Themes and Tropes in Son of Osivirius

While Son of Osivirius contains giant flying cats, action, and adventure, it is also dystopian science fantasy with themes of freedom, identity, belonging, sacrifice, and hope. Readers who enjoy hopeful speculative fiction, slow-burn romance, stories about belonging and identity, resistance against oppressive systems, and science fiction and fantasy with deeper themes may find much to connect with in this story.

Themes and Tropes at a Glance

Themes

• Belonging
• Identity
• Hope
• Freedom
• Trust
• Betrayal
• Human dignity
• Contentment
• Community
• Compassion
• Nature and technology

Tropes 

• Slow-burn enemies-to-lovers
• Found family
• Chosen family
• Resistance against oppression
• Hidden valley community
• Fish out of water
• Giant flying cats
• Dystopian society
• Rebel movement
• Nature-connected fantasy creatures

Thematic Deep Dive

Trust and Betrayal

Son of Osivirius explores how fear can subconsciously control us, and manifests in different ways depending on things like status, childhood trauma and personality. Exploration of fear responses also naturally leads into exploration of trust and betrayal. 

Both Jayden and Nettle struggle with trust in different ways, and Jayden must choose between betraying the rebels and betraying his family.

Belonging, Identity, and Worthiness

The idea of worthiness is important in Son of Osivirius. Many people struggle with thinking they’re not worthy, but Jayden in particular acts from a belief that he does deserve more, but his worthiness is unrecognised. That seems to be how all revolutions begin. 

I was in my late teens when Disney’s Aladdin came out, and it remains one of my favourite animated movies, perhaps because I relate so strongly to Aladdin. His reprise, ‘if only they’d look closer, they’d find out there’s so much more to me’ still hits me in the gut.

Growing up, I felt disregarded, unimportant, and pushed aside. My sense of my own worth wasn’t in question, but it wasn’t upheld by others. I wanted to bring that energy into the character of Jayden. He rails against the unfairness of the treatment of the people living in Wormsville, the underground billets of the colony. That sense of injustice grows out of an innate sense of knowing he has worth. 

That’s why one of the themes of this novella centres around our common dignity, and the injustice of exploitation. It emphasises compassion over control.

Nature versus Technological Control

Our systems are broken, and we in the west are trapped by our comfort. We have just enough to cling to, so that risking it seems foolhardy, impractical, self-defeating. 

So we let ourselves be controlled. Let ourselves be coerced by our comfort. Anaesthetise ourselves with our devices and entertainment, even though many of us sense how hollow this is. Son of Osivirius explores a way of breaking free from our dependence on technology and systems that have stopped serving us, and are instead stripping us of our humanity and compassion.

That's why I chose to have a brave group of people take the risk of removing themselves from the grid and building something new, something nurturing. Of taking the collected wisdom of millenia and blending it with more recent discoveries. Of looking to the natural order for answers, instead of trying to dominate it. They blended the best of old and new to create a sustainable and community-based life.

Slow-burn enemies-to-lovers romance

Son of Osivirius uses the enemies-to-lovers trope in a powerful way, because Jayden and Nettle start out as complete ideological opponents with opposing worldviews. Nettle literally wants to kill him, and he plans to sell them out as soon as he can escape.

The slow-burn romance is the vehicle that changes both of them, and ultimately leads to them sharing the same goal. Their trust is earned over time, and their emotional growth means they are able to find compassion for one another, and balance competing priorities. This makes the romance character-driven and central to the plot, without it taking over the plot.

Family loyalty versus chosen family

Life is tough for the working class of the colony, and it's important for families to stick together, or they simply don't survive. Jayden sees a chance to improve his family's lot and takes it.

Then he crash-lands and is taken in by the rebels. As they treat him with compassion, and he heals, he gradually comes to understand and appreciate them, which leads to his moral dilemma, for he doesn't see how he can be loyal to both.

Scarcity, Abundance, and Contentment

Son of Osivirius highlights a more connected way of living with the world, and letting it be our teacher. We tend to prioritise our comfort above all else, but that comes at great cost. So I really wanted to explore the idea of contentment, and what true prosperity and abundance looks like.

One of the cool things that happened during drafting was a subconscious dovetailing of each of the main characters around how they deal with fear. Fear is the motivating emotion for Jayden, Nettle, and Colony Commander Tun–particularly the fear that there’s not enough.

This scarcity mindset is in large part responsible for the mess our world is in, and I’m so pleased this theme undergirds the story, just like it’s hard-baked into our culture. I’m certainly not immune, so exploring responses to it through my characters was very cathartic!

Jayden comes from the bottom of society. He has clawed his way up to the next level through a combination of grit and talent, because he’s determined to rescue his family from the horrible conditions they live in. He’s afraid that if disaster strikes, they won’t be regarded as important enough to warrant support, and the more well-off will be prioritised–and able to pay.

Nettle, on the other hand, lives in a place of abundance. The valley provides everything the rebels need, and no one is in want. They’ve had to work hard to get to this stage, but they are a community that cares about each other. Nettle’s problem isn’t that she doesn’t have enough, but that she doesn’t want to share it with outsiders she's not sure she can trust.

Colony Commander Tun was born into the elite and thinks he’s entitled to have anything he wants–even at the expense of others. Not that he sees it that way. In his mind, he’s creating a prosperous colony–but he’s only thinking short term and in dollar signs. Although his actions in the book make him look arrogant, the same fear of scarcity underlies all his decisions. He's blind to it though. 

Then there’s Flint, Nettle’s brother. Sunshine in human form. Unlike the others, he is not ruled by fear. If you’ve seen the movie ‘Inside Out’, when I tell you he’s got Joy at the helm of his emotional control panel, you'll understand what I mean. I love how he provides a wonderful counterpoint to the other characters. 

The Masu also embody this theme.

True Freedom

We are not free at all until we are free from ourselves. It is that simple and that hard.

This idea of freedom shapes every major character in Son of Osivirius. Commander Tun embodies the mistaken notion of freedom. Jayden longs for freedom from poverty and powerlessness. Nettle is fiercely protective of the rebels' freedom from the colony’s systems of control. 

The rebels pursue a simpler way of life that values connection, belonging, and mutual responsibility over consumption and status. They seek to be free not just externally, but internally too. Instead of criticising the dehumanising system they lived in or undertaking guerrilla action, they chose radical simplicity. They simply did life differently. And chose compassion.

At its heart, Son of Osivirius asks whether true freedom comes not from getting everything we want, but from becoming free from the fears and desires that control us.

The rebels understood that having less actually gave them more of what mattered: community, joy, purpose. 

Hope in dystopian worlds

Unlike many dystopian stories that focus primarily on systems of control, destruction and despair, Son of Osivirius is ultimately hopeful dystopian fiction. It explores how people can remain compassionate, connected, and fully human even within dehumanising systems.

With our world resembling a dumpster fire more than an enlightened society, I think it's important to question the very foundation of our beliefs and desire for comfort. Because it is coming at a massive cost. Not only environmental, but a personal cost too: mental health, purposelessness, despair.

Speculative fiction, particularly dystopian fiction, is the perfect vehicle to challenge our paradigm, not merely reinforce how terrible things are, and that's why I wanted to include hope as an important theme.