67 pages • 2 hours read
LaDarrion WilliamsBlood at the Root
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2024A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Importance of Community and Belonging
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of enslavement, death, and violence.
After Malik loses his mother at the age of seven, he is left without a family as he goes to several different foster homes. When he goes to Louisiana for the first time, he is bitter and angry towards the family that he meets because they left him alone for a decade. He also struggles with authority figures like Taron, Antwan, and Empress because of the failure of the systems to protect and support him. However, through his newfound family, his friends, and Caiman University, he finds a sense of belonging for the first time in his life.
One key component of Malik’s development is Mama Aya and his family ancestry. Mama Aya gives Malik a home and opportunity at Caiman University, providing him with direction for the first time in his life. Central to this sense of belonging is the ancestry that Mama Aya introduces him to. She gives him memories of her parents—Miriam and Ephraim—as well as his enslaved ancestors. When he returns to the tree after Mama Aya’s death, he notes, “I’m ready. Because that little Black boy from Helena, Alabama, is no longer haunted by an outpouring of confusion, but a levee of weighted determination. He belongs here. His roots are here. He’s part of something way bigger” (411). This Malik stands in stark contrast to the Malik at the beginning of the novel. He has discovered his ancestry and learned to understand his ancestral magic, and in the process, developed a sense of belonging to a world that had previously neglected him.
Another component of Malik’s belonging is the friends that he gains at Caiman University. Although Alexi ultimately betrays him, she plays a key part in his feelings of belonging at school and in the world of magic. Alexis helps Malik navigate Caiman, introduces him to her friends, and encourages him to practice his magic. Additionally, Malik’s other friends like D Low, Savon, and Elijah create a sense of inclusion and belonging, including him in both serious discussions and dorm games. After facing Mama Aya’s death and Alexis’s betrayal, Malik is happy to continue at Caiman because of the friends he met there who have stayed loyal to him. He notes how “[a]s they go into their own convo, I sit back, feeling my face crack a smile for the first time in weeks. This is my school. This is my fam. This is my life” (413). At the end of the novel, Malik has achieved a new normal with loyal friends and challenging classes, both of which help him continue to grow.
Malik’s change throughout the novel is facilitated by family and the friends he makes at Caiman. He starts out angry and bitter at his loneliness, the loss of his mother, and the failure of the system to help him. Through his developing magical ability, his new connection to his ancestry, and his friends at Caiman, he grows mentally and physically stronger, bolstered by the support and inclusion he feels in his new life.
The Lasting Effects of Trauma
Traumatic events are shocking when they happen, and their effects continue long after they are over. Several characters in Blood at the Root grapple with trauma that they faced years before, emphasizing the way that trauma continues to impact people’s lives long after it happens.
The novel highlights protagonist Malik’s struggle to overcome the trauma of the night his mother disappeared. At several points in the novel, he is assaulted by memories, getting lost in flashbacks of the fire, screams, and the burst of magic from his own hands that night. As a result, he refuses to use his magic for the next 10 years, not trusting himself to use or practice it and blaming himself for his mother’s death. Even after he is given irrefutable evidence of his mother’s use of dark magic and learns that Taron banished her to protect the magic community, Malik still holds out hope that his mother is good. He embraces her when she reappears, only to learn that she is still obsessed with finding the Scroll of Idan after a decade of imprisonment. These facts emphasize the impact that Malik’s trauma has on him—he is unable to let it go for over a decade, and only then with the support of Mama Aya and his friends.
The novel also delves into how trauma has shaped the lives of the villains of the story, including Malik’s professor, Kumale. Because of the trauma of losing his brother, Kumale spends years working with the Bokor, helping them gain power and influence. When he reveals the truth to Malik, yelling that he “want[s] [his] brother back!!!”, Malik notes how “there it is. The pain and hurt that’ll make you go crazy (359). By highlighting Kumale’s betrayal and developing his history, the novel complicates his role as an antagonist, revealing his trauma and the deeply personal reasons behind his actions.
Similarly, Donja is fixated on killing Malik because he is still immersed in the trauma of his parents’ deaths. Even though Malik was only a child, his attempt to save his mother killed both of Donja’s parents while they attempted to exile Lorraine. Donja explains, “My mother and father died that night. Died because of you. […] And you’re gonna be dead right along with them” (378). As a result, like Kumale, he works with the Bokor for personal reasons, and his actions are fueled by the trauma he experienced years before. His pain overwhelms him, and he chooses to align with dark magic and betray the magical community to get his revenge.
Each of these characters—Malik, Kumale, and Donja—loses the people closest to them. They are consumed by their grief in different ways as their trauma continues to resonate throughout their lives. Through them, the novel explores the hate, anger, and loss that accompanies trauma, even years after it occurs.
The Corrupting Nature of Power
As a work of fantasy, Blood at the Root explores the real world with the added element of magic. Central to that magic is the power that it gives to the characters, with bane magic being the most powerful magic possible. However, bane magic requires blood sacrifice, and the novel uses this idea to emphasize the corruption that comes with obtaining power.
Malik’s mother Lorraine sacrifices part of her humanity and her position in the magical community to obtain as much power as she can. The first information that Malik uncovers about his mother’s path is a note that she wrote: “I’m sorry. But something in me can’t [stop]. Bane magic is tempting me. Please. I need your help” (69). Lorraine’s fate is foreshadowed from the first time her history is revealed: She was corrupted by the power that bane magic offered her. Central to Lorraine’s character is her single-minded quest for the Scroll of Idan, which symbolizes the corruption that comes with power. Although no information is given about the Scroll of Idan—other than the fact that it allows the conjurer to perform the strongest magic—it is a central component of Lorraine’s character. She obsesses over it for her entire life, failing to overcome the temptation of it even after a decade of imprisonment. Given the chance to reconnect with Malik, she is unable to transcend her own corruption; After Malik embraces her, he sees that “her face is twisted and contorted, with blood-red eyes. The real her” (384). This moment of realization for Malik emphasizes just how fully the power has affected his mother; her quest for the Scroll of Idan has corrupted her beyond salvation.
Similarly, Kumale becomes obsessed with power in his quest to save his brother. He becomes convinced that the Bokor and bane magic are the key to bringing his brother back. As a result, he spends years working with them to build their magic, find Malik, and eventually take Malik to sacrifice him and siphon his power. In one of Kumale’s memories, Malik also sees that Kumale killed his parents. He sees a vision of “Kumale’s mother and father, both scared. I see in their eyes Professor Kumale standing over them, jabbing two blades into their hearts. Magic bursts from them like a prism of light” (360). For Kumale, it does not matter what the price of growing his magic is; he is willing to sacrifice anyone necessary to build his strength and bring his brother back.
Through the lens of magic, the novel explores the impact that the quest for power has on people. Lorraine, Kumale, and the Bokor represent the corruption that often comes with extreme power. They are willing to kill fellow conjurers, young children, and even their own families as they become obsessed with gaining as much power as they can.
