Despite being an alternate Earth setting, Kushiel's Dart demands you set aside your idea of morals and norms more than many a fantasy novel bursting with magic and fanciful landscapes. D'Angeline culture systematically grooms children for careers in sex work, auctions off virginities at fancy parties, and sees nothing wrong in otherwise very likeable people sleeping with those whom they have a huge amount of power over. It also doesn't blink at queerness and is built around the radical commandment to "love as thou wilt". These positives and negatives are explored at a character level too: Phèdre is enthusiastic about her job as a prostitute/spy but is clear with her beloved master that he is not her friend, and is very aware that even though he invites her to decline clients, she is not truly free to choose.

Although there are only a couple instances of literal magic in the story, it is best to view the D'Angeline beauty and sex as magic. They are literally descended from angels. Characters of other cultures often respond to them as if bewitched and the D'Angeline bend wills and learn secrets through seduction as much as through political maneuvering. This could easily become ridiculous (and there are times when it does verge on it) but, like enchanting faeries in folklore of old, the D'Angeline are bound by their own rules. Phèdre is a victim of her own desires as much as she uses her appeal for influence, and even villains fall prey to their own lusts at times. This also applies to honour. Even D'Angeline traitors and thieves have some sliver of a noble spirit that can be played to, as if they were all beautiful actors in a grand tale. It's an interesting look at the drawbacks of pinning your whole culture on chivalric ideals of beauty, love, and honour.

The book is almost as interested in beauty on a line-level as its characters are and the flowery language for the most part enhances the feeling of being told a romantic tale of heroines and knights. Carey finds a way to breathe life into her descriptions of parties and gowns long after I would have thought I'd grow numb to them. Phèdre is constantly finding beauty in people and things that other narrators would skim past, even in people who abuse her or foreigners her countrymen find ugly. She does so partly by finding something to respect in their personalities but, markedly, will also usually highlight an aspect of their physical features, too so it is not just a cop-out 'they have a beautiful soul' kind of thing. At first, I dismissed Phèdre as overly obsessed with aesthetics but her showing us the beauty in everyone is what makes it so painful to see them do evil, or endure it. I had so much more anguish and heartache and love for the characters of in this book than I expected.

Perhaps more even than the character work and political plot machinations, this book is interested in the intersection of love and pain. One is never far behind the other. The world Carey has crafted demands equally that people love and that they suffer for that love, to the point that Phèdre's identity as the once-in-a-generation anguisette (sexual masochist) takes on the space that would be occupied by a farm-boy Chosen One in any other novel. If that subject matter interests you at all, I can't think of another popular fictional work as invested in the question of whether pain is necessary - even good for - love.