It is presented as the record — and the formal complaint against the gods — of Orual, daughter of the King of Glome, a pagan kingdom to the north of ancient Greece. Her father, hot-tempered and prone to violence, has little love for his three daughters, least of all for ugly Orual. Her only friends in the palace are her beautiful half-sister Istra and her tutor, a Greek slave who she only knows as "the Fox".

Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Hinted at. Even though none of the sisters' hair colors are specifically stated, Istra is constantly described as "golden" and "fair," Orual describes herself as dark, and Redival's name may be indicative of her hair color (as well as her temper and promiscuity). Perspective Flip: The book is a retelling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche, but with Psyche's older sister as the "hero." However, the book ends up inverting this trope. The Fox like Oural better because she is more eager to learn and when the King comes one day telling them that there will be soon a prince to teach, Oural feels saddened. The King is to be engaged and preparations soon start. The girls are taught a Greek hymn before the wedding and are told that they must wear veils to hide their faces.

Reviews

I often become like Orual. Vision replete with roiling chaos, I easily fixate on the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ instead of that everlasting Who. Angelic Beauty: Psyche's beauty leads the common-folk of Glome to worship her as a goddess. Her cult grows to the point that the local priest comes to believe she is the Blessed of their myths and plans to sacrifice her to their god, the Shadowbrute, so she can be his bride in the darkness. Once she meets and marries the god, she becomes prettier than ever and soon after has her own temples where she is worshiped.

Once she became queen, Orual freed the slaves of Glome and gave them freedom, which in turn made them loyal to her, and from her point of view she gained a small army at no extra cost. She worked Bardia ragged to keep him away from his wife, and she never let the Fox return to Greece. From the outside, she seemed like a breath of fresh air compared to her father, but internally she was no better. To her credit however, Orual comes to realize just how selfish she was. Heroic Self-Deprecation: Played with. By the end of the book, Orual realizes she has done awful things to the people she cared about, and is appropriately chastened. However, it gets to the point where she's puzzled her subjects grieve her impending death. The priest Arnom appends her book once he discovers it and declares her the most just and merciful ruler Glome had ever known. The novel starts with the narrator, an old woman who claims that she must speak against the Gods. She is an old woman and she no longer cares if something happens to her as a result. Then the narrator presents herself as being Oural, the daughter of the King that rules over Glome. Oural is hated by the god of the Grey Mountain but she does not reveal why. Tough Leader Façade: Orual, both literally and figuratively. She hides her face to conceal her ugliness, which has the unintended side-effect of making her seem mysterious and powerful, which gives her greater authority as queen. But she also feels that underneath her queenly persona, she's still the same ugly, sad, greedy, and desperately lonely person she was when she was growing up. Always Second Best: Redival is beautiful, but not nearly as beautiful as Istra, which is a major source of bitterness for her. Towards the end, it's revealed that Redival felt abandoned by Orual and the Fox after Istra was born. Orual realizes it's a valid grievance, even if Redival was bratty about it.Ambiguous Situation: Who the hell are the gods?! Are they pagan gods through a Christian lens, or the Christian God through a pagan lens? If so, why would the Christian God have physical intercourse with a mortal? Did Istra and Orual literally become gods, like in the myth, or were they simply welcomed into Heaven? The novel ends with a few words from the Priest Arnom who tells the one who found the book to take it to Greece, as Oural would have wished to happen. Update this section!

Abusive Parent: The King has no problem calling his daughter ugly to her face and beats her several times for speaking out of turn. He has to fake concern when one of his children is doomed to die because he's too relieved that his own hide is saved. Orual fits this to an extent as well. Once in the palace, Orual recalls everything that happened to the Fox and he is sure that Psyche is mad and that some criminal on the mountain takes care of her. The Fox and Orual decide that they must act fast and save Psyche and the best time to do it was then because the King was going to leave for a few days to hunt lions in the mountain. The Fox points out that it will be hard to convince Psyche to leave and that they cannot hide her in the city because she will be found again and sacrificed once more. Orual tells the Fox that she will kill her sister but the Fox tries to convince her that killing her sister is not the way she should go. After the Fox leaves, Orual thinks that maybe she should let Psyche remain with her husband if she is happy but then remembered that her husband forbade her from seeing his face so Orual reached the conclusion that a man who behaves in such a way cannot be a good person. Our Gods Are Different: The novels presents the theologies of Greece and Glome before hinting at the truth about the gods: I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?” Orual begins her second book by telling the reader that she is old and will die soon. Because of this, she can’t rewrite the book but she can add to it. A former guard came to Orual, a man named Tarin and he made Orual think about the suffering she caused to her older sister. Then, a few days later, Bardia dies and his wife blames the Queen for forcing him to work too much. The two talk for a long time and they both realizes that they loved Bardia.

New in Series

Orual often remains blind to the love of those around her, instead telling herself that the people she loves will never love her as she loves them. Orual spends much of her adult life secretly loving Bardia and feeling jealous of his wife. No matter how much time Bardia spends serving Orual, he always goes home to his wife and children at night, and Orual sees this as proof that his family has more of his devotion than she does, that she is simply his job. However, when Bardia dies and Orual goes to visit his wife, Ansit, she discovers that Ansit has been jealous of her the whole time. Ansit believes that Orual and Bardia had a special bond due to their long hours spent in companionship on the battlefield and in the council room. For both women, their love of Bardia was marred by their jealousy of the other, each believing that the other had Bardia’s true devotion, when in fact he was devoted to each of them in different ways. The Priest of Ungit comes to the palace to talk to the King. Orual fears him. He says that Ungit only becomes angry when people act badly, and when those people are punished, all will be well. To fix the kingdom’s problems, they must find the cause of Ungit’s anger and sacrifice them. The King and the Fox argue against him. The Priest says that a holy divination process has told him that the Accursed is not among the commoners, the Elders, or the nobles. The King thinks the Priest will say that he’s the Accursed, so he threatens to kill the Priest and his guards. Finally, the Priest reveals that Psyche must be sacrificed. Orual and the Fox beg the King not to let it happen, but he refuses to listen. Stay in the Kitchen: The King of Glome hits Orual during an argument. Later he feels remorseful about it, but he puts the blame on his daughter, stating she should refrain herself from meddling in masculine matters such as politics. Ironically, Orual ends inheriting the throne of Glome. If she isn't an Unreliable Narrator, Orual has a personal encounter with the god of the Grey Mountain. As a pagan of Glome would know, the god is violent enough to flatten a forest and so radically present as to make everything else in reality seem like a dream. Yet, he (or maybe He) may be the God known to Greek philosophy, as the god is benevolent enough to love Psyche more than her foster mother, metaphysical enough that Orual cannot see if he has a shape, and omnipotent enough to change the past at will. Indignant, she discovers that, after all, she was the cruel and unjust one. Logical and learned, she discovers that, after all, she was the liar and deceiver. (The worst lies she tells are to herself.) Pragmatic and effective, a ruler who has built a solid and abiding empire, she discovers that, after all, her kingdom will be given to a distant relative she hardly knows.

Anachronism Stew: Characters make reference to chess despite it not existing at the time the story is supposed to be set. White Mask of Doom: Orual's veil is described as white, and the illustrations portray it as a white mask, featureless save for two eye holes. Both her enemies and her subjects find it creepy. Schakel, Peter J (1984), Reason and Imagination in CS Lewis: A Study of 'Till We Have Faces' , Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, archived from the original on 29 January 2012 Legend Fades to Myth: Orual lives long enough to see her sister's life become some form of the Eros and Psyche myth. We affirm his work and ours in the regular daily operations of men, and we don’t reject or despise the daily business of living, leading, and serving. And we believe in his covenant work across families and generations and through the church.Green-Eyed Monster: Ungit demands Istra be sacrificed for being more beautiful than her. Orual herself was one of these, as she realizes at the end.