High Stakes that aren’t matters of life and death

The Sun Blessed Prince has a lot of stakes, but an obvious question arises quite soon once you realize the magic system is about life and death: if people can get resurrected when they die….then why should anyone care if they die? Why should the audience be worried about someone’s death in the narrative if you know that person will be all right in the end?

I personally believe that stakes don’t need to be life or death for them to be high.

There is a lot going on in this book. There are two countries at war, there are interpersonal relationships that are constantly pushed to the brink, and the mental state of certain characters are never perfectly at ease.

If we take death out of the equation, we need to look at other matters instead.

What is the emotional impact of the events taking place?

How do these events change the characters themselves?

How are the politics moving and what’s the impact for…everyone else?

We learn early on that Elician cannot tell anyone he is a Giver (someone who can heal any wound or resurrect someone from the dead) or he will lose his chance to ascend to his throne. That is a huge stake for him, and his choice to reveal himself or not does have a trickle down effect on all the rest.

Cat, for his part, has people he desperately wants to protect. His choices or actions may determine whether those people will ever be okay. His own freedom is on the line and he has learned early on: there are fates worse than death.

Throughout the book, we see what those fates might entail: forced imprisonment, torture, a complete loss of a sense of self or a feeling of freedom. These are all threats that hang over our characters heads as they wrestle with what will happen if anything goes wrong.

The villains in the story prove time and again how willing they are to employ increasingly more brutal tactics against those they see as less than human. Death could very well be a relief in these cases, and it is even celebrated by those who realize that a final end is truly the only way out.

I think it’s limiting to suggest that death is the only “high stake” that characters can face.

Beyond the world of fantasy, real people experience high stakes all the time. Job loss, financial insecurity, broken marriages or relationships, illness or disability. There are risks that happen in the world that are significant to different people in different ways. One person may handle the loss of their limb far better than another person handles their own loss.

Risk is inherent in what we do as people, but what those risks mean to each of us is unique.

Even if everything turns out perfectly fine, what is the emotional toll of doing something?

If you were forced to sell your home and move across the country with nothing but a suitcase and not speak with your loved ones for years on end, before eventually being allowed to go back: certainly, your home and your loved ones (may) still be there waiting for you. But that says nothing of the anxiety, despair, isolation, and loneliness that you may have felt while separated. You as a person will be different when you return.

The same can be said in The Sun Blessed Prince.

The stakes may not be matters of life and death at every moment, but the impact and the toll it takes on the characters throughout the book are both high. Every single character makes their choices knowing that there are consequences for their actions, and they must face those consequences one way or another.

Some of those consequences we don’t see come to fruition in The Sun Blessed Prince - it’s a duology for a reason! But the groundwork is set, and the impact will always arrive.

This book’s exploration of stakes lurks in the notion that the stakes matter to the people experiencing them and how they feel is how the story continues to drive itself ever forward.