No voting on who gets to be people
Finishing The Stone Sky, the last book in the Broken Earth Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin's makes it really easy to see why every part of this series won a Hugo, a Nebula, or both. The writing was crisp, the characters felt real, and the world building was so damn good. More over it, put in sharp relief the differences between books written by white men and Black women. How many fantasy novels have you read where the hierarchies are obvious, right, and incontrovertible? Of course the lesser races are lesser. Of course group X deserves their oppression and their anger is irrational. Jemisin flips that narrative on it's head. The entire story is told by the lesser races, the orogenes, stone eaters, Midlatters, and property. Their anger is shown to be completely justified and their oppression is explicitly framed as a choice by the ruling class.
Jemisin has an amazing grasps of the dynamics of power and the means of oppression. I mean, there's all these big acts of it, but the part that sticks most in my mind is the looks. The Sanzed empire rules the world. They have bronze-brown skin and ashblown hair. All the characters's attractiveness is based on how closely they meet this ideal which was spread by a history of conquest, rape, and eugenic breeding. It's one of those details that only a woman of color would write because a white one never has to think about why and how beauty standards come about.
I said in my review of book 2 that the series was relentlessly downbeat. The world is ending. The main character has an awful tragic backstory made of abuse which she then passes on to her daughter. There's geologic catastrophe, enslavement, war, and an angry earth spirit out to destroy humanity, and yet. The last book, the last 50 pages of the last book, redeems it all. All those awful things still happen, but the over all message is hopeful. Oppressed peoples have a right to be angry. Acting out of anger and trauma and fear destroys and keeps destroying, but acting out of love and being the world you wish to see can bring about positive change. I went into book three feeling a bit worn down and depressed by the end of the last book, but I put down feeling hopeful and that was a perfect way for the series to end.
Some other things I appreciated about the series include:
There are multiple LGBTQ characters who are portrayed as completely normal and matter of course. Remember, oppression is a choice. Despite living in a world which makes slaves of earthbenders, the people of the Stillness have chosen not to care about hating homosexuals.
The second person narration. I've never read a book like that. It was a little strange at first, but I quickly grew to like it because of the way it allowed for a mix of close POV with the main character and near omniscient third POV when it came to stuff going on outside of her experience. And it actually made sense in the end with Hoa telling it to Essun's stone eater self.
The scene my post title comes from really hit home with me. The com of Castrima is voting whether the orogenes among them are people to be protected when Essun comes and smashes the voting box. No voting on who gets to be people! As a member of an ethnic group who has been voted not-people time and time again to justify repeated genocides, as a member of an ethnic group which recently had not one, but two acts of domestic terrorism perpetrated against it, that hit me where I live. Right now, there are kids in cages our government is denying soap and calling animals. The way that Jemisin wrote about oppression and the way it is a choice just hammered home for me exactly why we need more voices of color in media. Now, more than ever.
Jemisin has an amazing grasps of the dynamics of power and the means of oppression. I mean, there's all these big acts of it, but the part that sticks most in my mind is the looks. The Sanzed empire rules the world. They have bronze-brown skin and ashblown hair. All the characters's attractiveness is based on how closely they meet this ideal which was spread by a history of conquest, rape, and eugenic breeding. It's one of those details that only a woman of color would write because a white one never has to think about why and how beauty standards come about.
I said in my review of book 2 that the series was relentlessly downbeat. The world is ending. The main character has an awful tragic backstory made of abuse which she then passes on to her daughter. There's geologic catastrophe, enslavement, war, and an angry earth spirit out to destroy humanity, and yet. The last book, the last 50 pages of the last book, redeems it all. All those awful things still happen, but the over all message is hopeful. Oppressed peoples have a right to be angry. Acting out of anger and trauma and fear destroys and keeps destroying, but acting out of love and being the world you wish to see can bring about positive change. I went into book three feeling a bit worn down and depressed by the end of the last book, but I put down feeling hopeful and that was a perfect way for the series to end.
Some other things I appreciated about the series include:
There are multiple LGBTQ characters who are portrayed as completely normal and matter of course. Remember, oppression is a choice. Despite living in a world which makes slaves of earthbenders, the people of the Stillness have chosen not to care about hating homosexuals.
The second person narration. I've never read a book like that. It was a little strange at first, but I quickly grew to like it because of the way it allowed for a mix of close POV with the main character and near omniscient third POV when it came to stuff going on outside of her experience. And it actually made sense in the end with Hoa telling it to Essun's stone eater self.
The scene my post title comes from really hit home with me. The com of Castrima is voting whether the orogenes among them are people to be protected when Essun comes and smashes the voting box. No voting on who gets to be people! As a member of an ethnic group who has been voted not-people time and time again to justify repeated genocides, as a member of an ethnic group which recently had not one, but two acts of domestic terrorism perpetrated against it, that hit me where I live. Right now, there are kids in cages our government is denying soap and calling animals. The way that Jemisin wrote about oppression and the way it is a choice just hammered home for me exactly why we need more voices of color in media. Now, more than ever.