Divine Rivals

In this section of the novel, The Dangers of Censorship present Iris with a challenge that threatens her standing at work, for her attempts to find a way to tell the truth about current events become insurmountable when a so-called “open” assignment from Zeb shows her just how narrow her options truly are, given the politically expedient need to adhere to the editor’s inherent biases in order to obtain the coveted columnist position. She knows that she must impress Zeb to secure her promotion, but to do so, she must resort to promoting a false narrative of the war, one that she believes is ultimately harmful and destructive. Likewise, her work interactions are full of forced smiles as she tiptoes around her moody and closed-minded boss and attempts to navigate an ongoing rivalry with Roman. Stymied at every turn by the limitations of her current role, she feels unfulfilled, and the growing likelihood that Forest is one of the missing soldiers from the front shows her just how unimportant her current job is when she compares it to her desire to save what is left of her family. When her mother dies, it serves as an inciting incident that prompts Iris to leave the Gazette and pursue her dreams of becoming a proper war correspondent. Within the context of Ross’s storytelling, this development also serves the pragmatic purpose of propelling Iris into the larger action of the story—and the war.

Providing a sharp contrast with Iris’s difficulties, Roman’s interactions with his family and the Littles serve to illustrate the complacent ignorance of the majority of Oath’s citizens, a reality that further highlights The Dangers of Censorship. The scene also implies that even the wealthy are not immune to the war propaganda that the chancellor shamelessly spreads through his controlled media outlets. For example, Zeb Autry fears Enva’s music, believing that the goddess is cruelly luring eastern citizens to their deaths in the west. Similarly, the chancellor abuses his considerable power over the media to push this narrative further with harmful and misleading headlines that vilify Enva and paint the invading Dacre as a victim rather than the perpetrator that Roman’s myth reveals him to be. It is also important to note that the Littles are Dacre supporters, just like Roman’s father. At the family dinner in Chapter 6, Roman’s own views are placed in opposition to those of his family when he states that Dacre supporters are “ignorant of the mythology where Dacre’s true and terrifying nature was depicted, or, like Zeb Autry, afraid of Enva’s musical powers” (53). The censorship inherent in the dominant media portrayals of the gods therefore restricts the breadth of knowledge readily available to east Cambria citizens, keeping them docile and ignorant. Thus, Ross uses these early chapters to establish that the chancellor and unethical journalists like Zeb Autry infuse the main headlines with false and misleading information that strengthens public support for Dacre and harms the war efforts for Enva in the west.

With the inclusion of the myth about Dacre and Enva that Roman sends to Iris, Ross creates a larger parallel between this myth and the long-buried truths that ethical journalists like Roman and Iris are striving to bring to light. Just as Enva’s songs help mortals by “guiding souls” and are “woven with truth and knowledge” (53), the ethical journalism that Iris and Roman are passionate about perpetuating also aims to spread vital truths to the general public. Iris ultimately becomes a war correspondent in order to follow her passion and to combat The Dangers of Censorship. Thus, when she leaves, she packs minimal belongings that hold sentimental value, for the true focus of her life is on pursuing her ethically motivated ambitions of reporting accurately on the war. She only holds on to those items that remind her of her most important connections and The Intensity of Wartime Relationships. The fate of these items (Roman’s letters, Aster’s ashes, Forest’s trench coat, her grandmother’s typewriter, and Aster’s golden locket) over the course of the story—whether they are lost, destroyed, or willfully abandoned—are indicative of the way that even the most profound relationships can be irrevocably altered by the stresses of war.

Finally, just as this section of the novel highlights the growing relationship between Iris and Roman in person, The Emotional Impact of Written Words is explored through the formation of their quasi-anonymous correspondence. Roman, who denies himself the possibility of joy and love because of his guilt over his sister’s death, finds a guilty pleasure in connecting emotionally with Iris on paper. Likewise, her grief over her missing brother touches the part of Roman that still grieves his deceased sister. Although Iris wears metaphorical armor to protect her feelings and does not get close to others for fear they will abandon her as the rest of her family has done, she nonetheless craves the intimate connection that these enchanted letters give her. At this point in Iris’s character development, the anonymous correspondence is a relatively low-stakes method to connect intimately with the mind of another person. Iris therefore hides behind her words and takes comfort in the fact that her pen pal can never truly leave her, simply because they were never all that close to her to begin with. However, despite Iris’s efforts to remain detached from others, her ability to recognize Roman’s exhaustion and sadness under “whatever mask he had been wearing for everyone else” (75-76) hints at her underlying feelings for her rival. Likewise, Roman’s worry for Iris when she does not come to work after Aster’s death indicates his growing feelings for her, which he’s quicker to acknowledge due to the emotional foundation that her previous letters have built within him.