58 pages • 1 hour read
Margaret RogersonSorcery of Thorns
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2019A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Grimoires
Grimoires serve as a motif for The Power of Knowledge and Its Potential for Both Good and Evil. The novel’s protagonist is raised in one of the six Great Libraries built to contain these sentient spell books, and grimoires shape her initial understanding of her purpose in life. She sees herself as “their friend. Their steward. Their jailer. And if need be, their destroyer” (40). The tension inherent in this dynamic reflects knowledge’s potential for both good and evil. However, even the most formidable grimoires, which are capable of becoming monsters known as Maleficts, defy categorization as pure evil. In Chapter 32, seeing the way Harrows’s wardens mistreat the Malefict that guards the vault makes Elisabeth rethink her views on grimoires: “Perhaps it wasn’t wrong for Maleficts to want to hurt humans—the humans who had created them, imprisoned them, tormented them with salt and iron—and ultimately, consigned them to their twisted forms” (377). Rogerson also represents this tension in her description of the Chronicles of the Dead. Even though the Malefict poses a threat to the whole country, Balthasar Thorn uses its spells to preserve the country’s independence—an inherent contradiction that complicates the concept of a good-versus-evil binary. Another grimoire that plays a key role in the novel’s plot is Aldous Prendergast’s Codex Daemonicus. The Codex is kept under lock and key in the Royal Library, but the book tries to resist Ashcroft’s efforts to misuse its knowledge. During the climax, the Royal Library’s most formidable tomes overcome hordes of demons and sacrifice themselves to seal the rifts between the mortal realm and the Otherworld: “Each of those books possessed a soul […] And some of them had just now tasted freedom for the first time since they had been created—only minutes of it, after a lifetime of imprisonment. Still they sang as they gave their lives” (426). The grimoires’ redemptive final acts center the power of knowledge and its potential for good.
Demonslayer
Demonslayer serves as a motif for the theme of Growing Into a Heroine. At the beginning of the story, the weapon belongs to Director Irena and already has a long history of heroism: “The sword belted at her side was slender and tapered, with garnets glittering on its pommel. […] [T]he Director had used it to battle a Malefict when she was only nineteen years old” (2). Elisabeth’s inheritance of the sword is twofold, emphasizing both her great potential as a heroine and, eventually, her fulfillment of that potential. First, the sword is rightfully hers because Irena bequeathed it in her will, proving that the Director always believed Elisabeth could become a heroine. Second, Elisabeth proves her worthiness to wield Demonslayer when she uses it to slay the Malefict that killed her beloved mentor.
As the novel progresses and Elisabeth matures into a heroine, she grows from seeking to wield Demonslayer in ways that would make the Director proud to using the sword to uphold her own beliefs. Finch takes Demonslayer from Elisabeth when he imprisons her in Chapter 5, and Silas returns it to her in Chapter 20. The fact that the demon is certain both that she is worthy of wielding the weapon and that she won’t use it against him proves how much she has changed since she left Summershall: “[Silas’s] hands settled over hers, cool and clawed, and gingerly brought them to rest against the sword. ‘Worry not, Miss Scrivener,’ he said in his whispering voice. ‘I can see your soul as clearly as a flame within a glass’” (225). After reuniting with the sword, Elisabeth uses it to accomplish many heroic feats that defy the library’s teachings against magic, such as freeing Silas in Chapter 26 and defending Nathaniel from Harrows’s wardens in Chapter 34. In Chapter 36, she uses Demonslayer to liberate high-level grimoires so that they can help her defend the Royal Library from Ashcroft’s forces: “She didn’t have a key that would open the cage, but she didn’t need one. She wedged Demonslayer between its bars and twisted, bending the old, brittle iron until it curved enough for the grimoire to flutter free” (423). This symbolically charged moment completes Elisabeth’s transformation from an aspiring warden into a heroine who decides her path for herself.
Roses
Within Rogerson’s narrative, roses symbolize love. During their first appearance in Chapter 23, the flowers illustrate Elisabeth’s shifting perspectives on Thorn Manor and Nathaniel himself. As the narrator observes, “[The rose’s] petals were damp, and the thorns pricked her fingers. A symbol of love and life and beauty, so unlikely to see in Nathaniel’s empty, despairing manor, though in truth she hadn’t thought of his house that way in quite some time” (262). The roses’ presence in the manor speaks to Nathaniel’s growing love for Elisabeth, and she even holds one of the flowers when she tries to soothe his fears that being close to him places her in danger. Just as a rose is a thing of beauty despite its thorns, Nathaniel’s love for Elisabeth can do more than cause harm. Later in the novel, a rose-covered pavilion enhances the mood of one of the story’s most romantic scenes: “Nothing could have prepared her for this: that she would experience her first kiss in moonlight, surrounded by roses, with a boy who summoned storms and commanded angels to spread their wings” (291). As a symbol of love, roses mark key moments in the development of Elisabeth and Nathaniel’s romantic relationship.
