The Last Hours’ titles/covers in relation to Great Expectations
The titles of all three TLH books come from the following line from GE (which is found at the very beginning of Chain of Gold):
“Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.”
Pip, as the adult narrator, interrupts his own story telling to deliver this bit of foreshadowing after the day he first met Estella. A day that ultimately changed his life. A day that set his expectations for his future. Everything that happens to him moving forward is a product of that day. That day started the first link of a chain that bound his life in misery.
I’ve been thinking about how this quote correlates to our TLH titles and the covers…
Chain of Gold - Cordelia
Cordelia’s life is forever changed by the day she stands up to defend James by ruining herself and then agreeing to his wedding proposal.
Gold typically represents success, intelligence, compassion, reputation, royalty, etc.
All of which can be applied to Cordelia. Her dream to be a hero, her wit, her kind heart, her focus on saving her family name of Carstairs, her becoming a Herondale.
The start of her chain of gold appears to be something positive. Cordelia is getting all these things she wanted, yet it is still a chain that bound her in pain and will affect her for the rest of her life.
Or maybe her chain started all the way back to the day she slid into James bed as a child to pull him back from the shadows. It bound her life to her love and pursuit of James, which led to her ruination both in a societal sense and emotionally.
Chain of Iron - Lucie
I think you could say Lucie’s chain begins when Jesse first helps her out of the hole in Brocelind Forest as a child.
Iron is usually representative of tenacity, stubborness, confidence in power, hard work/grit.
Lucie is nothing if not stubborn, which we see in her determination to raise Jesse. She was confident that she and Grace could bring him back, and she worked tirelessly to do so. In the end, she uses her own power to resurrect him, despite the consequences.
Her chain started in Brocelind Forest and it is a testament to her strength and determination to a fault with the committance of necromancy. Her future is changed because she met Jesse. The legacy of her entire blood line may be bound by her chain of iron because of it.
Chain of Thorns - Grace
Grace’s first link could be the day her parents died, the day Tatiana adopted her or the day she was enchanted.
Thorns represent sorrow, sin and hardship. When paired with a rose, it’s often symbolic of pain and pleasure. Thorns also protect roses from predators.
Roses with their thorns symbolize sacrifice.
(Since this is only a trilogy, we won’t get a Chain of Flowers. However, based on the cover art, it seems that roses are being balanced with the thorns to complete the quote. It gives me the feeling that sacrifice will play a huge role in this book.)
The day Grace was bought/adopted by Tatiana had begun her chain of thorns, a life of abuse and neglect, a series of events that ruined her life and the lives of so many others. Will Grace sacrifice herself or something/someone she cares about to atone for the sins of her adoptive mother?
Side note! Because of the symbolism, I also think James will be the reverse cover. His life and all of his friends’ lives were changed the day he agreed to cut the thorns around Blackthorn Manor in Idris. It led him to a life of pain and sorrow, and possibly altered the Shadow World forever.
And the chain of this entire story began the day Will read Tatiana’s diary. Or the day Will released the demon from the Pyxis and thought he was cursed. Or even the day Edmund met Linnette.
Our lives are forever altered by single days that don’t seem all that important in the present, but in hindsight changed everything. *Existential life crisis incoming.*
