Vengeance (2019)

*Premise spoilers, which spoil the ending for Children of Blood and Bone.*

Unfortunately, the third book in the Legacy of Orïsha series isn’t out yet, and all I can find about it was that it was initially meant to come out in 2021. Given all the, well, everything that’s been going on, I can understand Tomi Adeyemi’s original plans being delayed. But now that I’ve read book two in the series, that means I’m in limbo until that unknown day the conclusion is released.

At the end of Children of Blood and Bone, Zélie is successful in her ritual to return magic to Orïsha, turning all the divîners into full-fledged maji with newly awakened powers. However, ritual had another effect that Zélie didn’t intend: some of the non-divîner elites have acquired powers as well, completely unprecedented. While Amari sides with the maji as she struggles to get a feel for her new titán Connector magic, some of their enemies in the oppressive regime now have titán abilities as well. Marshalling the newly reformed maji clans, Zélie and Amari clash over the best way forward, particularly when it comes to Amari’s brother Inan, who’s on the other side but remains conflicted.

Children of Virtue and Vengeance feels like a middle book in a lot of ways, for both good and ill. It ups the ante from the first book, introducing new characters and fleshing out established ones, deepening the mythology, and raising the stakes. I like seeing how some of the characters and their relationships change over the course of the story. But it also feels less focused than its predecessor, like it’s trying to pull the characters in too many directions at times. Some of the blows the characters suffer feel a little less earned, and there are critical moments where characters’ choices feel determined more by narrative shock value than what those characters would really do. Also, I’ve decided that, while I’m sympathetic to what Inan has been through in his life, I’m pretty over his story.

So it’s more of a mixed bag, but I still really like it. There’s a baked-in story reason why this new community of rebels is almost entirely made up of young people, which is more than a lot of YA stories about rebellion can say, and I love the personal, spiritual, and cultural nuances that go into exploring the maji clans. There are some neat character dynamics, beautiful imagery, and powerful writing.

Even if it pains me to see how far Zélie and Amari can be at odds with each other, both characters are at an interesting point in their journeys—Zélie, who previously itched to stand up for herself and face her oppressors, is coming to terms with just how much that role demands of her, and Amari is grappling with an entirely new existence for herself while still wrestling with the traumas of her past. I also really like getting more of Roën, a mercenary who plays a small part in Children of Blood and Bone but gets a larger role here. I like that he isn’t native to Orïsha, meaning that he has a choice whether or not he wants to stick around and take part in this war. It's not an ancestral conflict for him, so it becomes more of a question of what he’s fighting for. And yes, I eat up his and Zélie’s dynamic with a spoon.

I’m definitely interested to see where we’re going next, so I’ll be keeping my ear to the ground for news of book three!

Warnings

Strong violence, sensuality, language, drinking, and strong thematic elements.