Duty Before Self or Self Before Duty?
Analyzing the perks, pressures, and pitfalls of these choices through Inan and Zélie from ‘Children of Blood and Bone’ by Tomi Adeyemi
Spoiler warning: Please be aware this review contains spoilers
When this book was released, I heard so many rave reviews that it shot to the top of my TBR list. A fantasy story rooted in West African culture? Count me in!
And now that I’ve read it, I must say I get the hype. This story touches on several themes and messages, but none stood out to me more than the connection to family and mission. All of the characters showed an immense sense of obligation to their families and even their communities, especially Zélie and Inan. For this review, I’d like to focus on those two characters in particular as well as the complexities and motivations of their choices.
Children of Blood and Bone is set in the kingdom of Orïsha and follows the lives of two pairs of siblings: Zélie and Tzain who live in a village with their father, and Amari and Inan whose father is the tyrant king of Orïsha.
Zélie is a maji, meaning she can wield magic, a power she got from her mother who was killed in a raid years ago that targeted maji and eradicated magic from Orïsha. Now with help from Princess Amari, Zélie and Tzain embark on a quest to bring magic back.
“You have your duty and your heart. To choose one means the other must suffer.”
A constant motto throughout this book was “duty before self,” usually spoken by King Saran to his son Inan who he was grooming to take his place on the throne. But as I reflected on this story, I realized that Inan is not the only character who struggles to choose between his desires and his mission.
Zélie faced this decision several times as well and often ruled based on emotion. She always knew what was technically the smarter decision but could never seem to fight what she felt in her heart and would run with that instead (e.g. when she helped Princess Amari escape the palace even though she knew it would put a target on her back).
Meanwhile, Inan’s character made more logical choices. Though he often hated making them, he always stood by them and insisted that they were best for the kingdom (e.g. trying to stop magic from coming back once he saw how deadly it could be).
“What hurts more? The feeling you get when you use your magic or the pain of pushing it down?”
Based on the plot of the story, it’s easy to think of Inan as the bad guy but I don’t think it’s that cut and dry. In fact, he and Zélie are alike in a lot of ways — both characters feel like they have Orïsha on their shoulders and they each are largely influenced by their families, especially their parents.
I think the reason why it was so easy for them to fall in love with each other is that their relationship was essentially an escape from all of that pressure. Though the relationship did not last long, I thought ending it made sense. Zélie and Inan have been trained to fight against each other since before they even knew each other, and unfortunately, I don’t think even love was enough to overpower that fact.
However, despite the tough decisions both characters made throughout the book, I felt they were more motivated by not bringing shame to their families than doing what they felt was right.
Whether Inan was burying his magical abilities or destroying another village in his father’s name, his choices were practically suffocating him but he endured it to prove himself to the king. Zélie was always insecure blaming herself for everything and everyone because she thought of herself as a protector of her people.
“When your opponent has no honor, you must fight in different ways, smarter ways.”
I think this story is also a cautionary tale of how much harm you can do to yourself when your decisions are dependent on someone else’s happiness rather than your own. Zélie and Inan passed up on a chance of happiness together because they couldn’t get past the desires of their families, and while it did make them more fierce and focused it also made them sadder and sometimes angrier.
With that being said, I think this book also does a great job of articulating the constant push and pull we all face when it comes to making big decisions. Do you follow your head or your heart? The answer is…it depends. You have to know when to prioritize your personal beliefs over your duty and vice versa. In my opinion, no decision is 100% ruled by emotion or logic, but whichever side you lean toward should make sense of what you want. Nobody else.
