58 pages • 1 hour read
Jennifer L. ArmentroutThe War of Two Queens
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Penellaphe “Poppy” Da’Neer
Penellaphe Da’Neer (née Balfour), better known as Poppy, is one of the novel’s two protagonists and first-person narrators. She is the Queen of Atlantis. In the absence of her husband, Casteel, she leads their kingdom to war against her birth mother, Isbeth, to liberate the people from the tyranny of the Blood Crown and the Ascended. Over the course of the Blood and Ash series (See: Background), she transitions from a sheltered, controlled Maiden to the Primal of Blood and Bone. She is described as beautiful and curvy, with red hair and green eyes, like her father’s, that glow silver with magical eather when she’s using her power.
Poppy is also covered in scars from the abuse she suffered in the past and from an attack by the Craven during which her adoptive parents died, an event that she has nightmares about in the novel. This attack resulted in severe scarring on the left side of her face, while the right remains unmarked. This duality is omnipresent in Poppy. While she can use her powers to calm and heal, she can also destroy, such as in Chapter 36, after Isbeth kills the descenters. The imagery associated with her—blood, bones, fire, and shadow—shows off her role as someone who straddles the line between life and death, creation and destruction. She has a temper and a desire for justice but also has a deep capacity for love and empathy. When she is liberating Massene and Oak Ambler at the beginning of the novel, she disagrees with her generals’ more pragmatic plans. She risks allowing the Ascended to escape and deal further damage to give the innocents time to escape.
Her curiosity, fierce independence, and refusal to accept the roles others assign her drive much of her personal growth and overarching character arc, developing the theme of The Conflict Between Fate and Free Will. The main role she fights against in The War of Two Queens is that of the Harbinger of Death and Destruction, prophesied to bring about the end of the realms (See: Symbols & Motifs). Isbeth weaponizes the potential for her to be this source of devastation to turn the ordinary people against Poppy. However, she fails in her attempts to manipulate her, and it is later revealed at the end of the book that while Poppy is involved in the return of Kolis, Seraphena, and the other sleeping gods, she is not the one to bring it about.
Throughout the story, Poppy’s connection to others, particularly Casteel and Kieran, is the thing that keeps her grounded and pushes her to act even when the situation seems otherwise pointless. Her role as the “chosen one” protagonist archetype also continues to escalate with the reveal that not only is she the descendant of the Primals Nyktos and Seraphena, but, as the first daughter of their line, she is a new Primal and the inheritor of the position of both Primal of Life and Primal of Death. The book ends with her being the promise of cleansing the old order and bringing the birth of a new era.
Casteel Da’Neer
Casteel Da’Neer, also known as Cas, is the other protagonist and first-person point-of-view narrator of The War of Two Queens. He is the King of Atlantis and Poppy’s husband and heartmate. Despite being 200 years old, he appears young and handsome and is described as having dark hair and the characteristic golden eyes of someone descended from gods.
Casteel begins the story where he ended The Crown of Gilded Bones: In the custody of Isbeth, the Blood Queen. Like Poppy, he needs to feed on blood to survive. Isbeth starves and tortures him while he is in her captivity and cuts off one of his fingers to send to Poppy as a message. By the time Poppy reaches him, he is suffering from bloodlust due to his prolonged starvation. However, Poppy is able to heal him and they are reunited for the rest of the book.
As in the previous books, Casteel is a largely static character meant to support Poppy’s growth. In the book’s first half, he is separated from her during his imprisonment, which serves as a narrative tool for the reader to learn more about what is happening with Isbeth, Malik, and Millicent. His rescue is also one of Poppy’s driving motivations. After she succeeds, he joins Kieran as one of the voices of love and grounding support for her struggle to maintain her free will. As a ruler, Casteel is ruthless when necessary and willing to employ violence to achieve his goals. However, his actions are always rooted in his desire for peace for Atlantia and those he loves. He is thus a key figure in the novel’s exploration of Freedom and Justice Versus Tyranny.
Casteel’s main flaw is his need to control situations, which leads to conflict when his overprotective instincts clash with Poppy’s independence. However, his willingness to now trust in her strength shows how he has grown over the series. He is also forced to face his complicated feelings regarding his brother, Malik. In From Blood and Ash, Casteel’s motivations revolve around rescuing his brother from the Blood Queen. At the end of The Crown of Gilded Bones, it is revealed that Malik is actually working for her, the reasons for which are shown in this novel. While Malik does help during Casteel’s rescue, the relationship between the brothers remains strained.
Kieran Contou
Kieran Contou is a primary supporting character in The War of Two Queens. He is one of the wolven, a group of shapeshifters that can change between human and wolf form. In human form, he is described as having short black hair, brown skin, and eyes “the blue of winter” (551), while his fur is fawn-colored while in wolf form. He was formerly bound to Casteel and still considers him his best friend, and he is now Poppy’s protector, confidant, and companion. While Casteel is imprisoned for the book’s first half, he serves as her primary source of support and stability and as a voice of reason. Kieran’s intelligence, calm demeanor, and often wry sense of humor balance the intensity of the novel’s darker moments.
While the relationship between them is described as being love, Poppy isn’t fully able to articulate what kind it is, and it isn’t depicted as being as passionate as that of the heartmate bond between Poppy and Casteel. However, Kieran’s dedication to them is seen in his willingness to follow them into battle, stand by their sides during moments of crisis, and to challenge them when necessary.
The already strong connection between the trio of himself, Poppy, and Casteel becomes literal toward the end of the novel as they perform the Joining. When Isbeth finds them after Casteel is rescued, the Revenant Callum curses Kieran. This forces the protagonists to obey Isbeth’s orders and gives them a time limit of two weeks to find Malec’s body and bring him back to her. Poppy decides that the three of them should perform the Joining, linking both him and Casteel to her power and immortality, in an attempt to counteract the curse and protect him in general. The ritual connects their hearts and souls in a way that blurs the lines between friendship, loyalty, and love. He becomes not just a protector and confidant, but a partner in an interconnected triad.
Isbeth
Isbeth, also known as the Blood Queen, is the primary antagonist and the other of the two queens referenced in the title of the novel. A tragic mix of grief, vengeance, and ambition defines her character. She was once a mortal woman in love with Malec, a god and the King of Atlantia.
When she was poisoned, Malec gave her his blood to save her, but instead of turning her into a vampry, it transformed her into something else. After her ascension, others in Atlantia tried to replicate the process, leading to the creation of the vampry. After the death of their son and his imprisonment, Isbeth transforms into a vengeful and power-hungry queen who believes that only through power and vengeance can she reclaim what was taken from her. This desire pushes her to make increasingly desperate and destructive choices.
As the Blood Queen, Isbeth wields enormous power, but this power is corrupted. Her rule is one of tyranny and a willingness to use any means necessary to achieve her ends. She is also a master manipulator several steps ahead of her enemies, including Poppy. She hides the truth about their relationship and her plans for her, using Poppy’s ignorance to manipulate her into unwittingly aiding her plans.
While Poppy is one of the people she could have sacrificed at the end of the novel, she instead chooses to stab Malec with a shadowstone dagger. Her killing of Malec is the culmination of her descent into a loss of control and desperation. In her mind, killing Malec—the person she loved most—was a necessary evil to achieve her ultimate goal: the return of Kolis, the true Primal of Death, to complete her revenge. She believes she was wronged by the gods, and her obsession with regaining what was taken from her leads to her downfall.
In her final moments, Isbeth’s vulnerability and grief are laid bare as she realizes that her pursuit of vengeance has been for nothing. Her death at Poppy’s hands is both brutal and symbolic, representing the end of a reign fueled by hate and the destruction of someone who was, at her core, broken by love. Despite her villainy, Isbeth is ultimately shaped by the pain of her past.
Malik Da’Neer
Malik Da’Neer is Casteel’s brother and serves as both a supporting character and a minor antagonist in this novel. In the earlier installations in the series, he was central to Casteel’s motivations, as Casteel thought he was being held prisoner by Isbeth. Poppy was initially kidnapped to be used as a bargaining chip for Malik’s freedom.
However, it was later revealed that Malik was serving the Blood Queen. In The War of Two Queens, it’s revealed that he only did so to protect the Handmaiden Millicent, who is both Poppy’s sister and his heartmate. He walks a fine line between trying to protect her and his brother, and his decisions often appear morally ambiguous or outright questionable. His long-term captivity with the Blood Queen as well as the murder of his bonded wolven, Preela, also take a profound psychological toll on him. It leaves him haunted by guilt, regret, and self-doubt, something that Poppy sees when she breaks through his mental shields.
In the latter part of The War of Two Queens, Malik acts to atone for his choices. Despite having aided Isbeth, he ultimately helps Poppy, Kieran, and his brother escape Carsodonia. However, he is not immediately redeemed for this. Poppy, Kieran, and Casteel all express reservations about trusting him again, with the tension between the brothers being especially fraught. The interactions between them oscillate between moments of genuine concern and a cold, almost resigned acceptance of the situation.
It’s also revealed that, years prior, Malik tried to kill Poppy to prevent her from fulfilling her role in the prophecy (See: Symbols & Motifs), but he could not follow through. While Malik helps retrieve Malec’s casket and joins in the battle at the Bone Temple, his ultimate focus remains on Millicent. When she escapes after the battle, he leaves the others behind to follow her.
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By Jennifer L. Armentrout
