Westmark Themes

All's fair in love and war, some say. But is it really? After all, someone always ends up getting hurt—literally, emotionally, or both. Theo faces these same problems when he hooks up with Floria...

Good and evil seem like they're exact opposites, but there have to be some shades of gray, right? In Westmark, Theo seems to think he's got a handle on who's good and bad when he meets people like...

Politics can be a dirty business, which people like King Augustine and Dr. Torrens learn all too well. But does that mean that anyone involved in governing is a bad person? Not all of the politicia...

Ah, freedom… The ability to do whatever you want. Sweet deal, right? Not so much in Westmark. Theo can't even print a pamphlet for Las Bombas without getting shut down by the government, while Ca...

Before Theo meets Count Las Bombas and Musket, he thinks of things in pretty specific terms—actions and people are either good or bad. In his defense, he's been in a tiny town his whole life unti...

Nobody likes lies—except maybe when they're the one telling them, of course—and people in Westmark spit out a lot of falsehoods. Some might be in the name of good, while some aren't told for su...

Power's a pretty vague word, but here it sticks to a pretty simple form: power over other people. This might not always be a bad thing—you know, like, what would you do if your mom didn't stop yo...

The times, they are a-changin'—or, in the case of Westmark, it's the people and their surroundings that are. Theo starts out as a naïve kid in the backwater town of Dorning, but by the novel's f...

We don't learn about many other countries outside of Westmark in this book—after all, this volume is called Westmark—but Las Bombas talks a lot about other places he's been… or he claims he's...

Everyone's got decisions to make, often ones that aren't super easy. Theo has to choose whether to ditch his new BFF Mickle when he decides he just can't hang out with a scheming guy like Las Bomba...