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Tuesday, October 27

Volga Character Guide

Finish Iron Gold and choose it above to read this guide. Later-book sections remain hidden until you select those books.

Volga pixel art

Character guide · first on-page appearance: Iron Gold

Who is Volga?

Volga Fjorgan is an Obsidian in Ephraim’s theft crew. She is small for her Color and about half his age. She protects the group but prefers nonlethal ammunition, and dreams of a home and companionship beyond the jobs Ephraim gives her.

Current status

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Appearance and personality

Volga is large beside other Colors but small among Obsidians. Ephraim says a Society breeding program rejected her and sent her into slave labor on Earth. She carries a fear of rejection long after leaving that life.

Volga wants a garden, time for stories and a sanctuary for discarded carved animals. She is affectionate and curious, but will use violence to protect people she loves. During the kidnapping, she shoots Kavax to save Ephraim.[1]

Attributes and abilities

Ephraim trains Volga for their work, where her strength and weapons skills help protect the crew. She chooses nonlethal ammunition whenever she can.

Volga is unhappy about the kidnapping but helps because she will not abandon Ephraim. Her loyalty to him brings harm to the children and their protectors.[2]

Volga says her heart is on the right, her liver is on the left and she was made without a womb. These are features of her own body and the laboratory program that created her. Later, people learn she is Ragnar’s daughter and begin making plans for her future.[3]

Darrow believes Volga’s civilian experience and upbringing with a Gray could help her lead the Obsidians toward a life beyond war. Her connection to Ragnar gives her standing, but she still has to answer for what she does with it.[4]

History

Book 4

Iron Gold

Volga saved Ephraim after a mugging in Echo City, and he brought her to Luna and trained her. She remains loyal despite his attempts to keep her at a distance. When the Syndicate forces the crew into a kidnapping, she worries that the job will harm the Rising but refuses to abandon him.

During the kidnapping, Volga stops Dano from killing Sophocles, shoots Kavax to protect Ephraim and helps take the children away. She is disturbed by the job and by how the Syndicate treats them afterward.

She destroys Ephraim’s drug dispenser and confronts his emotional withdrawal. After he calls her only a weapon, she leaves. The authorities capture her at the zoo and use her as leverage to make him recover Pax and Electra. His demand for her release is still unresolved when his rescue craft falls at the book’s end.[5]

Book 5

Dark Age

Volga and Lyria are held by Victra, and letters through a vent begin to change their relationship. When Ascomanni attack Pandora, they save one another through decompression, fighting and escape. After the crash, Volga insists on freeing the pregnant Victra despite what their captor has done.

The three flee the Red Hand. Volga guards Victra during Ulysses’s birth, then is captured and forced into underground labor. Lyria infiltrates the base and helps create the opportunity for a breakout; Victra’s attack allows the prisoners Volga is leading to escape.

Reunion with Ephraim brings an apology and the family relationship she wanted from him. He returns to Sefi without revealing everything he knows about her descent from Ragnar. Fá kills him, and Volga retrieves his body.

Victra tells Volga that her parents were Ragnar and Wrothga. Fá demands she join him in exchange for releasing Olympia’s prisoners and leaving. Victra offers protection, but Volga surrenders to save the captives. She also intends to avenge Ephraim.[6]

Book 6

Light Bringer

Volga’s attempted revenge fails, and Fá draws her into his promise of an Obsidian kingdom. By the time Lyria reaches her, she commands enslaved workers and uses the Republic’s failures to justify conquest. She believes Fá has broken with Atlas and resents the implication that she is merely being controlled.

The Passage of the Stains makes her complicity explicit. She kills thirteen captives, including Sigurd. When ordered to kill Lyria, the appeal to Ephraim as her chosen father helps her stop before Darrow intervenes. During the ensuing fight, she turns away from Fá and carries Lyria to safety.

She initially wants to flee, fearing what the jarls will do without Fá’s protection. Lyria insists she return and face those she harmed. After Fá is exposed and defeated, Volga removes his heart, but the killing does not automatically make her queen. The Volk elect her, and she asks Darrow to stay away from the coronation to demonstrate her independence.

Volga rejects the spoils and symbols of conquest, frees captives and calls for the Volk to return to Mars. After Lysander attacks the Garter, she brings aid and joins the Covenant with the Rim and the Daughters. She now has to work with people her forces helped devastate.[7]

Relationships

Ephraim ti Horn

Volga is grateful that Ephraim brought her to Luna and taught her his trade. She already considers him family, which makes his insistence that she is only an employee especially painful.[8]

Ephraim finally apologizes and accepts her as his daughter. After his death, Fá exploits her grief and her wish to belong.[9]

Lyria reminds Volga that Ephraim was the father she chose. That appeal helps her refuse Fá’s order to kill Lyria.[10]

Lyria

Volga and Lyria exchange letters in captivity, share oxygen during their escape and repeatedly go back for each other. They begin imagining a home together with Liam.[11]

Lyria goes into Fá’s camp to find Volga, then confronts her over the killings. She insists Volga return to face the people she hurt if their friendship is to continue.[12]

Ragnar Volarus

Ragnar is Volga’s biological father through the Society’s breeding program. She never had a childhood with him, but other people see his name as a reason to make her their leader.[13]

Volsung Fá

Fá claims to be Ragnar’s father and demands Volga as his heir, threatening prisoners to force the choice. She goes intending to kill him for Ephraim’s death.[14]

Fá promises Volga a kingdom and draws her into conquest and enslavement. She eventually rejects him, but still has to answer for the people she killed while serving him.[15]

References

  1. Iron Gold, chapters 6–7, 19, 24, 39. ↩
  2. Iron Gold, chapters 6, 19, 24, 39–42. ↩
  3. Dark Age, chapters 46–47, 66, 88. ↩
  4. Light Bringer, chapters 67–77. ↩
  5. Iron Gold, chapters 6–7, 14, 18–19, 24, 39–42, 51, 58, 64. ↩
  6. Dark Age, chapters 36, 46–51, 65–74, 88. ↩
  7. Light Bringer, chapters 49–50, 57, 63–78, 89. ↩
  8. Iron Gold, chapters 6–7, 19, 51. ↩
  9. Dark Age, chapters 74, 77, 88. ↩
  10. Light Bringer, chapters 70, 75. ↩
  11. Dark Age, chapters 36, 47–51, 72–74, 88. ↩
  12. Light Bringer, chapters 67–75, 89. ↩
  13. Dark Age, chapters 46, 88. ↩
  14. Dark Age, chapters 77, 88. ↩
  15. Light Bringer, chapters 50, 67–77. ↩