Five Broken Blades

One of the main subplots in the narrative involves Mikail’s personal history with Joon, who oppressed and colonized Mikail’s home country, Gaya. Although the original Gayan Rebellion ultimately ended in the carnage of Joon’s infamous Festival of Blood, Mikail sees himself as the inheritor of his people’s will and participates in the assassination plot as a way to free his fellow Gayans from oppression. However, although Mikail ostensibly fights for their freedom, his actions nevertheless pose an ethical dilemma, for Corland draws several pointed comparisons between Mikail’s behavior and Joon’s, namely through Mikail’s bloodlust.

Although Mikail is overtly focused on instigating a righteous rebellion, Corland complicates this notion by suggesting that Mikail’s mission is more accurately a quest for revenge, and she also draws implicit parallels between Mikail and Joon through the strategic use of hellish battle imagery. For example, with the Festival of Blood—the so-called cleansing of the Gayan rebellion—Joon “brought the hells onto earth” and “crush[ed] the colony’s revolt” (360). Like the devil himself, Joon is depicted at the head of a slaughter that he orchestrates out of sheer greed. Likewise, when Mikail pursues his own battles, he also indulges in violence and bloodlust, even earning the title of “demon” from