Where the Dark Stands Still

Over the course of the novel, Liska attains the magic of self-acceptance. Although Weles serves as the main antagonist, the novel’s central conflict is the one raging within the protagonist. Liska’s struggle to embrace herself and her magic originates in the religious trauma of her youth in Stodoła: “[S]he learned that God did not approve of magic, and thus did not approve of her” (313). The villagers’ Church-sanctioned prejudice deeply impacts Liska’s self-esteem and behavior. She hides her true potential and wears the mask of “the perfect Orlican girl: docile and pious and helpful, the last person you would suspect of ungodly magic” (140). The years of stifling conformity she endures are rendered meaningless when she kills Tomasz to protect her secret, and she locks away her magic in an act of complete self-rejection. The other villagers cannot prove that she is responsible for Tomasz’s death, but they think she is “as wicked as the dark magic harbored in the spirit-wood” (2). This emphasizes Poranek’s point that society’s tolerance is often damaging and conditional and that true, lasting acceptance must come from within.

Although Liska originally enters the Driada to give up her magic, the transformative experiences and relationships she builds in the spirit-wood allow her to achieve self-acceptance.