Seize the Power: Narrative Analysis & Reflection - Chapter 4 thru 6
Narrative Analysis for Self-Reflection
Chapter 4 - Prison Mantras
Overall Summary & Analysis:
This chapter is circular in narration to underscore the confusion Amaya is experiencing.
“I was stuck in a dark labyrinth within my mind.”
Amaya - Chapter 4 - Seize the Power
Who is telling the story?
One of the hardest parts of self-discovery is interrogating our own beliefs.
We often don’t know we believe something because our “rational” brain tells us we don’t, but our socialization is deeply ingrained.
Our internalized misogyny, racism, homophobia, and so on don’t show up in our conscious thoughts, but the messages we receive from society and the media seep into our bone marrow and make us believe sinister lies that affect how we show up in the world.
Example: If asked, you’d probably say that you believe that the color of someone’s skin shouldn’t determine whether they are treated with respect. However, due to the structural racism inherent in our society, your brain has been receiving the subliminal messages that would suggest otherwise.
Example: If asked, you’d probably say that you believe women and men are equal. But from a young age girls are treated different than boys. Boys act up and hear: “Boys will be boys” while girls will hear “You need to be a good girl.” Jo-Ann Finklelstein calls these little subtle messages “psychological paper cuts” which add up to become festering wounds of self-doubt.
“The voice began as another’s, but it had since morphed into my own.”
-Amaya, Seize the Power - Chapter 4
Negativity Bias
Kai digs into Amaya’s memories and makes her relive the worst things that have happened to her.
Our brains have a negativity bias. Evolutionarily speaking, it makes sense for us to remember exactly where the berries that made us violently ill are than to remember where the sweetest tasting berries are.
Our brains encode visceral memories of terrible things that have happened in order to help us “avoid” them in the future.
Amaya’s self narrative was nothing but a collection of failures and inadequacies. Our brains discount the positive unless we actively search for it.
“The only coherent story I could weave together about myself from my memories was one of constant failure and falling short.”
Amaya - Seize the Power - Chapter 4
Bonus Tidbits:
Amaya hallucinates climbing infinite stairs—Amaya’s hallucinations are created by Kai’s shadows. Kai is showing her the truth about the crown. They are showing her that the sun and moon (deities) were free, while Kai was stuck in on this world, and no one believed them when they told them the truth about the crown.
Reflection Questions:
What negative story are you telling yourself?
Example: For me, I have an unconscious belief that people’s worth is tied to their productivity. People who don’t work are “bad/lazy.”
Poke holes in the thought
Example: What about people who are disabled? What about pets? What about children? Does this thought still hold true in my brain? At what point does someone’s worth become tied to their productivity? Age ten? Age seven? For me—for some reason—my brain believes that once you turn five years old your worth as a person becomes tied to what you do/produce/achieve.
Come up with examples to the contrary (And don’t accept your brain’s “I don’t know”)
Example: For me, it helps to think about my pets. My cat and dog do not have to do anything at all, ever, for me to believe they are worthy and lovable. They both spend all day sleeping, eating, and playing, but I never think that because they don’t produce (and in fact they take resources from me in the form of needing money for food, toys, time for walks, etc.) that they are not worthy of love and worthy to exist.
Sit with your new awareness of your thoughts. Ask your brain to find more evidence that it isn’t true. Add “it’s possible that…” to the beginning of your new thoughts.
Example: It’s possible that my worth as a person isn’t tied to what I achieve.
Chapter 5 - Bash
Overall Summary & Analysis:
Kai plays on the insecurities Sebastian has about not being good enough for Amaya.
“I didn’t like who I was anyway.”
There is an important quote in this chapter, that is echoed throughout the series. After Sebastian “gives up” control to his shadow. His shadow says: “Finally. Power is mine.”
In Descend into the Void, Amaya walks out of the Hollow after her darkyra initiation and her shadow says, “Finally. Power is ours.”
Sebastian has dissociated himself from his shadow, and it isn’t until Chapter 41 of Seize the Power that he is able to re-integrate and accept himself—all parts of himself—fully. Then his shadow says: “Finally. Power is ours.”
Self-Rejection
As long as you are ashamed of parts of yourself, you can never move forward. Self-rejection feels like a “justified” punishment—if you didn’t yell at yourself/beat yourself up, then wouldn’t you go around doing terrible things all the time?
I think you’ll find if you interrogate this belief that shame and self-rejection are more likely to manifest as avoidance and repression. Self-compassion and forgiveness are the way through, which is the journey Sebastian embarks on in Seize the Power.
Reflection Questions:
Where are you rejecting yourself or punishing yourself? Where could you use a little more self-compassion?
Example: If I’m in a bad mood and snap at my partner, I immediately start beating myself up for being a terrible person. A good partner wouldn’t raise their voice. If I had better control of my thoughts and feelings, I wouldn’t snap. But instead of indulging in a negative spiral. It’s more productive to look at myself with compassion. Am I in a bad mood because I forgot to eat? Am I in a bad mood because I’m not taking care of myself and getting rest? What could I do to make myself feel a little better? It’s not self-indulgence or selfishness, because once I’m fed and rested, I’m better able to apologize to my partner without resentment or anger.
Chapter 6 - Truth & Lies
Overall Summary & Analysis:
What is our truth? What is a lie?
Who are we deep down?
Our dark or our light—our actions or intentions.
“Maybe I was a monster, but it wasn’t my shadows that made me this way. I had to become this to survive.”
- Amaya, Chapter 6, Seize the Power
Anger is an important emotion, but like any emotion it can be corrupted and manipulated if we aren’t interrogating its source.
Kai doesn’t break Amaya down completely. They don’t want her psyche to be damaged beyond control (like they have with Sebastian who had already proven too resistant to that type of manipulation).
Kai fuels Amaya’s anger by reminding her of Jeremy, Caroline, and how she enjoys killing. It isn’t until Amaya remembers her friends (her reasons for fighting) that she unlocks the truth behind Kai’s lies.
Amaya’s darkness is a neutral circumstance. Her ability to kill is a weapon, but like a knife that can be used to cut vegetables for dinner or to stab someone in the back—it depends on the intention behind the use of her abilities.
In our society, our anger about how the world works gets co-opted by the corporatocracy. When you are angry with people on a lower rung of financial prosperity than you, who does that benefit? I grew up hearing that it was criminal and morally reprehensible that people who worked paid taxes and that money went to people who didn’t have jobs. As long as the middle class is angry with the lower classes, we won’t band together and find the real problem with the system. We won’t look up at the elite who are truly siphoning our money and paying less in taxes than the rest of us.
Who is your anger benefiting?
Ultimately, it isn’t Amaya’s anger that frees her mind and gives her the ability to plan for the future—it is remembering the people she loves and her commitment to protecting and saving them.
Bonus Tidbits:
It was important to me that what “unlocks” Amaya is Gwen and Sloane (not necessarily Sebastian) and what “unlocks” Sebastian is Nico (in Chapters 30 and 41). Amaya and Sebastian save each other, no doubt about it, but I wanted their friends to be just as integral in “saving” them.
Amaya remembering her friends and her name breaks the illusion that Kai had put in place. Her remembering her name is the moment she remembers the truth of who she really is. Of course, Kai wouldn’t expect Amaya’s friends to be what unravels everything, Kai has never loved or been loved with that ferocity.
Reflection Questions:
How did you react to Kai’s constant reminder to Amaya that “Your soul is more dark than light”? Did you take that to mean she had shadow powers, that she had the capacity for good/evil? What determines good/evil to you—intentions or results of actions?
Do you feel any sympathy for Kai or did you peg them as the villain throughout the book?
What is something that your angry or upset about? Who benefits from your anger and blame being placed on one source? Does your anger prompt you into action for change or leave you stuck?