55 pages • 1 hour read
Daughter of the Deep
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Chapters 23-29Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 23 Summary
Ana dreams of the Fourth of July when she was ten years old. Her mother tells her that when she dies, she wants her ashes scattered in the San Alejandro Botanical Gardens. This horrifies Ana and Dev, but their parents explain that “dying is nothing to be embarrassed about. It happens to everyone” (129). When she wakes up, Ana is guilty that she was never able to scatter her parents’ ashes. She thinks, “we had no ashes to sprinkle in any lake. Now I have nothing but my mother’s pearl” (129). After she gets up, the challenge arrives, which turns out to be code she and her fellow Dolphins are eventually able to crack. The message they decode refers to Lincoln Base, which Gem realizes refers to Île Lincoln, the island from The Mysterious Island.
Chapter 24 Summary
The students respond to the code, identifying the Varuna and Ana Dakkar. Using her name embarrasses Ana, but the others tell her, “they figure that if I’m really so valuable, my presence on board might keep anyone—friends or enemies—from torpedoing us with alt-tech death weapons” (137). They are all left waiting for so long that they believe Hewett deceived them and that there is no island, but eventually a woman’s voice sounds on the intercom. She tells them to come into the island carefully and prove that Ana is alive and unharmed. Then she asks how many people need dinner.
Chapter 25 Summary
An alt-tech dragonfly, known as a Pilot Bug, leads the Varuna into the lagoon while Ana explains to the unknown woman that she is fine, they need dinner for 20 students, and Dr. Hewett is in a coma. Socrates follows the boat into the lagoon, and a man named Luca Barsanti meets them ashore. Luca recognizes Ana, telling her “you look just like your parents” (144). He is confused about why the HP freshmen are at the base, but he invites them all inside before his bread burns.
Chapter 26 Summary
Ana tells the Orcas to fetch Hewett, and she tells the Sharks to remain peaceful. She thinks, “it hits me that I just gave an order to my classmates, and they took me seriously” (146). They walk through a shack into an entryway to a larger complex under the island’s volcanic mountain. There they meet Ophelia, Luca’s wife, who leads the Orcas and Hewett away. One student pauses the TV playing nearby, and suddenly an orangutan bursts in, signing “NO TURN OFF MARY BERRY,” clearly indicating that the students should not interfere with his baking show (149).
Chapter 27 Summary
Ana begins to sign with Jupiter, the orangutan, introducing herself. Then, Gem sits with Jupiter while Ana explains why all the HP freshmen are at the base. Luca was not expecting Dev to visit the base for a long time. He says, “we weren’t expecting your brother for another four years. We weren’t expecting you…well, at all. Something must have gone very wrong” (152). This upsets Ana since her presence is evidence of the tragedy of this situation. When Ophelia bursts in next, Ana is too upset to explain anything to her, and Gem takes over. Most of the other kids leave to take showers.
Chapter 28 Summary
Gem, Nelinha, Ester, and Ana explain everything to Ophelia and Luca. Ophelia tells Ana, “I’m so sorry. You deserved better from us” (156). According to Luca, he and Ophelia were with Ana’s parents when they died. After that, Hewett and a few others with HP Academy wanted to bring Ana and Dev to Lincoln Base for protection, but that plan was rejected. This angers Ana, whose life would have been very different if she and her brother had been protected. Ophelia and Luca decide to show everything to Ana, despite the power and danger of Nemo’s technology, even revealing that the Nautilus remains intact.
Chapter 29 Summary
All of the students are in a good mood at dinner, which cheers Ana up. Luca explains to Ana, who is Hindu, that all of their food is vegan and derived from the sea. Ophelia and Luca tell the students about their own time at HP Academy, when Luca was Cephalopod captain, Ophelia was Orca captain and did extra work with Shark house, Ana’s dad was Shark captain, and Ana’s mom was Dolphin captain. Nelinha is excited to learn that Luca is descended from the inventor of the internal-combustion engine, and Luca explains that while many famous families have attended HP, each generation “must prove its own worth” (165). This saddens the students, and Ophelia distracts them with chores.
Chapters 23-29 Analysis
Chapter 23 showcases the excellent communication abilities of students in Dolphin House, especially Ana. When faced with a complex code, Ana and her fellow Dolphins work together to crack it. It is Ana herself, however, that puts all the final pieces together. She thinks, “suddenly, all the pieces of code that have been swirling around in my brain fall into a perfect pattern. I live for these moments […] I’m the best at putting all the pieces together to make a bigger picture. That’s why I was elected the freshman prefect” (133). Codebreaking is a skill in which Ana is confident, and she knows that the other Dolphins trust her abilities in that area because they elected her their leader. This is an area in which Ana’s leadership is proven, and therefore she has none of the same insecurities as she does with captaining the Nautilus. This is also a skill that Ana enjoys, which shows how much she enjoyed her life at HP Academy before the school was destroyed.
This part of the novel also explores the lives of Ana’s parents, whom Luca and Ophelia knew from when they were all students together at HP Academy. Ana thinks, “this isn’t the first time I’ve heard someone talk about knowing my parents as teenagers—swaggering around Harding-Pencroft together during their senior year like they owned the place, just like Dev does today…Or like he did before the attack […]” (165). This information gives Ana a glimpse into the lives of her parents not just as her parents, but as people too. It might be easy for Ana to relate to Dev, who was only a few years older than her, but here she hears about how even her parents acted when they were near her age. This is difficult for her to hear, however, not because she cannot imagine her parents at that age, but because it reminds her of all that she has now lost.
In these chapters, Riordan also explores the ways in which technology can be used for both good and bad. Luca and Ophelia explain to the students how the LI and HP Academy differ in their approaches to Nemo’s alt-tech. The Land Institute wants to release that tech into the world, using it to manipulate world politics and events for their own benefit. Harding-Pencroft, on the other hand, does not believe in releasing the technology, even if it might be helpful, because of the risk of destabilizing the world. Ana asks why people would not release Nemo’s alt-tech, saying “it would revolutionize the world,” and Ophelia responds, "or destroy the world” (159-160). Advanced technology is neither good nor evil per se, but the people who have or use it certainly have the potential to be.
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By Rick Riordan
