Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo

Picking up on the interest generated from the recent Wonder Woman movie that starred Gal Gadot and Chris Pine, is this novel adaptation which focuses on a younger Diana and her involvement in the world of men.

Seventeen-year-old Diana is the daughter of Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons who lives on the hidden island of Themyscira, located in a "corner of the Aegean Sea, where compasses spun and instruments suddenly refused to obey." Themyscira was created by the goddesses Hera, Athena, Demeter, Hestia, Aphrodite and Artemis and gifted to Hippolyta as a place of refuge for female warriors who had fallen in battle.

Diana enters a footrace that is part of the Nemeseian Games. The goal of the race is to be the first to run across Themyscira to retrieve a red flag hung beneath the great dome in Bana-Mighdall. Diana, with the help of her best friend Maeve, has been training in-secret for this race and believes she can win it despite her being the smallest and youngest of the Amazons.

At the starting line, Diana's mother warns her "You do not enter a race to lose." Tekmessa (Tek), Hippolyta's closest advisor, drops the red silk flag to begin the race and Diana follows her plan of running through "the Cybelian Woods to the island's northern coast." Along the coast Diana spots a ship close to the island's protective boundary that hides Themyscira from the mortal world of men.  Diana tries to ignore the ship but when she hears a boom she glances to the horizon and sees the schooner on fire and sinking. Minutes later she hears a cry.

At first Diana tells herself to keep going, but her curiosity draws her to the rocky point. Impulsively she dives off the cliff and into the water, swimming past the boundary to the wreckage. Diana knows to save any human means possible exile from Themyscira. No human is allowed on Themyscira and breaking that rule even to save a human life means exile. Despite this, she pulls a young girl from the wreckage and carries her back to the island and to a cave on the cliff.  Diana gives the girl, whose name is Alia, food and tells her to wait for her return. Diana knows she must get Alia back to the mortal world as soon as possible.

Diana returns to the city , the race now over and the winner awarded the laurel. She endures some ridiculing for losing the race but her mother is supportive of her efforts. Diana attends the feast held after the race. Afterwards she meets Maeve who questions her about what happened to cause her to lose. Diana lies and tells her friend that she encountered a landslide. Suddenly Maeve collapses in pain and is burning with fever. Two other Amazons suddenly take ill and there is a major earthquake on Themyscira. Diana begins to suspect that this has come about because of Alia's presence on the island. She attempts to tell her mother what she has done but Hippolyta is too distracted by the sudden events to listen to her daughter.

Diana realizes that she must visit the Oracle to determine what to do next and she must do this before Hippolyta also consults the Oracle. She races to the Oracle's temple and there makes her offering of the arrow that killed her mother.  The Oracle accepts her gift, giving Diana three questions. She learns that to save Themyscira, she must let Alia die as her presence is poisoning the island and the island is poisoning her. Because Diana is made from mud of the island, she will not sicken. The Oracle also reveals that Alia is haptandra, or a Warbringer. She tells Diana, "Where she goes, there will be strife. With each breath, she draws us closer to Armageddon." and that Alia is descended from a line of Warbringers that includes Helen of Troy. The Oracle prophesies that "With the coming of the new moon, Alia's powers will reach their apex, and war will come." The Oracle therefore advises Diana to do nothing to help Alia, and she will die if she remains on the island.

For her final question, Diana asks the Oracle how she can save everyone, Alia, her island and her people and the world. The Oracle tells her "The Warbringer must reach the spring at Therapne before the sun sets on the first day of Hekatombaion. Where Helen rests, the Warbringer may be purified, purged of the taint of death that has stained her line from its beginning. There may her power be leashed and never passed to another." 

Diana flees the island, taking Alia with her, their destination, Therapne. It is a quest to save not only Alia but the world of mortal men from a war that will draw in her own people as well. Little does Diana realize that she will have to overcome both mortal men and the gods of war and death.

Discussion

Wonder Woman: Warbringer is an exciting novel that will appeal to fans of the Avenger Movies. The opening storyline is very similar to the Wonder Woman movie. In the movie,  a U.S. pilot Steve Trevor crashes on the island and is rescued by the Amazons including Diana. She leaves the island on a quest with Trevor to stop the god Ares who is believed to be instigating World War II. In Warbringer,  a younger Diana rescues a young girl, Alia Keralis from drowning and then upon learning Alia is a Warbringer - a mortal who foments war and conflict,  goes on a quest to purify her in order to save the world of mortal men from certain war. This quest will result in Diana proving herself and becoming a true Amazon warrior, although at the end of her quest neither her mother nor other Amazons will be aware of this accomplishment.

Bardugo uses her characters to explain some of the stories which are part of Greek mythology.   For example, through the character of Diana, readers learn about Helen of Troy. One version of Helen's parentage is that Zeus and Leda were the parents of Helen but another version states that Nemesis, the goddess of retribution may also have been her mother. In the latter version, Nemesis changes herself into a goose to avoid Zeus, but he becomes a swan and mates with her, resulting in her laying an egg which results in Helen.  As the daughter of Nemesis, Helen was "born with war in her blood, first of the haptandrai..." a Warbringer, the beginning of a line of Warbringers.

Warbringer also weaves several gods and goddesses into the plot. Diana and Alia, along with Alia's brother Jason and her friends Poornima (Nim) Chaudhary and Theo Santos find themselves pursued not only by humans bent on destroying Alia (the Warbringer) but also by a several gods and goddesses. These immortals appear to take the place of Nim and Theos, threatening Diana and attempting to thwart her mission. Nim at times looks like Eris, the goddess of strife, who Diana describes as "...a battlefield god. She incites discord and thrives on the misery it creates."  She has black wings and talons, black eyes and gold smeared on her lips from the apple of discord.  At other times Diana sees  Phobos, the god of panic, instead of Theo. Phobos with his pale face, yellow pointed teeth tipped in blood and wearing a black helm, terrifies Diana but she overcomes her terror to protect her new friends. The group is also chased by Deimos, the god of terror in his chariot as he tries to run them off the mountain road in Greece.

Many readers will easily pick up on the hidden villain in the story. Initially Bardugo leads her readers to believe that the villains are those trying to kill Alia - the enemies of the corporation that Alia and Jason's parents founded. Diana, inexperienced in life and unfamiliar with the duplicity of the mortal world, does not suspect Jason. But subtle hints abound that something is not quite right about Alia's brother.

As the climax of the story approaches, Jason reveals that he has no intention of seeing his sister, Alia reach the spring at Therapne to be purified. Instead, he intends to use her power as a Warbringer to wage war. Jason eventually reveals his true nature at the river when he tells Diana that "We can't stop war, ... but we can change the way wars are waged." Jason wants to unleash monsters on the world that will unite mankind in the fight against them. But Diana tells Jason that he doesn't understand what he is doing, that he will unleash "a nightmare of loss."  In an attempt to win Diana over to his world vision, Jason offers her the chance to be the warrior she has always desired, achieving glory. But she is not tempted. Alia's desire to die rather than see Jason's vision of the mortal world come to fruition, defines the courage and true strength Diana has been taught as an Amazon warrior. It is her determination to defend this noble belief  that results in her death. Almost.

Bardugo has fashioned a novel jam-packed with one exciting battle after the next, pitting Diana against both mortals and gods and culminating in a thrilling climax. The conclusion to Warbringer leaves open the possibility of a sequel. Fans of Wonder Woman, Batman and Superman will truly enjoy this well written novel that portrays Diana as a noble, selfless Amazon warrior who wishes to bring peace to the mortal world.

Book Details:

Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo
New York: Random House Children's Books    2017
364 pp.