Legendborn

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2020

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Part 1, Chapter 9

Part 2, Chapters 10-25

Part 3, Chapters 26-40

Part 4, Chapters 41-58

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Symbols & Motifs

Walls

One aspect of Bree processing the grief of her mother’s death is conveyed through the image of a wall. Bree says her “wall works two ways: it hides the things I need to hide and helps me show the things I need to show [...] stronger than wood, iron, steel. It has to be” (12). Here, the wall begins as a containment of emotions and a projection of expected interactions. When Bree and Alice fight, Bree says, “The wall inside me grows. I let it stretch so tall and wide that I can’t see its top or edges” (40). The wall becomes a way to contain secrets about magic in an attempt to protect Alice as well as an emotional barrier. Bree avoids her dad because “his words puncture every single layer of my wall until it may as well not exist” (43).

However, the wall plays a role in containing magic energy of which Bree did not know the source. While alone in the shower, mage flame covers Bree and she builds her wall to stop the burning energy: “Find my barrier [...] A wall made of brick. Made of steel. With bolts the size of my fist. A blockade a mile high [...] Unbreakable metals, uncrackable surfaces, unscalable heights” (153). This links Bree’s magic to her emotions; without knowledge of her powers and past, the two are contained in the same way.

When Bree is ready to commune with her ancestors and seek answers through Mariah the Medium, she has to deconstruct her wall. When reaching past her grandmother in the graveyard ritual, Bree finds herself:

blocked by a wall. I’ve known that this image, this internal construct of my own making, was part of my survival toolbox. I just hadn’t found any reason to take it down. But now I do. Now I have to. I imagine my wall crumbling to pieces, one brick at a time. I pull down the chains, the metal, the steel. I peel it all away until I can see beyond it to find that hard, tight knot of pain in my chest (395).

The destruction of her wall is how Bree learns she is a Medium. This skill allows her to eventually contact her ancestor Vera to learn that she is the heir of Arthur. The wall helped her navigate times of transition and uncertainty, but its absence helps her heal and reconnect.

Hair

Bree’s natural Black curly hair reflects her personality and family history. When her identity splits in grief over her mom’s death, the two identities are characterized by different hairstyles. Bree’s “dark, tight curls are usually pulled up on top of [her] head” but the curls of her angry alter-ego “After-Bree’s stretch wide and loose like a live oak tree” (13). Once her identities are no longer split, Bree’s updo is about practicality. Before the final fight, Bree “draw[s] [her] hair in a tight, high puff. Battle ready” (431). Furthermore, during this fight, Bree is possessed by her grandmother who “did hair in a salon in Texas” (382).

The choice to wear her hair in its natural curls rather than use relaxers or straighten it with a flat iron is often met with racist comments and actions. Evan, who is probably possessed by the demon Rhaz at the time, says Bree’s hair is “totally badass” but Bree notes that his tone says, “he’s happened upon a fun oddity—and that fun oddity is Black me with my Black hair” (14). While at a bar, talking about updos for the Selection Gala, Bree feels “two someones tug gently at [her] hair” (248). When Bree tells Felicity and Greer that she’s “not a petting zoo” (248), they apologize for touching her hair without consent.

Naturally curly Black hair requires maintenance unlike the hair routines of people with straight hair. One aspect of this is spreading out wash days because the process is incredibly time-consuming. After demons attacked Bree and other Order members during the Pages’ initiation ceremony, she is emotionally shaken but has to complete her complex wash routine: “I hadn’t planned on even getting my hair wet for at least another week or so, but I can’t avoid washing my curls tonight. Not when they smell like sick and swamp” (151). Also, while Nick is thoughtful in all aspects of the sleepover with Bree, he doesn’t have a clue as to what her hair routine needs. For instance, she’d “hate to sleep without [her] satin pillowcase” (210) which helps preserve curls between wash days.

Going through the long wash-day process is also an act of healing for Bree. Before the Selection Gala, she describes her process:

I take the rest of the day to wash my hair—and it’s the most therapeutic, loving thing I could have done for myself. Condition, detangle, deep condition with a heat wrap, paint my nails and watch a movie while I wait, rinse. I emerge from the shower with my hair wrapped in a microfiber towel [...] Tangles gone. Scalp clean. Curls moisturized and bouncy. Head and soul lighter. More me than I’ve been in months (399).

Emotional care is part of the physical act; the mind and body are linked.

The Scent of Magic

Bree’s ability to feel magical energy—called aether or root—is unique and sensory. Scent plays a role in identifying whose energy is being used. Sel’s cambion (half-demon) aether is:

[a] clove and smoke scent [...] Selwyn’s signature is so rich here I can taste it: the whiskey Alice and I stole from my dad’s liquor cabinet last summer. Cinnamon cloves. A campfire banked low in the woods and smoke carried on winter wind (76).

Bree’s awareness of magic is seated in the olfactory and gustatory; is it embodied and memorable.

Signature magical scents include William’s healing magic and Bree’s mom’s binding a memory to an object. After her first treatment in the infirmary, William takes off Bree’s bandages, and as “the material falls away in his hands, it releases the bright, tangy smell of citrus trees and damp soil” (61). This is closer to Bree’s mom’s scent than Sel’s. When Bree opens the velvet jewelry box containing the bracelet her mom infused with magical energy, her “nose fills with the scents of verbena and lemon, bright and sharp and warm” (387). Other characters—including Bree—and locations have notable smells, but the olfactory motif of smell helps define the magic of Deonn’s novel.