How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
And here was where Randa was clever. This was how he'd kept her a caged animal for so long. He knew the words to make her feel stupid and brutish and turn her into a dog. (15.15)
That Randa—he sure knows how to push people's buttons. Do you know anyone like that? Someone who, with just a few words, takes the wind out of your sails every time you interact? If so, we have a suggestion: stop interacting.
Quote #8
Po's Grace would protect Po from Leck. And Po would protect her.
With Po, Katsa would be safe.
He'd said it simply, as if it were nothing. But it wasn't nothing for Katsa to rely on someone else's protection. She'd never done such a thing in her life. (19.5-7)
Katsa feels really vulnerable when she realizes that she might have to rely on Po for some measure of protection, and she feels even more vulnerable when she realizes that she's fallen in love with him and come to depend on him in other ways. But being vulnerable isn't always bad—in fact, it's a natural result of opening ourselves up to others. Something we can't do if we're trying to control everything too much. Think for a moment about Po. He's okay with relying on Katsa as necessary. Does that make him less powerful? Or weak?
Quote #9
Control. This was Katsa's wound: Leck had taken away her control.
[…] And Katsa knew that the tough scar that formed over the ache within her had as much to do with her future lack of control as her past. She could not make Po be well, any more than she had been able to make herself think clearly in Leck's presence. Some things were beyond her power […]. (36.9, 36.20)
This is an important lesson for Katsa, and it makes us think of a Rolling Stones lyric. "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need." And once Katsa figures that out—that it's beyond her power to make everything come out exactly as she wants it to—she's able to forgive herself for her falling prey to Leck's Grace and move on.