The Throne of Fire

These chapters contain the climactic sequence and setup for the final installment in the series. The second portion of Carter and Sadie’s journey through the Twelve Houses is fraught with emotions as they go from hopelessness to determination to resolve. Nothing of note happens in the Fifth or Sixth Houses, but the spirits seeing Ra has a huge impact on Carter. Though Carter grapples with feeling as though he’s failed, the spirits give him a moment of knowing he did something right, illustrating the importance of hope and how success means something different to everyone. The spirits seeing the sun reminds Carter of what’s worth fighting for and aids him in his game against Khonsu and the final battle against Menshikov and Apophis. The spirits don’t know or care that Ra is a shell of himself. To them, they see only the return of the sun after centuries of darkness, showing that sometimes belief means more than truth.

Riordan updates Khonsu’s appearance to make him look like a modern and wealthy young man, but otherwise, he stays true to the Khonsu of myth. In The Red Pyramid, Carter and Sadie heard the story of the goddess Nut, who won five days from Khonsu that allowed her to have children after Ra forbid her to on any day of the year. Here, Carter and Sadie play their own version of Nut’s gamble via the game of Senet, which was foreshadowed in Chapter 18 when Carter woke to see Sadie, Bes, and Zia playing it. Senet is a board game from ancient Egypt (full name senet net hab, which means “game of passing through”).

The game of Senet played in Chapter 22 represents strategy and sacrifice, in line with the theme The Difficulty of Making Choices. Bes enters the game knowing the group won’t get away without one of them losing, and he knows that Carter and Sadie must move on in order for order to prevail over chaos. He sacrifices himself, both to give the kids the ability to win and also to motivate them. Bes’s remark about needing to lose a piece to win the game applies to more than Senet: It is a metaphor for the overall battle the Kanes face against Apophis. They have lost many pieces since the beginning of The Red Pyramid and even before (their parents, Zia in a way, now Bes, and others), but they do not give up because they don’t want those sacrifices to be without reason. Senet is a simple game with few rules, but as such, it easily represents life—which also has few rules but potentially heavy consequences.

Bes’s death scene also represents the theme The Many Forms of Family. Riordan set up the idea that names contain one’s full life in earlier chapters, and that makes a comeback here. As Khonsu absorbs Bes’s name, essentially robbing Bes of his identity, Carter and Sadie see images of moments Bes shared with them on their journey. This signifies that although Bes initially helped them because of Bast, he grew attached to them personally, so much so that their shared experiences became meaningful to him. Carter and Sadie are devastated by his loss and end the book vowing to restore his name to him, showing that they, too, care deeply for him.

The battle in Chapter 23 reveals Menshikov’s true nature and sees Desjardins making the ultimate sacrifice—his life and the beliefs he’s held for so long. After seeing what Menshikov has done, Desjardins understands that the Kanes are right and that their path must be followed if order is to win over chaos. Desjardins’s death symbolizes the majority of magicians coming together against a common enemy, and it sets up for the few who don’t, foreshadowing the conflict those magicians will likely bring in the third book. Like Bes, Desjardins’s death is represented symbolically by his name—his life story—drifting away.

The final conflict is also the culmination of The Difficulty of Making Choices. Menshikov promises Carter and Sadie great power, positions of authority, and, most importantly, the key to saving Walt. At the same time, Horus urges Carter one last time to seize Ra’s power for his own. The siblings resist both of these temptations—in the moment, it seems they do so with little hesitation, but later scenes reveal that it was not easy. Sadie tells Walt that she feels as if she failed not only him, but everyone else as well, since Ra is still a shell of himself and Apophis is still set to return. Not only does this add depth to Sadie’s character, but it creates an opportunity for Walt to show his own character growth, as he tells her that Jaz is also working on a cure for him and that Ra’s return has inspired him.

These last chapters also explore The Different Types of Power. There are, of course, the various godly and magical powers—Carter transforming into Horus’s avatar, Desjardins casting his powerful spell, and so on—but Carter and Sadie also use less concrete methods of power to accomplish their goals. Sadie safely channels Isis, symbolized by the rainbow wings that appear when she speaks, and this allows her to speak with clear authority to gain the attention of the magicians and convince them to side with order, not chaos. Zia, Jaz, and the others use their abilities to fight, but their loyalty to the Kanes is its own form of power. With the reveal that the story is actually Sadie and Carter’s outgoing request for aid, the entire book represents the power of persuasion, and in doing so, conveys the message that asking for help is a form of strength.

In the aftermath of the great battle, the Kanes learn that Amos is Desjardins’s successor, which is both fitting and ironic. For years, the Kanes have been regarded as outlaws for their views on magicians and gods working together. The end of The Red Pyramid brought a temporary truce as Desjardins realized the potential benefits of the path of the gods, but it isn’t until the end of The Throne of Fire that the Kane legacy becomes of crucial importance to the fight against chaos. The magicians who refuse to join the Kanes partially do so because of their hatred for what Amos represents, and they would rather rebel and see chaos win than acknowledge that the Kanes might be right. On the other hand, Sadie and Carter persuade some magicians to join their cause when they explain that Desjardins gave his life because he believed in them.

The final chapters show Carter and Sadie preparing for the hardships that await in the future. Desjardins banished Apophis to the Duat, but the serpent will not stay banished for long. Freed from the prison Ra put him in, the serpent can use its incredible reserves of magic to reform and threaten order. Carter and Sadie send out a recording (this book) asking for more help, and the final line suggests they will have more recruits in The Serpent’s Shadow. Their promise to restore Bes’s name is the impossible one referred to in the final chapter’s title. With all else facing them, Carter and Sadie don’t know if they will have the time or resources to find a way to help Bes, but after all they’ve gone through, they can’t walk away without at least the intention to try.