Graceling Chapter 38 Summary

  • Slowly Po reveals to Katsa that yes, he is blind. His vision had been wavering when she and Bitterblue left him all that time ago, but he didn't tell her then because he knew she wouldn't have consented to leave him.
  • At first he spent a lot of time feeling sorry for himself, but then, when Leck's soldiers approached and he had to retreat to his special hiding place—the cave under the waterfall—he found clarity.
  • Even though he couldn't see, his Grace had led him straight to the cave. And sitting in the cave, he began to think about Leck and all the people he could hurt. His desire to help put an end to Leck's reign gave him a sense of purpose, and he used his anger at Leck as an inspiration to improve his weak health and find a way to work with his newest challenge: blindness.
  • That's why when Katsa, Skye, and Bitterblue arrived announcing that Leck was dead and all was well, Po found himself at a loss. Killing Leck had become his purpose. What purpose did he have now?
  • He feels silly for feeling sorry for himself, but Katsa tells him he's entitled to his sorrow—after all, he's lost his ability to see the beauty in the world that he's always enjoyed so.
  • Po agrees that's a pretty big bummer, and that's why he doesn't want to go back to Lienid—he doesn't think he can bear to be around his castle if he can't see it. It's hard enough to be with Katsa and be unable to see her.
  • Katsa congratulates him on his excellent self-pity, and he laughs and asks her to stay with him if she can handle his cranky-pants attitude for a while.
  • She agrees to hang around for as long as he'll have her, and she also helps him to fool everyone else into believing he still has his sight.
  • Over time, Po and Katsa come to realize that his sense of the world around him has become greater than ever, and Po finds that when he stops fighting it to try to keep it from overwhelming him, it's actually quite manageable. In fact, all of the different sensory images that he takes in begin to form one big picture.
  • Katsa's takeaway from this conversation? It's time for Po to start fighting again.
  • As Po smiles and touches Katsa's face, she sees that he is finally wearing his ring again.
  • Yay—looks like someone's finally on the road to recovery.