Sorcery of Thorns

The power of knowledge is the foundation of Rogerson’s fantasy world, and the author explores how this power can be used for both good and evil throughout the narrative. Sorcery, demons, and grimoires all serve as examples of how people gain power through knowledge. Sorcerers’ high social status depends on maintaining their exclusive access to both knowledge and power through their relationships with demons. In the world of Rogerson’s story, humans can only possess magic if they have a contract with a demon. In most cases, “magic is an inheritance” because families pass down the Enochian names used to summon demons “through the generations like heirlooms” (114). Even within these elite families, only one person at a time can hold the demon’s contract. Throughout the history of Austermeer, the sorcerers’ use of magic defies a binary of pure good versus pure evil. For instance, the Lexicon of the Sorcerous Arts declares that necromancy is “the darkest of all magics” (67), but the grimoire goes on to say that Balthasar Thorn “is credited with the kingdom’s continued independence from its neighbors” because he raised an army of the dead in the War of Bones (68). Even the antagonist’s despicable deeds are committed in the hope of securing knowledge that Ashcroft can use to serve the greater good. Rogerson’s world building sets the stage for the novel’s examination of the power of knowledge.

The Great Libraries also play a key part in this theme because they embody all the ways in which the world attempts to control who has access to both knowledge and power. There’s a bitter irony inherent in the librarians’ role as guardians of knowledge and the ways in which they prejudice Elisabeth against sorcerers and distort her view of the world, impacting her relationships with others and providing obstacles to the power she herself possesses. Her mentors instill in her the belief that “[s]orcerers [are] evil by nature, corrupted by the demonic magic they [wield]” (8). One of the Great Libraries’ main responsibilities is containing the kingdom’s most formidable spell books, which can transform into monsters if provoked. However, in their efforts to prevent the grimoires from being used for evil, they also keep the books from realizing their potential for good. The Great Libraries are aware of the vast power of knowledge, and they respond by restricting access to this knowledge and demonizing it.

Elisabeth’s evolving relationship with grimoires culminates in the novel’s climax when she rallies the spell books, previously seen as monstrous enemies, to fight with and for her against Ashcroft. While her training in the Great Library of Summershall makes her keenly aware of the dangers of magic, she grows up surrounded by spell books and sees “grimoires as her friends in place of people” (16). She battles Maleficts in order to save human lives, but as her character evolves, she comes to understand that humans themselves are culpable for the monsters’ existence: “Perhaps it wasn’t wrong for Maleficts to want to hurt humans—the humans who had created them, imprisoned them, tormented them with salt and iron—and ultimately, consigned them to their twisted forms” (377). During the novel’s climactic chapter, Elisabeth frees the grimoires in the Royal Library, including the most dangerous tomes. This bold action proves that the protagonist is a true child of the library and enables the power of knowledge to be a force for good. Rogerson’s novel celebrates the power of knowledge while criticizing those who seek to abuse this power or bar others from accessing it.

Rogerson’s characters navigate complex relationships and struggle to form bonds of trust in a world teeming with betrayal. Much of the treachery the protagonist suffers originates within the Great Library, which is the only home the 16-year-old has ever known. For example, Finch unjustly blames her for the Malefict’s release and Director Irena’s death. Further, after Elisabeth escapes from Leadgate Hospital, the Collegium denies her very existence, saying, “We have no record of an apprentice named Elisabeth Scrivener at the Great Library of Summershall” (169). By abandoning the protagonist in her most vulnerable moment, the library leaves her penniless, alone, and ill on the streets. In a more insidious example, the librarians indoctrinate her with antiquated biases against magic. Elisabeth’s experiences are part of a broader pattern in which the Great Libraries abuse the trust of those who devote their lives to these institutions. The librarians’ teachings punish independent thinking, and only orphans are taken on as apprentices because they’re considered expendable cogs in society. As a result, an essential part of the protagonist’s growth is learning to trust her own conscience rather than the Great Libraries’ teachings, however well-intentioned.

Rogerson predicates the novel’s central love story on Elisabeth’s ability to move past the prejudices instilled in her by her upbringing and forge a bond of trust with Nathaniel. Elisabeth initially distrusts Nathaniel because the library has taught her that sorcerers are cruel and wicked, and her experiences make her fearful to confide her knowledge of Ashcroft’s villainy to anyone: “She had been betrayed too many times, by so many different people. What if she was wrong about Nathaniel, and she couldn’t trust him, either?” (184). However, Nathaniel’s consistent kindness toward her vindicates her faith in him and eventually allows them to become more than allies. For Nathaniel’s part, he’s reluctant to trust anyone, including himself, because his father convinced him that even the kindest people are capable of horrible deeds and that there is something inherently evil within the Thorn bloodline. Nathaniel “so rarely believes the best of people” (123), but his certainty of Elisabeth’s innocence provides a stark contrast to his cynical worldview. The betrayals that Elisabeth and Nathaniel experience, Rogerson suggests, make the bonds of love and trust between them all the more meaningful.

Of all the novel’s characters, Silas is the most closely tied to the theme of trust and betrayal. Silas doesn’t trust himself because he fears that his demonic hunger for humans’ life force is more powerful than anything, even his devotion to the Thorn family. In addition, he sees himself as a traitor for taking Alistair’s life, saying, “Alistair trusted me. He believed that I would never harm him, so he failed to command me not to. His trust was his undoing” (227). Despite Silas’s self-condemnation, Nathaniel trusts him with his life because he understands that Silas saved him in the only way that he could and has been watching over him ever since. In time, Elisabeth develops faith in the demon as well. The most powerful display of trust in the novel occurs when Elisabeth and Nathaniel offer Silas freedom and forgiveness at the climax, which enables him to stop the Archon. Although Elisabeth and Nathaniel experience betrayal, their trust in Silas ultimately saves the world.