(Im)Possibilities

A big question that I wrestled with throughout this series was how reliable is our narrator? It was something I struggled with more in The Fifth Season more than any of the other books because, up until the end, we did not know who the narrator was. At first he seemed unreliable because he had information he was deliberately not sharing with us, talking about obelisks in the prologue he says that they’re “blurring now and again as if they are not quite real-though this may only be a trick of the light. (It isn’t)” (Jemisin, The Fifth Season, 8). And he does this again when in the scene where Alabaster creates the rift, “When she turns to the man—slowly; stone eaters are slow aboveground, except for when they aren’t” (Jemisin, The Fifth Season, 6). It is all apart of Jemisin’s style of course, she deliberately withholds information from us for a bigger payoff later when it all seemingly comes together. However, because this is her style I was very vary of Hoa for a long time.

Continue reading “Coming To Terms With An Unconventional Narrator”

In The Broken Earth Series there is no moon, and because of that the Earth is altered. As I’ve read this series, I’ve wondered what actually would happen if the Moon were to cease to exist. Continue reading “What Would Happen If We Lost The Moon?”

Thinking about world-building and the different components necessary to flesh out a story before the actual drafting process begins brought me to the concept of magic systems. In The Broken Earth, orogenes’ magic system relies on energy within the earth or, as we eventually realize, on the “magic” which exists within all living things. But what makes a magic system successful? Is it the scope? Or is it the rules and limitations which inhibit the system?

Continue reading “Magic Systems: The Restricted Section”

When Dr. McCoy assessed my group’s collaborative blog post, she asked how we accomplished working together and being able to formulate our thoughts as a group. I’ll admit I am usually skeptical about group projects: I like to work on my own. However, I think that working with my group on this blog post opened my eyes to the rewards of being able to not just discuss texts with other people, but to be able to put this analysis in writing in the form of a group blog post. I think my group members worked off of each other to build a strong analysis of the catastrophe we wrote about, the impact it had on society, and how this related to Jemisin’s trilogy. Continue reading “The Benefits of Collaborative Work”

Coming into my final blog post of the semester I was unsure of what I wanted to write about. For most of my previous blog posts I had a general idea either from a class period or from something I thought about while reading of what I wanted my blog post to be about. This final post came in the moment as I was listening to music while doing work and happened to be listening to a song called “Chum” by one of my favorite rappers, Earl Sweatshirt. Listening to this song clarified something I had been thinking about in The Broken Earth Trilogy since we started reading The Fifth Season.  Continue reading “Forming an Identity”

 

“Indifference is worse than hate” (341). In The Obelisk Gate, Essun relays her devastation once realizing that one of the people in Castrima has decided that Essun is not a person, because she is a rogga. In that woman’s eyes, roggas are not worthy of humanity due to the way roggas are placed in the social hierarchy in the Stillness. In my perspective, indifference largely stems from ignorance.

Continue reading “Indifference :/”

As someone who has always been interested in reading and writing, the intricacy of Jemisin’s fictional world in The Broken Earth really threw me for a loop. How do you create a world? What makes it actually work? Where do you even start? It just so happens that lately I’ve been watching some author panels at conventions like Comic Con (Nerdy? Maybe so.), and these questions seem to come up quite often. While every author’s mind works differently, and various processes will certainly work for some while not for others, I was really interested in hearing what popular authors had to say. Patrick Rothfuss, author of The Kingkiller Chronicle series, talked about the aspects of fantasy world-building. J. R. R. Tolkien, Rothfuss explains, included rich languages in his creation of Middle Earth because he loved language. That was what interested him. Rothfuss also said in this video (around 23 minutes in) that he himself likes to focus on currency:

“I’m a geek for currency. And so my economy, I actually have it all worked out, and that filters into my books… you’re a geek for something. And if that’s, like, herbology, or, like, the nature of the night sky, or plate tectonics, it’s like, revel in your geekery, roll around in it and make that a part of your world, because that will be really interesting to the people reading because you’re interested in it.”

Continue reading “Building the Stillness”

While scrolling through my peer’s blog posts one in particular caught my eye, Denis Hartnett’s “Separating Good Art From Problematic Artists.” If I am not mistaken, I was in that discussion group where we delved about the complexities of trying to draw a line between articulated and well versed art, and that of the artists troublesome views and ideals.

It all began with our readings of H.P Lovecraft, “one of the most influential horror writers of all time,” as Denis himself expressed in his blogpost. Indeed, one recognises Lovecraft’s work as exceptional, and it has indeed managed to influence and inspire many artists and writers today, including N.K Jemisin. What Lovecraft created is a brilliant outline of work, all demonstrating his talent as a writer and as a creative thinker. What most critics today still continue to struggle with however, is trying to separate the inspiration behind his work, which is heavily linked to his anti-semite, racist, and sexist commentary and attitude, with that of the quality and content of his work itself.

It comes to no surprise that Lovecraft would so unapologetically link his work to his convictions and perceptions of the world, as he, as a writer, has the freedom and ability to do so, as anyone else can. Isn’t that the true beauty of creating? The truth is, every writer has a story and a background. Whether good or bad, we should not just alienate ourselves as learners and readers to a specific text because we simply don’t agree with their politics. It is our responsibility as students to be able to delve into work and acknowledge its structural and semantic ability, all while articulating well rounded analysis’s. We must separate good art from problematic artists, not doing so would be an act of disservice to ourselves.  

FEAR. Don’t we all have it? Don’t we all own it? What do you fear?

I fear failure.

• Failure of not knowing something.
• Failure of not being be aware of what’s happening.
• Failure of not being on track.
• Failure of not asking for support.
• Failure of owning up to my fear.

And most important, I fear self-disappointment. Continue reading “Catching a Drift of Fear”