I’m still playing games. This is just the deadliest yet.
-- Darrow (Chapter 1 paragraph 9)

Importance: As Darrow trains at the Academy, he is doing more than merely engaging in war games in order to win command of a fleet. He is also pretending to serve the House of Augustus, so that he may in turn destroy it. It is a game that he is playing, in and of itself, where he pretends to serve the very people he has vowed to kill.

Could someone so young, someone from such a piteous family, win? Look what I did at the Institute. I broke the game... Now those prattling bastards have their answer.
-- Darrow (Chapter 2 paragraph 17)

Importance: As Darrow seemingly wins a mock battle at the Academy, he recalls his past briefly. No one ever expected him to win at the Institute because he was so young and so poor. News networks ran with the story, expecting Darrow to be...