*****SPOILERS*****
This fantasy book has been one of my
best finds in years. The blurb reeled me in (as did the bright red page edges).
It’s set in the Kingdom of Orisha eleven years after the Raid, during which
magic and, allegedly, the gods died. Zelie, her brother Tzain and Princess
Amari hope to bring magic back to a kingdom infested with colourism.
The first paragraph was a
masterpiece, pulling the reader in to quickly invest in the story. It provided
a good description and gave the reader an idea of the character’s backstory and
personality. That’s a lot of information to cram into a normal-sized paragraph
and yet it didn’t feel cluttered. Truly amazing job.
*****SPOILERS*****
Colourism
Colourism is when someone
experiences discrimination for their darker skin by someone in their own ethnic
group.
This is
common in south-east Asia and in people of African descent; skin-bleaching is
often used to make the skin lighter. For black people living in predominantly
white countries, colourism is exacerbated by racism.
But the
root of colourism (within an ethnic group) is in classism. Peasants work in the
sun and get tanned. Nobles are often seen as more beautiful: as they don’t work
in the sun, they have more time to look after their vanity. Their beauty and
their pale skin become associated. So darker people are associated with a bad
lifestyle but lighter people are associated with a good lifestyle and beauty.
Two scenes
in particular have direct parallels with real events, particularly in America.
Zelie tells Inan that ‘”The only difference between them and criminals is the
uniforms they wear.”’ Then an injured young boy without a weapon surrenders but
is killed anyway. This is followed by a beautiful description (as in perfect
for the circumstances, not as in a pleasant occurrence) whereby the stain of
the boy’s blood is the stain of the soldier’s hate.
With colourism being a focus of this
book, skin colour is mentioned a lot. People have said it’s unnecessary to
focus on skin colour because it shouldn’t be an issue. They’re right: it shouldn’t be an issue. But it is an issue. It’s an issue that needs
fixing, and something can only be fixed if people see it’s broken.
Orisha consists of kodisan, the
lighter-skinned majority, and diviners, the darker-skinned minority. Only
kodisan can be nobles/royals and only diviners can be maji. As only diviners
can become maji (people who can use magic), this helps explain why the kodisan
view magic in such a negative light.
They were
once separate peoples but they interbred, leading to diviners (like Zelie)
having kodisan siblings (like Tzain). When a noble breeds with a diviner,
though, it’s known as ‘playing in the mud’, showcasing the notion that darker
skin means a dirtier individual. Just another insult with the more common
‘maggot’.
Amari
doesn’t realise how bad it is until she sees kodisan enjoying themselves whilst
they watched their diviner slaves die for then. Even Tzain was clueless because
he thinks safety comes by following the rules yet safety is irrelevant when
those rules are ‘rooted in hate’.
Unsurprisingly,
most prisoner and forced labourers are diviners. They receive harsher
punishments for the same crimes. Take away the magic and this sounds just like
people on Earth.
Magic
and Religion
The main god of the pantheon is the
Sky Mother. This gets me wondering: the nobles exclaim ‘skies’ instead of the
peasants who say ‘gods’. The nobles say ‘oh my skies’ because they reject the
gods yet they use the most important goddess? Or, in being dismissive of the
most important goddess, they are thus being dismissive of all the gods?
Mentions
of the gods go hand-in-hand with creativity on the author’s part. One goddess
moves with ‘the grace of a hurricane’ and this my favourite line in the entire
book. The author wrote ‘Oh my gods’ but in three separate speech marks to show,
in the most unique way I have ever seen, that the trio spoke in unison.
A
point of interest is that Zelie and Binta both have silver eyes, as does Sky
Mother. Silver is basically grey (the colour of Roen’s eyes). Does this say
something special about these characters, that they alone have eyes coloured
like Sky Mother? I hope this concept is explored later in the series.
Roen’s
descriptions match that of an East Asian as well as a foxer. Roen’s behaviour
does match that typically ascribed to a fox. This could well be a reference to
a kitsune, a magical fox from Japan. They live among humans and are other, just
like Roen is ‘other’ among the Orishans. I don’t suspect that Roen is magical
or a kitsune (fingers crossed, though!) but it’s a nice link nonetheless, a nod
to the culture of Japan rather than just having another ethnicity for the same
of it.
Chandomble is the temple of the
sacred Sentaro who protect both magic and spiritual order. Magic is
intrinsically linked with the religion of the diviners so both the magic and
the sacred are one in the same.
They find
Chandomble, the temple, very quickly. For not having a real understanding of
where it was, this would be unlikely (though, I concede, not impossible). One
could suggest that the gods helped to guide the trio. Why the gods didn’t help
them more often or in more pressing circumstances is a question asked in all
real religions so I shan’t get into that here.
Three
things impressed me. When Zelie tells Nailah to stay, she just collapses. I
love that she’s like any other pet. Even Amari, a kodisan, can feel the magic
at Chandomble. The last remaining Sentaro Lekan has a stone staff rather than one
of wood or metal: that’s a new one on me.
Three
things baffled me. Firstly, the Raid meant surviving magi (Mama Agba) couldn’t
feel magic yet kodisan (Amari) can feel magic at Chandomble (but why?!?). Secondly,
Nailah just attacks a soldier that wasn’t doing anything threatening. Perhaps
the lionaire remembered that particular soldier’s scent? I’m not convinced.
Thirdly, the Lekan uses magic to throw the soldiers’ ryders off the cliff. Will
harm no life, you say?
On every centennial solstice, the
Mamalawo (lead Sentaro) performs a ceremony (with the scroll Amari stole) to
bind the Sky Mother to the Earth. To save magic, the trio must perform it
instead.
The scroll
tethers that individual to their sister deity; the ceremony tethers humanity to
Sky Mother. To prevent
this ceremony eleven years ahead of schedule, the King claimed worship at the
temple but slaughtered the Sentaro instead. This, in turn, broke the tether
between the Sky Mother and the earth, meaning no one could use magic.
Amari asks
if the ceremony means every diviner becomes a magi and the Sentaro replies yes.
Seeing as historically not every diviner becomes a magi, what makes this
ceremony so special? Zelie has to perform the ceremony (Lekan can’t because
he’s male) but she’s not convinced because she can’t even “sell a fish without
destroying a village.” Fair point but fairness has no part to play in this plot.
At the magic solstice island, Baba
dies and Zelie uses this as blood magic to seek a connection to Sky Mother
through her ancestors. King Saran attack Inan for using magic and Amari kills
Saran to save Inan. Magic comes back and Amari has a white streak in her hair, her
hands glow blue. Bring on book two!
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