Metal Slinger

In the dramatic climax to Metal Slinger, Jovie reveals that she has spent nearly the whole novel planning to betray Acker in order to get close enough to the Kenta court to overthrow Acker’s despotic father, King Edmond. She covers up this trickery by letting Acker believe that she is hurt by Kai’s supposed coercion and betrayal. However, she and Kai have feigned this conflict specifically to manipulate Acker’s negative impression of Kai. This duplicity establishes a paradigm in which Jovie spends the novel pretending that she cannot forgive the very betrayal that she intends to perpetuate: the manipulation of someone she loves by controlling their perception of that love.

Although Jovie’s narration for much of the novel portrays Kai’s betrayal of her love as genuine, the climactic scenes reveal the true nature of this deception. In this light, Jovie’s frequent musings on the nature of her love for Kai take on a new meaning. Because Kai never actually betrayed Jovie, her reevaluation of her feelings for him indicates that her new connection to Acker is the deciding factor in this internal shift. In short, only because her connection to Acker has allowed her to understand the true nature of romantic love can she finally judge her affection for Kai to be purely platonic.