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"It’s junctures like that where we have control. If we push in the right spots – if we create losses where the Empire can’t stand to suffer them – then we’ve moved things to the breaking point. Then the future becomes fluid, and change is possible. History isn’t a premade tapestry that we’ve got to suffer, a closed world with no exit. We can form it. Make it. We just have to choose to make it."

Griffin presents this perspective on revolutionary change to Robin in Chapter 10. The speech is a call to action, arguing that complicity is not the only option. Against an enemy as large as the British Empire, it is easy to forget that injustice does not have to be endured just because that's the way things have always been. Instead, individuals hold the power to help form the future should they be brave enough to step out of line. The quote contributes to Robin's eventual radicalization, reflected in his choice to side with the Hermes Society over Oxford and seize control of Babel. This quote is also a crucial example of foreshadowing, hinting at the novel's finale, when the future does in fact become fluid. Keeping Griffin and his ideologies in mind, Robin leads a strike that causes such destructive losses—exactly "where the Empire can't stand to suffer them”—that no one can know what the future will hold. They have pushed history off its course, opening the door to the possibility of a more just and equitable future.

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