Reckless

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2024

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Chapter 11

Chapters 12-24

Chapters 25-34

Chapter 35-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Themes

Power and Powerlessness

As the title of the Powerless series implies, power and powerlessness are overarching themes throughout the novel. The protagonists, Kai and Paedyn, each possess different kinds of power due to their social status and personal strengths. As a prince and skilled Elite, for example, Kai enjoys political power, supernatural abilities, and a reputation that often causes people to fear him. Paedyn, on the other hand, was born without Elite powers and has a low social status. However, her fighting and thieving skills, intelligence, and influence over Kai all imbue her with power. At the end of the first book, Paedyn flees Ilya, where she experiences oppression because she’s an Ordinary, forcing Kai to follow her to Dor.

Reckless introduces a new power dynamic once the protagonists reach Dor because that kingdom has no Elites. Since Kai’s ability relies on other Elites’ powers, he can’t access his supernatural skills in Dor. Kai and Paedyn therefore experience a reversal of power that challenges their self-identity. Paedyn comments, for instance: “Maybe that’s why I’m so desperate to start over here […] in Dor, where I’m Ordinary in a whole new sense of the word.” The word “Ordinary” takes on a more positive meaning when it’s not in opposition to the superior and very real implications of “Elite,” as it is in Ilya. In Dor, she feels like an equal because everyone is equal, and this gives her a sense of freedom and agency that she hasn’t felt before.

Conversely, Kai finds himself outnumbered by ordinary people, which leads him to shift his perception of the social order. Over time, prompted by Paedyn, he comes to realize that Elite abilities may not be as natural or superior as he was conditioned to believe: “‘So you do understand why Ilya must remain the way it is.’ ‘Yes,’ she says softly. ‘Greed’” (148).

He repeatedly notes Paedyn’s undeniable power despite her lack of supernatural abilities, for example, because she’s strong, resilient, and clever. When he first uses a chain to subjugate her, Kai attempts to exert power over her by force. However, she keeps resisting him, and they eventually realize that their love and trust in each other is more powerful than chains or social status. In the end, their new alliance foreshadows new stakes for the following book, suggesting that Kai and Paedyn may use their power to challenge Ilya’s oppressive political system.

Duty Versus Responsibility

While Kitt was only a secondary character in the previous book, Reckless explores his point of view explicitly through first-person narration. In the chapters he narrates, Kitt’s fragile emotional state and his moral struggles are evident. As a result, the grieving, newly crowned king of Ilya exemplifies the conflict between duty and responsibility. Kai represents a different aspect of this duality. Since he was introduced in Powerless, Kai has struggled with the morality of his duty as an Enforcer. In Reckless, he learns more about his role in the oppressive Ilyan political system and his responsibility toward his people. However, while Kai eventually chooses responsibility over duty, Kitt seemingly picks the other option.

Kai defines his duty as following orders regardless of his own moral quandaries. Although he resents being the king’s Enforcer, he initially accepts his role because he believes that it is politically and socially justified. However, Kai often engages in self-loathing and questions the need to murder innocent people. Over time, he reconciles his morality with his actions after learning about the king’s greed and propaganda. Paedyn tells him:

‘You think we aren’t weak now? We are so isolated that there isn’t enough food to feed those of us in the slums, let alone hold everyone, when there is no more land to expand into.’ Her voice is stern, but her eyes are pleading. ‘Without a single ally or kingdom that doesn’t hate us, are we not weaker than ever? And we will only continue to crumble unless something, or someone, changes’ (149).

Since he can’t justify doing his duty to preserve a lie, Kai rejects his duty as an Enforcer and instead resolves to bring justice to Ilya. As a prince of the kingdom, he feels a moral obligation to his people, a responsibility that contrasts with his meaningless obedience. He thus prioritizes responsibility over duty.

Like Kai, Kitt was conditioned to believe his father’s lies. Although he eventually rejects the king’s cruelty and authoritative rule, his moral stance remains somewhat ambiguous at the novel’s end. Kitt embraces Calum’s advice to be “brave, benevolent, and brutal” (179), which hints at his possible abuse of power. He plays into the motif of pretending when he decides to fake being emotionally stable and confident to save face. This suggests that he’s struggling to reconcile fulfilling his duty as a ruler with honoring his responsibility as a son and brother. At the end of the novel, Kitt’s dramatic request that Paedyn marry him foreshadows events and tensions that the third book in the series will address regarding Kitt’s enduring moral dilemma.

Truth Versus Propaganda

Whereas Powerless follows Paedyn as she learns the truth about the king’s authoritative rule, Reckless delves into Kai’s emotional journey. As he uncovers his father’s true motivations. Kai’s mindset gradually shifts from reluctant acceptance of the established social order to realizing that he has been conditioned to believe a lie. This especially challenges his role as an Enforcer, since Kai could only justify his actions when he believed they were necessary. Now forced to confront his moral dilemma, Kai’s emotional arc in the novel concludes when he partners with Paedyn and decides to investigate her father’s claims.

At the beginning of the story, Kai is certain of the righteousness of the Elite society that his father built in Ilya. Like most Ilyans, he was taught that the Plague that gifted some individuals with supernatural abilities also weakened others, the Ordinaries. To contain the intangible disease that threatens to spread to the Elite and dilute or even eradicate their powers, the king ordered that Elites hunt down and kill Ordinaries. Kai and Paedyn exchange their views about the history they each have been taught in Chapter 20, and Paedyn sarcastically explains:

Ilya has remained isolated ever since [the Elites were born from the Plague], in order to ensure we are the only kingdom with Elites. And then, after seventy years, your father decided to banish all the Ordinaries so he could have his Elite society (148).

Kai, who takes the so-called disease for granted, expects Paedyn to understand what he considers a necessary sacrifice to maintain Ilya’s power. When he asks her if she understands “why Ilya must remain the way it is” (148), however, her response sums up the answer in one word: “Greed.” This marks the first time that Kai receives an alternative version of history, one based on facts rather than ambiguous information. When he first arrives in Dor, for instance, Kai notes that the people of Dor are scared of his powers and reputation and takes it as confirmation that the Elites are superior.

However, the prince fails to consider that the people of Dor fear him because of Ilya’s oppressive rule and isolation. Later, Paedyn reads her father’s journals, which reveal that the king bribed Healers to invent a theory about an Elite-weakening disease. This was merely a ploy meant to consolidate the Elites’ rule and disguise the genocide of the Ordinaries as a measure of protection. In addition, the kingdom’s isolation helps ensure that people have no access to alternative information and therefore believe the king’s propaganda. At the end of the novel, though Kai is inclined to believe Paedyn’s father’s claims, he decides to investigate them to bring justice to Ilya. This illustrates his desire to assume his responsibility as a prince and leader, prioritizing it over duty, and foreshadows new stakes for the final book in the series.