Freedom and Servitude in The Familiar
Thematic Claim: Liberation Through Sacrifice and Choice
In The Familiar, Leigh Bardugo crafts a world where servitude is not simply a social condition but a metaphysical tether. The novel’s central claim is that true freedom cannot be granted by another—it must be seized through acts of self-determination, even when those acts require painful sacrifice. Both Luzia Cotado and Guillén Santángel begin as captives: Luzia bound by poverty, secret Jewish heritage, and the whims of her mistress; Santángel by a centuries-old curse that binds him to the De Paredes bloodline. Their journey toward liberation reveals that the opposite of servitude is not independence from others but the capacity to choose one’s bonds and one’s fate.
Plot Strand One: Luzia’s Hidden Labor and Awakening to Agency
Luzia begins the novel as a scullion in the household of Doña Valentina Ordoño, performing menial tasks while concealing her conversa ancestry and her small miracles. When she secretly restores a burnt loaf of bread using a song taught by her aunt Hualit Catalina de Castro de Oro, she sets off a chain of events that forces her out of the shadows. Her servitude is initially invisible—she is “a woman in rags” whom no one scrutinizes, as Santángel observes. Yet her magic, born of the refranes she sings, becomes both a tool for survival and a dangerous liability.
When Luzia visits Hualit and begs to stay, her aunt refuses, citing her father’s wishes. Luzia reflects on her mother’s death, her assault by Don Esteban, and her longing for freedom. This early section establishes that her servitude is layered: social poverty, gendered vulnerability, and the constant threat of the Inquisition due to her Jewish blood. Her aunt’s warning—“You’ve fucked us now”—highlights how even a single act of magic can collapse the fragile distance between hidden life and exposure.
Luzia’s awakening to agency comes when Santángel begins training her. He tells her, “Fear men, Luzia, fear their ambition and the crimes they commit in its service. But don’t fear magic.” This advice reframes her power not as a curse but as a natural extension of her will. However, she soon discovers that her magic is part of a larger game: Víctor de Paredes intends to use her as a champion to win the king’s favor, and Santángel’s own freedom is dangled as a reward for Luzia’s success. Her servitude to Valentina is merely replaced by a more elaborate form of control—one that threatens to bind her forever.
Plot Strand Two: Santángel’s Cursed Bondage and the Bargain of Freedom
Santángel’s servitude is ancient and literal: a curse that ties him to the De Paredes line. Víctor’s promise to release him if Luzia wins the torneo reveals the transactional nature of this relationship. Santángel confesses to Luzia that he has considered trading her to Víctor for his own freedom: “I have. Every day and every night.” This admission exposes the core contradiction—the desire for freedom can lead one to reimpose servitude on another.
The curse requires a new bargain to be broken. As Santángel explains, “All curses require sacrifice. In the making and the breaking.” Luzia becomes the potential sacrifice when Víctor schemes to make her immortal so she can serve his family forever. Santángel’s influence (described as “luck” that protects Víctor) is both a blessing and a chain: it keeps Luzia alive but also traps her. When Luzia asks him to tell her the real ending of the cursed prince’s story, he says, “For him to be free, a new bargain must be struck.” She realizes she is that bargain.
The complexity deepens when Luzia learns that she is not the first milagrera Santángel and Víctor have pursued. Fortún Donadei warns her that spies roamed the countryside seeking seers, and those who gained Víctor’s attention did not share his good fortune. Isabel de la Cruz, Piedrola, Lucrecia de León—all ended in the Inquisition’s cells. This history underscores that the system of servitude is not personal but structural: Víctor treats miraculous women as collectible assets.
Plot Strand Three: The Execution and the Choice to Unmake the World
The climax at the quemadero outside Toledo brings the theme to its fiery resolution. Luzia and Santángel are led to execution, their sanbenitos removed, Luzia gagged. The executioner offers a quick death if they repent, but Luzia refuses, and Santángel follows her lead. As flames rise, Luzia clutches rosemary, remembers her mother’s words and Santángel’s teaching, and targets Fortún Donadei’s emerald talisman. She sings the refrán a final time—“Abolt kazal, abolt mazal”—letting her wild magic become destructive.
This act of tearing open the world is both an assertion of agency and a surrender. Luzia had earlier hesitated to use her power destructively, but she now allows it to “be dangerous, to be unwieldy, to grow bigger and more awful than it should.” Her choice rejects the passive martyrdom the Inquisition expects. Instead, she creates an illusion that hides their survival. The chapter ends with the public seeing no remains, fueling rumors of devilry.
The following chapter reveals the true cost of their freedom. Santángel burns to ash at dawn each morning, and Luzia resurrects him. They flee to Holland, never age, and travel the world together for centuries. Their servitude to the De Paredes family has ended, but a new reciprocity binds them: Luzia becomes the agent of Santángel’s daily death and rebirth. He says to her earlier, “All I have is this,” and she later learns that his love—what he values most—is the sacrifice that breaks the curse. Freedom, then, is not independence but mutual dependence chosen freely.
Complexity and Contradiction: The Price of Liberation
The novel resists a simple victory over servitude. Luzia’s freedom from poverty and the Inquisition comes at the price of a nomadic life and the burden of keeping Santángel alive. Santángel’s curse is broken, but he remains tethered to Luzia through a cycle of death and resurrection. Víctor de Paredes dies paralyzed by fear, alone, promising “tomorrow”—a man who never achieved the freedom he sought. Fortún loses his powers after the execution, stripped of the magic that defined him.
The symbolism of orange blossoms appears at the execution, scenting the smoke—a traditional symbol of purity and wedding, suggesting that Luzia and Santángel’s bond is both sacred and costly. The scorpion and pomegranate motifs, though not directly cited in this evidence, resonate with themes of poison, fertility, and resurrection. The refranes themselves, Ladino sayings that Luzia uses to reshape reality, represent the power of inherited language to both bind and free.
A crucial contradiction emerges in Santángel’s bargain: he was willing to trade Luzia to Víctor for his freedom, yet he also tells her, “I would see you free.” His love for her becomes the sacrifice that breaks the curse, but that sacrifice would have been meaningless if he had actually sold her. Luzia, for her part, must decide whether she values freedom from Víctor more than her desire for Santángel. When she says, “I won’t make his bargain. Not for you or for anyone,” she asserts that her freedom cannot be traded away—even for love. Yet in the end, she chooses to bind herself to Santángel forever.
Study Questions and Answers
1. What does Luzia’s restoration of the burnt loaf of bread reveal about her relationship to servitude?
Luzia’s secret use of a refrán to fix the bread shows that she wields small acts of magic to ease her hard life, but it also exposes her to danger. Her ignorance that Valentina saw the burnt loaf initially means her servitude is maintained only as long as her power remains hidden. The incident triggers the entire plot, revealing that servitude demands invisibility, and any deviation threatens the system.
2. How does Santángel’s curse differ from Luzia’s social bondage, and how do these forms of captivity intersect?
Santángel’s curse is a literal magical binding to the De Paredes bloodline, while Luzia’s bondage is societal—poverty, gender, conversa status. They intersect through Víctor, who seeks to make Luzia immortal so she can serve his family. Santángel’s hope for freedom depends on Luzia’s success, but that success would condemn her to a different sort of eternal servitude.
3. Why does Luzia refuse the executioner’s offer of a quick death, and what does this refusal signify about her understanding of freedom?
Luzia refuses to repent because she values the integrity of her lived experience over a painless end. Her refusal is an act of defiance against the Church’s authority to define her fate. By choosing to die on her own terms—or to fake death through destructive magic—she asserts that freedom includes the right to reject others’ definitions of salvation.
4. Discuss the role of the refranes in the theme of freedom and servitude. How do they function as both chains and keys?
The refranes are inherited Ladino sayings that Luzia uses to work miracles. They are a link to her Jewish heritage, which she must hide—a chain of ancestral danger. Yet they also give her the power to transform reality. In the final trial, she uses the same refrán that restored the bread to tear open the world. The sayings are both the instrument of her servitude (they attract Víctor’s attention) and the key to her escape.
5. In what sense are Luzia and Santángel “free” at the end of the novel, and in what sense do they remain bound?
They are free from the Inquisition, from Víctor, and from public scrutiny. They travel the world and never age. However, Santángel dies each dawn and is resurrected by Luzia; she must repeatedly perform this act. Their bond is now one of mutual necessity—a chosen servitude that replaces the old imposed one. The novel suggests that true freedom may be the capacity to choose one’s captivities rather than the absence of all bonds.