57 pages • 1 hour read
Olivie BlakeThe Atlas Six
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 7Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary: “Intent”
Content Warning: This section includes mentions of past domestic abuse.
Reina
In the current lecture, the group discusses luckiness and unluckiness. Reina has no trouble understanding the balance between the two, and the necessity for sacrifice to balance out power. When Atlas arrives, Libby asks him about the elimination process and he answers that they will need to select someone by the end of the month but does not share any other information. Reina concludes that Libby is the only one who does not know about the elimination.
Tristan
Tristan is having a moral and existential crisis about his role in the Society. Eventually, he comes up with a plan to determine whether Callum is manipulating him and realizes that the latter has been influencing his emotions without his knowledge.
Libby
Libby finds Atlas in his office after Nico tells her the truth about the elimination process. Disbelieving, she probes Atlas, who tells her that magic needs a sacrifice to stay balanced. Libby, confused and angry, leaves and feels betrayed when she realizes that Tristan’s trolley problem was not a hypothetical question.
Parisa
Dalton asks Parisa what she saw in his head. Parisa requests he let her inside his mind again, and he gives her five minutes. She meets the younger version of Dalton again, who tells her he wants out, before the real Dalton pulls her out of his thoughts. Atlas later warns Parisa against going into Dalton’s head. He then tells her to go to the library immediately after their conversation, and when Parisa does, she finds Libby, Nico, Reina, and Tristan there. Realizing that Atlas gave them an opportunity to speak without Callum present, she prompts them to agree that they need to kill him, and Libby successfully argues that Tristan, who loves Callum, must be the one to do it to keep balance.
An Interlude
Most of this section shows Ezra talking to an unknown person. He explains that only people who know how to starve—i.e., to be patient—can eventually gain power. At the end of the section, it is revealed that he is speaking to Atlas.
Callum
Callum has guessed that Tristan knows about his manipulation, so he sets out to use Tristan’s guilt, and his father’s past abuse, against him. He knows that Tristan is meant to kill him with the knife he is hiding, but that he cannot. When Tristan drops the knife, Callum picks it up and tells him he is going to kill Tristan. The chapter ends with a scream that interrupts them.
Chapter 7 Analysis
The protagonists’ intentions regarding the elimination process are made clear, leading to their attempt to assassinate Callum. Before that, they struggle with the concept of intent and the ethical and moral ramifications of their choices, despite the elimination being framed as a necessary means to an end. Dalton says:
Sacrifice has magic of its own […] The decision to do something is itself a change, a rupture to the state of the world’s natural order [...] We study the realm of consciousness because we understand that to decide something, to weigh a cost and accept its consequences, is to forcibly alter the world in some tangible way. That is a magic as true and as real as any other (265).
Dalton argues that intent is critical to magic, as magic is neutral, but its effects vary depending on the wielder’s intentions. This foreshadows the six candidates’ eventual dilemma, implying that Dalton has been preparing them to face the decision. There is dramatic irony too because Dalton seems unaware of the protagonists’ knowledge that they will need to kill one of their group members. Libby, who ironically has the most rigid moral code of the six, is revealed not to know the truth of the elimination. Reina deduces that they are all willing to kill to be initiated into the Society.
Other characters have realizations about their companions’ true intent. Libby, for instance, is distraught when she learns the truth about the elimination from Atlas, but she feels further betrayed when she realizes that Tristan’s earlier trolley problem was a real question to gauge her willingness to kill. Tristan also finds out Callum’s true intent when he learns that the latter has been magically manipulating him. In contrast, Callum appears certain about his peers’ intentions, which he deems predictable, and is frustrated by Tristan’s moral quandaries. In the last section of the chapter, both men are positioned in a symbolic parallel: Tristan, charged with killing Callum, cannot follow through because of his conscience and emotional attachment. Callum, who guessed Tristan’s intent, does not have the same objections and claims he will kill Tristan with his own weapon. However, they are interrupted by a scream, leaving Callum’s true intent unfulfilled and ambiguous.
Significantly, Ezra appears in this chapter not as Libby’s boyfriend but in an interlude where he explains the necessity of learning to starve. His patience and cunning are revealed, along with the fact that he and Atlas know each other, setting up crucial plot points for the next chapter. Although their plan is not yet revealed, Ezra’s intent to gain more power is made clear, and his emphasis on the importance of patience suggests that he has been working on it for a long time. The passage also positions him as a potential new antagonist.
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By Olivie Blake
