The Broken Earth – (Im)Possibilities

February 22, 2024 by Rachel Margalit - No Comments

Lithosphere Essay ENGL 111- The Fifth Season

The Fifth Season, a novel written by N.K. Jemisin, explores many themes of systemic oppression and discrimination throughout its course. The overarching concept of systemic inequity refers to “systemic inequalities are specific policies, standards, and practices, as well as attitudes and prejudices combined to create institutionalized and even structural problems of inequality in the society (Alliances for Africa; definition from mini collaboration).” The Fifth Season illustrates many parallels to real world issues by highlighting inequality and social hierarchy based on certain traits individuals carry. Throughout this novel, we experienced orogenes, who possessed the ability to manipulate and control geological forces. As a direct result of the power held by these individuals, they become subjected to face structural and systemic inequalities throughout their journey in the novel. Within this fantasy world, The Fifth Season skillfully incorporates themes of power, systemic oppression, discrimination, and injustice.

Geraldine Heng, famous for her literary knowledge on social and cultural encounters between worlds, perfectly illustrates the concept of a world where people manipulate others in ways that can racialize or group individuals (course epigraph). She describes how race is not something that everybody inorganically has in them. Heng believes race is constructed through culture; it is a process done to people and for people by institutions. In other terms, she details how if you are on the receiving end of power and privileges, some may say race is done for you and not to you. According to Heng, it is a management system to hand out power and privileges to some people, and take it away for others (course epigraph). This perfectly corresponds to the material seen within The Fifth Season, as the readers are exposed to groups of people who have power and privileges, such as orogenes, and others who do not. In other words, Heng’s quote works to emphasize the hierarchical order that was created in this particular society in order to manage individuals’ differences.

As explored through the concepts of orogenes, the fulcrum, and social stratification, the readers are able to get a more in depth image of these systemic inequalities prevalent within the text. The orogenes, despite having the power to control seismic activities, are marginalized and feared by the society they live in. An example from the novel shows the ways in which it was almost seen as a joke that orogenes would ever be able to create laws and hold figurative power. “We could try letting orogenes run things.” She almost laughs. “That would last for about ten minutes before every Guardian in the Stillness shows up to lynch us, with half the continent in tow to watch and cheer (Jemisin, pg 124; concept from mini-collaboration)”. This passage vividly illustrates the prevalent discrimination and animosity directed towards orogenes throughout the novel. Furthermore, there is an emphasis on the distinct treatment of orogenes, such as restrictions on their choice of drink. This illustrates the unfair expectations and responsibilities placed upon this group— “orogenes aren’t supposed to drink. Ever. The power to move mountains plus inebriation equals disaster waiting to happen (Jemisin, pg 148; concept from mini-collaboration).” Something such as not allowing a certain group of individuals to make their own decisions is a result of systemic or institutionalized discrimination, fostering an environment that hinders equal opportunities and undermines fundamental human rights.

As seen in The Fifth Season, the fulcrum is an institution that trains orogenes, as well as controls their powers to manipulate geological forces. The fulcrum as a whole plays a significant role in the narrative, as it explores themes of power, control, and oppression. Jemisin portrays the fulcrum as a training facility in which the orogenes are taught to focus and control their gift of being an orogeny. This concept highlights how the fulcrum functions as a restraint that prevents the orogenes from using their power as a means of destruction. Once an orogene enters the fulcrum, they are immediately stripped of their power and their humanity. This idea is prominent in Damaya’s experience at the Fulcrum in which she learns quite quickly that “Friends do not exist. The Fulcrum is not a school. Grits are not children. Orogenes are not people. Weapons have no need of friends (Jemisin, pg 297).” This quote also highlights the social hierarchy present within the readings, as the readers are given the opportunity to explore which groups of people are given rights depending on their status throughout the novel. Hierarchy is almost seen as inevitable, and each society grapples with its own share of traits that make others in power (concept from mini collaboration). Another example which highlights the hierarchical status seen within the Fifth Season is detailed through the grits. There are ten different rings that orogenes can receive based on how well they control their powers; ten ring orogenes are considered to be the most powerful in this society, as their treatment is based on the ring value that they hold. We see how Alabaster holds ten rings, placing him at a large advantage of power throughout The Fifth Season. “For the other grits—and that’s what she is now, an unimportant bit of rock ready to be polished into usefulness, or at least to help grind other, better rocks (Jemison, pg 191).” This shows the power of the rings that one can obtain throughout the novel, placing them at an advantage in society.

Overall, N.K. Jemisin creates a fictional narrative which highlights real world concepts and ideas. The Fifth Season highlights many parallels to real world issues by demonstrating inequality and social hierarchy based on the certain traits that individuals carry. By incorporating multiple themes of power, oppression, and hierarchy into this fictional narrative, readers gain perspective through the orogenes. Just as orogenes are deemed as inferior to non-orogenes in order to maintain the societal order, real world parallels can be drawn to the concept of racism, whereas certain individuals are granted more power— inadvertently contributing to structural racism. Although it may not be intentional, structural racism continuously occurs as a direct result of the desire to keep and maintain order in a society. These explored themes and concepts created a beautiful plot that the readers were able to immerse themselves into throughout the entirety of this science fiction novel.

May 18, 2022 by Marlee Fancett - No Comments

The Broken Earth Trilogy as a Study of the Social Sciences

The Broken Earth trilogy tells a story rooted in the social sciences, its gripping plotlines and diverse, complex characters sowing the various branches, with observations and statements about systems of power and the imbalance of justice within these systems unfurling like leaves.

To recap from my first reflective piece, social science is the study of human society and societal relationships and can be broken down into archaeology, anthropology, geography, history, law, politics, psychology, and sociology, to name a few. For N.K. Jemisin, who has a degree in psychology, her works commonly center around a social system in which, as Raffi Khatchadourian describes it after an interview with Jemisin, “the oppressed often possess an enormous capacity for agency—a supernatural ability, even, that their oppressors lack—but they exist in a society that has been engineered to hold them down. Eventually, the world is reordered, often with a cataclysm.”

It’s not just the degree that makes this a subject of interest for Jemisin though. As a Black author, Jemisin is also conscious of the long history of the science fiction genre marginalizing minority writers, continuously failing these authors by putting white men at the forefront of who’s recognized within the genre. As one study of Jemisin’s trilogy presented through a masters thesis by Imogen Bagnall points out, “Science fiction and African-American interests were seen as mutually exclusive categories, as the most dominant representatives of the science fiction and fantasy author—and readership were white men. This assumption, however, is baseless, and is merely representative of the ethnocentrism and racial bias prevalent in almost all social and commercial spheres.”

I noted in my reflection on The Fifth Season that Jemisin intentionally combats the racism within the genre by presenting a story told through “a slate of people of different colors and motivations who don’t often appear in a field still dominated by white men and their protagonist avatars,” as Vann R. Newkirk II wrote for The Atlantic. Reviewing the characters of the first novel, I focused on the three main girls and women, all described by Jemisin to be “Orogenes,” a race classified by their “ability to manipulate thermal, kinetic, and related forms of energy to address seismic events,” and how these characters document the systematic oppressions against Orogenes because of their abilities. While the Orogenes do not have visually distinct traits and can be from any region, the main characters are all “Midlatter,” which is a multiracial group. Perhaps this should have forewarned me for what we would discover later in the trilogy, which is that these three girls and women are actually the same person, just broken across periods of her life and accordingly narrated with or through the name she identified with during those times.

Crucially, though, the discovery that these three characters are all the same person does not diminish the character diversity in the novel. In fact, the character diversity increases as more individuals are introduced and the storyline threads deeper into Orgogenic history and beyond.

During the time of the Orogenes, it is explained through stonelore that Orogenes are “born evil—some kind of agents of Father Earth, monsters that barely qualify as human” and that they are the reason why Father Earth seems to hate the human race, constantly waging war against humanity through brutal Seasons, which lorists say originates with the Orogenes separating the Moon from Father Earth, sending his child out of alignment.

By the third book though, it is divulged that before there were Orogenes, there were tuners who also had abilities and were created in the image of the Niess, a race who was tyrannized through war and defamed. Hoa, the immortal character who we discover has been narrating the sections of the novels told through third person, was once a tuner and he recounts that in the early years of his life, “It became easy for scholars to build reputations and careers around the notion that Niess sessapinae were fundamentally different, somehow—more sensitive, more active, less controlled, less civilized—and that this was the source of their magical peculiarity. This was what made them not the same kind of human as everyone else. Eventually: not as human as everyone else. Finally: not human at all.”

Reading through the abuses to both of these minority groups within the trilogy makes readers aware of the notion that “Trauma and oppression work cyclically, as each generation of oppressors infects the next with notions of prejudice and discrimination, and each generation of the oppressed are re-traumatised by the collective memory of the past,” as expressed by Bagnall. This cycle has been described before as a donut, which is depicted below. There are certain needs, built on social foundations, that all people have and, if these are not being met for all, a whirlpool of trauma is created. However, as seen with both The Broken Earth trilogy and the graphic, social institutions are not the only possible source for trauma since an abuse of the climate can also disrupt the “safe and just space for humanity,” meaning that resources have become so exploited that the Earth is endangered. With the trilogy, we see these lacking social foundations and ruptures of the ecological ceilings lead to the Seasons, a time when societies are forced to reset as the homes they built and the societies they formed are demolished by natural disaster. But each and every time, as we see by the end of the first book, society chooses to once again build the same social foundations and continue to overuse the materials the Earth provides. This is why, in the second and third books, Jemisin writes of love so powerful that it can shake the oppressive foundations society tries to rebuild during the most recent Season.

(Above is the donut graphic that Dr. Reitz introduced us to this semester.)

The first powerful love that Jemisin explores, based on the timeline of events in the novel, has lasted centuries, even as Hoa’s memories of his siblings have ebbed and receded in the vast ocean that is time. Since his existence was also built on social inequity, Hoa and his siblings lived in ignorance of the true severity of their situation until a woman named Kelenli was introduced to them and quickly became “something to lose” to Hoa. She also became a source of knowledge, and as the siblings learned about their conditions and where their siblings who had been taken away were sent, they found a collective desire to overthrow the system. In a heart-rending moment in book three, when the tuners resist at the same time the Moon does, resulting in is misalignment with Father Earth, Hoa recalls, “We entwine our presences in a layer of cold coal, which is perhaps fitting as Remwha sends a hiss through all of us like sand grinding amid cracks. It’s an echo of the static emptiness in our network where Tetlewha—and Entiwha, and Arwha, and all the others—once existed.”

Centuries later, we meet Nassun, the daughter of Essun and a crucial character beginning in book two, and witness her grief and fervent attachments as she learns that blood-related family isn’t always the strongest source of love. After her parents have tarnished her perceptions of the loving relationships they could have had with her, Nassun depends on Schaffa, a Guardian. In order to keep this love intact, Nassun essentially destroys the last Fulcrum, a sort of school where Orogenes were kept and forcefully bent to the wills of non-Orogenic people, when she realizes it was what made her mother “something else” and “wrong” in the sense that she couldn’t love Schaffa, who was also her Guardian, like Nassun does. Although Nassun did this to prevent her love for Schaffa from souring, it also marks the end of the Fulcrum’s presence at this point in the timeline.

Now, the main character Essun experiences many different loves. She loves her children, her romantic partners, and has even come to love the people in the comm that she has been a part of throughout much of the Season. The most powerful attestation of love in her life though is actually her death, when she meets her daughter again after years of searching and, even though they have different motives and beliefs on how to end the Season, Essun tries to laugh with pride as she dies, narrated as, “So rusting amazing, your little girl. You are proud to lose to her strength.” It’s these actions that make Nassun consider that “the world took and took” from her mother as well, though “for some reason that she does not think she’ll ever understand…even as you died, you were reaching for the Moon.” No matter her understanding though, Nassun ultimately decides to use her abilities to bring the Moon back into alignment with the Earth as her mother intended, which ends the Season and will predictably alter social foundations.

You might notice, if you had read my first reflection on The Broken Earth trilogy, that I’ve hardly mentioned geology compared to how in-depth I explored it before. This is partly because I think that after Jemisin drew the attention of readers and proved her wealth of knowledge and ethos with the first book, she could play around with the science fiction elements. Of course, these elements are still rooted in real geology, like the concept of the moon being separated from the Earth and causing the Seasons coming from a question at a NASA workshop that Jemisin attended. Mostly, though, it’s because sociology becomes a driving force as the trilogy progresses, as Essun makes more relationships and experiences more love, which invigorates her desire to quake unjust social foundations and assert her power after others have wrongfully suppressed it for far too long.

February 28, 2022 by Kevin Reed - No Comments

Geographically Induced Injustice in “The Fifth Season”: Let’s get to thinkING

N.K Jemisin’s The Fifth Season presents a complex and engaging narrative that seriously addresses issues of injustice and inequity through her studious worldbuilding. This was evident from the first moment I picked up the book. I couldn’t help but notice the parallels between the injustice experienced by the Orogens (enslaved people who can manipulate kinetic energy to control seismic movement) and the experiences of marginalized and oppressed groups from throughout the world, particularly the U.S. The Novel incited me to begin to examine the relationship between justice and geography in an interdisciplinary understanding, which for me led to some surprising realizations supported by Jemisin’s writing and related research. To put it plainly, it seems to me that Jemisin suggests that injustice and inequity can be exacerbated and even created by impartial geographical circumstances.

Before tackling the issues I believe Jemisin is proposing through her writing I will provide brief context for the novel as a whole. The story itself is set in a region of the world called “The Stillness” where the earth experiences destructive “seasons” that threaten to destroy communities and extinct humanity. In order to combat this unforgiving planet, the communities of the Stillness harness the power of Orogenes, who, as previously mentioned, are enslaved by the Fulcrum to use their powers to control the earth’s restlessness so it is less volatile. Communities construct “Nodes”, facilities where Node Maintainers (also orogenes) quell shakes for communities throughout the Stillness, ensuring no loss of life or destruction of communities. “In the Equatorials, the nodes’ zones of protection overlap, so there’s nary a twitch; this, and the Fulcrum’s presence at its core, is why Yumenes can build as it does” (119). Jemisin establishes that this is an unforgiving environment and the communities in this environment are only held together by the effort of the Node Maintainers and other orogenes. Every second of existence is a feat when one considers the how volatile the planet is. The power of the orogenes is all that keeps the balance. By establishing this fact, Jemisin also introduces the idea of geographically induced injustice.

When two orogenes named Syenite and Alabaster investigate one of the nodes in a place called Mehi, they find the corpse of the node maintainer. Much to Syenite’s shock and horror, the maintainer is a child. “The body in the node maintainer’s chair is small, and naked. Thin, its limbs atrophied. Hairless. There are things—tubes and pipes and things, she has no words for them—going into the stick-arms, down the goggle-throat, across the narrow crotch” (139). Not only is the maintainer– the person enlisted to control seismic activity in that region– a child, they are malnourished and abused. In the Stillness, orogenic children can and will be abused, tortured, and enslaved to ensure the safety of the greater society. The node maintainers stop any earthquakes that could result in massive destruction. Through this horrifying example of worldbuilding Jemisin seems to be establishing the case that injustice can often be caused or exacerbated by the demands of geography.

Luckily, there are other examples of this idea of geographically induced injustice in the novel to consider that are far less graphic than the abuse of a child. Later in the story Alabaster and Syenite are taken to safety on a relatively unknown island called Meov after having been attacked by a Guardian (a sort of soldier created to neutralize any rogue or dangerous orogenes). Syenite describes the island. “The island is nothing but rolling hills and grass and solid rock—no trees, no topsoil. An utterly useless place to live” (282). Agriculture is impossible on the rocky island, and keeping cattle is just as unlikely due to the size of the island and its lack of fertile soil. The topography and geography of this region makes it almost unlivable. So, how do the citizens of Meov get by? Well, due to the desperation of the topography, the islanders must use their seafaring ways and a little crime survive. “So Meov raids. They attack vessels along the main trading routes, or extort comms for protection from attacks—yes their attacks” (294). Here again I found that the geography of the regions in the Stillness create and exacerbate injustice, in this case injustice to the communities of the Stillness. What is interesting about Jemisin’s depiction of the issue of geographical injustice in this case is that both “sides” of the story engage in it. In the case of the communities of the Stillness their geographical survival is ensured by the enslavement and abuse of powerful children. In the case of the community of Meov, they ensure their geographical survival by killing Merchants, raiding communities, and taking what is not theirs. Meov must act unjustly to keep their people alive. Now, my interest is not to compare the degrees in which these actions are unjust or immoral, my only interest is to point out what I noticed, that Jemisin is clearly tying geography to injustice, and after looking at some relevant research presented in class, it is understandable why.

It turns out Jemisin seems so keen on pointing out the connection between geography and injustice because it is extremely relevant in the discussion of justice and equity as well as discussions in science. In an article published by the Columbia Climate School titled “Earthquakes May Endanger New York More Than Thought, Says Study”, authors Leonardo Seeber and John Armbruster discuss the risk that seismic activity has on New York City and other places located on minor fault lines, as opposed to major faults like near California and Japan. Their research found that New York City, although not a frequent hotspot for large earthquakes, could be susceptible to high amounts of damage due to the confluence of multiple smaller tremors. Seeber notes that the effects of these tremors would affect some communities in New York City more than others. “Earthquake-resistant building codes were not introduced to New York City until 1995, and are not in effect at all in many other communities. Sinuous skyscrapers and bridges might get by with minimal damage, said Sykes, but many older, unreinforced three- to six-story brick buildings could crumble”. Here, represented in data and research we have an example of real world geographically exacerbated and induced inequity. People from low income neighborhoods which often do not have the money to remodel buildings so they are earthquake resistant, will be disproportionately affected if a natural disaster like a strong earthquake should happen. The marginalized, minority communities which have been oppressed through systematic structural racism in housing communities will feel the ramifications of a natural disaster far more than a wealthier person in a newer, more expensive building. When geographical disasters take place the oppression minority communities face is only exacerbated. As I am limited in space, I won’t delve into the ways that geography was used to oppress communities in the U.S through redlining, gerrymandering, and other strategies, just note that they are there, waiting for discussion. What is evident is that due to structural inequality, when disaster comes, it is the oppressed communities that unduly feel the ramifications.

The final example of Geographically induced/exacerbated inequality and or injustice I would like to briefly discuss is a thought I derived while reading the “Guidelines on Preparedness Before, During and After an Ashfall” prepared by International Volcanic Health Hazard Network (IVHHN), Cities and Volcanoes Commission, GNS Science and the United States Geological Survey (USGS). While reading the preparedness guidelines, I noticed a recurring theme amongst the rules: a need for abundance. This can be seen looking at the first page of guidelines. “Enough drinking water for at least 72 hours – one gallon (3-4 litres) per person per day. Enough non-perishable food for at least 72 hours for family and pets…If cold, extra blankets and warm clothing. Extra stocks of medication for both family and pets…A small amount of money” (3). The guidelines state that in order to make it through an ashfall you should have extra clothes, food, medication, water, and even money. Can you think of how inequity might be exacerbated by an ashfall? Start by asking the question: how are people who are poor or oppressed expected to get this abundance of material? If one is to survive an ashfall one must have an abundance of these materials and the ability to stock resources, and until relatively recently the ability to stockpile resources has been a luxury, one not allowed to minority communities.

I am uncertain where the rest of Jemisin’s Broken Earth series will take me, or how my understanding of her commentary on geography and justice will change, but as it stands right now Jemisin has gotten me thinkING about how injustice is created and perpetuated by things as simple and as impartial as geography. This leads me to believe that an interdisciplinary approach to solving issues of inequality and injustice is essential in getting lasting, meaningful change. Jemisin is toying with the ideas that justice is a relative luxury, and that the need to live can override ideas of justice and equity. She makes this idea clear in her worldbuilding, survival outweighs the luxury found in the concept of justice. I am uncertain if Jemisin is simply challenging the reader to sympathize with unjust people (like the pirates who help our progatogists), or simply stating that the need to live comes before the need to live justly. It is not clear to me what the answers to these questions are, but I look forward to continuing thinkING about these concepts as I read further.

December 12, 2018March 14, 2019 by Abigail Ritz - No Comments

Carving (Y)our (My) Stories

” In love, then, we shall seek understanding.”

– N.K. Jemisin, The Obelisk Gate

Oftentimes, when I’m writing, I feel as though I’m carving something out of stone — I’m writing and writing and writing and slowly an idea emerges from the haze of dust and rock, at first realized only in rough outlines, in the hint of a general idea, and slowly, s l o w l y I polish away the hard edges. I have, truth be told, perfectionist tendencies that come into play when writing (when doing anything, really, god, you should have seen me try to play sports — practice does not make perfect when you expect yourself to be perfect on the first try) and these tendencies are most definitely not unusual, especially when many of us are released from a schooling system that incorporates in us a certain idea not only of writing (how to write, what qualifies as effective and acceptable writing) but how to work. Even now, in writing this, I feel the perfectionism — which is in turn symptomatic of both my education and my anxiety— rising up inside me, in the constant questioning (Is this good enough? Is this long enough? What will they think of this? Is this comprehensive enough? Is this good? Is it great? Is it the best it can be?) of my own work. In writing I sometimes feel trapped in my anxieties, in my thoughts, so judgemental of my own self, my own art, my own individual stories; I am caught in a spiral constantly folding in on itself as I question and question and question.
Continue reading “Carving (Y)our (My) Stories”

December 2, 2018December 2, 2018 by Abigail Ritz - No Comments

Ex-Machina or That Which Was Formerly Machine

We were constructed as intentionally and artificially as the fragments you call obelisks. We are fragments of the great machine too . . . By our existence, we glorify the world that made us, like any statue, scepter or other precious object. We do not resent this, for our opinions and experiences have been carefully constructed, too. We do not understand that what Kelenli has come to give us is a sense of peoplehood. We do not understand why we have been forbidden this self-concept before now… but we will (Stone Sky 50).

Artificial intelligence. Robots. Cyborgs. The steadfast fundamentals of sci-fi. From I, Robot to Ex Machina, from the cybermen of Doctor Who to the cylons of Battlestar Galactica, the idea of living and cognizant technology has captured our imaginations for decades. It’s a fascination that has developed and grown alongside our exploration and use of technology, one that, in a literary sense, likely has roots in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; we are fascinated, in a sense by creating that which is beyond ourselves, fascinated by the idea of becoming becoming almost as god. In the concept of artificial intelligence we see the ability to not only push the boundaries of knowledge, but to push the boundaries of self. Continue reading “Ex-Machina or That Which Was Formerly Machine”

December 1, 2018 by Abigail Ritz - No Comments

On Beauty and Being Stone

In another course myself and Sabrina Bramwell are taking this semester, we are reading Zadie Smith’s On Beauty, a novel based in exploring contemporary ideals of beauty, academia and self. It is, in fact, a novel almost as completely opposite from Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy as possible, taking place not in a future other-world involving people who move mountains and eat stone, but instead in a contemporary other-but-still-quite-similar university and focusing upon the lives of two families riddled by ideological differences, affairs, issues of ethnicity, and art. And yet, both Sabrina and myself have been finding a myriad of connections, especially to do with ideals of beauty, between the works, despite their seemingly enormous differences in genre and content. Continue reading “On Beauty and Being Stone”

December 1, 2018 by Abigail Ritz - 1 Comment

Utopetroleum (and Cow Farts™)

Life is sacred in Syl Anagist — as it should be, for the city burns life as the fuel for its glory.

Syl Anagist at first seems a utopia, projecting image of surface-level perfection: a society built around life, around a pure and clean energy source, a source that, in lasting forever, will allow for unhindered progress of the empire. Yet, Kelenli’s lessons to the tuners break any illusions of perfection in revealing the oppressive framework upon which the empire’s energy, and thus, the empire’s survival, depends. Continue reading “Utopetroleum (and Cow Farts™)”

November 30, 2018November 30, 2018 by Abigail Ritz - 1 Comment

WHAT’S THAT ROCK?

By Abby “Opal” Ritz and Helen “Azurite” Warfle

On the first day of class, Professor McCoy asked us what our favorite rock was. Now that the semester is almost over and we have a more advanced knowledge of geology, we have decided to come back to this and give everyone a description of their rocks and note whether or not they are significant in the Broken Earth trilogy. It is clear that in the beginning of the semester, none of us knew the difference between a rock and a mineral as most people chose minerals, except for those who chose igneous rocks, sedimentary rocks, granite, slate, and shale (good job lads, you rock 😉 ). Continue reading “WHAT’S THAT ROCK?”