55 pages • 1 hour read
Richelle MeadVampire Academy
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2007A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 10-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 10 Summary
Content Warning: This section of the guide contains descriptions of self-harm, cruelty to animals, and sexual assault.
The following day, Mia reports Rose and Lissa to a teacher for passing notes, leading him to read aloud their written exchange about the incident with Jesse and Dimitri. This embarrasses both girls and Jesse, who is present. Jesse approaches Rose after class, begging her to tell Dimitri (of whom he is terrified) that he had nothing to do with the note being read. Rose finds his “apparent cowardice” unattractive. She heads off to training, pleased when she hears other students gossiping about Mia’s parents’ jobs and displeased when she hears others speaking about the dead fox.
Rose recalls that two years prior, she and Lissa were gossiping in the woods about Lissa’s first time having sex with Aaron. Suddenly, they heard a sound that they attributed to a wild animal. They were caught by Ms. Karp, who had unnerved Rose ever since the incident in which she healed Rose’s hands. The teacher frequently had marks on her forehead, as if she scratched at her face. The trio heard another sound, which they followed. They found a dead raven, and when Lissa touched it, the raven came back to life. Ms. Karp frantically ordered Lissa never to tell anyone about the incident and never to do anything like it again, or else “they” would “find out” (136).
When Mason calls Rose’s name, her thoughts return to the present. Their conversation sours when he criticizes her for her encounter with Jesse. Rose accuses Mason of being jealous. He tells her that he tried to research Anna in the library but found no useful information. As Mason leaves, Rose regrets that she cannot reciprocate his romantic feelings for her.
Chapter 11 Summary
Lissa and Rose discuss what they will wear to an upcoming assembly that Queen Tatiana will attend. Although she expects the event to be boring, Rose is excited for the chance to have an evening out of her dorm. As she attends her extra practice sessions with Dimitri, she battles her growing attraction to him, scolding herself against “crushing on [her] older mentor” (145). When she returns to the cafeteria, it has been transformed for the assembly. Rose tries to focus, but her mind drifts to a moment when Dimitri pinned her down during training. The royals enter, including a frail-looking Victor. Queen Tatiana pays particular attention to Lissa, which seems to be a great honor—until she says that Lissa’s actions have dishonored her noble name. As soon as the dinner ends, a mortified Lissa bolts with Rose on her heels.
When Rose catches up, she finds Lissa already talking to Natalie, who reassures Lissa and tries to fish for information about her and Rose’s recent disappearance. When Natalie leaves, Lissa assures Rose that she hasn’t been tempted to use her healing powers, although she admits, to Rose’s dismay, to enjoying her time with Christian. Mia approaches, attempting to mock Lissa for being dismissed by the queen. Rose and Mia trade insults, with Rose mocking Mia’s parents’ job and Mia mocking Rose’s unknown father. Rose gears up for a fight, but Dimitri’s appearance prevents it. Mia leaves, and Dimitri escorts Rose to her dorm. On the way, they encounter Christian, who is heading in Lissa’s direction. Rose lies to Christian, telling him that Lissa thinks he’s “a freak.”
Chapter 12 Summary
Rose wakes from restless sleep to the sense of Lissa’s dismay. She convinces the dorm monitor to let her call Dimitri, who understands immediately that Lissa needs them. They find Lissa in the bathroom of her dorm, covered in blood. Some of the blood is a result of self-harm, while the rest of it comes from a rabbit that someone killed and left in her room; finding the rabbit triggered Lissa to self-harm. The rabbit came with a note promising Lissa’s demise if she does not leave immediately. (The narrative will later reveal that the sender of the note and the rabbit is Natalie, acting on her father’s orders.)
Dimitri and Rose escort Lissa to the infirmary. Kirova attempts to question her, but Rose interferes, insisting Lissa needs rest. Lissa urges the headmistress not to upset Natalie with this ordeal. When the two girls are alone, Rose reminds Lissa of her promise to speak to Rose before succumbing to any self-harming activities. Even as Rose tries to reassure Lissa, she reflects that she doesn’t understand her friend’s propensity to self-harm. She worries about this but is even more concerned about Lissa’s admission that she attempted to use her powers to revive the rabbit. Rose urges Lissa to leave the Academy again.
The next day, Rose is surprised to find herself the object of gossip, and eventually learns that her classmates know she fed her blood to Lissa while they were on the run. Rose suspects Christian of revealing this secret, but Lissa rejects this notion. (However, she is unaware of Rose’s hurtful comments to Christian the night before.) Lissa confronts Christian, but he tells her that she doesn’t have to “pretend” to like him any longer. Eventually, he denies telling the secret and blames Jesse, who has been spreading rumors that Rose had sex with him and Ralf both and allowed both to drink her blood during the act.
Rose confronts Jesse and Ralf about their lies. Although she wants to fight them, she resists, fearing expulsion. She goes through the motions of her day before returning to her dorm to cry. Dimitri knocks on her door, checking on her, and allows her to visit Lissa briefly. Lissa blames Mia for the rumors and laments that Rose is suffering due to Mia’s dislike of them. Lissa confesses to feeling weak and resolves to now be the one to protect Rose. Rose urges her not to use her powers further, fearing Ms. Karp’s pronouncement that doing so will worsen Lissa’s mental state.
Chapter 13 Summary
Rose struggles to ignore the gossip around the Academy, worrying more for Lissa than for herself. Lissa gains popularity despite these rumors, causing Rose to fear that she is using compulsion when Rose isn’t around. Rose breaks into Lissa’s mind and witnesses her using compulsion against a classmate named Camille. Christian also witnesses this in person and reprimands Lissa; their relationship has devolved since they both assume that the other is uninterested in friendship. Rose starts to pity Christian.
After a training session with Dimitri batters her hands, Rose laments the effect that the guardian training will have on her looks, and Dimitri implies that he finds her attractive. They discuss Rose’s mother, who is highly respected, and Dimitri encourages her to give her mother more credit. Rose makes a disparaging comment about growing up among “blood whores” (184), leading him to reveal that he was “raised in a dhampir commune” (184). Rose apologizes for her offensive language, and Dimitri explains that his childhood was full of love, despite the negative stories that circulate about these communes. Dimitri confides that his father was an abusive man who harmed his mother, until a teenaged Dimitri used his strength to prevent further abuse. Hearing Dimitri’s story, Rose realizes that this is why he was upset over catching her with Jesse. Dimitri says that he knows the rumors about her aren’t true and praises her sense of responsibility, then he flirtatiously compliments her hair.
Chapter 14 Summary
Rose struggles with guilt over her choice to continue spying on Lissa through their bond. While listening, she hears Natalie registering her astonishment that all the royals who disdained Lissa a few weeks ago now like her and even defend Rose from time to time. Lissa offers to spend time with her to throw her cousin off the scent of compulsion. Even as Rose confesses her concern, Lissa forces two boys who snicker at Rose to apologize. Rose is alarmed by Lissa’s uncharacteristic “dark satisfaction” in her use of compulsion, and Christian seems likewise troubled.
In church, Rose listens to a lecture on St. Vladimir and realizes that the saint’s powers remind her of Lissa’s healing abilities. She recalls spying on a conversation between Christian and Lissa and learning that a box of St. Vladimir’s writings is in the chapel attic. She resolves to speak to Christian. Later, as she heads to practice, she is groped by two students who make suggestive comments about her willingness to offer blood during sex. Mason arrives and punches the offending students. Approaching faculty members quickly disrupt the fight, and Rose thanks Mason, despite her frustration that he treats her as the weaker person due to her gender. Despite knowing that she will never be attracted to Mason, she flirts with him to get him to give Christian a message: that she lied the night of the assembly and is sorry for doing so. Moreover, she needs the St. Vladimir books.
Chapter 15 Summary
The next day, Mason delivers the box of books, which Christian easily obtained. She reads through translations of Vladimir’s writing, tracking discussions of the “shadow-kissed” Anna. She learns that the more Vladimir used his powers, the more he suffered from mood swings and hallucinations. Other reports make her certain that Vladimir used compulsion to gain his followers. She recalls first hearing the phrase “shadow-kissed” from Ms. Karp, who used this as a reason why Rose had to defend Lissa and get her away from the Academy before “they” came for her. Shortly afterward, Ms. Karp was taken away by guardians to “recover,” and she never returned to the Academy.
Mason knocks on Rose’s door, telling her that he is “springing” her while the staff is distracted. She demurs until he says that he is operating on “Lissa’s orders.” He brings her to a party full of popular, royal Moroi. Lissa is drunk and flirting with Aaron; Rose, who feels uncomfortable drinking around her “charge” (even if Lissa is not formally yet in her care), goes to the corner next to a sober Natalie. Natalie points out the reversal in roles; before they departed the Academy, Rose would have been the center of attention, not Lissa.
A student named Xander harasses Rose, asking how she felt when Lissa drank her blood. As Lissa loses her temper, Rose recalls a previous time that she saw Lissa lose control at a party two years ago. On that occasion, a group of Moroi boys took advantage of a human feeder who had given too much blood, biting her repeatedly while making suggestive comments. At Lissa’s behest, Rose interfered, but one of the boys departed with the intoxicated human. Lissa followed the boy and used compulsion to make him demolish items in his room with a baseball bat. Rose begged her to stop, narrowly averting Lissa’s plan to make the boy smash his own head with the bat. To cover for Lissa, Rose took responsibility for the destruction. She never drank again after that night, and they left the Academy together two days later.
In the present, Rose distracts Xander with jokes, noting Lissa’s look of relief as she manages to remain calm.
Chapters 10-15 Analysis
In this portion of the novel, The Complexities of High School Dynamics take center stage as Rose uses the gossip machine at St. Vladimir’s to her advantage, intentionally spreading the word that Mia’s parents work as servants to a royal family, thereby implying that Mia’s royal airs are no more than an affectation. When Lissa points out the unfairness of this strategy, especially as Rose herself is not rich or royal, Rose counters that it is not hypocrisy but rather the striking down of hypocrisy and rationalizes the decision to fight with the same weapons that Mia herself uses. Significantly, however, the structure of the narrative itself implicitly questions the validity of Rose’s approach, for multiple characters highlight the fact that spreading gossip conflicts with Rose’s own values. The most notable such character is Christian, who is often established as a voice of morality in the midst of ethically questionable deeds.
In addition to navigating the wider dynamics of St. Vladimir’s, Rose and Lissa must also contend with the shifting dynamics of their own relationship, thereby highlighting The Implicit Romance between Best Friends. Thus, Rose’s manipulation of hearsay in this section further affects Lissa and Christian’s budding relationship when Rose tells Christian that Lissa is only spending time with him out of pity. It is also important to note that Christian is susceptible to believing this lie because of his own insecurities about his role in the social hierarchy of the Academy. As Lissa and Christian’s romantic connection fractures due to Rose’s jealousy-fueled interference, the petty complexities of these developments are designed to reproduce the adolescent trappings of high school even as the characters’ actions become intertwined with the larger machinations of political drama. As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that Christian is not only a love interest for Lissa, but he is also an important ally: one who values her for her own merits rather than for her social connections.
While the frivolities of high school are prominently displayed, the novel also delves into the fact that real-world dangers often lurk in this otherwise juvenile setting. For example, when a royal Moroi student attempts to sexually assault a human feeder in Chapter 15, this scene mimics real-world situations in which upper-class individuals use their power and influence to exploit the vulnerabilities of those of a lower social class. Additionally, the scene suggests that far from being protected at St. Vladimir’s, lower-status women such as dhampirs and humans must face the same level of sexual danger that they experience in the broader vampire world. In this particular case, Lissa’s decision to use compulsion against the aggressor is not entirely her choice, suggesting that she is likewise compelled by her powers of compulsion. Although Lissa creates a deliberate inversion of the sexist power dynamics of the Moroi world, the novel does not present her actions as wholly ethical. Though Lissa’s intention to protect the human victim is laudable, her methods nonetheless exert a violent control over another mind, and this growing power of Lissa’s frightens Rose with its intensity and implications. The novel therefore suggests that wielding power over others is a dangerous prospect that can easily corrupt the person using it. Magic is likewise established as an essentially amoral force that can easily be turned to good or evil uses. By extension, it is implied that using magic requires vigilance in order to avoid the lure of acting unethically. These early scenes of violence, however deeply nuanced, nonetheless foreshadow the problematic nature of Lissa’s rising powers and her willingness to use them for her own benefit.
Related Titles
By Richelle Mead
