“Sorrow is dangerous” (68) is the maxim Xan has lived by for hundreds of years, and it is true to an extent. Grief literally feeds the Sorrow Eater, making her stronger and deadlier. She encourages Xan’s sorrow as a young child and instructs the Sisters to whisper lies to the madwoman to increase her sorrow. Both young Xan and the madwoman are “fountains of sorrow” (92), and Sister Ignatia makes the Protectorate her own “sorrow farm,” perversely nurturing sorrow “the way a farmer grows wheat and meat and milk” (366). Sister Ignatia declares “there is so much power in sorrow” (359), as people who sorrow give up their power and are easily controlled. Ironically, Sister Ignatia so represses her own sorrowful losses that she requires sorrow to fill the void where her heart used to be.

In the Protectorate, the demands of the baby-snatching Witch are a heavy burden that drags people down, and “their sorrowing hearts are as heavy as stones” (309). They remain in a fog, believing that “We have no power. Our grief is without remedy” (181). The stories told by the first-person parent narrators reflect their unquestioning acceptance of this fatalistic outlook; one parent advises their child that hope for change is futile and “only for the smallest of children” (182).