# La Seeks Vengeance explained — Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar > Chapter companion for Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar by Edgar Rice Burroughs. ## What happens La, the High Priestess of Opar, leads a caravan of fifty priests and three apes into the jungle to capture Tarzan and retrieve the sacred sacrificial knife. Her motivation is twofold: religious outrage at the desecration of her altar and the personal fury of a scorned woman. The party tracks Tarzan to where he sleeps on a low bough, and La commands them to take him alive and unhurt so she may exact her own vengeance. The chapter also delves into La's background, her lineage from Atlantis, and the transformation of her love for Tarzan into a burning desire for revenge. ## Themes in this chapter ### Vengeance and Justice La's quest is driven by a desire for personal vengeance against Tarzan for both desecrating the temple and spurning her love. ### Love and Obsession La's love for Tarzan transforms into an obsessive hatred after rejection, fueling her relentless pursuit. ### Colonialism and Otherness Opar is portrayed as a degraded remnant of a lost civilization, with its inhabitants seen as grotesque and otherworldly. ## Character check-ins ### La Leads the expedition to capture Tarzan; her love for him has turned to a consuming desire for vengeance. ### Tarzan Sleeps unaware in the jungle after hunting; is ambushed and captured by La's priests and apes. ### Albert Werper Mentioned as the one who held the knife when it left Opar, but La's vengeance is focused on Tarzan. ### Numa Mentioned in Tarzan's dream as he sleeps. ## Key lines > The vengeance is La’s. Go; but make no sound! La commands her followers to capture Tarzan alive so she can personally exact revenge. _La asserts her authority and her desire for direct retribution._ > She had grown to young womanhood a cold and heartless creature, daughter of a thousand other cold, heartless, beautiful women who had never known love. And so when love came to her it liberated all the pent passions of a thousand generations, transforming La into a pulsing, throbbing volcano of desire, and with desire thwarted this great force of love and gentleness and sacrifice was transmuted by its own fires into one of hatred and revenge. La's inherited emotional coldness was shattered by love for Tarzan, but rejection turned that passion into a burning hatred. _Explains the psychological transformation of La from loveless priestess to vengeful woman._ ## Links - HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/tarzan_and_the_jewels_of_opar_se/chapters/xii-la-seeks-vengeance - Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/tarzan_and_the_jewels_of_opar_se - All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/tarzan_and_the_jewels_of_opar_se/chapters