The Bridge Kingdom (The Bridge Kingdom, #1)

“Lara had rested on the outskirts, offering nothing, using the time to watch her sisters. To love them. […] The way, even past childhood, they nestled together like a pile of puppies newly away from their mother.”

In this selection, Jensen creates an image that conveys Lara’s motherly instincts. By watching over her sisters, Lara is revealed to be a benevolent figure who would readily endure torture and perpetuate multiple atrocities in order to guarantee that her sisters have are spared from a similar fate. Her willingness to take extreme measures to ensure her sisters’ safety emphasizes her self-sacrificing nature and foreshadows her drastic actions later in the novel.

“Maridrinian women are soft. They are weak. They are good for nothing more than keeping house and raising children. Except for you twelve.”

Because Silas’s main source of power lies in his ability to convincingly manipulate others, this passage reveals the subtle ways in which he controls his daughters by imbuing them with a sense of exceptionalism and placing them above other Maridrinian women. In this way, he makes them feel valued, special, and chosen even as he callously manipulates them into serving his own ends.

“I pray you’ll all find the freedom you deserve.”

Lara speaks these words after poisoning (and ostensibly killing) her sisters. Although her statement is initially designed to illustrate her love for her sisters, this quote also foreshadows the fact that Marylyn will betray Lara and will “deserve” quite a different form of freedom—the peace of the grave. (Unbeknownst to Lara, Marylyn had prior knowledge that her sisters would be killed, and she secretly welcomed their fate.)

“Little cockroach.”

Erik, Silas’s master at arms, gives Lara this callous appellation in order to emphasize his aspirations for her to become a spy who will infiltrate Ithicana and destroy it from within. Ironically, while the image of a cockroach is designed to provoke disgust, it also represents a spirit of perpetual resilience.

“Lara, as you know, Majesty, was not my first choice. She scored close to the bottom in nearly all things, with the lone exception of combat. Her temper continually gets the better of her. Marylyn […] was the obvious choice. Brilliant and beautiful. Masterfully in control of her emotions, as she clearly demonstrated over the past several days.”

In this passage, the spymaster, Serin, praises Marylyn’s superiority as a candidate for Ithicana’s queen, and in doing so, he reveals the true depths of Marylyn’s hidden depravity. Far from loving her sisters, she concealed her knowledge of their imminent demise so perfectly that her sisters never suspected her of darker ambitions. This fundamental difference between Marylyn’s internal motivations and outward aspect foreshadows her eventually reappearance as the symbolic “snake” who seeks to destroy Lara and Aren both.

“For only if their father believed them silenced did they have any chance at a future.”

This passage foreshadows Lara’s eventual desire to disappear after accomplishing her mission in Ithicana. Because he is deeply paranoid, Silas would not hesitate to kill his children to ensure his uninterrupted power. As Lara later explains, “[h]er father wanted this plot kept secret forever, for if anyone learned of it, his ability to use his other living children as negotiating tools would be negated” (21).

“They [Ithicanians] are demons in human form. Which I’m afraid you’ll find out soon enough.”

By demonizing the Ithicanians in his conversation with Lara, Silas also dehumanizes them in Lara’s eyes. This tactic is meant to ensure that she does not cultivate sympathy for them. By portraying the Ithicanians as demonic and less than human, Silas gives his daughter a reason to seek their destruction, revealing one of The Effects of Martyrdom and Zealotry.

“[Maridrinian men, women, and children] were all skinny, wearing threadbare homespun clothes and wide-brimmed straw hats that shielded them from the ceaseless sun. They survived on the sparse crops and bony cattle they raised; there was no other choice for them. While in prior generations, families were able to earn enough at their trades to purchase meat and grain imported from Harendell through the bridge, Ithicana’s rising taxes and tolls had changed that.”

Lara’s observation in this passage reveals the extent to which Silas has pushed his indoctrination. By showing her a curated but convincing portrayal of life in Maridrina under Ithicana’s alleged oppression, Silas provides Lara with the evidence she needs to place the blame for all her people’s misery at Aren’s feet.

“‘Bless Princess Lara! Watch over our beautiful princess!’ But it was a growing chant of ‘Bless Lara, Maridrina’s martyr’ that turned her hands cold.”

Lara’s reception in this scene is engineered by Silas and therefore serves to intensify her guilt and self-sacrificing nature, rendering her incapable of rejecting her role as a martyr. The calls of her people demand her sacrifice in such a way that a denial of their demand would amount to the greatest form of selfishness in her mind; through her long indoctrination, she has been conditioned to prioritize the needs of the collective over her own.

“[Ceremonial daggers] were supposed to be used by a husband in the defense of a wife’s honor; but typically they were kept dull. Decorative. Useless.”

In this passage, Jensen alludes to the skewed gender dynamics within Maridrina, for in Lara’s home country, women are taught to rely on their husbands for their own defense, and men are taught to think of their wives’ honor as decorative. Jensen thus implies that Silas’s kingdom perpetuates a condescending perspective toward women, one that is further strengthened through rhetoric and tradition.

“‘The bridge in exchange for my freedom?’ [Silas’s] nod was punctuated by a loud boom of thunder. It was a lie, and she knew it. But she could live with his lies because their goals were aligned.”

In this passage, Lara delivers an ironic assessment, for although she is capable of understanding that her father is lying when he promises free her upon the completion of her mission, she cannot conceive that he might also lie about the true state of affairs between Maridrina and Ithicana.

“It was one thing for Aren to take a girl he hadn’t chosen and never met as a bride for the sake of peace. Quite another to give his sister to a foreign kingdom, where she’d be alone in a strange place to be used however they willed.”

In this passage, Aren’s thoughts about his sister echo Lara’s own decision to sacrifice herself for the well-being of her own sisters. While both Lara and Aren are ready to face the dangers of their marriage, neither will allow their loved ones to face similar challenges.

“What’s between your legs doesn’t determine the path you’ll walk in life. Half the garrison at Southwatch is made up of women.”

With this statement, Jensen establishes the fact that Ithicanian society acts as a foil to Maridrina’s patriarchal structure. While Lara was isolated from the world during her education and endured a form of indoctrination that transformed her into a political weapon, her upbringing was an exception to the more domestic sphere imposed upon traditional Maridrinian women. In Aren’s world, she finally gains a glimpse of a different path for women to follow.

“Aren reached up to rub Vitex’s ears, the big cat purring contentedly until something in the bushes caught his attention. There’d been a female running about, and even now, Aren spotted her yellow eyes watching them from beneath a large leaf.”

Jensen uses Vitex’s pursuit of a female partner to symbolize Aren’s slow pursuit of Lara. Rather than rushing in without consideration, both Vitex and Aren opt to patiently wait until their desired partner reveals themselves.

“It was not a bridge. It was The Bridge, for there was nothing that compared with it in the world. Like a great gray serpent, the bridge meandered as far as the eye could see, joining the continents.”

Jensen’s use of snake imagery to describe the bridge implies that the bridge, like the snakes on the islands, is a source of persistent danger that can strike at any time. In this case, however, the danger associated with the bridge actually comes from the conflicting interests of the two continents that bracket its ends.

“‘I’ve heard there are kingdoms where the people show a little respect for their monarchs.’

‘I can respect you and still think your shit stinks just as bad as the next man’s.’”

In this exchange between Aren and Jor, Jensen demonstrates the genuine respect that the two share, and the passage also illustrates Aren’s unique approach to leadership. Although Aren commands authority, he only wields it when necessary, and the high respect that he has for Jor is indicated in his tolerance for the older man’s casual insouciance. At heart, Aren does not consider himself to be a member of an inaccessible social class; instead, he wants to be seen as an equal to his fellow Ithicanians.

“Allowing civilians to come and go from Ithicana all but ensured every one of the kingdom’s secrets would leak. Aren knew that. But if Ithicana had some strong alliances with Harendell and Maridrina, the consequences of those leaks would be far more palatable. With the navies of those two kingdoms supporting the bridge’s defense, it would give some of his people a chance to pursue paths other than the sword. To leave and educate themselves.”

In this expository passage, Jensen outlines Aren’s main motivations to entertain a political marriage, and she also emphasizes all that is at stake if his marriage to Lara fails. As an idealistic optimist who seeks to aid his people, Aren wishes to form firm alliances in order to foster the goodwill of nations that would otherwise threaten Ithicana’s safety.

“You’ve too much of your mother in you, Aren. Both of you idealistic fools.”

Although Nana berates Aren for his dreams, he is one of the only characters who seeks to end his country’s perpetual cycle of war. He understands that although the history of this cycle has extended for generations, this pattern is not a sustainable way of living.

“He couldn’t promise revenge, because even if raiding Amarid were a possibility for his already strained army, he wouldn’t lower himself to harming Amaridian civilians just because their queen was a vindictive bitch.”

In this passage, Jensen implicitly demonstrates Aren’s style of responsible leadership, developing The Contrast Between Leadership and Tyranny. While retaliation for persistent raids would be justified, Aren is painfully aware that the innocent, not the politicians, always bear the cost of war.

“Lara wished, not for the first time, that she’d been allowed to spend time away from the compound. Everything she knew had come from books and from her masters.”

Lara’s desire for a greater sense of perspective reveals the depths of her isolated upbringing, for she was forced to rely only on the questionable information provided by Silas and Serin and build a warped perception of the world as a result. With no other source of information available, Lara’s ability to make her own decisions and opinions was restricted, and she became far more open to Silas’s unethical plans for conquest.

“The growing winds caught at the loose strands of her hair, the fading sunlight making it glow like tendrils of honey. His [Aren’s] soldiers moved aside for her, inclined their heads to her. Respected her.”

Jensen juxtaposes the image of Lara’s first encounter with Ithicanians with the aftermath of the attack on Serrith in order to portray Lara’s embrace of her role as queen. Although by this point, Lara has already attempted multiple methods to sway both Aren and his kingdom, her act of service to them finally earns her their trust.

“[Destroying Ithicana was] [a]n easy thing to envision when the enemy had been nothing more to her than masked demons using their might to keep her people oppressed. But now they had faces. And names. And families.”

The author demonstrates that while Lara’s love for Aren might have been a source of emotional conflict, her eventual transition to seeing the Ithicanians as fellow humans rather than “demons” troubles her sense of righteousness. Before she knew the Ithicanians personally, her hate was easy to maintain.

“Our taxes on steel and weapons have always been prohibitively exorbitant because the trafficking of weapons has political ramifications we’d prefer to avoid. Never mind that those weapons were often used, in turn, against us.”

Jensen here outlines the extent of Aren’s dedication to maintaining the bridge’s role in world politics. While Aren could well make more money by trafficking in weapons, he knows firsthand the terrible consequences of providing others with more destructive power.