Daughter of the Deep

While Ana takes a brief break and relaxes with Ester, she finds an original French copy of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea in the sub’s library. She thinks about how Dev must blame HP for the deaths of their parents. Ester says that Nemo felt similarly bitter. She also says, “Land Institute has always been motivated by fear and anger. They want to destroy Nemo’s legacy. But they also want to be Nemo” (251). Although HP and the LI were both inspired by Nemo, they were inspired by different sides of Nemo. Ana has traits of Nemo too, but she “can decide to be a different kind of Captain Nemo” (252).

Ester brings Ana to a secret room on the lowest level of the ship. When Ana opens the door, they find that it is Nemo’s treasury and that it holds more than enough wealth to rebuilt HP Academy. Ana tells Ester that some of the treasure is hers so she can rebuild HP without the negative influence of its board of trustees. She tells Ester, “I know you’ll make HP even better than it was” (256). Ana thinks, “absolute power can corrupt anyone. Nemo knew that. In the end, all he could do was bury himself with his sub and his riches and hope that maybe someday human nature would improve to the point where we could handle his power.