52 pages • 1 hour read
Mark LawrencePrince of Thorns
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2011A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Builders
The identity of the Builders is a secret lost to time in Jorg’s day, though their surviving buildings, tunnels, and roads are widely used. Since the story takes place in a world a millennium following the Builder’s self-immolation in the Day of a Thousand Suns, it is strongly hinted that the Builders’ civilization is our own, contemporary civilization. The Day of a Thousand Suns, which one infers was a global nuclear war, takes place at a time when technology is at least somewhat more advanced than our own take for example the AI interface at the armory door or the Lichway, which has not required maintenance in over a thousand years.
Even so, the Builder ruins described by Jorg sound very familiar. Builder-stone, which Jorg describes as having been “poured and shaped using arts long forgotten” (111), is clearly concrete, and the rods of Builder-steel which reinforce Builder-stone must be rebar. Likewise, the heavy steel door blocking the way into the armory beneath the Castle Red is described in terms very similar to the doors used for modern bank vaults. The vertical shafts the Builders put into their concrete structures, which so puzzle Jorg in Chapter 29, are probably elevator shafts, though, given the nature of the facility into which the Castle Red has been built, it is also possible that they are nuclear missile siloes.
As a civilization whose ruins remain the most durable and imposing structures but whose suicide poisoned the world, the Builders are treated with a mixture of awe and fear by the people of Jorg’s time. When Jorg laments that the Builders of the Lichway aren’t around to build him an indestructible fortress, Makin wryly replies: “If the Road-men built castles, we’d never get in anywhere […] Be happy they’re gone” (12).
The Nuban’s Crossbow
The Nuban’s Crossbow is a powerful and enchanted weapon wielded by the laconic warrior. The Nuban tells Jorg that the weapon was made in his homeland of Nuba, but he acquires it in Ancrath, taking it from the hunter sent by Sageous following Jorg’s abscondment from the Tall Castle with the brothers.
The crossbow’s exotic origin and construction enhance the mysterious threat of the Nuban, who will sometimes caress the pagan icons on it, seemingly invoking their protection. The weapon appears capable of bearing magical enchantments and, most likely, it was already enchanted by Sageous when the Nuban took it from his hunter. Jorg certainly presents it as enchanted to Renar’s guard at The Haunt, joking: “Be careful, half the wright is enchantments” (284).
However, it is definitely enchanted by Corion when Jorg first attempts to confront Renar. Makin’s opinion is that, if it is enchanted, then “it must have been to prevent it from missing. The Nuban could stop an army with that thing” (325).
Indeed, it is a powerful weapon in its own right, and it helps Jorg in key moments. The Nuban’s barrage of bolts at the ambush in Norwood was instrumental in routing Renar’s men and, without it, Jorg might not have been able to defeat Chella and complete his mission under the Red Castle.
Jorg’s Headaches
Jorg is subject to excruciating headaches that he describes as “a pang from temple to temple, behind the eyes like a sliver of glass” (193). These headaches, which give him intense pain behind his eyes, also make Jorg murderous: “I had me a hollow ache behind the eyes. The kind that gets people killed” (31).
In the earlier portions of the book, the reader gets the impression that the headaches and accompanying rages are a lingering effect of Jorg’s ordeal in the hook-briars and his long, feverish recovery. Jorg certainly seems to believe so, claiming, “Every few weeks for more than a year the poison would flare in the wounds and run in my blood. When the poison ran in me I’d done things that scared even the brothers” (146).
When Jorg discovers that he has been surreptitiously controlled by Corion for the past four years, the headaches are revealed to have been a mechanism of the sorcerer’s control. Whenever Jorg thinks of returning to the Tall Castle, which would be contrary to Corion’s designs, he is afflicted with an intense flash of pain: “I had an ache in my head now, like a hook inserted behind both eyes tugging at me. The same ache the started up when the sight of old Gomsty made me think of going home” (47); “‘I’m going home,’ I said. The dull ache between my eyes became a rusty nail, driven deep” (75).
As explored most fully in the final chapter, Jorg is himself uncertain about how much of his behavior on the road resulted from his own decisions. In the end he seems to find the question to be pointless since, despite not wanting to do any of it again, he doesn’t regret anything. The reader, however, can correlate his degree of responsibility with the degree to which Corion is controlling him, which is indicated by the severity of Jorg’s headache.
