Oathbound: Bree’s Character Development
Just posting some of the thoughts that have been bouncing around in my head because I need to get them out.
My controversial take is that Bree losing her knowledge/memories was necessary for her character growth in Oathbound.
I don’t agree with the mechanism by which she lost her memories (soul theft), but when I recall how much anguish and guilt she felt at the end of Bloodmarked (and the anguish I felt along with her), it felt like like a healing detour.
Bree’s love for people and for her friends was always, always going to have her prioritising their safety above her own, and I think it’s important that a space was created in the story for her to “put on her own oxygen mask.”
She developed control over her power without risking anyone else’s life.
She’s no longer the girl who has to run and hide, whose friends risk their lives to protect her - now she’s the girl who straps a dagger to her thigh and traps a warlock in a magical dome all while looking drop dead gorgeous.
There’s a lovely post by Annotate with Sara that explains this and more really well, but I thought it poetic that Nick was the one to initiate Bree’s reintroduction to her old self, seeing as he accidentally/unintentionally introduced her to the society that would lead to the discovery of her true identity in the first place.
While I’ve always maintained (mostly in my head) that Nick and Bree’s intelligences cancel each other out and together they tend towards foolishness, I think that the warmth, support and safety he offered is precisely what she needed in what was a very delicate space, particularly when Erebus told her to expect the exact opposite from her friends.
Nick’s first instinct was not to judge, fear, reprimand or even reject Bree:
…Pull the most frightening question up from my depths to breathe it into existence, because Nick makes it safe to do so.
“Do you think I made a mistake?”
He holds my face in both his hands until my eyes open. “No.”
Nick lets me think. Lets me become who I need to be in the circle of his arms.
“We’ve only just gotten started, Briana Matthews. You still bear my mark. You are a king without a sword. A Pendragon, poisoned. Your own pain and blood await.”
I feel as though the end of Oathbound sort of left us in a similar place as Bloodmarked. This book isn’t a full stop and it’s not a comma, but it’s a necessary parentheses.
At the end, all of Bree’s memories come flooding back when she reclaims the missing piece of her soul.
We aren’t given time to see what this really means for Bree because Sel goes full chaos mode and we end up with That Revelation, but she is going to have to reckon with the emotional fallout of Bloodmarked and also with her decision to choose her soul over Alice’s life.
She’ll have to address the guilt she feels towards Sel after he sacrificed himself and the consequences thereof.
However, unlike at the end of Bloodmarked, Bree is now equipped with the knowledge that she is still loved by those she ‘left behind’ on her quest with the Shadow King. The knowledge that relationships are sometimes messy and hard but that - to quote her dad - “Loving folks is a practice, baby.”
And I think coming to that realisation was actually her true quest.
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