Thoughts on Runaways by Etta Grace: Exploring Music, Family, and Evil

Thoughts on Runaways by Etta Grace: Exploring Family, Music, and Evil

If you haven't already devoured Etta Grace's Runaways, the YA fantasy novel about a girl trying to find her missing sister in the magical woods beyond their home, then you need to. Not only is it a charming, cozy autumn read, it's also a wonderful adventure that is at once nostalgic and timeless. 

You can grab your copy of Runaways here.

Check out this gorgeous hand-drawn cover, too!

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I read Runaways in 2024, as one of a handful of lucky beta readers, and I was also fortunate enough to get an ARC copy for the preparation of both this article and the accompanying podcast interview with Etta Grace. A lot of what I say here is meant to supplement that, so make sure to give that a listen, too, because we delve into a whole lot more than these three themes, and there's a lot said there that I don't touch upon here, and vice-versa. I already had a lot to say about the book back when I was beta reading it, but after having a long discussion with Etta, I've had some more thoughts, so grab a cup of hot cocoa and your copy of Runaways, and let's get down to business.

[Before you go any further, keep in mind that there are minor spoilers in what you're about to read. I've tried to avoid spoiling as much as possible, but if you want to experience Runaways for the first time yourself (as honestly you should) and form your own ideas and understandings of it before I bare my thoughts to you, then do that first (and then come back!).]

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We begin with family...  

There are a handful of themes that run through this fantastical tale of resilience, inner strength, perseverance, and - ultimately - love. Perhaps the most central of all themes is that of family, and specifically what it means to be family. Is family only defined by blood? Is it defined by shared experience and time knowing each other - caring for each other? Is it characterized by absolutes - lines which, when crossed, invalidate one's belonging in the family? How far can someone go, and still be called family? 

These are questions that the story asks. It goes beyond unending loyalty, and travels further into the more challenging realms of understanding, compassion, and forgiveness. What struck me as I read the story was how forgiving the protagonist, Hannah, is throughout the entire story. It isn't just with her sister Cecilia, whose disappearance triggers the entire adventure into the woods, and into the worlds of the Seelie and Useelie - and whose big reveal leaves Hannah reeling for quite some time. She also forgives the Taken, who, throughout the course of the story, ferociously attacks Hannah and her friends. It's interesting to consider how far forgiveness can go, and how it changes as we age. Perhaps it's her young age that makes it easier for her to forgive, and perhaps there's something we can learn from the innocence of young children, who often forgive so easily and brush away the burden of anger and hatred from their hearts.

The Piper, on the other hand, is a character that represents an absolute evil. There is no compassion to be found there, no forgiveness to give. His deeds have painted his soul black, and there is no turning back, for the delight he gains from the pain he inflicts is now a core part of who he is, unlike those who he takes, like the Taken, who are forced to do his bidding or suffer terrible pain and horrible fates. (We'll talk more about the Piper and the concept of absolute evil in just a bit.)

Forgiveness leads us to the question of whether or not you can forgive your family everything. There's something to be said about the connections that Hannah builds with both Cecilia and the Taken. Both of these characters are (here come the spoilers) related to Hannah by either blood or an entire sibling history. Cecilia, the Changeling, is the one who replaced the Taken, Hannah's true blood sister. But neither of them is favored over the other. 

Even with Hannah's shared history with Cecilia and the Taken's horrible attacks against them, Hannah is able to be fair to both her sisters. She forgives them both - for things which they had very little control over, and which can also lead us into a discussion of how people behave based on their situations and environments. Hannah sees past their deeds, understands the circumstances which made them behave a certain way, and through her compassion forgives them. 

Of course, this is also a great model to have for children. As young teens and young adults read stories that model these kinds of conflicts - which naturally occur in all tight-knit groups, whether families or friend groups - they can also see how these conflicts can be resolved. I've always talked about how important it is that fiction teaches and educates; it's not simple entertainment. Runaways teaches a great deal, and one of those lessons is that of moving past a conflict so that you salvage your relationships and the good that you have with people, not burn the bridges and leave them behind in a moment of anger and pride. 

What's in a family name? 

As an aside, there is also a big theme that underlies this novel - that of names and naming, and choosing your name - and this is something that I feel ties in wonderfully with the theme of family as well. In particular, I enjoyed the discussion the book seemed to have that explained the power that names and titles have, and how using the true name of something gives it back its power - a recognition of the other that gives them back agency and individuality and, most importantly, free will as a person who deserves to take hold of their own destiny. 

At some point in the story (pg. 389), Hannah tells Cecelia that she can choose her own name, but offers to call her Teagan in the meantime. It is one of two times (at least) that Hannah uses their family name to remind Cecelia that she will always have a place in their family, regardless of what happens or who she learns she truly is. The other time, that I could find, was where Hannah reminds her that she is still part of her family, telling her that she's still "a Teagan" (pg. 344). Whatever Cecilia chooses, she will always be a Teagan, and that is an identity she can keep forever, an anchor that she can use when the waters get turbulent and she's unsure of her place in the world.

It's been a while since I've read a story that made me feel warm and hopeful - a story that cuts through all of the commercialized noise and offers a simplicity that delves into the goodness of human nature and makes it take center-stage. There are no distracting harried romantic sub-plots that take up all the space that would otherwise go to more meaningful explorations of human nature, or other superfluous content that otherwise plays no role in the story at large. Everything is presented for a reason, and that reason always stays true to what I feel is the main theme of the book: the strength and resilience of family.

Etta Grace says in her book that her own family "is at the core of everything" she writes, and I think that it's evident from the powerful and beautiful portrayal of family - and the resilience and forgiveness of family - that permeates through this novel.

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When you hear the music...

Another big theme in the book is that of music - its ability to change us, to mold us, and to be used by others as a tool for both good and evil. In the story, music becomes a form of magic, because it has power over people, and as Etta Grace explains in the podcast interview, "it can be used for good and evil, but the magic itself is a tool." This is an interesting topic for me, both from a religious perspective and from a scientific perspective, so my bias will definitely color a lot of what I have to say here. 

For one thing, I do think that - outside of the story's constraints, in our real world - music is a tool, and it can be used for both good and evil. Music can be extremely powerful - something that changes and influences your emotions and thoughts. The music you submerge yourself in daily has an impact - they are words that you hear, day in and day out. They are emotions that you are influenced to feel, day in and day out. It's highly unlikely, in my opinion, to say that something that so clearly permeates so much of people's everyday existence would have no implications at all on their characters, their choices, their experiences, or even their mental states. 

Results of a recent university study showed that because music activates the areas of your brain responsible for memory, and because memories can be somewhat malleable, music can change the way you think of your own past memories and experiences. Obviously, it isn't to the extent that we see with the Pied Piper, but there's something to be said there about how the Pied Piper uses music as a tool to change the minds of people - to fill them with fear and anxiety, to have them turn against others, to poison their thoughts and have them doubt what they know so that they feel the only option available to them is to join his ranks and be loyal to him alone.  

For a long time, we have recognized that music is a power that takes hold of us. Our folktales and myths tell stories of songs that hypnotize, that put people under a spell, and have them behave a certain way. Think of the Sirens, luring sailors to their doom with their hypnotic songs, or Orpheus, whose magical musical abilities could change the minds of man and beast, among many others. 

The story of the Pied Piper is one of those examples - the infamous revenge he takes on the town that would not pay by using his music to march their children into a cavern from which they are never again seen. This evil character holds on to this power in Etta Grace's Runaways, where we get a glimpse into the horrors of just how he uses his music, and what he has done with the people he takes with his music. In the story, the Piper has a great many powers - like the power to turn poor souls into rats that do his bidding.

I think there's something to be said here about the music we consume today - the music we use on ourselves, and how those decisions impact our lives and those of others around us. When you listen to sad music, you plunge into a sadness. When you listen to upbeat music, you benefit from a boost of energy and motivation. When you listen to romantic songs, you yearn. When you listen to angry songs, you burn. And so it goes. The almost drug-induced-like state of the characters in our stories might seem like a stretch, but literature serves to emphasize our issues to make them more easily visible to us. Is there maybe not some modicum of truth to that scene of one leading the masses into a hypnotic daze that leaves them blind and deaf to what happens around them - to their own impending doom?

And, from a religious perspective, the metaphorical "leading astray" of people is something that the devil is most well-known for - and, interestingly enough, there are countless stories there, too, of a devil using music. (Here, too, I would say in Runaways, family plays a large role in certain characters who have been led astray finding their way back onto the right path again.) It's almost as though we're very, very much aware of the effect music has on us, and our responsibility to ourselves when it comes to using it for good rather than evil. 

Speaking of evil - that takes us to the next and final theme I wanted to talk about. 

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The horrors of evil...

We've introduced the concept of evil, of unforgivable and irredeemable evil in particular, and of the devil. I think we're primed now for a talk on how Runaways handles the theme of absolute evil. In the story, it's easy to say that the Pied Piper is the Big Evil, the main Bad Guy that needs to be overcome - but there's actually a whole range of evil characters who we only get a glimpse into in one or two scenes in the book: Queen Mab, in particular, seems to rule over them as their leader. The Pied Piper is the main Bad Guy for Hannah's story - the one she must contend with to get her sister back - but he's only one of many Big Evils in the world of the Seelie and Unseelie. 

The book has the overall uplifting and hopeful theme of good ultimately prevailing over evil, but there are some other thoughts that I have about the evil part of that equation in particular. 

There's an interesting conversation here about choice and free will. The Pied Piper, like the other Big Evils of this world, is absolutely evil. He's evil to the core, and there are no redeeming qualities. There's no background story that explains his evil, like we're used to seeing more of these days - so no morally grey characterization for this guy. There's nothing to humanize the Pied Piper in Runaways, because he is meant to be an unequivocal evil. Whether he chose to be this way or was made this way isn't explored in the story, and I think this represents that there are absolute evils in the world, and they must be overcome, regardless of their so-called origin stories. 

But then there are characters like the Taken, who is one of many children that the Piper has taken and forced to do his bidding. They are evil not by choice - they must survive in the terrible, horrific world of the Piper, and in order to do so are forced to commit horrible deeds. Unlike the Piper, who is evil by choice and revels in the misery he causes, the Taken are evil by force, and have no choice but to do what they are told to in order to make it through another day and not be turned into rats. In this way, they are not absolutely evil, and as we see with the Taken, they can still be brought back into the goodness of the world if they can be removed from the Piper's hold. 

Still, there are those who decide that that is the path they will take. Quercu's sister, for example, has decided that she wants to continue serving the evils of the world, and thus has no desire to return to the good, and go back to her sister and their lives before. This is an interesting outlier, it seems, because for the most part, while all who were Taken do believe that there is nothing left for them in the world but to do as the Piper says and survive, they would still want to leave the Piper if they could. If they saw that as a viable option, these trapped souls would leave - but they're too scared to. Quercu's sister, on the other hand, seems to have had a very different character development arc, whereby she has decided that she wants to continue being this agent of evil, despite several chances that have arisen where she could have potentially been saved.

As an aside, I think it's worth mentioning here that family plays a huge role in bringing someone back onto the path of good and taking them away from the path of evil. This shows another underlying theme of the book: the importance of belonging, and the importance of family - whether it's blood relatives or found family - because these are the people who decide that you belong with them, and these are the people who will do whatever they can to make sure you do not fall into evil. They're also the people who will stop at nothing to save you if you do - just like Hannah does with her sister, and just like Quercu does with hers (even if, for Quercu, it's a much longer and more complicated fight). Sometimes we need the help of others, even if we don't think we do - and having people who will recognize that you need help and will continue to fight for you is both a huge privilege and a gift that we often take for granted.

These different shades of evil are interesting. We have those who are absolutely evil, like the Piper and the others (Queen Mab, the Monster, etc. - who seem to have become absolute evil due to a centuries-long reinforcement of that choice through sacrifices to Hell for the powers it gives them, as Grace explains in the interview), we have those who are forced to be evil and have no choice in the matter, and we have those who choose to be evil. Three different paths - and all of them equally fascinating to the reader.

What stays constant, however, is that for the humans and beings who have free will in the story, there remains a choice. They were not born evil, and therefore their desire to continue being evil has to be a choice they make. 

We also mentioned the element of nature vs nurture in the podcast interview, in particular for the Pied Piper, so if you're looking for more on these themes, you can check out that podcast episode right here on the blog or anywhere else you listen to your podcasts.

 Final Notes 

Overall, I have to say that this was one of the warmest fall-themed adventures that I have experienced in a while, and I thoroughly enjoyed every page of this story. The attention to detail, the wonderful themes at the heart of it, and the lessons which persist beyond it shows the love and care with which the story was crafted, and I hope to read many more stories from Etta Grace in the near future. 

Oh - and if all of this didn't quite scratch enough of that lit analysis itch, Etta Grace has Runaways Companion Guides ready for you to dive into, along with a lot of other Runaways goodies over on her website! 

If you've read this far without reading the book and now you're thinking it's time to right the errors of your ways, you can still grab your copy of Runaways here. 

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