A Deadly Education

Orion is El’s first friend, potential romantic interest, and the novel’s version of the hero archetype. His primary characteristics are bravery and recklessness, though he is also described as being socially awkward, generous, and oblivious. Orion’s bravery is evident in his pattern of rescuing other students from deadly mals, and his recklessness is demonstrated in his habit of charging into these situations with no plan or strategy in mind. As the reader learns more about Orion’s affinity—his ability to pull mana from mals as well as the fact that he is somehow naturally repellant to the creatures—these characteristics become less defining of Orion as a person. Orion has rescued 600 students from mals during his three years at school, and he believes it is the right thing to do, but these are activities that come easily and naturally to him.

More revealing of Orion’s personality are his social awkwardness, obliviousness, and generosity. The novel describes Orion as being generally unreceptive to the praise and adoration of the other students. El notes that he, like her, has been considered extraordinary his whole life and thus had never learned to interact with people in a “normal” way. He is polite but evasive with people he doesn’t know well and distant but cooperative with the other students in his enclave. He is generous in sharing his talents; this is reinforced when he reveals that he feeds mana into the New York power-sharer and power-sink without having access to use it himself. His obliviousness is revealed through his lack of awareness both of the rumors that he and El are dating and of the way the enclave system privileges him and the others. For example, Orion never questioned that he did not have any maintenance shifts and was not aware they’d been given to other students as part of the protection and privilege bartering.

Orion does not have a dramatic character arc during the novel, as El and the reader are still getting to know him as a person. The most significant change in Orion is his relationship with El. Before their friendship developed, Orion had been as isolated and lonely as El, though these qualities were more ironic in him, considering his heroic reputation and high social status. The growth Orion exhibits as the narrative progresses is in his developing awareness of the injustice and inequality of the enclave system, as well as in the way he opens up to El and is honest with her about his feelings of isolation and his desire to maintain a relationship with her.

Aadhya is a clever, strategic student at the Scholomance. She is thoughtful and open-minded, skilled in her discipline, and values loyalty. Like El, Aadhya is an independent student; unlike El, Aadhya is socially skilled and excels at making deals and connections. She begins working collaboratively with El because of the potential for access to Orion but quickly identifies El as the more valuable of the two. Like El, Aadhya is observant and strategic and does not rely on stereotypes or assumptions based on superficial qualities when she makes her judgments about people. For example, Aadhya initially assumes the surface of El’s mirror is perfect because of something Orion did in the creation of the silver, but she quickly realizes it was actually El’s power that created such a good outcome.

Aadhya’s observant and strategic mind are enhanced by her social confidence. These qualities allow her to make powerful moves within the world of the school, such as her plan to auction El’s powerful phase-control spell only to the seniors so they can run a second auction the following year. She brings these connections and this social dexterity to their alliance, expanding the group’s access to resources and assistance. Aadhya sees through the “vibes” that drive everyone away from El and says she values El’s loyalty and ethics. The value she places on loyalty is obvious too when, after El says she will not back out of the graduation hall trip, Aadhya discreetly gives El an opportunity to ask Aadhya and Liu to join the mission. Because this novel is the first in a trilogy, Aadhya’s character development is primarily found in the relationships she forms with El and Liu as well as in her increasing acknowledgment of the dangers of the school and the realities of what awaits the independent students at graduation and beyond.

Liu is another third-year student at the Scholomance. In the beginning of the book, El describes her as someone who is dabbling in malia—rationing their use of the darker power in the hopes of surviving graduation without going irrevocably maleficer. Early in the novel, El notes that if Liu “looks at you too quickly, her eyes are all white for a moment. Her nails have gone solid black, too, and I know it’s not polish” (9). Later in the novel, after El sends her mother’s psychic reckoning spell out into the cafeteria, she notices Liu, “was still staring at her own hands, tears running in two lines down her face,” and knows she was “right about her carefully rationed malia use; if she’d been using more than the bare minimum, the spell wouldn’t have been able to bring her true” (138).

As El gets to know Liu better in the aftermath of Liu’s separation from malia use, she learns Liu is shy, kind, and thoughtful. Liu had been convinced to obtain and carefully ration malia from a group of mice she’d brought with her at induction. Because Liu’s affinity is for animals, she’d felt badly about killing the mice. Malia can easily become addictive—as the novel shows with Jack’s murderous actions—so it is a testament to the inherent gentleness and kindness of Liu’s nature that she was able to use it for three years without being so corrupted she couldn’t return to a better state.

Liu’s character arc through the novel involves her movement away from malia use and into an alliance with El and Aadhya. Like the other two girls, Liu is observant and capable of analyzing people and situations for danger and ulterior motives. Though she remains quiet and shy throughout the novel, at the end she begins to open up more to Aadhya and El, revealing her nurturing nature through her friendship with them and her idea to raise the remaining mice as familiars.