The Ritual: A Dark College Romance

Blakely Anderson (later Blakely Archer) is one of the narrators and protagonists in the novel. Blakely begins the text entirely ignorant of the workings of the Lords despite knowing that her boyfriend, Matt Winston, is one of the group’s initiates. When “The Ritual” to designate each Lord’s “chosen one” arrives during initiates’ senior year at Barrington University, she gradually learns more and more about the secret society despite Matt’s efforts to keep her unaware.

Blakely’s central desire in the text is to be wanted and admired for her own sake rather than for any familial connection she might offer as the single child of a wealthy businessman (and member of the Lords, as she later learns). When Matt refuses to have sex with her over the several years of their relationship, Blakely takes it as a personal slight, assuming this means that Matt finds her undesirable. This desire to be desired leads her to make decisions she knows are reckless, such as attending the first Ritual party and drinking a vial of unknown substance that Ryat leaves in her apartment. At the beginning of the novel, Blakely’s outsider status thus lets her see the sexism, egoism, and absurdity of the ultra-rich Lords; as she becomes increasingly involved in the Lords’ work, this perspective disappears.

Blakely is angered by the ongoing revelations that she has been manipulated by various people in her life, including her parents, Matt, and Ryat; her character arc thus explores the tension between Familial Expectations and Individual Autonomy. She resists actions that make her feel like a pawn in others’ game, as when she runs away and hides her identity when she learns Ryat offered to pay her father to marry her. However, she eventually comes to see Ryat’s manipulations as a sign of his devotion. Though Blakely is frequently willing to disregard her own safety, she is fiercely protective of Ryat and, after she becomes pregnant with twins, her future children. She grows increasingly comfortable with violence when she sees it as necessary to keep herself and Ryat safe but is moved only by a threat against her future children to commit murderous violence herself—against her adoptive mother, Valerie, who she learns late in the text is not her birth mother.

Though Blakely understands that she and Ryat cannot extricate themselves from the Lords, she demonstrates unwillingness to let her children follow that path. In the final Epilogue, when one of her sons wishes to become a Lord, Blakely is opposed but reluctantly agrees to discuss it further, suggesting that she sees the Lords as too powerful to thwart even in this minor capacity.

Matt Winston begins the novel as Blakely’s boyfriend but quickly becomes the primary antagonist. Matt is dismissive, cruel, and prone to violence; he is introduced attempting to rape and murder the wife of a target during a Lords assignment (this woman is later revealed to be LeAnne, Blakely’s biological mother). Though he has been dating Blakely for several years and is poised to marry her (as arranged marriages are common among the Lords), he has another relationship with Ashley, the woman who becomes his “chosen.” In keeping with the dark romance genre, the novel posits this infidelity as unforgivable, unlike acts of violence. Matt also regularly uses sexist terms and commits or threatens sexual violence, making Ryat seem more moral by comparison. In this way, he functions as Ryat’s foil.

When Blakely breaks up with Matt and becomes Ryat’s “chosen,” Matt increasingly becomes obsessed with her, stalking and attacking her at various points in the text. He manipulates others, primarily women, to help him in his quest to “own” Blakely. This obsession centers more on taking Blakely away from Ryat than on any desire or admiration for Blakely herself. His behavior grows increasingly erratic throughout the novel, though he proves able to evade both Ryat and the Lords as he stalks Blakely. Ty and Ryat apprehend Matt after he kidnaps Blakely in the novel’s climax; he is subsequently tortured into revealing his secrets and then killed by hanging.

Tyson “Ty” Crawford is one of Ryat’s friends and a figure with an unclear relationship to the Lords. Though a rumor about how Ty aired sexually explicit video of his “chosen” helps introduce Blakely to the potential dangers of the Lord-chosen relationship, this rumor is gradually revealed to be false. Ty runs Blackout, the club where the Lords do business and where Ryat and Blakely temporarily live while they are hiding from Matt.

Ty offers an intermediary perspective between those who are entirely loyal to the Lords, like Ryat, and those who have betrayed them, like Matt. He thus offers the outsider’s perspective that Blakely provides at the beginning of the novel, albeit in a more informed capacity. He uses his knowledge of the group to help Blakely understand what the Lords will demand of Ryat and helps Ryat save Blakely by convincing Matt that Ty too has betrayed the Lords. Ty is presented as a tragic figure, suffering from the mysterious death of his “chosen,” whom he evidently loved. He is, however, capable and deadly; in the end, Ty is the one to finally kill Matt.

Phil Anderson is Blakely’s father and, as Blakely learns later in the text, a member of the Lords. He is the Lord who orders Ryat to “choose” Blakely early in the novel; he later explains that he did so to protect Blakely from Matt, to whom she was slated to be married.

Phil’s characterization as both a highly important and capable member of the Lords and one who has made crucial missteps functions less to define Phil himself and more to serve the plot or others’ characterization. Phil is powerful and mysterious, for example, because it motivates the plot; his order for Ryat to become involved with Blakely is the work’s inciting incident. When he is later shown to have given his wife, Valerie, too much room to manipulate and control Blakely, this makes Ryat seem a more competent Lord and protector by comparison.

At the end of the text, Phil is a repentant if loving father who is happy to reunite with his long-lost “chosen,” LeAnne, who is revealed to be Blakely’s biological mother and Phil’s legal wife.

Valerie Anderson is a secondary antagonist in the novel. Though Valerie raised Blakely, Blakely eventually learns that Valerie is not her biological mother. Valerie is controlling and manipulative, as she arranges to marry Blakely to Matt in exchange for LeAnne’s intended killing, which Valerie ordered. Valerie also colludes with Matt to kidnap Blakely and plans to abduct Blakely’s future child once it is born, something she considers a “do-over” that she “deserves,” given that Blakely did not go along with her schemes. At the end of the novel, Valerie admits to all the plots between her and Matt. Blakely kills Valerie in revenge for the threat against Blakely’s future children.