Steel and Fire

We've all got parents who like to encourage us to be better, but being told to be steel takes it to a pretty high level. Vahan remembers his dad's advice to be like steel when he and Sisak are running, and it gives him the hope he needs to keep going. He fills us in:

"This is how steel is made," he said, which was what our father used to say whenever circumstances tested our character, which wasn't very often. "Steel," my father said, "is made strong by fire." (9.6)

As Vahan and Sisak face terrifying uncertainty after running from the Inn, Sisak recalls their father's mantra regarding steel—and when he does, Vahan remembers his father's advice too. Both brothers, then, harken back to their father's saying as they seek the strength to forge ahead. In this way, steel represents both their father and the strength he provides them even after he's dead.

Fire destroys all sorts of things (okay, like, maybe even most things), but it just makes steel stronger. Fire, then, is a metaphor for the intensely dangerous circumstances Vahan finds himself in—and instead of melting, he needs to be like steel; he needs to derive strength from the heat and pressure, somehow, and survive. Is this making you think of the title—Forgotten Fire—right about now? Because it totally should be.

Just as steel is shaped and refined by fire, so too must Vahan be by the unrelenting attack on Armenian people. He needs to become wiser, to grow and adapt in the face of extreme adversity in order to emerge once the fire (read: violence) dies down.