Raybearer

Jordan Ifueko

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2020

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Themes

The Relationship Between Destiny and Choice

Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses psychological abuse.

Tarisai is a protagonist who must grapple with two seemingly opposing concepts: her predetermined destiny and her own personal choice, and her initial upbringing and experience lead her to believe that one of these external forces must eventually be subsumed by the other. After she joins Dayo’s council, for example, her internal conflict is based on her desire to resist her fate and choose a different path. However, Tarisai comes to discover that destiny and choice are not always at odds; instead, they often inform one another. Ultimately, Tarisai’s fate directly influences who she chooses to become and how she utilizes her power.

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During her childhood, Tarisai is led to believe that her fate is inescapable, particularly because she is half-ehru (a djinn-like creature who grants wishes). Her mother exploits her half-ehru heritage and commands her to kill Prince Dayo. Subject to her mother’s will, Tarisai must obey, and this cruel circumstance gives her a one-sided and uncompromising view of the nature of fate. However, despite the apparent hopelessness of her situation, she nonetheless embraces the possibility of choice and attempts to quell the urge to kill that her mother has unjustly instilled in her. When she gazes at Dayo, who will soon be one of her closest friends, she thinks to herself, “No […] That girl wasn’t me. I didn’t have to hurt anyone. I didn’t. I wouldn’t” (47). The desperate emphasis upon the need to refuse her mother’s order foreshadows Tarisai’s long battle to break free of her mother’s will and make her own choices in the world. This struggle becomes the most important aspect of her time at the Children’s Palace, and her need to avoid her violent destiny becomes so important that she resists doing what she most wants, which is to join Dayo’s council.

Significantly, Tarisai’s first attempt to overcome her mother’s will is far too simplistic to be effective for long, for she only allows Dayo to anoint her once she has scoured every memory of her mother from her mind. She hopes that by forgetting her destiny, she can avoid fulfilling it. However, such a method solves nothing, for her past merely festers just out of sight and eventually reemerges to confront her. Ironically, a key part of The Lady’s command was for Tarisai to join Dayo’s council, so by allowing Dayo to anoint her, Tarisai unknowingly accepts her original fate.

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When she is later compelled to stab Dayo despite her love for him, Tarisa recognizes how strong the pull of her destiny is, so she endeavors to find another solution that will free her from The Lady’s wish. This bold move marks her resolve to break free of the fetters of destiny, but instead, Tarisai learns that her fate is much more complex than she had previously thought, for she is also a Raybearer and an heir of the Arit empire. Frustrated by the seeming contradiction between her destiny and her personal choice, Tarisai exclaims, “If I don’t find a purpose, then Dayo dies, and The Lady wins, and the whole empire falls apart. What kind of choice is that?” (242). However, her friends and allies help her to realize that when she actively chooses to accept her past, her heritage, and her destiny, she can protect those she loves and enact real change in her society. Likewise, her father, Melu, observes that by finding her purpose, and “wanting […] to carve out a new story for this world, no matter the cost” (353), Tarisai has set herself free from her mother’s will. Thus, she exercises her choice and claims her fated role as an empress and Raybearer, thereby gaining the power to shape her own story.

The Limits and Possibilities of Familial Love

Raybearer explores a variety of family dynamics and emphasizes the complexities that dominate both families of origin and families of choice. By analyzing family interactions that range from the loving to the abusive, the novel emphasizes the idea that familial love is not always unconditional, for the needs of one family member can result in neglect or abuse to another. This dynamic is most prominently demonstrated between Tarisai and The Lady, for Tarisai’s entire existence is based upon The Lady’s selfish desire to birth a child who would be compelled to obey her wishes. While The Lady is not without a hidden sense of affection for her daughter, her detachment and self-centered focus nonetheless rob Tarisai of the bonds of kinship that she so desperately craves, and as a result, the protagonist takes it upon herself to seek out family and cultivate family in whatever way she can.

Tarisai has such a desire for a complete and loving family that she is stunned to learn that Kirah would willingly leave hers behind to join Prince Dayo’s council. As Tarisai reflects, “Kirah had parents who loved her. They hadn’t wanted her to come here: She had chosen this strange, chaotic place for herself” (29). Because Tarisai’s mother has remained distant and her father is a mythological being, she has never truly experienced the close familial intimacy that Kirah has known, so the idea that Kirah would renounce this lifestyle is unfathomable to her. However, Tarisai’s lack of a loving family of origin allows her to forge her own path in the world and create a new family for herself among Prince Dayo and her fellow council candidates, and this development in turn empowers her to reject her mother’s wish. As she notes, “The Lady’s face grew faint in my mind. I burrowed into the love of my friends—the love of Dayo, Kirah and Sanjeet—and almost forgot that I was made to be a killer” (60). In this moment, Tarisai renounces her dysfunctional family of origin and embraces her friends as her chosen family. In return, they provide her with the ability to forget her past and hope for a better future.

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While Tarisai does not understand Kirah’s decision to leave her family and journey to Oluwan, the narrative also implies that even loving families can be restrictive, for part of Kirah’s motivation to leave her home is to act in opposition to her parents’ expectations, and in this, she is ironically very similar to Tarisai. Kirah herself remarks that, in her dreams, her mother is disappointed in her and says, “Where did my Kirah go? Who is this sneering girl who spits on her home, who questions her elders? Does the world love you better than your family?” (78). Thus, even Kirah, who is fortunate enough to have caring parents, feels that their love for her limits her prospects and goals.

This and other dynamics prove that many of the characters conform to the pattern of the coming-of-age narrative, for even Dayo does not wish to be the same kind of Emperor as his father. He also worries about the expectation he will one day create a family of his own. As each character finds unique ways to confront and overcome the expectations of their families, Tarisai and her friends realize that the families they were born into are not the only families they will ever have. At the end of the novel, when Tarisai bids farewell to her mother’s shade, she finally lays her tumultuous emotions to rest, refraining from condemning her mother for all the terrible things that she almost compelled Tarisai to do. Instead, she simply kisses the shade and forgives her, then goes on to embrace the far stronger and healthier bonds that she has forged with her friends.

The Consequences of Sacrificing Justice to Maintain Order

When Tarisai is named the next High Lady Judge of Aritsar, she understands that issuing judgments and doling out rulings and punishments will be difficult. However, she does not initially realize that this difficulty will be compounded by the expectations of her role. As the current High Judge Thaddace explains, her job is less about issuing just and equitable decisions and more about maintaining order in the realm. This statement confuses Tarisai, who protests, “I’m not trying to make people happy. I’m trying to be fair” (136). From Thaddace’s perspective, it is more important for justice to be orderly than to be fair. Given the attack by the abiku and the division it created between citizens of the realms, he believes that the High Judge and the rest of the Imperial Council must take any measures necessary to quell unrest and maintain peace. Tarisai notes that many of her fellow Prince’s council members agree. When addressing the matter of romantic affairs, her council sister, Ai Ling, notes, “[I]f we maintain the empire’s sense of equality, it shouldn’t matter what we do in private” (147). Thus, Tarisai quickly learns that in the eyes of Oluwan and the rulers of the empire, the illusion of justice is more useful and easier to maintain than true fairness. However, it soon becomes evident that there is a cost to forsaking fairness for the sake of order, and the narrative proves that order without justice is often short-lived.

Thaddace’s Unity Edict, which imperial council members and guards are required to enforce, is a prime example of this fallacy. To force order and unity among the realms, the emperor instead sows discord and dissent among his citizens by refusing to allow them to celebrate their regional heritage. When Tarisai issues her first ruling, revoking the Edict, she successfully captures the hearts and minds of the imperial subjects by treating them with dignity and equality. After giving her ruling, she is stunned to realize that “[f]rom every single side of the imperial hall people were cheering, pumping fists, and stamping feet, chanting in a deafening din” (310). In this moment, she learns the powerful lesson that people are more easily united when their identities and needs are acknowledged and met. Likewise, when Tarisai endeavors to change the treaty with the Underworld, she knows that true justice requires more than creating a balanced system; in this particular case, it is necessary to alter the system entirely. When she offers herself as a sacrifice to guarantee that there will be no more Redemptor children at all, Tarisai demonstrates her understanding that egalitarian justice instills citizens with trust and confidence in their society. By contrast, the form of justice practiced by the Emperor, to which Thaddace has resigned himself, served only to preserve and protect order for the benefit of those in power.