The Fifth Season

The Fifth Season talks about revolt with remarkable fury and finesse. It has a bold and challenging narrative that uses the second-person in a meaningful way and a trio of main characters that are as fascinating as they are tragic.

The book starts with the world ending twice. On a microscale, there is the world of a woman, who calls herself Essun, which ends when she stares at the body of her two-year-old son. On a macroscale, there is the ending of a whole civilization, with the earth shattering, the sky falling, and an empire ceasing to exist. In both cases, it’s a man who does the destruction. In both cases, the violence is overwhelming.

In this prologue the reader is immediately thrown into the chaos, not having a clue about what anything means and what’s going on. Everything is coming to an end, everyone is suffering, and almost all of the things being described are considered irrelevant – from giant floating obelisks to the feeling of hope. Making matters a bit more confusing is the strong personality of the narrator, who is deeply ironic and cynical and even addresses the reader as if they were old acquaintances. The narrator is not afraid to dispense judgment (“He was healthy and clever and should still be alive”) and comment on the structure of the story being told (“None of these places or people matter, by the way. I simply point them out for context”).

And then the first chapter comes with its peculiar use of the second-person, which immediately establishes a strong connection between the reader and Essun: “You are she. She is you. You are Essun,” it begins. This use of the second-person produces several important effects here. It doesn’t invite empathy towards Essun, but forces it: the reader must see the world through Essun’s eyes and put themselves in her place. It reinforces the notion that Essun is the book’s protagonist, establishing her as the reader’s main point of view – since both are now one – and it also mirrors the disconnection from reality that Essun suffers: she could very well be the narrator talking to herself, looking at herself from a distance, as if detached from her body. After all, although the trilogy is called The Broken Earth, if this first volume is any indication, it could very well have been titled The Broken Women.

The Fifth Season follows three of them. First, we have Essun, who wants revenge for her dead son and is also in search for her missing daughter. Her emotional state is clearly a wreck and her notion of self is often described as being shattered: “So you must stay Essun, and Essun will have to make do with the broken bits of herself that Jija has left behind. You’ll jigsaw them together however you can, caulk in the odd bits with willpower wherever they don’t quite fit, ignore the occasional sounds of grinding and cracking.”  She is a woman with a purpose, but also one that mirrors the state of the world, being broken and in turmoil.

We are then introduced to two other women: the girl Damaya and the young Syenide. These three main characters are called orogenes in their world: they are people with the ability to control the earth itself, capable of taking its heat for themselves and generating seismic events. Orogenes are feared by everyone in the world – which is called Stillness because it’s forever moving – and for good reason: they can destroy whole cities if their powers are unleashed with that purpose.

That is why Damaya is taken from her home by a Guardian and led to a place where she can better control herself – a place called the Fulcrum. However, she soon discovers that it’s not because her mentor is a Guardian that she’s will become one as well: Guardians are supposed to guard the world from people like Damaya. She begins to see that because she is an orogene – or a rogga, the derogatory term for them – she is not seen as a person anymore, but a weapon. When the people of the Stillness – and that includes her family – look at her, they don’t see a little girl called Damaya; they see a bomb. The first chapter that deals with her training shows the character realizing how much of her individuality is being denied:  she’s surprised by the fact that all of her colleagues are treated as if they were the same being. They are all orogones, they’re all roggas, they are all less, and they’re all the same: “You are representatives of us all, the instructors say, if any grit dares to protest this treatment. When you’re dirty, all orogones are dirty. When you’re lazy, we’re all lazy. We hurt you so you’ll do the rest of us no harm.”

We can clearly see the horrible effects of that with the third woman, Syenite. She doesn’t have any say even about her own body anymore: her task given by the Fulcrum is to get pregnant with the most powerful orogene that there is, a man called Alabaster. Being an orogene as well, Alabaster also has no say in the matter. They are, for all intents and purposes, reduced to the condition of slaves. They must serve until they die or be killed by Guardian if they dare say no. They are constantly hurt and humiliated. One of the most telling lines of dialogue between Alabaster and Syenite explores this situation quite well. The scene follows a surprised Syenite watching her new partner insult a deputy governor after being disrespected, expecting the official to change her behavior and give them comfortable accommodations. Syenite questions Alabaster if that was necessary and this exchange follows:

“I would’ve thought you’d like being treated like a human being for a change.”

“I do. But what difference does it make? Even if you pull rank now, it won’t change how they feel about us–”

“No, it won’t. And I don’t care how they feel. They don’t have to rusting like us. What matters is what they do.”

They’ve reached a point where orogenes don’t care about making prejudiced people more empathic anymore: being treated like a regular person is enough for them, even if this treatment is a polite farse that still hides a deep hatred against them.

Essun, Damaya, and Syenite all share the same feeling of revolt. They often think “This is not right,” although they fear speaking that out loud. Their insurrection has to stay in their minds, lest they be severely punished. And this revolt becomes a feeling that, repressed, starts to grow and grow. They all seem to be at a boiling point sometimes. They want to act, but the world is too oppressive to allow that. It’s not as simple as just saying “But this is not right”: if they just say that little will change and they will be struck down nonetheless. But the feeling is there. The word “but” is there, repeated often, highlighted, given their own paragraphs. “But” is a crucial word to the narrative in The Fifth Season. Damaya wants to belong, but she can’t. Syenite wants to be free of the Fulcrum, but she can’t. Essun just wanted to live a normal life and feel like a regular person, but she couldn’t. And most important of all: they all start to feel like they’re less, but they know that this is not right.

The book also works with the idea of identity. A good number of characters change their names all the time, sometimes to empower themselves, sometimes to hide from others, sometimes to deceive, and sometimes as an act of defiance. There is one character, an orogene, that even chooses to use “rogga” as a surname. This initially shocks Essun, but she eventually understands the subversion in the act. Syenite also often uses rogga to refer to herself and her “kind”, showing signs that she is beginning to assimilate in a certain degree the narrative that she’s an outcast, someone different, and someone who is worse for being different. There are times when she uses the term with irony, to accentuate the oppression against her, but sometimes she uses it because she’s starting to believe that how things work – even though it’s not right.

The narrative starts with the end of the world and ends with the same subject. The reasoning of the characters is a simple one: change must be preceded by destruction. The narratives that they are told – that they are villains – must be deconstructed, the social institutions that keep them in check must be dismantled, and the people who chase them must die.  The macroscale destruction, then, by the end, is given a positive connotation because it means a chance of reform.

The Fifth Season is a powerful novel that uses fantasy to talk about racism and prejudice, and it does so in a thought-provoking way: it depicts how problematic things currently are, but with the constant reminder that it’s simply not right.

June 14, 2019.