(Im)Possibilities

 

In Syl Anagist, there exists the Briar Patch. The Briar Patch is a place where humanity dies. In it exists thousands of tuners that are “unable to work” and remain alive solely so their power can be harvested (235). Gallat, a conductor of the network, calmly and coldly explains the process in the Briar Patch, “so after system priming, once the generative cycle is established, there’s only an occasional need to reprime” (263). Gallat is numb to the horror of the Briar Patch and does not even address the slaves as people, but as things…objects. At first, reading this passage…I was appalled, but then I quickly realized this is a reflection to the inner workings of our world. Continue reading “Modern Day Slavery”

 

In The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin, the author, includes a variety of cursing to stress certain statements like shit, fuck, and “rust.” Coming across the first curse word in the trilogy, I was actually taken aback, because in my experience, fantasy writers customarily choose to be  PG with their language. With the discussion of why Jemisin specifically adds in curse words, I could not help, but be curious behind the science of cursing. Continue reading “Cur$!ng”

Essun has three children over the course of the The Broken Earth series, yet only her daughter Nassun manages to live beyond infancy. Both sons die at extremely young ages, unable to even truly start living before being cut down. I believe there is importance in that, the the deaths of Corundum and Uche are both meaningful in their own ways, and collectively.

Continue reading “Inheritance of the Son”

Early on within my read of The Fifth Season, I had a personal theory that perhaps the Stillness was our own real world. Following the destruction of the environment, as we currently know it, the organizations and comms within the Stillness rose up. In my eyes, not only was Jemisin’s work incorporating elements of fantasy and science fiction, but also apocalyptic or post apocalyptic fiction. I even had another theory that perhaps the Stillness was an example of post post-apocalyptic fiction. However, as I continued through The Broken Earth series, I realized that the element of the Seasons makes it a mixture of all of these, a cycle of apocalypse, and a cycle of societal collapse. It seemed that I couldn’t find an exact name to describe this.

Continue reading “Defining Genre: Cyclical Apocalypse?”

There is an order to life in the Stillness*

There is also a continuity. It is difficult for a society to prioritize the preservation of history when the preservation of life itself is such an immediate concern. Yet Hoa’s early assertion that “much of history is unwritten” (The Fifth Season 3) is laden with far more meaning than we could fathom when first starting the series. In my group’s blog post on the 2011 earthquake in Tohoku, Japan, we discussed how art professor Jave Yoshimoto’s documentation of the tragedy in the form of a 30-foot wood carving related to Yaetr Innovator Dibars’ rejected research on Seasons for Seventh University. But the histories recorded in the Sanze universities, and those taught in creche, represent a tiny fraction of the massive banks of memory spread throughout the Stillness in different, less conventional forms. Obelisks, Stone Eaters, and Lorists all serve to preserve pieces of the great history of humankind. They are the unsung archives of Jemisin’s world.

Continue reading “Obelisks, Stone Eaters, and Lorists: The Many Faces of the Archive (Part One of Two)”

Essun raised Nassun in a rather forward, non-conventional way in the sense that if Nassun wanted something she should not wait for others to act first, but solely rely on herself. In recollection, in The Obelisk Gate, Nassun remembers that “there has never been anyone to save Nassun. Her mother warned her there never would be if Nassun ever wants to be free of fear, she has no choice but to forge that freedom for herself” (385). In subtle reference to my last post, Imprisonment :/, I love the proactive nature Essun has instilled into Nassun.

Continue reading “Proactiveness”

While many of us try to put forth a final effort in fulfilling the remaining posts, I’d be lying if I felt super confident when conceiving the building blocks for the reflective essay today. The benefits of starting now are sure to be a blessing for brainstorming. The brainstorming also gives way for me to look at some of my earliest notes – as far back as the visit to the ISC building. It’s been a while since I’ve remembered how fondly the Welles building felt in late August, and even more of a while since I’ve looked at rocks for class. Geodes forever, right?

As for the ISC, I’m looking back and noting the “geological mind” aspect of minerals and sedimentary material that makes up a great deal of the great rock, and noting the previous depth of ones whom consume rocks and things that erode really give a shape as to what may come together. Would it be fair to consider this assignment as a means of heavy erosion, development, and a thorough representation of the rocks we have been musing on? I’m especially referring to the rock paper we were given so long ago (to which I still have mine, actually). I remember writing down the line from the professor speaking with us: “There’s constant recycling, and the rocks are persistent.” While the ties in whatever we may be writing about or the context of our literature need not be exclusively tied to geology, their similarities speak a great deal of things when revisiting the parallel designs of our world and that of the fictional one we’ve been acquainted with.

Seeing a number of these fascinating images of the world may not encourage me to become a geologist anytime soon, but the assimilation of the world around us may be no different than assimilating our own material into a profound piece that concludes all that we’ve studied so far. Just a thought.

I believe that one of the most unfair parts of life, considering both reality and the world that resides in N.K. Jemisin’s The Broken Earth trilogy, is generalization and the misleading, overarching idea that one individual can represent others as long as both parties can be remotely categorized into the same group. In the prologue of The Fifth Season, in reference to who I am assuming is Father Earth and a stone eater (because it does not explicitly say), it says, “She often treats him as though he represents his whole species. He does the same to her.” (The Fifth Season, 6) This line sets the scene quite well for the rest of the trilogy, because it emphasizes a very real and unfortunate phenomenon that is visible in both the way orogenes and other minorities are treated in The Stillness as well as how minorities are sometimes treated in our own society. Continue reading “You Are Your Own Person”