The Fifth Season by N K Jemisin

[maharetr]

Has anyone read it? I just finished it minutes ago, and I have no idea how to feel. I know the odds that anyone in my circle has read it are low, but anyone want to have a spoilery as fuck conversation in the comments?

ETA: Comments are now FULL of spoilers that will shift your whole reading of the book if you haven't read it. etc etc.

Comments

[alatefeline]

Nodnod nodnodnod.

I feel like the chunk of the story on the island is SO tailor-made for fluff-fic with an undertone of Drama and Doom...I just worry that it'll be too drastically difficult for anyone to pull off while seeming in character...but there are some very talented fic writers out there. The eternal cry of the fanfic reader: I live in hope that somebody will write it. And alongside it: oh gosh I need to go write a thing. :)

>> god, that passing mention of it being Jija who wanted kids, <<

Yes, it retrospect it's absolutely stark. I feel like she was deliberately trying to obliterate her past self/selves and individuality at that point, if she'd been listening at all to her own feelings and need to heal I don't think she would have been willing to have kids because someone else said so. And it seems so innocent the first go-round.

Not innocent on first view but still deeper and darker in retrospect: I keep rereading the scene with Damaya's hand, the layers on layers of twisted motivation and power there are incredibly well done and get more disturbing the more you read it. "Never say no to me" is such a red flag and yet, for me, there's a kind of twisted sympathy for Schaffa too.

>> I need to let it settle <<

Sure.

Thanks for listening to me babble about Hey Listen This Cool Book Is So Cool!

[maharetr]

>>the scene with Damaya's hand<<

YES. That was horrifying, and nearly made me stop reading because I feared that dynamic was going to not only keep going but escalate, thankfully it didn't explicitly escalate. But even wanting to stop reading was a complement to NKJ, because it was like... here is a horrifyingly abusive situation presented as a horrifyingly abusive situation. And I'm not sure I should be giving out cookies for that, but given Uprooted... yeah. Yeah we apparently need to.

ETA: ALSO a tiny thing but So Important -- before that she's attracted to him. He's safety and comfort and she's starting to be attracted to him. And then he does the hand thing and NOPE she never trusts him again. See above 'not sure I should be giving cookies And Yet, still worryingly cookie worthy'
*mentally adds point to the + comment*

[alatefeline]

>> That was horrifying, and nearly made me stop reading <<

Yep. That was a point where I reeeeeaaallly had to check my level of trust in the author that this wasn't going to devolve into normalizing/celebrating Awful Things.

>> because I feared that dynamic was going to not only keep going but escalate, thankfully it didn't explicitly escalate. <<

Rather, it was mostly off-stage, deliberately, but the effects were clear and the ways in which it was a functional component of an abusive system working as intended, rather than one person's private evil, became clear. I think having that stuff be on-stage and physical towards the start of the story, moving to more off-stage and psychological/systemic, worked well to imply just how bad things are without making the reader numb or losing the audience.

>> But even wanting to stop reading was a complement to NKJ, because it was like<<

How scary something feels is often more a function of how it is presented and how much empathy we feel for the characters rather than the actual severity of the situation. Or entire genres of comic, video games, etc would be totally nonviable. I think we defensively, subconsciously refuse to empathize fully because there is too much pain and awfulness in the world, and a clever author gets around that my getting us to identify with the characters.

>>... here is a horrifyingly abusive situation presented as a horrifyingly abusive situation. And I'm not sure I should be giving out cookies for that, <<

I understand the reluctance. But! This is a good example of exploring a difficult topic rather than exploiting or trivializing it. Which is needed for many reasons...

>>but given Uprooted... yeah. Yeah we apparently need to. <<

...one of the biggest of which is the pervasiveness of tropes that glamorize or normalize some really awful ideas. The "Stalking = Love" meme is so toxic and it's everywhere. In part because it serves the interests of many people who are fine with abusive, nonconsensual power dynamics as long as they get what they want out of the situation. And many more people don't realize or care that it is chipping away at their capacity for positive human interactions, or just the creativity to come up with their OWN good and bad ideas, every time they mentally apply that template to real life.