To Kill a Kingdom

These first three chapters serve largely as exposition to introduce the reader to the two main characters—the siren princess and the human prince—and to introduce the world in which the book is set. Christo uses existing mermaid/siren lore but chooses to make them two distinct species of humanoid sea creatures (though often conflated, the two legends do have different origins, with the sirens initially appearing in Greek myth as bird-human hybrids). Christo’s sirens, which are the species to which the protagonist belongs, are ruthless, violent beings that hate humans and have been at war with them for centuries. Christo does not name the protagonist in the first few chapters, which helps establish her as more animalistic than human; names tend to humanize because they imply the bearer is a unique individual. Leaving the protagonist nameless also suggests that she sees herself as part of the wild, cold, and unforgiving sea while rejecting humanity. The species distinction is important in this respect; while mermaids seem to aspire to humanity, sirens kill to enhance their own power as a species apart.

The third chapter introduces Elian as a parallel figure to Lira. He kills sirens just as she kills human princes. The major difference between Elian and Lira is that Elian’s reason for killing is to keep humanity safe from sirens. He sees his acts of violence as a necessary means to an end—namely, peace. Lira, on the other hand, has grown up in a violent culture and sees it as the nature of the sirens. She kills humans because the Sea Queen demands ruthlessness. Somewhat unusually, the novel thus portrays the female protagonist and her society as more brutal and less communal than male characters like Elian. If the danger mermaids pose in traditional folklore reflects traditional anxieties about women and femininity, Christo’s sirens are perhaps a warning for a more contemporary and feminist world that a society in which women hold power will not necessarily be more just or humane.