Daughter of No Worlds

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2022

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

Part 1, Prologue-Chapter 13

Part 1, Chapters 14-24

Part 1, Chapters 25-38

Part 2, Chapters 39-56

Part 2, Chapter 57-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Themes

The Desire for Power

The novel’s antagonists are primarily defined by their thirst for power. The Threllian Lords have based their country’s economy on conquering and enslaving the inhabitants of neighboring countries. Esmaris, Tisaanah’s Threllian enslaver, demonstrates his power by displaying his immense resources: His estate is a status symbol meant to signal his influence. He also seeks absolute power over Tisaanah and the other people he keeps captive. After Esmaris dies, his son, Ahzeen, follows in his footsteps, using his father’s death as a pretext for war with other Threllian Lords, thus thinning out the competition for ultimate control of the realm. Likewise, Zeryth is also obsessed with rising to Ara’s throne. Initially, he seems benign, but the end of the novel shows him plotting to overthrow the Aran government and conquer Threll. His desire for power is absolute, and he is absolutely corrupted by it.

Protagonists are also tempted by the potential that power offers. After Tisaanah kills Esmaris and escapes, she dreams of obtaining enough mastery of magic to free the enslaved people in Threll. At first, she believes that this aim can be accomplished by studying and applying herself. However, she succumbs to the appeal of taking a shortcut when Zeryth offers her military backup if she becomes Reshaye’s Host. The ambitious Zeryth obviously has ulterior motives, but because he offers Tisaanah access to the power she dreams of, Tisaanah makes a blood pact with the Arch Commander. Max made a similar mistake. In exchange for material gain, Max deluded himself into believing that he could wield Reshaye for a good cause. However, the entity took control, forcing Max into committing brutal war crimes. Max is honest about why he took the deal: “You signed that contract because it gave you the means to protect all the people you left behind. But me? I signed mine because I wanted to. Because I wanted power” (357). Still, his hard-earned wisdom is not enough to prevent Tisaanah from giving in to her desire to win by using borrowed power.

The novel also positions the acquisition of power as one route to liberation. Although Reshaye is an immensely powerful magical force, it can only act through a Host. This limitation causes Reshaye to crave power over its own destiny. Reshaye also seeks the Host’s exclusive love—another form of control. Similarly, Tisaanah sees her growing magical aptitude not only as a way to free others but also as a way to establish the independence and authority that have been denied her all her life.

The Urge to Possess or Destroy

As some of the characters grow powerful, they encounter the limits of their abilities—limits that often cause them to angrily destroy whatever they cannot fully master. Esmaris is one example of this pattern. Having always believed that Tisaanah was under his absolute control, he is enraged when she finds the financial means to free herself from him. The idea that she might escape if he withholds her freedom further threatens Esmaris’s sense of his power. Thus, he tries to whip her to death, choosing to obliterate her rather than lose her: “[H]is twisted, confusing affection […] would crush me, because Esmaris only possessed or destroyed, and if he couldn’t do one, he would do the other” (30).

Other characters in the novel also subscribe to this binary. For example, the power-hungry and despotic Reshaye seeks the exclusive love and approval of its victims; those who fail to provide the adoration that it demands are violently castigated. When Max rejected the entity, it punished him by forcing him to slaughter his entire family. When Max describes this horrific event to Tisaanah, she connects it to the pattern she’s observed in Esmaris: “‘It’s unpredictable. Possessive. Vindictive. And it’s willing to crush whatever defies it.’ Possess or destroy. I shuddered” (357). Reshaye transfers its twisted affection to Tisaanah with the same outcome: When Tisaanah chooses Max over Reshaye, the entity retaliates by forcing her to harm Max. It gives her an ominous warning when it stops short of killing him: “{You cut me out. And if you do it again, my butterfly, I will open his throat and lick his blood from your fingers}” (347).

Zeryth is yet another example of a controlling character who can only possess or destroy those who are valuable to him. At first, he seems to be Tisaanah’s protector and sponsor: He carefully cultivates a relationship with her and subjects her to a strenuous test of magical ability that he claims will allow her to wield a weapon powerful enough to destroy the Threllian Lords and free their enslaved captives. However, in reality, Zeryth wants Tisaanah to be a Host for Reshaye for his own ambitions in Ara. As Tisaanah becomes warier of the motives of others, she recognizes that Zeryth will discard anyone who no longer serves his needs—including his trusted lieutenant, Nura, or even Tisaanah herself: “Possess or destroy. You’re either a tool or a threat—and in this case, we were all both. He knew that I—that Reshaye—would make it out alive, but he didn’t want or need to care whether any of the others did” (493).

Personal Metamorphosis

The novel’s two central characters undergo transformations so complete that they are best seen as metamorphoses. Some of these transformations feature an epiphany that changes a character’s perspective and behavior. Others come with a physical evolution.

Tisaanah begins the novel disempowered: She is an enslaved woman who has been abused and treated like a decorative object. As the story advances, she acquires magical training and combat skills. Eventually, Tisaanah becomes not only an effective warrior but also the Host for the magical entity Reshaye, with access to power that transforms her into an unstoppable killing machine. When Max first witnesses this metamorphosis, he is awestruck: “I was no longer looking at a woman. I was looking at a fucking goddess. A goddess of death and vengeance and utter, indiscriminate destruction” (393). While the external alternation of Tisaanah is notable, an even more dramatic change occurs as she struggles to master Reshaye. Tisaanah’s desire to control the entity and harness its power for her own ends means confronting the darkest corners of her mind, which have now become Reshaye’s lair. This psychological self-examination makes Tisaanah into a hero whose will is her own: “No more dividing myself up as an offering to more powerful monsters. No more sacrificing those I loved in the name of their own safety. And no more would I fail to unleash the full potential of the power—my power—at my disposal” (474).

To a lesser degree, Max also undergoes a metamorphosis. The reader doesn’t learn until late in the book that Reshaye gave Max a serpent form that he does his best to suppress—an ironic gift that forces Max into the creature of his phobia. Like Tisaanah, Max at first avoids looking into his emotional darkness. However, when her life is in danger, and he has no other alternative, he transforms himself into a fiery serpent, accepting that this potential is a part of him for good: “I had spent the last decade avoiding what Reshaye had created in me when it was pried from my soul, refusing to acknowledge that a piece of it had forever changed me. And I had not only acknowledged that power but used it” (486). The physical transformations that both Tisaanah and Max undergo are indicative of the much larger spiritual metamorphoses that bestow real power onto those brave enough to face the challenge.