Onnes, Ninus and Semiramis play a variant of “truth or dare” together, where the first question they ask is what each fears; Onnes responds “madness,” while Semiramis replies “helplessness.” What did you think of this scene? How do you feel their characters were illuminated by their answers, and how did this play out in the rest of the novel? How would you answer the question?
Semiramis spent her childhood helpless. She was brutally beaten by her adoptive father, bullied by the community and powerless to defend herself. It’s easy to imagine why helplessness would be her greatest fear. Onnes fears madness and is ultimately driven mad by his opium addiction and his guilt for having killed his father and having led Ninus to believe that his brother, Assur, has committed the deed.
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Madness reminded Onnes of his mother and how she took her own life, and Nisat told him that madness breeds madness. He was tortured by his actions of killing his father and allowing Nunus to kill, Assur. He feared that he would go mad and told Semiramis that he was sometimes losing his sense of reality. Semiramis feared physical and mental weakness. She suffered from some physical beatings when she was young. As a girl, she learned to be the best wall climber among the children. As a woman, she asked Onnes to train her to fight. It gave her a sense of power and the ability to go into battle with the men.