Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
A Thing for Feathers
Wishes seem pretty innocuous, right? You wish on your birthday cake candles. You wish on a star. But then there's that old saying "be careful what you wish for." Daughter of Smoke and Bone is too classy to fall back on this cliché, but you can totally see this warning hiding between its lines.
Brimstone lectures Karou early on that she shouldn't abuse her wish power for frivolous things like blue hair or ugly-ifying her romantic competition. He tells her, "I hope, child, but I don't wish" (21.21). That's great, dude, but what's the difference between the two?
We later learn that wish magic derives from pain. Is that the only distinction, that hope doesn't need pain? Not quite. Wishes also come from outside power, so they can be taken away from you. Hope, that comes from within, and only you can let it be taken away.
Karou taps into her hope—her inner strength—when she tries to find her way back to Brimstone's shop:
By the strength of her will, or her hope, when she might have given up her chimaera for lost, she had instead done this. She had found a way. (24.7)
It's no surprise that Karou ends up finding this hidden resolve. After all, to the chimaera, her name, Karou, means hope. Plus, she's the main character of this awesome series we're reading. So we would've guessed she had some fight in her. (Her insane ninja-knife skills were a good hint, too.)