Renegades

While many characters within the novel have their own motivations for pursuing justice or exacting revenge, Adrian and Nova are driven to seek both because they have been overcome by their past trauma and grief. Notably, Adrian pursues his mother’s killer beyond the boundaries of the law, becoming a vigilante and changing his own identity and even his own body in order to get his revenge. Likewise, Nova adopts a false persona and takes drastic measures to infiltrate the Renegades to avenge the fall of her uncle and the Anarchists, who are her extended family. Thus, the novel deliberately blurs the boundaries between justice and revenge as both protagonists experience doubt and are forced to question their own motives.

Both Adrian and Nova are driven to pursue revenge because they lack support from their respective communities, who fail to adequately acknowledge their traumatic losses. Adrian’s adoptive fathers are so desperate to protect him from harm that they do not help him to process his mother’s death. Their silence on this topic leads him to find his own methods to investigate her death and to process his grief. Hugh and Simon’s misguided attempts to shelter him from the details of his mother’s death are deeply harmful to Adrian’s psyche, and this problematic behavior is also mirrored in their choice to isolate Max.