Theme and Summary

"We both knew we couldn't defeat Menkishov. He'd let the pushmi-pullyu snake wear us down, and if we survived that, he'd just blast us with something else. The guy was a pro. We would either die or get captured, and Bes warned us about not getting taken alive" (Riordan 173). The theme of this passage is when things may seem bleak or bad to you, you shouldn't back down rather than facing it. This theme works along with the course of the text because when Carter and Sadie face a new challenge, sometimes they feel it easy just to give up but they don't... they face the problem head on and come up with solutions to it. They face this griffin at the beginning with flames that can't be put out with water but somehow they overcome this eternal flames by using magic. Later Sadie faces the baboon god Babi which chases her around all of London but she couldn't destroy him until the Dwarf god came to rescue and her from Babi. In this chapter with this quote, Carter and Sadie went to St. Petersburg in search of the last tome for the Book of Ra. Problem is that this guy Menkishov has it and they can't claim it unless they defeat him.