IRA

A topic that occurs in this book is power through knowledge. A prime example of this is the main character Wynn, who is a sage. While she is not a particularly powerful person in typical terms. Many characters strengths lie in more typically accepted areas, such as fighting or magic. Unlike them, her strengths are her intelligence and perseverance. She makes mistakes, but overall, her intentions are good.

I would also like to discuss the second main character, Chane. He is a Noble Dead, which is what they call vampires in his native land. This character seems to lack a moral compass. It appears as though he became this way after he became a vampire. I don't believe that becoming a vampire totally destroys your sense of right and wrong. It's far more likely that the fact that you have to kill when you become a vampire in order to survive simply hardens you emotionally. If you can't discard your morals somewhat, you won't survive. This is very reminiscent of humanity in general (definitely not vampire exclusive).

This isn't to say that Chane doesn't have any redeeming qualities. He wouldn't be on the good guys side otherwise, now would he? One redeeming quality of his is his love of scholarly pursuits. It's one of his few humanizing features. But overall, the one really humanizing and redeemable quality he possesses is his love for Wynn. This love for her caused him to follow her over half the world, and also stop feeding from people. He used to kill and feed from humans without remorse, but now only feeds from animals. He is totally and utterly committed to Wynn. This allows us to remember that he was once human, too. Without this, it's easy to think of him as nothing but a soulless killer, which he is not.