The fourth Barsoom novel shifts the heroic center from John Carter to his son Carthoris. That change gives the familiar rescue plot a useful political complication: Carthoris must save Thuvia while proving that Helium did not abduct her and while respecting her existing betrothal to Kulan Tith.
Lothar is the book's best invention. Its inhabitants can project armies and beasts through disciplined imagination, turning the difference between thought and matter into both spectacle and satire. Kar Komak's growing solidity supplies a more appealing version of that power than the cowardly manipulations of Jav and Tario.
Lothar is the book's best invention.
The romantic assumptions are dated, and Thuvia is repeatedly placed in danger by men who treat her as a political possession. She nevertheless states her loyalty clearly, resists Astok and Jav, and becomes essential to making imagined defenders real.
The finale works because Carthoris's decisive moral act is not killing Astok but risking himself to save Kulan Tith, the rival whose survival seems to block his own happiness. Kulan's release of Thuvia rewards conduct rather than conquest.
