The Mercy of Gods

A scientist who leads the research team, Tonner Freis obsessively focuses on his scientific research and experimentation. In the beginning of the novel, he’s dating Else Yannin. Following the Carryx invasion and their transport to the ziggurat, Tonner pours all his attention into the berries experiment. This is his pathological move: dealing with stress and trauma by focusing on the one thing he can control, which is his research.

Tonner is controlling, self-important, and single-minded. He’s obsessed with recognition, which nearly gets him killed when he tries to demand recognition from the Carryx. Tonner takes pride in the human impulse to understand the new and unknown, which thematically connects him to The Human Drive to Understand. Though he’s a secondary character, his success in the berries experiment helps to earn humanity’s survival.

Beautiful, elegant, and brilliant, Tonner’s girlfriend Else Yannin is the second team lead of the research team. She gave up a position as leader of her own team to join Tonner’s because she believed her area of research was a dead-end while Tonner’s research was innovative and promising. Else is technically already dead before the Carryx arrive because the swarm has taken over her body. As Tonner’s authority fades and Dafyd’s rises, her feelings transfer from one to the other.

Else is practical, calm, and collected, and she’s often the only person who can rein Tonner in when he’s too aggressive, rude, or controlling. The novel portrays Else’s point of view only after she shares consciousness with the swarm, and it’s unclear even to the swarm how much Else’s personality influences its feelings and decisions.

A researcher on Tonner’s team, Jessyn Kaul is a secondary protagonist whose perspective is the second most prevalent, behind Dafyd’s. A short, round woman with a gentle attitude, Jessyn suffers from “emotional and cognitive” (212) mental health issues that include intrusive thoughts, depressed moods, and suicidal ideation. She takes medication and relies heavily on her brother, Jellit, for support. However, when they’re separated during the Carryx attack, she must live without him and turns to her teammates for help. Her guilt and self-hatred over Irinna’s death trigger outward violence, and she leads an attack against the Night Drinkers, earning the nickname “war leader” from Campar.

Jessyn believes that captivity has turned her into a weapon. Her emotional well-being and her reunion with Jellit motivate Dafyd’s determination to protect the team from the repercussions of the human uprising plans. Jessyn’s character development showcases one reaction to captivity and dehumanization.

A researcher on Tonner’s team, Rickar Daumatin attempts to gain higher standing by helping the rival Dyan Academy break up and commandeer the team. The team excludes and ostracizes Rickar following this betrayal. Rickar is pragmatic and cynical. He observes how captivity and suffering are a great equalizer between the humans, erasing or reordering their hierarchy. In addition, he’s often surprised by the strangely mundane ways that life continues even in the face of such extreme suffering and trauma.

A researcher on Tonner’s team, Campar is the joker of the group. Making jokes is his pathological move, and he often does so to defuse tension among group members and to mask his fear while in captivity. However, he’s astute, diligent, and loyal. He treats Jessyn like a sister and treats Tonner with respect and deference. Campar initially dislikes Dafyd, considering him an awkward kid, but eventually realizes that he underestimated Dafyd and grows to respect him. Though he isn’t as vital to the plot as Dafyd or Jessyn, the novel shifts to his perspective a couple times, offering an outside view of the other characters, particularly Dafyd and Tonner.

Synnia and her husband, Nol, are the other two members of Tonner’s research team. The Carryx kill Nol during the invasion, which triggers Synnia’s character arc from a withdrawn, grieving widow to a revenge-obsessed resistance fighter. The novel never shows Synnia’s perspective, yet her actions are crucial to the plot. Synnia befriends Urrys Ostencour on the transport vessel and joins his first uprising attempt. Their second uprising is a pivotal moment at the novel’s conclusion, instigating Dafyd’s betrayal and their deaths. Synnia and the other resistance fighters provide the thematic foundation for The Ethics of Survival.

Jessyn’s brother, Jellit Kaul is a researcher in the astronomy group. He’s Jessyn’s caretaker, helping support her through her mental health struggles. His research group on Anjiin is the first to detect traces of the Carryx invasion hiding in the sun’s corona. In the beginning, he’s upbeat, optimistic, and friendly. However, when he and Jessyn reunite, his experiences have drastically changed him, making him hard, bitter, and secretive. He joins Urrys’s resistance and argues that it would be better to die fighting rather than remain willingly enslaved, which is the core thematic question in The Ethics of Survival. Though Dafyd believes that he and Else successfully change Jellit’s mind in the final chapters, the swarm has simply abandoned Else’s dead body and taken over Jellit’s instead, effectively killing him.

Before the invasion, Urrys Ostencour worked in security in Irvian. He first appears on the transport ship, where he recruits Synnia to help carry out his plan to overtake the Soft Lothark. He later recruits her again for his uprising against the Carryx.

Urrys is militaristic and charismatic. While arguing with Dafyd, he claims that his work placed him at the “intersection of humanity and violence” (345), making him uniquely capable of understanding human behavior. He concludes that humans will never be domesticable. Therefore, it’s better for them to fight now than wait for their inevitable deaths. He and Jellit share this belief, which is at the core of The Ethics of Survival as a theme. Like the others in the resistance, he’s killed in the final chapters of the novel.

A being created by the unknown enemy at war with the Carryx, the swarm was sent to Anjiin six months before the invasion to infiltrate humanity, gather intelligence, and stay hidden among the captives when the Carryx arrived. It was designed to be a spy and a tool but over the course of the novel is irrevocably changed and molded by its contact with its hosts Ameer Kindred, Else, and Jellit. It develops emotions and desires, including fear, guilt, and love.

Initially influenced by Else’s attraction to Dafyd, the swarm eventually concludes that it’s in love with Dafyd. Its perspective is vital to understanding many of the novel’s events and offers clues into the history of the Carryx and their war.

The keeper-librarian of the human moiety, Tkson of Cohort Malkal is meant to facilitate humans’ successful integration into Carryx society, though the enormous differences between the two cultures hinder its understanding of what humans require to succeed. It tolerates Dafyd’s questions and interactions on numerous occasions but eventually becomes angry at Dafyd’s ideas of possibility. When Dafyd reveals the uprising plan, Tkson is executed because a Carryx who requires rescue by an “animal” (Dafyd) is no longer of use.