The Familiar

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-12

Chapters 13-20

Chapters 21-31

Chapters 32-40

Chapters 41-55

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Themes

The Power of Magic and Talent

As is common in fantasy novels, magic plays a role in the novel as a force that can manipulate material objects, but it also serves as a means of exploring other aspects of human existence and feeling. In The Familiar, the power of magic is linked to the idea of talent, with Luzia drawing upon her knowledge and talents to try to combat a society that marginalizes her in terms of both religious belief and class status.

Luzia’s magical ability is firmly tied to her Jewish heritage, which is suppressed under Philip’s ultra-Catholic rule. Jewish identity is traditionally regarded as inherited from one’s mother, and Luzia’s mother, Blanca Cana, came from a family of scholars. She taught Luzia to read and understand Latin, Spanish, and Hebrew. The refranes that Hualit learns and teaches Luzia are gleaned from letters Hualit receives from exiles abroad, indicating traditions existing outside the boundaries of Catholic Spain. While their language is not identified in the novel, Bardugo’s Author’s Note explains the language of the refranes is Ladino, a blend of Hebrew and Castilian Spanish with loans from other languages, including Arabic. This cultural blend gives the refranes their unique power, with the magic drawing on a union of many traditions and talents from a variety of peoples.

A significant aspect of the magic lies in the secret nature of the refranes. Spanish Jews like Hualit must practice in secret or forfeit their life, and this secrecy also gives the refranes their power. In using the language that has been repressed by the ruling culture, Luzia can employ the refranes to her own advantage, which suggests that the marginalized can still wield power. Luzia may not be able to live freely as a Jewish woman, but in maintaining her identity in secret, she refuses to surrender her agency completely.

Another popular convention of fantasy is that magical talent emerges in one who is lower-class, ordinary, or otherwise overlooked. Luzia, as a scullion, is considered one of the most menial servants. Nevertheless, as she tells Santángel, the servant who controls the family’s food and children has control over that household’s health, security, and future—an immense influence, and a paradox of power that employers may not be quick to acknowledge. Luzia uses her magic powers to transform her station, winning the attention of a more powerful patron and getting the chance to compete in the torneo. In this respect, her magic and talents become a means of social mobility, enabling her to dream of a better future for herself.

Not all of the characters manage to use magic and talents to as great effect as Luzia does. Fortún, the Prince of Olives, has stumbled into possession of a talisman that amplifies his abilities, which means his power is no talent of his own and disappears when his prop is denied to him. Gracia’s talent is her illusion, showing that her talent lies in mere appearances like her beauty, while Santángel’s magic is simply his luck, which can be transferred with the right manipulation. That Luzia’s power is the greatest of all—able to create or kill, able to manipulate matter, able to defy curses and death—suggests that her refranes have the most legitimate authority. In staying true to her identity and her talents, Luzia is able to overcome all the obstacles in her path to secure a happy ending.

The Price of Ambition

Many of the characters comment in different ways on the attractions and costs of ambition. Some of the characters struggle with the moral complexities of gaining what they want, while others have no scruples about advancing themselves at the expense of others.

Víctor, Santángel’s current patron, is one of the clearest embodiments of unchecked ambition in the novel. Like Antonio Pérez, Víctor wants authority and influence, and he is willing to sacrifice whomever he needs to, or use whatever tools he can find—including enslaving another human in his service—to advance his cause. Pérez is willing to do whatever he can to save himself from the king’s disfavor, even though the torneo exposes the contestants to dangerous accusations from the Inquisition due to their magical acts. Fortún is duplicitous and betrays the others in the torneo for similar reasons: He seeks approval of the king for his own advancement, and so is willing to deceive Luzia for his own ends instead of cooperating with her so they can both benefit.

Some of the characters present a more ambiguous attitude toward ambition and its price. Hualit, for example, has sought personal safety and financial security by doing sex work. Since she desires security and comfort, she is unwilling to take Luzia in and leaves Luzia to find her own way in the world through working as a servant. Hualit, however, does not entirely abandon Luzia either: She continues to show her affection and teach her the magic songs, and when Luzia is in danger after the torneo, she invites Luzia to escape with her instead of leaving her behind in Madrid.

Valentina is similar to Hualit in the sense that both women are ambitious for a better life for themselves and long for luxury. At the beginning of the novel, Valentina only regards Luzia as yet another servant to be used or exploited for her ends, even when it comes to Luzia’s magical talents. As the novel progresses, though, Valentina’s attitude toward ambition becomes more complex: She becomes more protective of Luzia and less willing to play the game of social advancement, even leaving her husband for a female playwright instead of maintaining the social façade of marriage to an important, high-ranking man.

Luzia must learn to find her own path when it comes to coping with her ambitions, and ultimately she finds the most successful outcome of all the characters. While Luzia begins the novel hungry for advancement at any cost, she quickly realizes that there are some sacrifices she isn’t willing to make: She instead chooses to help others and avoid harm, even when it jeopardizes her chances of success. By the novel’s end, Luzia has rejected the trappings of worldly ambition in Madrid, finding her happiness as a simple anonymous traveler with the love of her life instead.

The Nature of Oppression and Sacrifice

The theme of oppression and sacrifice emerges strongly in the second half of the novel. While some characters are entirely willing to perpetuate systems of social and political oppression, others demonstrate an alternative approach in seeking to help others whenever possible, even if that requires making a sacrifice of their own.

The world of the novel is set during the Spanish Golden Age (See: Background), with the novel presenting Spain as ruled by oppressive religious and monarchical forces. The efforts of the Inquisition to ensure orthodox Catholic belief and the efforts of the king to bring Spain glory in the international arena work in tandem, resulting in the oppression of subjects at home (e.g., Jews like Luzia) and colonized peoples abroad. While the king justifies his attacks as crusades to secure true religious belief, Spain’s riches are derived from the exploitation or wholesale slaughter of African and Indigenous peoples. This is what Teoda means when she says Pérez’s riches are covered in gore and the walls of his home bleed—oppression begins at the very top of Spanish society.

Spanish society also rests on a hierarchy where the labor of certain classes is exploited for the comfort of others. Farmers like Fortún and servants like Luzia and Águeda, the cook, perform the labor that keeps the nobility and hidalgos, the land-owning classes, in luxury and ease. Valentina initially has no hesitation about exploiting Luzia’s gifts for her benefit, just as Víctor has no compunction about exploiting Santángel for his own ends. Some of these exploitative attitudes even filter down to the lower-class individuals who are desperate to improve their lives, such as when Fortún tries to manipulate and betray Luzia so that he can win a place at court for himself.

For some of the novel’s more marginalized or vulnerable characters, sacrifice represents an alternative ethics to the system of oppression that dominates amongst the upper classes and religious authorities in Madrid. Santángel regains both his self-respect and, ultimately, his freedom by helping to resist his curse through sacrifice: While the curse originally imprisons Santángel by tricking him into making an ostensibly self-serving bargain, Santángel redeems himself when he decides to trade his life to the Inquisition to ensure Luzia will be free from the inquisitors and from Víctor. Similarly, while Valentina is initially ready to use Luzia to gain the attention of Pérez and thereby the king, when she learns of Luzia’s persecution and imprisonment, she acts to aid and protect her. In doing so, Valentina rejects the rigid class hierarchies of Spanish society, defying the oppressive social structure by showing solidarity and friendship to her former employee.

Luzia thinks deeply about what she will sacrifice as well. In the end, though she does not expect to live, she chooses to risk sacrificing herself for the chance of freeing Santángel as well as herself. The freedom from servitude that both Luzia and Santángel long for is thus a rebuke to the oppressive culture that would dictate their choices and their lives, but their ultimate choices—self-sacrifice instead of exploiting others—also present an ethical alternative to the prevailing oppression in Madrid.