55 pages • 1 hour read
Richelle MeadVampire Academy
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2007A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
Content Warning: Both the source text and this guide include graphic descriptions of blood, violence, the deaths of family members, self-harm, violence against animals, sexist rhetoric, attempted sexual assault, and bias against sex workers. Additionally, the source text includes implicit elements of anti-gay bias and describes a romantic relationship between an adult and a minor.
Seventeen-year-old Rose Hathaway is a dhampir (half human, half vampire), and has a psychic connection to her best friend, Vasilisa Dragomir (known as Lissa), who is a Moroi, or full-blooded vampire. Now, Rose senses that Lissa is having a recurring nightmare, so she wakes her friend and soothes her, aided by their housemate’s cat, Oscar. Rose notes that cats dislike dhampir but have a great deal of affection for Moroi. Seeing that Lissa is weak from a lack of blood, Rose scolds her and says that Lissa should have asked to feed from her sooner. Lissa bites Rose’s neck, triggering the characteristic rush of pleasure that comes from a vampire’s bite.
Afterward, Rose follows Oscar’s gaze to the window and sees that a man is watching them from the street. She worries that the man witnessed the vampirism, but when Oscar hisses at him, she deduces that he must be a dhampir like her. She urges Lissa to use her magical powers of compulsion to secure their human housemate’s car keys and force him to forget that he ever saw the two girls. They flee, just as they have been doing for the past two years whenever other vampires or dhampirs get close to them. Rose hopes that she merits Lissa’s unwavering trust.
They almost make it to their housemate’s car, but suddenly a dozen dhampir guardians surround them, led by the man Rose saw across the street. Rose tries to fight, but her weakness and inexperience are no match for the guardian’s skill. He sees the bite on Rose’s neck as she prepares to attack again, but Lissa sends calming energy her way, causing Rose to pause. The head guardian introduces himself as Dimitri Belikov. He calls Lissa “princess” and says that he has come to return her to St. Vladimir’s Academy.
Chapter 2 Summary
Dimitri keeps the girls separated on the flight back to St. Vladimir’s so that they cannot plot an escape. As they get closer to St. Vladimir’s in remote Montana, Rose recognizes that escape is increasingly unlikely. Lissa’s fear is so potent that Rose is drawn into her mind via their psychic connection. Through Lissa’s eyes, Rose sees molnija marks on Dmitri, which indicate that he has killed six Strigoi— vampires who have grown feral with bloodlust. Rose forces her mind away from Lissa’s, alarmed by this connection that neither she nor Lissa understands. Dimitri eventually comes to sit by Rose, asking her why she attempted the “stupid, but still brave” (22) act of attacking all the guardians for Lissa’s sake. Rose asserts that she is Lissa’s guardian, which Dimitri seems to accept. They arrive at St. Vladimir’s at sunset, which marks the start of the school day for the vampiric students. On the way to see Headmistress Kirova, Dimitri and the guardians march Lissa and Rose through the center of campus, making them a spectacle for the other students. Rose notes that their classmates have changed little in her and Lissa’s two-year absence.
In the headmistress’s office, they find Prince Victor Dashkov, Lissa’s uncle, whom she embraces happily. Rose is horrified to find Victor prematurely withered by a disease that targets Moroi and that will prevent him from becoming king. Kirova scolds the two girls but places the blame on Rose, claiming that as Lissa’s guardian, Rose should have stopped Lissa from recklessly running away. Furious, Rose retorts that she kept Lissa safe when the school didn’t, but stops herself from saying more. (The narrative later reveals that Lissa is endangered by her powers of compulsion and healing, which are collectively known as “spirit.”) Now, Kirova decrees that Lissa, as a Moroi princess, must continue her education and that Rose will be expelled.
Lissa protests that her late parents wanted Rose to remain her guardian, but Kirova is unmoved until Dimitri argues that the two have a psychic bond. Kirova is shocked by this information, as it has been centuries since such a phenomenon has occurred between vampire and guardian. Dimitri, as Lissa’s new official guardian, believes that Rose should remain. Kirova agrees on the condition that Dmitri mentor Rose. He reluctantly agrees, citing the diminished numbers of guardians in the ranks—particularly girls, who are often forced into sex work that includes allowing Moroi to drink their blood. Lissa cautiously adds her compulsion to influence the situation in the girls’ favor. (Rose notes that it is dangerous to use this tactic against another Moroi, who might detect the trick.) This time, nobody notices. Rose is put on probation, which she recognizes is an effort to separate her from Lissa.
Chapter 3 Summary
Rose and Lissa are instantly sent to their respective classes; Rose’s day begins with guardian training. The novice guardians accept her back into their ranks easily after she makes joking comments about their attraction to her, as one of the few female guardians. They begin training, and Rose finds herself out of practice. Mason, a fellow novice, warns her that Dimitri is known for his skill and will not go easy on her during her extra practices.
In her second class, the instructor, Stan, mocks her for thinking herself capable of protecting Lissa in the broader world. He frames their continued survival as a matter of luck, not Rose’s skill. He reminds her that Strigoi are impossibly fast due to their consumption of Moroi blood. This practice also gifts Strigoi with immortality. He doubts that Rose will pass the class or qualify for field experience. If she fails to do so, she will have little chance of being assigned to protect Lissa after graduation.
Victor pulls Rose aside, commending her on her skills in keeping Lissa safe. He asks about the bond between her and Lissa and is interested to learn that it first manifested after the girls were in a car accident that killed Lissa’s family and nearly killed Rose. (Rose will later learn that she did actually die; Lissa instinctively used her rare “spirit” affinity to resurrect Rose, establishing their psychic bond.) Now, Victor wonders how the bond can be created between others, leading to more effective guardian-Moroi partnerships. Their conversation is cut short when he suffers a coughing fit due to his disease, Sandovsky’s Syndrome, which affects the lungs. Rose leaves. Detecting Lissa’s anxiety, she finds Lissa facing her ex-boyfriend, Aaron, and his new girlfriend, who is mocking Lissa’s family.
Chapters 1-3 Analysis
The first section of Vampire Academy begins in medias res and immediately establishes the rules governing the world of the Moroi and dhampirs. Additionally, Lissa and Rose occupy a paradoxical position in this world, for Lissa’s status as a royal places both girls higher in the social hierarchy of St. Vladimir’s Academy even as their two years spent running from Moroi authorities relegates them to the fringes. Their experience away from the school gives Rose a broader perspective on the possibilities of the world beyond their insular, vampiric community. Rose’s role as Lissa’s favored companion also frames her as being different from other novices in her position, and Rose therefore occupies a more ideological approach to the “not like other girls” trope that she frequently embodies. This trope has faced criticism for portraying “strong” female characters as those who dismiss traditional markers of femininity while retaining sufficient “girliness” to remain appealing to male readers or characters. Rose both embodies and challenges this trope at various points in the novel.
When Rose and Lissa return to school, they are quickly thrust back into the complicated politics of the Moroi students, introducing the recurring theme of The Complexities of High School Dynamics. Because Richelle Mead’s world-building contains a variety of layers, these early chapters focus less on the nuances of inter-Moroi relationships, establishing instead the more straightforward differences between Moroi and dhampirs. As full-blooded vampires, Moroi are considered to be superior to dhampirs who are either half-Moroi, half-human, or half-Moroi, half-dhampir. Rose sees this hierarchy as being immutable and does not object to the idea that her life is more disposable than Lissa’s. However, her stance will shift as the novel continues, especially as she develops romantic feelings for her mentor, Dimitri, and learns to question the role of happiness in a dhampir’s life.
Indeed, Rose finds a certain amount of comfort in the different roles that dhampirs and Moroi are expected to play, both within their broader society and within the tighter confines of St. Vladimir’s Academy. Although she appreciates the easy camaraderie that she can reestablish with her fellow dhampir novices, she achieves this camaraderie through her rather problematic willingness to joke about her own sexual appeal, playing into the narrative of dhampir women as pervasively sexualized and fetishized in vampire culture. Although Rose will later have conflicted feelings about her role as a perceived sex object, she uses this approach as an easy way to reconnect with her classmates upon her return to St. Vladimir’s. This scene therefore establishes that for Rose, being alone is more painful than using a demeaning stereotype to establish a semblance of connection.
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By Richelle Mead
