Our Violent Ends

Roma Montagov is the heir to the Russian White Flowers gang and one of two protagonists in Our Violent Ends. At the start of the novel, Roma embraces violence in a manner that both his sister and Juliette note as being unlike his usual self. Roma avoided violence as much as possible in These Violent Delights—particularly violence that ended in fatalities—a counterpoint to Juliette’s penchant for attacking brutally with little provocation. The version of Roma at the beginning of Our Violent Ends is shaken by grief and betrayal due to Juliette’s lie that she doesn’t care for him and her supposed murder of Marshall. This emotional trauma results in his new penchant for violence.

Roma’s emotional transformation is paralleled by a physical one; he begins wearing white (to symbolize the White Flowers) almost exclusively, and he begins wearing pomade in his hair in a slicked-back style that evokes a stylized “gangster” look. During the period where they are forced to work together despite Roma’s ongoing enmity, Juliette notes, “He was wearing white again. She had never seen so much goddamn white on him” (101). The whiteness of Roma’s attire is an ironic beacon of the loss of goodness he forces upon himself as he succumbs to rage and grief.

Once Juliette confesses her love and she and Roma are reunited, Roma reverts largely to the previous version of himself, though his time committing rampant violence makes him more inured to its effects. When Juliette mentions the cruel things they have done to one another, suggesting their pasts may be insurmountable, Roma blames the blood feud rather than the individuals involved in it. In this manner, he is at once hopeful for a better future and indifferent to the effects of violence in a way that the “old Roma” would likely not have been. Roma is ultimately more optimistic and clearsighted than Juliette, both about the changing world around them and in terms of what he wants. He does whatever it takes to be with Juliette in whatever way he can.

Kathleen Lang, Juliette’s cousin, is commonly considered to be the pacifist of the Scarlet Gang, though she disagrees with this assessment. Rather, she sees herself as someone who aims for practical solutions to the blood feud’s violence without necessarily dismantling the gangs, whom she thinks love Shanghai more than any other group could. Throughout Our Violent Ends, Kathleen’s relationship with the Scarlet Gang becomes more and more strained, particularly after Lord Cai has her sister, Rosalind, whipped for spying for the White Flowers. Though Kathleen spends the bulk of the novel as an active member of the Scarlet Gang, spying and sending messages on their behalf, she considers herself loyal to Juliette foremost, not the gang as a concept.

Increasingly, Kathleen finds herself sympathizing with the Communist movement, which she was initially sent to infiltrate so the Scarlet Gang could keep tabs on potential worker uprisings. Her sympathy for the cause is cemented primarily through her interactions with “common man” members of the movement, such as a man whose wounds she tends during the Kuomintang march on Shanghai and a young girl who compliments her hair. This compliment is particularly personal to Kathleen, a trans woman, as wearing her hair long is a symbol of her femininity that she adopted after she transitioned. When the Nationalist purge targets the Communists, Kathleen leaves behind the Scarlet Gang and officially joins the Communist party.

Upon her official defection from the Scarlet Gang, Kathleen reverts to using the name Celia, her chosen name when she transitioned. Her father, exhibiting anti-trans bias and fear for his reputation if he was known to have a trans daughter, told her that if she wished to publicly live as a woman, she could adopt the name of her dead sister, Kathleen. The name shift from Kathleen to Celia is thus not entirely about gender—she does not feel alienated by the name Kathleen and publicly lives as a woman under this identity for many years—as much as it is about Celia’s ability to choose an authentic life for herself. This includes gender as well as political affiliation and command over her own life and future.

Rosalind Lang is Juliette’s cousin and Kathleen’s sister. She struggles with her uncertain position within the Scarlet Gang. Even though she is Juliette’s first cousin, she is not considered part of the inner circle because she is a Lang and not a Cai; her family is connected to the gang through Lady Cai. This bothers Rosalind far more than it bothers Kathleen.

Though Rosalind is smart—she takes over her father’s business interests when he slacks—she is also gullible, and her longing for a place of her own leads her to be duped by Dimitri Voronin, the blackmailer and a White Flower who seduces her to get Scarlet Gang secrets. Dimitri convinces Rosalind to “recruit” five Frenchmen to be infected by the giant bugs that allow them to turn into monsters. Even though Rosalind knows this is dangerous and that the monsters are horrifically violent, she helps Dimitri set them loose due to her desperation to have someone to love her and give her a place that is her own.

Despite the dangerous choices she often makes, Rosalind is brave, stubborn, and loyal. Even after she is whipped by Lord Cai for spying, Rosalind refuses to give up Dimitri’s identity to her family and continues to protect him until she has learned for certain that he has betrayed her. After the Shanghai Massacre, she searches the bodies of the slaughtered Communists to find her injured sister and gets Celia to safety. Rosalind is savvy enough to guarantee her own safety; in the Epilogue, Alisa reports that Celia has said her sister has joined the Kuomintang, who have, by that point, taken power in Shanghai.

Benedikt Montagov is Roma’s cousin and one of the only people who remained loyal to Roma when his status as White Flower heir was in question. Benedikt is loyal and deeply emotional, an artist who is sometimes eccentric, and he spends the first part of the novel unable to shake his grief over the supposed death of Marshall Seo, whom he loves. Grief drives Benedikt to impulsiveness and disregard for his own life, as well as a keen desire to get revenge on Juliette. He goes so far as to attack Roma, knocking his own cousin unconscious in an attempt to kill Juliette before she reveals that Marshall is really alive.

Once he is reunited with Marshall and the cloud of grief that plagued him has lifted, Benedikt proves himself to be a savvy, smart ally to Roma and Juliette, one who cares far more about personal affection than group affiliation. When Tyler Cai challenges Roma to a duel, for example, Benedikt does not hesitate to reach out to Juliette to ask her to talk Roma out of appearing at the duel, even though their gangs are even more at odds than usual due to a recent escalation in the blood feud. Like Benvolio, the Romeo and Juliet character upon whom Benedikt is based, Benedikt proves an unsuccessful peace broker.

Benedikt is quick with a plan—he determines how to rescue Marshall from the Kuomintang, and schemes to save Roma from Dimitri—and comfortable offering clear-sighted critiques to his allies when they need to hear them. He tells Juliette why blowing herself up to take out a group of Nationalist leaders is a pointless endeavor, for example, and he angrily points out the damage she does to others when she chooses Roma above all else.

Marshall Seo is Roma’s friend and a member of the White Flowers. After being shot and faking his death at the end of These Violent Delights, Marshall spends much of Our Violent Ends presumed dead by everyone except Juliette. For gregarious, playful Marshall who loves to joke and craves physical touch, isolation in a small safe house is daunting and emotionally challenging, though he puts on a friendly, happy face whenever Juliette comes to visit him. Marshall serves as comic relief in the novel and makes time for fun; when Benedikt confesses his love for him, Marshall teases him about bad timing before confessing his love in return.

Despite his outwardly cheerful demeanor, Marshall is no more a stranger to violence than any of the other characters in the novel. He kills repeatedly to save Benedikt, whom he trails through the city defending, and he does not hesitate to shoot a member of his own gang who recognizes him, lest he report back that Marshall, presumed dead, still lives. He lies about his origin, concealing the name of his Korean mother and hiding his relationship from his father, a leader in the Kuomintang. He fails to reveal the truth even to Benedikt, his closest friend and the boy he loves.

Even when he jokes, Marshall is observant about the nature of violence in Shanghai. Like Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, he plays the role of the fool, a figure who uses humor to speak truth to power. He is determined to protect those he loves, whether that means spending months in a safe house alone to protect Roma and Juliette or agreeing to a life as a Kuomintang darling to buy the Montagovs a few more hours to escape.