The City of Brass

Ali is the second son of Ghassan, the King of Daevabad. He is one of few pureblood djinns who has mixed tribal lineage; his existence came about after an effort to create an alliance between his father’s Geziri tribe and his mother’s Ayaanle tribe. Ali’s appearance does not reflect his allegiances—he looks like his mother, but he has far more fondness for his father’s tribe and has spent his life in Daevabad. Ultimately, this duality backfires on Ali because his father fears that his mother’s tribe wants Ali on the throne over his older brother, Muntadhir. Ali also loves numbers, facts, habit, and tradition. He was raised with the royal guard and he is a skilled fighter. His mother taught him how to swim when he was young despite his father’s wishes, and he has a mysterious connection to water. Water heals his wounds miraculously, and later, after being possessed by a marid, he has a magical connection to water that he is unable to control.

His mixed tribal heritage is one of many seeming dichotomies that Ali must hold at once. He is devoutly religious, but he must also be loyal to his family whose policies do not always align with his morals. He needs power to help the shafit, but if he helps the shafit he could lose all power and ultimately hurt them. With all of his complicated allegiances, Ali chooses to follow a provided moral code strictly. He stands by his morality. He tells his father that he believes that the law should apply to all men equally, openly disagreeing with Ghassan’s policy. When a shafit tries to assassinate Ali, Ali gives an order to get rid of the body so that his father cannot use this event as an excuse to kill more shafit, putting the survival of shafit above his own wellbeing.

In the beginning of the novel, Ali funds a shafit revolutionary group called the Tanzeem. His morals tell him that this is correct, but when he finds himself truly having to choose between his morals and his family, he struggles. He chooses his morals first (vows to help the Tanzeem), then his family (swearing to Muntadhir that he would stay uninvolved with the shafit). Finally, as Ali continues to fumble his loyalties (nearly sacrificing himself for Muntadhir but refusing to lie to the public to condemn Nahri), Ghassan makes the choice for him. At the end of the novel, Ghassan exiles Ali. As Ali tries to convince him that he wants to help this city, Ghassan responds, “I think you want to help the shafit so much that you’d be willing to bring the city down just to see them rise” (503). Ghassan explains Ali’s namesake, their tribe’s greatest hero who was also a rebel, implying that this was Ali’s fate from the start. This explanation comes directly after Ali reveals his full name, Alizayd al Qahtani, to a marid who then possesses his body, emphasizing the importance of names in determining fate.

Dara is a warrior daeva whose history is partially unknown. He is an Afshin, which means he once served the Nahid Council, the group that used to rule Daevabad and consisted of Nahri’s ancestors. His history and character are revealed slowly throughout the book, first by Dara himself and later by other characters who recount their perspective of what happened. While Dara does not lie to Nahri, he does omit information about his past and tells only his side of history, making him an unreliable narrator.

Dara has bright, emerald green eyes with long lashes, thick eyebrows, and light brown skin. He is beautiful, which is partly because he was enslaved for many centuries and made to be more attractive to lure humans. He has a tattoo on his left temple that marks him as an Afshin and tattoos of geometric shapes covering his arms that mark each human enslaver he killed. He wears a large, bright green ring, which is what tethers him to life when he was enslaved.

Point of view determines everything with Dara. Ali views him as a ruthless warrior, referring to him as “The Scourge,” and Nahri views him as her savior, suggesting that he has been both at different times throughout his life. Dara is ashamed of his past, especially his centuries spent enslaved. Dara never tells Nahri himself, but after Dara dies, Ghassan tells her that Dara, ordered by the Nahid Council, abused and killed a town of innocent people, which is why he was banished from Daevabad. When Dara reenters Daevabad for the first time since he was banished, he inexplicably gains more power than ever that he struggles to control.

When Nahri meets Dara, he is closed off and unrelenting in his opinions. As they travel together, he begins to concede certain things and even apologizes to Nahri for seeing shafits as a disgrace to their race, admitting that people told him that the shafits’ existence would damn them and “[he] never questioned it. No one did” (163). This underscores the novel’s thematic idea that The Powerful Control the Narrative.

Once they make it to Daevabad, instead of continuing to change, Dara finds it impossible to live in a city that no longer belongs to his people where most believe him to be evil. He is no longer capable of listening to Nahri’s wishes and the result is his own death. As he whips Muntadhir in his final moments, after Muntadhir taunts him about the murder of his little sister, he shouts “You want me to be the Scourge? [...] Will that please your filthy people? To make me into a monster yet again?” (479). The fact that people view Dara as a monster is enough reason for him to turn into one. While at times he is able to rethink his beliefs, in the end, his history leaves too big of a mark.

Muntadhir is Ghassan’s first son who will one day be the king. He is handsome, with messy, curly black hair and a beard. He is presented as a spoiled prince who likes to party, but slowly Ali begins to realize that Muntadhir has been protecting him from his father. Muntadhir is not a warrior like Ali, but he understands court politics and strategy in a way that Ali does not.

Muntadhir is known to be promiscuous, but when Dara sees his truest desires, he sees a future with his best friend and advisor, Jamshid, which implies that his partying aims to distract from potential rumors of being queer. He claims that he will refuse to marry Nahri because she is a shafit. Muntadhir always comes to Ali’s defense and tries to guide him gently, begging him not to remain involved with the shafit and promising that, when he is king, he will help. He acts as a patient older brother for Ali until Ali disagrees with him directly and Muntadhir becomes angry and tells his father everything Ali has been hiding, which leads to Ali’s exile. Ghassan and Ali discuss Muntadhir’s eventual weaknesses as king—overindulgence, disregard for his wife, discrimination against shafit—and Ghassan deems it too dangerous to keep Ali, second-in-line for the throne, in the city. Knowing that he will make mistakes, the people around Muntadhir try to cover for him in advance. He tries to stay loyal to his family, but he loses sight of what is important, prioritizes his reputation, and snaps under pressure.

When first introduced, Ghassan is an intimidating, ruthless, strong-willed king. Ali sees him as heartless, and he is shocked when he sees mercy from Ghassan in his first visit to the court. When Ghassan explains himself to Ali, it becomes clear that he deeply considers the needs of his citizens. He believes that they have achieved relative peace in Daevabad and therefore should not change their laws, even if he knows that ethically it is the right thing to do.

Ghassan still misses his home in Am Gezira but puts his duty as king over everything else, including his own wishes. He makes ruthless orders, like to incite a shafit riot just to have an excuse to arrest them, and then explains that he does it to maintain peace. Ghassan believes that the reason their family was able to take and maintain the throne for 1400 years is that they were willing to strike a balance in a way that the Nahids were not. He does not believe in Ali’s religion and thought his ancestors adopted it as a political move, but when he fears that his sons will die, he prays. He prides himself on being able to see both sides of things and in doing so maintains the status quo.

He has no moral problem with lying to the public to create a certain image. He creates the false story that Dara raped and kidnapped Nahri to protect the surviving parties’ reputations. He justifies the means with the end. When he banishes Ali in anticipation of Muntadhir’s mistakes on the throne, he does the same. If he wants the end result, then he will do whatever it takes to get there, even if it compromises his own ethics or desires. By the end, he is therefore a clear antagonistic force, set in opposition to both Ali and Nahri.

Nisreen is a skilled healer who helps to train Nahri in healing. She also acts as a guide for Nahri to acclimate to her new setting and tribal allegiance. She is kind and soft-spoken, but at times she speaks sternly or raises her voice in an argument. Nisreen is fiercely loyal to her tribe and relentlessly encourages Nahri to be loyal as well. She wants Nahri to adhere to daeva traditions and religion. She also pushes Nahri in the infirmary to take as many patients as possible and perform procedures for which Nahri does not think she is ready. Nisreen represents the belonging that Nahri wants but gives her little freedom. In the Epilogue it is revealed that Nisreen is part of a daeva resistance. She possesses Dara’s ring and plans to bring him back to life. The fact that she has been hiding her involvement and protecting Nahri’s innocence proves her cunning, driven nature. She will sacrifice almost anything for her tribe.

Kaveh serves Ghassan as his “grand wazir,” who advises and assists the king. He is loyal to his daeva tribe and advocates for them constantly. He and Ali do not get along because Kaveh sees Ali’s religion as the opposition to his own. Because his tribe is opposed to the existence of shafit, the two populations often fight and Kaveh always supports the daevas’ side, even if the result is the punishment of innocent shafits. Kaveh is active in political strategy and manipulation in both overt and covert ways: He openly sends prostitutes to Ali’s room knowing that Ali will get angry, and he is a part of the same daeva resistance as Nisreen. He is driven by his loyalty to his daeva people, who have been oppressed since their city was taken. By the end of the novel, Kaveh feels a spark of hope that his quiet resistance on behalf of his tribe will amount to something.

Jamshid is a daeva warrior who is Kaveh’s son and Muntadhir’s closest friend, advisor, and lover. He is quiet, lighthearted, and kind to Ali despite the way Ali sees his tribe and religion. For reasons no one understands, he wants to learn how to use a zulfiqar, which is a weapon that only Geziri men can wield properly. In the Epilogue they reference “revealing him” (524), which implies a secret about his identity that could explain his interest in the zulfiqar. He saves several lives over the course of the novel: Dara’s and Nahri’s when they first arrive in Daevabad, Ali’s after the assassination attempt, and Muntadhir’s when he takes the arrow for him. Jamshid is present in the background of the narrative, kind and consistent, similar to the role he plays in all of their lives.