The Atlas Complex

“Humans will inevitably resort to baser impulses, to self-eradicating violence. Within every human being is the power to see the world as it is and still be driven to destroy it […] Humans will inevitably care for one another at great detriment to themselves. Within every human being is the power to see the world as it is and still be compelled to save it. It is not one side or the other. Both are true.”

This quote summarizes the novel’s view on human nature: that we are paradoxically prone to both destructive and compassionate impulses. While recognizing the inevitability of humanity's darker tendencies, it also shows the capacity for individuals to act with empathy. This quote directly ties in with the theme of The Duality of Humanity.

“There was a price for everything they’d gained as a result of their Society recruitment, and it did not escape Nico de Varona’s notice that someone would ultimately have to pay it.”

The price the archives of the Alexandrian Society require the initiates to pay is literal blood with the death of one of the six. This quote also speaks to the fact that the pursuit of knowledge and power itself always comes with a risk. By having characters reference the “price” of the archives earlier in the book, the narrative immediately establishes the stakes the characters face: One of the six must die by the novel’s end.

“Julian Rivera Pérez was also born as the earth was dying because everyone was […] Atlas Blakely wasn’t special and frankly, neither are you. Neither was Julian.”

This quote echoes the first line of the novel but takes a different perspective on the end of the world, tying into the larger theme of The Inconsequence of the Individual. Neither of their existences is individually important in the grand scheme of things, and they are both part of a much larger issue. The earth is dying, and both of them, along with everyone else, have to deal with that.

“The way the world works, Mori, is that there are lots of influencers out there, even if mine is harder to deny because I’m using you to power it. The potency doesn’t matter, because what I do isn’t permanent. It can’t be. By definition, people change.”

Callum explains the fundamental issue regarding Reina’s crusade to change humanity for the better. Humans, by nature, are forever evolving and changing. This is true on an individual level, but especially on a societal one. The ultimate trajectory of society is shaped by a multitude of factors that can never be fully accounted for nor altered by any one person.

“Now he understands the meaning of sacrifice, and therefore he understands what comes for free, and what can be spontaneously created. Which is to say: nothing.”

This quote summarizes how power, both magical and otherwise, works in the world of the novel. True worth is not found in what comes easily or spontaneously but rather in what is earned through effort and sacrifice.

“In Li’s opinion, the sudden, prolonged absence of Ezra meant that now, only Eden could spur the fracturing group along. Already Nothazai’s interests had diverged from the others. It wasn’t clear yet how, but Li felt certain Nothazai would make different choices, cut different bargains if it suited him.”

This quote foreshadows Nothazai’s eventual abandonment of Ezra’s group and the Forum when he takes Parisa’s deal to become the Society’s Caretaker. While she has not yet made the offer to him, Li already sees the fractures in his conviction that will lead him to abandon his righteous goals in favor of knowledge and power.

“But I’m just the villain, Rhodes. It’s my job to lose.”

Parisa expresses her acceptance of her identity as the selfish, antagonistic one of the group. She uses this to contrast Libby’s sense of morality and her desire to do what is right and point out that Libby’s morals are compromised. The irony of having the group’s self-identified “villain” point out the immorality of Libby, the group’s one-time moral compass, emphasizes The Duality of Humanity.

“Evolution is a code, it determines that the life cycle of any species is a matter of pattern recognition. But humans don’t let other humans die even when they should—even when it means disproportionate resources to keep them alive. Or they kill each other off in direct opposition to the codes of survival, based on something as irrelevant as skin color or which thing they speak to in the sky.”

This quote from Callum returns to the idea of The Duality of Humanity. Humanity often defies the principles of survival by refusing to let others die, even when it may be in the best interest of the species. On the other hand, he also observes that humans hurt or kill each other based on arbitrary factors that stem from social constructs. However, what they have in common is that both extremes are irrational when viewed from an evolutionary standpoint.

“Moral inflexibility can look like virtue in certain lights.”

Here, Parisa comments on why Libby is dangerous. While strong morals can be virtuous or admirable in certain contexts, she implies that they can also be dangerous when they conflict with the complexities of reality.

“This was it, the chronic condition—the only meaning Parisa had left in life. It wasn’t a secret society, it wasn’t an ancient library, it wasn’t an experiment that had taken two decades to design, it was waking up every fucking morning and deciding to keep going.”

This quote encapsulates Parisa's character and her outlook on life. Unlike the others, who desire knowledge or the fulfillment of some external goal, her sense of purpose is tied directly to her need for survival at any cost.

“I think the point is to be surprised by people. It’s not to know them completely. It’s to see them in a new way all the time, always turning them over and finding something different, some new fascinating thing.”

As part of Tristan’s larger conversation with Callum, he points out Callum’s issues with letting people be themselves and not making them do what he wants. His phrasing also evokes the image of peeling back layers to reveal a person’s hidden depths. This is what Tristan does to Callum, despite Callum using illusions to hide himself.

“This is the problem with knowledge: its inexhaustible craving. The madness inherent in knowing there is only more to know. It’s a problem of mortality, of seeing the invariable end from the immovable beginning, of determining that the more you try to fix it, the more beginnings there are to discover, the more ways to reach the same unavoidable end.”

The drive for knowledge is compared here to a hunger or desire that cannot be fully satisfied. This characterization underscores the relentless quest for understanding that drives people like Atlas or Libby. The quote also acknowledges the paradox of accumulating knowledge: The more one seeks to understand, the more one becomes aware of the vastness of what remains unknown.

“To Gideon, time felt especially theoretical. Like something he would always chase and never really have. He wished he could say that the feeling was a portent, that it was knowledge of significance, but it was something terrible, something worse. Dread. Hope. Two sides of the same desperation.”

This quote is simultaneously set before and during the experiment where Nico dies. While Gideon has been consistently accurate with his gut feelings of concern throughout the book, this passage explores his difficulty differentiating between past and present as well as dreams and reality.

“The right thing, the necessary thing, it came with pain that only she could bear. If this was going to end, if it could be salvaged, then only she could do it. Only she loved deeply enough. Only she had ever been strong enough to make this choice.”

Libby sees her decision to stop the experiment as both morally imperative and unavoidable. She wholly believes that she is unique and that she is the only person who can fix the issues Atlas caused. However, her mentality fails to respect the autonomy and abilities of the other characters. Because she decides that she is more important than them, Nico dies and everyone else abandons her.

“He willfully misinterprets her last words, betrays her most cruelly right there at the end. Because when she says don’t waste it what he hears is fix it.”

This quote reflects Atlas’s hubris and his overestimation of his own worth and abilities. His interpretation of Alexis’s words isn’t an accident and instead shows his tendency to prioritize his own agenda over everything else. By disregarding her words and imposing his own agenda, Atlas not only fails to honor her wishes but also destroys the meaningfulness of their prior relationship.

“A variable could mean a rarity—a shooting star, a singular event. The chance for the birth of the universe itself. So maybe it wasn’t every eventuality. Maybe it was just one sliver of an outcome because it had only required one chance to get it right. So it wouldn’t be forever. Did that make any of this less precious, less beautiful?”

By likening his relationship with Gideon to a shooting star or the birth of the universe, Nico emphasizes the significance and rarity of their connection versus his connection to Libby. Their bond is not just another mundane occurrence but rather an exceptional event because it is so rare in the vast amounts of possibilities.

“Imagine a god who did nothing but make smaller, worse gods. Well, that was mythology, Tristan supposed. Maybe Atlas thought he was Yahweh or Allah when he was actually just Cronus eating rocks, missing the evidence of his progeny as his own unavoidable doom.”

In Greek mythology, Cronus was a Titan who devoured his own children out of fear of being overthrown. This image parallels Atlas’s behavior of inadvertently perpetuating a cycle of destruction and self-sabotage. He brought in Libby, who killed him and proceeded to make many of his same mistakes. Tristan’s reflections align with the theme of The Inconsequence of the Individual by illustrating how even powerful figures can be trapped in futile patterns.

“Pain was not a symptom of existence, not a condition, but a fundamental particle, an unavoidable component of the design. Without it there could be no love, which Parisa avoided not because it was meaningless, but because the cost was too high. She understood it one way and one way alone: that to love was to feel another’s pain as if it were your own.”

Parisa's reluctance to embrace love stems not from believing that it has no point but from an awareness of its cost. In The Atlas Complex, everything comes with a price, including love. For someone so focused on her own survival above everything else, love isn’t worth the required vulnerability. However, after her character growth throughout the novel, her perspective shifts, and she eventually allows herself to embrace a loving, platonic relationship with Reina.

“The world would not be destroyed, and it would not change. Not for Libby. She could power the stars, unmake universes, leave a trail of destruction in her wake—and still, she would be nothing more than a speck in the universe. A single grain of sand.”

This quote highlights the themes of existential nihilism and The Inconsequence of the Individual present throughout the book. Here, Libby realizes that everything she’s done ultimately has very little actual meaning. She doesn’t have the power to make the existence truly end because it is too vast for her to leave an actual mark.

“I don’t want to rule the world, I don’t want to control it, I don’t even want to influence it. I want to sit beside you in a little garden, I want to put your needs before mine, I want to fetch you a glass of water when you’re thirsty. I want to laugh at your jokes, even the bad ones, and bury my head in proverbial sand.”

This quote is the center of Callum’s realization regarding his romantic feelings for Tristan. He has, up until this point, been portrayed as a selfish character driven by his own ambitions. Here, however, he rejects it all in favor of the simplicity and intimacy that he’s never let himself believe he wants. It is also tragically ironic, as he dies only moments after this realization.

“The fear of motherhood—of knowing fear will never really leave you and still there are no other options, no other choices, because to love something is to care for it, to glimpse everything you will someday lose and still go on as if that loss will not destroy you. Because for better or worse, and so often it was worse, that love was as much a burden as a blessing.”

This quote from one of Reina’s chapters deals with the bittersweet and often paradoxical nature of love. To love someone is simultaneously an act of responsibility and vulnerability. While love can bring joy, fulfillment, and meaning, it also inherently requires sacrifice.

“Because I wanted to know what it felt like to win, replied an imaginary Libby. Because I chose greatness over goodness. Because doing otherwise would have felt too much like proof of everything I have ever thought about myself.”

In a hypothetical conversation with Belen, Libby admits her reasons for betraying the people she cares about, such as her and Nico. Throughout the story, Libby grapples with feelings of insignificance and a longing to prove herself. She ultimately chooses to sacrifice the morals that she once cared so much about in an attempt to gain validation, underscoring The Duality of Humanity.

“Who knew where the problems actually began? Institutional religion? Imperialism? The invention of the printing press or the steam engine, or was it irrigation? Why bother going that far back.”

Nothazai’s reflection on the origins of systemic inequality shows the issues with identifying a single root cause for it. The factors he lists represent just a few of the many historical forces that shaped societies and contributed to disparities in power, wealth, and opportunity. Instead, the quote implies that attempting to trace its origins is irrelevant when compared to the enduring impact it has on people and society in the present reality. This quote speaks to the theme of Magic and Systemic Inequality.