One of my favorite parts about aru Shah is you can feel her getting more and more angry with the system as time goes on.
One of the key concepts of Aru shah is that not everything is black and white and villains are made they are not born as one and you can see her really start to understand that as time goes on and her rage and frustration really comes through starting book 4 after she learns about her father.
I wish more books explored that rage that comes with being treated unfairly by the world like Aru shah did and I’d really like to explore more the discrimination her and her father faced just because of their blood.
You’re so right! Another thing I’d like to note is how discrimination affected every single pandava, which is why they all stood against the system despite being the poster children because even they couldn’t escape it!
Aru because her dad is the “villain” and I’d also like to point out that suyodhana only became the sleeper because he was quite literally forced into the role. Society could not look past his fate and actually see him, forcing him to become the monster they believed he was even though he wasn’t because that was the norm.
Aru was also thought to follow in the footsteps of her predecessor even though she did nothing. Just because her father was evil, she was going to be just like him. This is basically ancestry discrimination and the same norms that made her father evil are now being forcefully pushed onto her. No one was validating her anger as well and she had to lie to fit in, making her dissociate from who she actually was to fit in and be a “good” person
Brynne because despite being a pandava, she has asura blood which labeled her the outcast and is an allegory for racism
Rudy because he’s color blind and even though he found a workaround to identifying the gems, was still considered beneath everyone else which plays into eugenics
Aiden because his mother defected and now he is also not considered an apsara and if he isn’t fully human and not an apsara either, where do he and his mother land? Him and his mother are outcasts everywhere. His story, or more his mother’s story, follows what most queer people face after coming out to their parents. Because of who Malini loved, she was cut off from her family completely and given no support from anyone because of that love, which a lot of queer people face when they come from traditional families. She is no longer allowed to come home and neither can Aiden.
Mini was never considered a pandava because (it’s kinda alleged to be this I think) she was a girl and she was a victim to sexism and also being the shadow of her older brother. She is more the quiet type and was dictated the meeker role because of misogyny, and when she turned out to be a pandava it was disappointing.
As for Nikita and sheela they both were taken away from their parents and forced to only depend on each other due to their parents being illegal immigrants, which again goes back to racism and the system upholding those corrupted values, and they were subjected to the foster system which is known to be cruel and that same system that placed them there was also the one to rip them away from their parents. Hira was also in a similar position.
Kara was lied to her entire life. The one thing she’s always dreamed about is having a family but every single adult around her has manipulated her and the one parent that didn’t, she was taken away from. She’s painted as the bad guy but in reality she’s just a lonely soul who is trying to do what is right and she has no one on her side who has been there for her with her best interests at heart
Holy yap
