Adeyemi Second Third Reflection

 Fisk Candau

Dr Ellis

EN376

23 Oct 2023

    Something I found really interesting in the second third of Children of Blood and Bone was the discussion on the internalisation of oppressive narratives. Maybe it's just because I just read Othello so that topic was already fresh in my mind, but it really struck me how both Inan and Zélie have internalised the maji hatred spewed by the monarchy and turned that into self-hatred. 

    This self-hatred is most visible in Inan, since his entire goal is to destroy magic and kill all the maji even though he himself is a maji. Inan throughout the book has been completely cutting himself off from his magic to his own detriment, all because he hates that part of himself. Zélie frequently comments about how weak he is and how sickly he looks because of it and is constantly telling him to let his powers loose and to accept that part of himself, but he refuses. His refusal is directly tied to the internalisation of the narrative of the King, who constantly told Inan that magic was evil and everyone who wielded it deserved to die, shown through him constantly bringing up the words of the king and that the king's first family was murdered by maji whenever he thinks of magic, let alone uses it. 

    This internalisation of the king's hatred for magic is addressed by Zélie when she finally realises that Inan hates and is afraid of his magic because of what he was taught by his father growing up, and she empathises with his struggle because she has gone through the same thing. Zélie, when she realises this, expresse that "watching his misguided hate brought me back, wrapping me in the darkest days after the Raid. I despised magic. I blamed Mama. I cursed the gods for making us this way. [...] It almost ate me alive, the self-hatred spun from Saran's lies" (326-327). This quote directly states that Zélie has felt the same self-hatred that Inan is currently battling, and attributes that self-hatred directly to Saran's lies and the anti-magic narratives he feeds the kingdom. And, if Saran's lies made Zélie, who has never interacted with royalty before and was so far from the palace, hate herself and her identity as divîner, then that self-hatred must be amplified one hundred-fold when discussing Inan, who had never known anything different from the narratives his father was feeding him (whereas Zélie had seen her mother doing good as a maji before she was killed) and said father was someone Inan looked up to and hoped to emulate (whereas Zélie looked up to and held her mother as a role model). 

    This discussion of self-hatred in the novel is interesting not only in growing understanding and empathy of/for these characters, but also is important to understand how this internalisation of oppressive narratives is present in contemporary society beyond the book. It shows how colonial rhetoric and narratives have been internalised by marginalised peoples and how they must decolonise their own minds as well, and that decolonisation is a process that not only impacts everyone but also must be partaken in by everyone, both those who have benefitted from colonisation and those who have been exploited and oppressed as a result of it.