The Goblin Emperor Ending Explained: What Maia’s Final Choices Reveal About Power

Spoilers ahead for Katherine Addison’s The Goblin Emperor.

At the end of The Goblin Emperor, Maia survives an assassination attempt, breaks a tie on his council to approve a bridge over the Istandaärtha, and names it the Wisdom Bridge after the airship whose destruction brought him to power. The name honors everyone who died aboard. It’s a small decision with a long reach. Generations of people will cross a bridge whose name remembers the crew as well as the emperor.

Maia spends much of the novel learning how to hold on to the throne. The final chapters ask a harder question. Now that he can make a decision that outlasts him, whose interests and whose lives will it reflect?

Who killed Maia’s father and brothers?

Thara Celehar’s investigation establishes that a bomb brought down the Wisdom of Choharo, killing Maia’s father, Emperor Varenechibel IV, and three of Maia’s older half-brothers. Celehar traces the bombing to Aina Shulivar and his fellow conspirators, with backing from the noble House Tethimada. When Maia visits the prisoners, Shulivar claims credit for making Maia emperor. His argument gives Maia a particularly ugly version of a question every ruler faces. What does he owe the people whose actions put him on the throne?

Eshevis Tethimar gives Maia a more immediate problem. At the Winternight Ball, he rushes him with a knife. Maia’s guard Beshelar takes the wound meant for him, and Cala kills Tethimar. The investigation reveals that Tethimar meant to marry Maia’s half-sister Vedero and rule as regent for Maia’s nephew Idra.

That scheme follows an earlier attempt to put Idra on the throne. Idra’s mother, Princess Sheveän, and Lord Chancellor Chavar try to force Maia to abdicate in the boy’s favor. Maia insists on speaking with Idra, who refuses the crown. The conspirators are counting on a child to play the part they’ve written for him. By asking Idra directly, Maia gives him room to make the decision himself.

What Maia’s response to the plots reveals

The Tethimada conspirators are executed for treason, and Sheveän is sent into exile. Maia also arranges for Tethimar’s sisters to be cared for. Read those decisions together and you get a clearer picture of his rule than any one act of mercy could give you. Maia accepts the use of severe punishment, and he considers what happens to the people who are left to live with it.

There’s a similar distinction in the way Maia treats Celehar. His investigator has made powerful enemies by discovering the truth. Maia offers him a place in the imperial household, then grants his request to leave court and serve as a Witness. Both decisions respect what Celehar has done. The second also respects what he wants to do with his life. Read Tor’s description of Celehar’s story in The Witness for the Dead.

Why does Maia name it the Wisdom Bridge?

The Clocksmiths’ Guild proposes a bridge whose sections retract so tall ships can still pass. Getting the guild a hearing means taking its expertise seriously in a court where some councillors doubt it. When the Corazhas splits on the proposal, Maia casts the deciding vote in favor. The novel ends with approval. The work of building is still ahead.

A councillor suggests honoring Maia’s father in the bridge’s name. Maia chooses the Wisdom Bridge, after the Wisdom of Choharo, to commemorate everyone who died aboard. That choice returns us to one of his first decisions as emperor. On arriving at court, he insists on attending the funeral for the commoners killed in the crash. Early on, that conviction surprises the people advising him. By the end, it determines what the empire will call a piece of public infrastructure. Read Addison’s opening chapters at Reactor.

There’s also a tension worth sitting with. One emperor can widen the circle of people the state remembers because he gets to cast the deciding vote and choose the name. A future emperor will inherit that same authority. Addison gives Maia a chance to show what he’ll do with it, and leaves readers with the question of how much can depend on who occupies the throne.

What the final scene means for Maia

Before the bridge vote, Maia tells Cala and Beshelar that he’s fond of them. He uses the singular “I.” In a court that regulates how an emperor speaks even in his own rooms, that pronoun lets him address two people who risked their lives for him as someone who wants their friendship. They already know what they owe his office. He wants them to know how he feels.

After the vote, Maia’s secretary Csevet suggests people might call him Edrehasivar the Bridge-Builder. Maia welcomes the idea, this time using the imperial “we.” The two scenes give him a use for both voices. He can say “I” when he wants his guards to know him personally, and “we” when he’s deciding what kind of work he wants his reign to be known for.

Csevet’s nickname is a prediction. The bridge is still a proposal newly approved, and Maia has ruled for only a short time. There’s something moving about where Addison chooses to stop. A young man who began the book asking his cousin what he was supposed to do can finally imagine spending the rest of his life doing work he’s chosen.

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Want to reread the final two chapters? Find the Tor trade paperback of The Goblin Emperor on Amazon.

Read next: More fantasy books with political intrigue and clever schemes or our review of The Raven Scholar.

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