H20: An Australian Fantasy series

by Valmire Shala

Fantasy is usually understood as a situation that one enjoys thinking about but that is unlikely to happen OR a story or type of literature that describes situations that are very different from real life and more closely linked to fairy tales, myth and legend and often involve such things as magic or just the generally abnormal.

Thus, fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction, often inspired by the real world. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy literature and drama. Nowadays you can find fantasy in various media, including film, television, graphic novels, video games, animated movies, and manga. One of them is the series H2O: Just Add Water.

The series H20: Just Add Water is a worldwide known Australian fantasy teen drama written by Jonathan M. Shiff which first released in 2006. It was filmed in Australia, more precisely the Gold Coast. The show is about three teenage girls; Emma, Rikki and Cleo, who are facing everyday problems with the important caveat being that they are mermaids with different powers over water. The girls one day ended up in the water under a dormant volcano, at Mako Island, just as a full moon passes above them. There something strange happened. The next day they discover that ten seconds after coming into contact with water, they transform into mermaids. As time goes on, they also discover that they have supernatural powers over water, such as moving water, freezing it or bring it to a boil. With time they adapt their new abilities and lifestyle. Along the way, their smart friend Lewis is there for the girls to help them keep their secret and to find out more about it.

However, the question is: What exactly makes this show an Australian Fantasy and not for example Australian Science-Fiction? Is it the setting, certain themes or even the authors place of birth?

Fantasy is distinguished from the genres of science fiction and horror by the absence of scientific explanations and fear-inducing storylines respectively even though these genres overlap. But fantasy crosses the boundaries of reality in a way that can no longer be explained by laws of nature and scientific knowledge. Fantasy is therefore the oldest fictional genre, because all mythological figures and creatures fall into this category: gods, demons, vampires, mythical animals/creatures, monsters, and other magical figures, and also abilities (such as superpowers). Therefore, one can say that the Australian fantasy genre is therefore difficult to define, but what is certain is that it can be very diverse, due to the influence of the many different cultures that exist in Australia. A text can be Australian fantasy if there is an Australian setting, it deals with Australian culture or even if the author is Australian or has at least his residence there. However, the Australian literature is not necessarily set in Australia or explicitly about Australians or/and Australia. Because this is not a complete list, and it is not required that Australian Fantasy stories must have all this points to be considered Australian Fantasy.

In this case the show’s author is from Australia, as well as the three main characters and the setting is also in Australia. And also, the fact that they are mermaids and have supernatural powers and magical/supernatural things happens makes it an Australian Fantasy show. It makes you dive into a world were mermaids exist and makes you part of the secret, that you forget while watching that there normally are no such creatures as mermaids with superpowers. It is also enriching to see the beautiful Gold Coast and the capital Sydney, where most of the episodes are filmed.

References:

H2O: Just Add Water
Ryan, John. “Reflections on an Australian Fantasy: constructing the impossible.” Coolabah. Vol. 18, 2016, pp. 16-22

The challenging of typical gender tropes in Lian Hearn’s “Across the Nightingale Floor”

Across the Nightingale Floor by Gillian Rubinstein is about the story of teenagers Takeo and Kaede, set in a fictional medieval Japan-based world. Takeo, born as Tomasu, one of The Hidden, a religion based strongly on the Kakure Kirishitan, the Hidden Christians of Japan, swears revenge on Iida Sadamu of the Tohan who murdered his family and friends. Lord Shigeru of the Otori clan has similar interests and rescues and adopts Takeo. On his way to revenge, Takeo is confronted by the truth that he shares the blood and skills of The Tribe, a group of highly trained and supernatural skilled assassins, and starts to train in their arts to be able to kill Iida Sadamu one day. To reach the warlord he must cross the eponymous Nightingale Floor, an assortment of wooden floorboards which play a song if you step on them.

Kaede on the other hand, wants to survive captivity by the Noguchi and free herself. Knowing that her family’s honor is in her hands, however, she does as she is told, agreeing to marry Lord Shigeru whether she wants to or not and despite her reputation of men dying around her. But when she meets Takeo, both fall in love with each other, and wish for nothing more than to be together. Kaede’s betrothal with Lord Shigeru, as well as Takeo’s quest of revenge stand between them at first. But even when Lord Shigeru dies and Kaede, instead of Takeo, murders Iida Sadamu, The Tribe won’t let Takeo go, forcing him to leave Kaede and their love behind.

Both Takeo and Kaede, as well as several other characters, appear to challenge typical gender tropes throughout the novel. Men are often depicted as strong, powerful, and good fighters who enjoy bloodshed and have to protect their submissive wives, while women are shown to be rather kind, fragile, and weak and require protection from men. These binaries also play a role when the decision of who to marry has to be made. Men get to decide on their partner more often than women, who are sometimes even forced to marry against their will in a game of war and power. Women thus repeatedly appear more like objects than as human beings.

Takeo is depicted as weak at the beginning of the novel. On top of being indebted to Lord Shigeru and having to do everything that’s asked of him, Takeo is unable to talk due to being in shock after losing his family and shows his mourning by crying for them. Lord Shigeru, however, tells him to endure the pain instead of crying, elaborating that only children cry, while men and women endure. Even though men’s reluctance to show their pain through tears is a typical gender trope, it is still unusual that women also endure in this case. Takeo’s initial softness also goes against the common tropes.

His time with The Hidden taught Takeo to always forgive others and not to murder anyone. The slaughtering of his family, however, makes Takeo crave revenge and he learns how to fight to achieve his dream of killing Iida Sadamu. His inherited abilities from The Tribe prove to be useful on his quest and make him a natural-born assassin. Though while his craving for shedding blood, as well as his natural strength, belong to the typical gender tropes, Takeo still fights against most of his instincts. Throughout the novel, he is unwilling to murder anyone unless it is Iida Sadamu or in case it helps to end someone’s suffering.

Otori Shigeru also proves himself to be a character that challenges gender norms on several occasions. He tries to live without unnecessary fighting, treats both women and men equally and acts with kindness and a clear mind even when he knows he is being wronged. But while his behavior is a direct contrast to that of Iida Sadamu or Lord Noguchi, he is still able to act as a strong warrior and doesn’t hesitate when he has to kill others for what he believes is right. In that regard, Shigeru acts more according to common gender tropes than Takeo.

While many men, according to typical gender tropes of a patriachal feudal system such as the one depicted in Tales of the Otori, don’t respect women or acknowledge that they are incredibly strong, Takeo shows many times that he acts differently. He doesn’t get angry at Kaede after finding out that she murdered Iida Sadamu even though he wanted to be the one to kill him and recognizes her strength when they fight each other during practice. Takeo also notices how powerful Shizuka and Yuki are after having fought against one and having seen the other fight and kill several men. This depiction of female strength is portrayed several times throughout the novel and not only restricted to members of The Tribe, considering both Kaede and Lady Maruyama prove to be incredibly powerful as well.

Kaede’s development is especially interesting to look at when analyzing how far the novel challenges typical gender tropes. At the beginning of the story, she is shown as rather weak and helpless, a puppet in a game of power between men. Kaede is also willing to become the wife of whoever those in power ask her to marry, even though she would rather marry for love, if she can help her family that way.

Throughout the novel, she continues to be kind and thoughtful but proves herself to be very intelligent, as well as a powerful woman with a strong mindset. Kaede kills two men in self-defense, learns how to fight from Shizuka and is depicted as incredibly courageous. Her courage and strong mind help her when she is faced with Iida Sadamu towards the end of the novel. She is able to hide her fear and think clearly, thus managing to kill the warlord all on her own after deceiving him. Kaede’s behavior is directly compared to Lady Maruyama, who succumbs to her fears and hence dies. Her actions alone at the end of the novel thus challenge every typical gender trope.

Book Review: “The Dreaming” by Queenie Chan

By Theodora Charalambous

A Hong Kong-born, Australian-raised writer and illustrator, the Australian bush, Aboriginal mythology and Japanese mangas. An unusual combination that surprisingly works great.

The Dreaming is a 3-book, manga (Japanese comics) inspired, supernatural mystery series written and illustrated by Chinese-Australian comic book artist and graphic novelist, Queenie Chan. The story follows a pair of identical twins, Amber and Jeanie, as they arrive to their new boarding school, the Greenwich Private College, which is remotely located in the Australian bush. With rumors that female students have a habit of going missing in the bushlands, as well as the fact that the vice-principal, who runs the school, despises twins, the girls quickly realize that the school may not be as normal as it first appeared to be.

Reading the story was definitely a very interesting experience. Until now, I haven’t had any previews contact with Indigenous Australian folklore, which added a difficulty when it came to predicting where the story was going and what exactly lurked withing the bush. This, however, made the story even more engaging. Although narratives borrowed from indigenous cultures and used by non-indigenous writers, can be problematic, I wouldn’t say this applies in the case of The Dreaming. The creatures living withing the bushlands weren’t exactly demonized, but rather it was the school that felt alien in the area and seemed to be invading sacred land. Additionally, the founder of the boarding school was originally from England, a detail that perhaps could be linked to the country’s colonial history. If so, one could say that the story’s conclusion served the purpose of catharsis, when (spoiler!) the boarding school burned down and the invader was finally gone. It has to be added, though, that the author herself has expressed regret over the inclusion of indigenous motifs and would not do so again – in an interview soon to be published by the CASTLE youtube channel!

However, I would personally love to see a bit more indigenous representation, as the story does circle around an indigenous myth. When it came to the horror/ thriller aspect, I wasn’t sure what to expect, going in. However, I quickly caught myself holding my breath with each turning page, and I soon started coursing for choosing to begin reading the story late at night. The graphic novel ended with a somewhat open ending, and although I really wished the story to be a bit longer, it really fitted the novel’s atmospheric mood perfectly. Additionally, the art was well done, simplistic, yet very detailed where it needed to be. The panels and text flowed very nicely making it easy to navigate through the story, and the backgrounds were never too crowded to distract from the main focus. What I loved most about the art, were the beautiful illustrations for the chapter pages, whose essence I tried to capture in my illustration accompanying this blog post, as a tribute to the graphic novel.

All in all, I really enjoyed reading this trilogy, and would absolutely recommend it to any readers looking for a quick little spook to spice up their day with, or evening, for the more adventurous readers. The first two volumes are available free, on Queenie Chan’s webpage, whereas the 3rd one needs to be purchased. 

Book Review: “Captive Prince” Trilogy

CONTAINS SPOILERS

‘Love Conquers All’

I am sure most people are familiar with that expression. While it may sound cheesy and a bit worn out, in my opinion it describes the plot of Australian writer C.S. Pacat’s trilogy Captive Prince perfectly, even though the story is anything but cheesy. 

The novels follow Prince Damianos (Damen) of Akelios, who is supposed to inherit the throne after his father. However, he is captured by his half-brother, who wants to seize the throne, and is then sent to the enemy country Vere as a pleasure slave. In Vere, nobody knows about Damen’s identity, but he is also unable to reveal himself since he is on enemy territory. Apart from that, his new ‘master’ Laurent, the Prince of Vere, would kill him instantly for personal reasons. So, Damen is forced to endure captivity until he gets entangled in Vere’s political situation and a fight for the Veretian throne. Over the course of the novels Damen and Laurent have to work together in order to survive and to save their countries. But things get even more problematic when they start developing feelings for each other and secrets are slowly being revealed.

Their love story has many great hurdles. They are both crown princes to their rival nations, so they are under a lot of pressure from their courts and councils. But first and foremost they are battling their own demons from the past and present. Damen, who was sold out to the enemy by his own brother has to deal with the aftermath of his slavery including torture, humiliation and sexual assault through Laurent and other Veretians. Additionally, he is thrown into a different culture, in which a different language is spoken and which has in – Damen’s eyes – unspeakable customs. Laurent’s trauma started when he was a young boy just having lost his father and his older brother Auguste. He was sexually abused and manipulated by his own uncle, the Regent, who tried to seize Laurent’s birthright: the Veretian throne. So basically their traumas reside for a great part with each other. One the one hand Laurent being the one using, humiliating and nearly killing Damen and on the other hand Damen being the one killing Auguste during the war and therefore being one of the reasons for Laurent’s assault. This is why a great part of the story deals with guilt. Damen feels guilty for falling in love with Laurent despite his enslavement but also because he believes Laurent to be unaware of his identity. Laurent, however, knew who Damen was from the beginning and therefore feels guilty for falling in love with his brother’s killer.   

I chose this trilogy because, to me, it is simply awesome. The plot is very intricate and has, in my opinion, many unseen twists. Additionally, the characters and their development are portrayed well. I also like the setting since I am a fan of kingdoms, courts, royals and their politics. Of course, I also like it because of Damen’s and Laurent’s love story, which I think is a great realization of the trope ‘enemies to lovers’. Be warned though, the story contains a lot of crude language and explicit depictions of violence (torture), slavery, trauma and (non-consensual) sex, so it is certainly not for everyone. 

But ultimately I love this story because it was not so much about two men falling in love, which many other (queer) romances focus on, but rather about two people caught up in their dark pasts, weaving through intricate deceptions and mind plays to in the end learning to forgive themselves and accept their feelings for each other.

Pacat, C.S.. Captive Prince. New York: Berkley, 2015. Print. 

Pacat, C.S.. Prince’s Gambit. New York: Berkley, 2015. Print. 

Pacat, C.S.. Kings Rising. New York: Berkley, 2016. Print. 

The Genres of Speculative Fiction – An Overview

by Nadja Marek, Renee Czyganowski, Danny Tran, and Ann-Sophie Ludwig

Speculative fiction is an umbrella term that contains many different genres. Generally speaking, it deals with topics such as nature (or the supernatural) and alternate realities, either in the past or future. It tries to make sense of the world by combining history with the supernatural and imaginary. Genres that count as speculative fiction are fantasy, horror and science fiction. These can also be divided into more specific categories, for example stories that entail ghost stories, magic realism, utopian and dystopian or apocalyptic and post apocalyptic elements. In this blog post, we want to give you an overview of the different genres and their key aspects that distinguish one from another.

Fantasy and Magic Realism

The Fantasy genre commonly features supernatural elements and magic, things that obviously do not exist in our world. Creative freedom is intrinsically tied to this particular genre unlike any other. Unrestricted by physical laws, fantasy offers a glimpse of what life could be like, if there was a sense of underlying magic in our world. Coinciding with the name, the genre of magic realism combines notions of a real world with fantasy and magic. The literary aspect of magic realism gained traction in the 1930, when Venezuelan author Arturo Uslar-Pietri wrote a number of influential short stories, focusing on both mystery and the reality of life.  The overall setting is commonly grounded in a realistic but supernatural manner, blurring the lines between reality and fantasy. Arguably the most defining characteristic of this particular genre is the aspect of relatability; the story must take place in a real world that the reader is familiar with or can easily identify themselves with. In the world of magic realism, magic is an element that most characters are accustomed to, showcasing how modern life could be like with a supernatural twist. The genre of magic realism is distinguishable from regular fantasy by taking into account realistic elements and especially the style of realism, as it would otherwise fall under the aforementioned genre. This amalgamation of both relatability and the fantastical offers a uniquely inclusive approach to storytelling, as it is easier to grasp onto things the reader is already familiar with. 

Horror and Ghost Stories

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” (Lovecraft 1927) Horror is a genre that contains elements of the supernatural and unnatural which serve the purpose to scare and repulse the reader. Often, it uses themes such as death, decay, monsters and blood to create an uncanny atmosphere that is noticeable and distinguishes it from any other genre. Moreover, it combines eerie descriptions of nature and the unnatural to make the reader feel frightened. Themes, such as the uncanny valley or monster theory help to understand that fear comes from something unfamiliar and something unknown that cannot be trusted. Horror plays with these themes to intentionally confront the reader with dreadful and shocking images and situations. In modern media it established the sub category of art horror which entails the interplay between threat and disgust. 

When looking at the different types of horror it is important to look at the difference between psychological horror and supernatural horror. The former uses emotional and mental circumstances to unsettle the reader and picks up themes such as insanity, whereas the latter deals with monsters and the unknown, such as ghosts, to make the reader feel frightened. 

Ghost stories are a subcategory of the horror genre and deal with, like the name already states, the appearances of ghosts. “A Splinter of Darkness” by Isobelle Carmody is an example of a horror short story. It deals with the uncanny because the child Paul is visited by a girl that only comes out when his parents aren’t home and she is persuading him to do unspeakable things to free others of her kind. The story uses the element of the unknown and secrecy as a tool to create a scary environment.

Science Fiction, Utopian/Dystopian and (Post-)Apocalyptic Literature

The words science and fiction at first glance represent a paradox, two terms that have nothing in common. However, put together they represent the great world of science fiction. The science fiction genre depicts the imagination of what science and its methods could have been, could be able to do, or become. It concerns itself with the question: what if? What if there would be a world where no one has to die? What if our world would be destroyed due to a scientific error? What if nature would turn on the human race? Science fiction often shows an opposite view to the life that we are used to and when it does relate to the world as we know it, there is always a big change to it, the so-called novum. According to the Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms (3rd edition) the transformation to the world can occur due to technological inventions but it can also “involve some mutation of known biological or physical reality, e.g. time travel, extraterrestrial invasion, ecological catastrophe.” Due to the immense amount of possibilities for transformation, the genre of science fiction includes a range of subgenres such as for example utopian, dystopian and (post-)apocalyptic writing. Utopia and Dystopia present two opposing worldviews. Where utopian fiction presents a kind of perfect world, dystopian fiction presents a flawed one. Often dystopian and (post-)apocalyptic fiction are knit together tightly as an imperfect world is often presented as the result of an apocalyptic event. An example for this would be Jeremy Szal’s short story “The Weight of Silence”, which is set in Australia and deals with the aftermath of an attack through spiders that overtook the country. It presents a time of war and crisis through a before unknown force and shows how the survivors try to cope in their changed world. 

Conclusion

In this blog post, we talked about different genres, such as “Fantasy and Magic Realism”, “Horror and Ghost stories”, and “Science Fiction and Utopian/Dystopian and (Post-)Apocalyptic literature”. But most of the time, stories are not written for a specific genre and categorizing them can be a bit tricky. A fantasy book can contain elements of horror stories or a dystopian short story can be considered a fantasy story as well. Stories are still divided into different genres to make it easier for the reader to find specific topics, but their content is still overlapping in genre. Therefore, we have the term speculative fiction which describes fiction that deals with elements that do not exist in reality.

Bibliography

  • Carmody, Isobelle. 1995. A Splinter of Darkness. In Gary Crew, Dark House, 219-236.
  • Lovecraft, H.P. 1973. Supernatural Horror in literature. Dover Publications Inc. 
  • Szal, Jeremy. “The Weight of Silence.” Pacific Monsters, edited by Margrét Helgadóttir, Fox Spirit Books, 2017, pp. 83-89.

“The Fall of the Jade Sword” (2017) and the History of Asian Australians

by Lisa-Marie Richter, Adesua Atamah, Ben Königsfeld, Kathleen Reiswich

We have recently read the short story “The Fall of the Jade Sword” by Stephanie Lai and two of its central topics have caught our attention. The hero addressed in the short story is named Jade Sword and we were interested in the Jade Sword as a physical object rather than just as a superhero’s name. Furthermore we were wondering how Asian immigration is represented in the story and why as it is addressed several times. In fact, the author Stephanie Lai is Chinese Australian, which makes the inclusion of Asian immigration to Australia in her story an even more intriguing subject for analysis.

The Jade Sword

In ancient China, jade was considered the most precious stone due to its symbolism of purity and moral integrity. This stone was famous for its persistence and magical properties, and was engraved and polished into several objects from jewelry to desk ornaments. Jade was first used around 6000 BCE, and green was the preferred color for a long time. However, in the 5th and 4th centuries BCE, there was a fashion for white jade with a brown tinge, and again in the 1st century BCE, when a pure white jade became available from Central Asia as a result of the Han Dynasty’s expansion in 206 BCE – 220 CE.

We think that the name of the hero fits very well because the hero carries “children to safety, […] [stops] robbers in their tracks, [… ] [and rescues] the crew of an airship as it tangled on one of the new Skyscrapers in Melbourne” (“The Fall of the Jade Sword” 125) and those action fit the characteristics of a Jade Stone. The hero can be considered as persistent and pure and is always there when somebody is in need.

Asian Immigration

“We are in a different country,” she says,”and there are always new advances to make. What kind of warrior would you be if you were to stop here, where you are? There is no room for us here if we cannot adapt.“

(“The Fall of the Jade Sword” 133)

The characters in the story are constantly trying to adapt to the Australian culture and we can conclude that immigration is a main topic in Jade Sword. They think that if they cannot adapt properly, they are in the wrong place. Asian-born people currently make up roughly 12% of the population, however this varies greatly across the country. Queensland and Tasmania have the greatest shares of Australian-born people, whereas Sydney and Melbourne are Australia’s most cosmopolitan cities.


Depending on the migratory stream via which they came, Asia-origin migrants fell into two types, each with a very distinct settling experience.


They have primarily arrived from Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and India. Humanitarian and family reunion migrants have generally been low-skilled and non-English speaking with the exception of nations such as the Philippines and Sri Lanka, and some have endured high and continuing rates of unemployment and welfare reliance. They have primarily migrated from Vietnam, the Philippines, and, in recent years, Mainland China.


The whole story is built around characters with Chinese roots. Starting with the names such as “Mok-Seung” or “Can Sin-Man”. What we considered very interesting were the different versions of the news. In the story there were two types of news addressed. On the one hand the Australian news and on the other hand the Chinese Broadsheet and they depicted the same topic but from different viewpoints. They show how differently the (early) Chinese Australian community is perceived by different groups.

How Suspense is Created in Grace Chan’s “Of Hunger and Fury” (2020)

by Benedikt von Laufenberg

In this blog post, I want to discuss Grace Chan’s short story “Of Hunger and Fury“ (2020) by focussing on three different aspects. First, it should be illustrated how the village in which the mysterious incidents occur is set apart from the rest of the world. Second, I want to show how verisimilitude is created by mentioning various details and how this verisimilitude increases the mysteriousness of other elements in the story. Third, I want to investigate the relation between dreams and waking life and how this relation highlights the increasing tension of the story.

The story begins with a young couple visiting the wife’s family in Malaysia: “It’s late in the day when we drive east from Kuala Lumpur in our rented Proton. (…) I turn to the passengers window. The shopping malls and housing estates are far behind us now (p.78).“ They leave a metropolitan area behind to drive to a more rural area in which the wife’s family lives: “We drive down the main street of the village under a swollen bruise-purple sky. It’s not even five o’clock, but all the shops have drawn their rollers. Their doors are plastered with talismans: yellow strips of paper, thick with black writing (p.79).“ “Shopping malls and housing estates“ (p.78) become “talismans“ (ibid.), thereby indicating a shift of scene which changes the atmosphere and the tone. This passage is highlighted by an incident: while driving there, the husband hits something on the road but does not bother to stop (cf. p. 78).

Within the story, various details are mentioned that increase the verisimilitude: “She [the mother] smells like imitation Chanel, just as she always did (p. 80) or “Behind a fly screen, the door of my parent’s bedroom is ajar. The smell of unwashed clothes wafts out. A swaddled shape slumps in the rattan armchair, facing the curtained window. It could be my father, it could be a mountain of blankets. I think about pushing the door open, bringing a basin of water, washing his gnarled hands – hands that lashed a bamboo cane, too many times, and drew bloody welts on my little legs. I step back, ashamed (p.83).“ This abundance of details, with special focus on smells, helps to place the reader within the story. One is drawn into the narrative, which is important for every fictional narrative but might be of special importance to narratives which have mysterious elements in it. Once one is drawn into it, one is readier to accept the mysterious elements.

Dreams play an important role in the narrative. While the first dream section (cf. p. 82) is relatively short, compared with the other passages, the dream sections become longer and its contents also has an effect on the waking life, but more about that later. In the first dream section, the wife encounters the girl who has been presumably murdered. At this point it is still possible to read the dream section as what it first appears to be: a dream with no bearing on reality. The second dream section, however, has an effect on reality and is much longer. In it, the narrator has a “amber bracelet“ (p. 87) on her arm which she tries to wash away the next day. Thus, the reader no longer has the option of reading the section as literal dream passages unless the reader is willing to concede that the narrator might be unreliable. In any case, the tension of the narrative increases because the dreams with their mysterious content become more prevalent.

In this blog post, I have shown that the setting of the narrative in the village is set apart from more metropolitan areas. Moreover, I have demonstrated that the focus on details increases the verisimilitude and thus helps to ground the reader in the narrative. Lastly, it was illustrated how dreams contribute to increase the tension.

Works Cited

Chan, Grace. Of Hunger and Fury in „Black Cranes – Tales of Unquiet Women“. ed. Lee Murray and Geneve Flynn. Omnium Gatherum Los Angeles CA: 2020

Dichotomy in “The Fall of the Jade Sword” and the reflection of hybrid identity experiences

Introductory notes

Hybrid identities often live in worlds full of dualities, worlds full of contrasts and opposites. Stephanie Lai’s short story The Fall of the Jade Sword (2017) tells the story of young Mok- Seung who spent her childhood in China but who has moved to a colonial Melbourne with her family. Her aunt and mother teach her at home, but Mok-Seung wants to explore; in the night, she sneaks out onto the rooftops and roams about the city. Meanwhile the tabloids follow the adventures of a new local superhero who they call the Jade Sword and report of the progress of colonization and its side effects. One day, Mok-Seung receives a visit from a family friend who reveals herself as the real Jade Sword and asks Mok-Seung to become her apprentice.

Relevant aspects of dichotomy

One aspect that quickly comes to mind when thinking about dichotomy in the story are the newspaper headlines recited throughout it. The Chinese broadsheets hung all over the teahouses and readers’ homes follow the good deeds of the Jade Sword, proudly claim them as one of their own, and as a master of wushu (for example p.125), while also reporting of the general good and the bad happening in the community. The Times, however, portrays the Jade Sword as a Western magical hero, a tall white man that assists the ‘civilized’ people of Melbourne (p.125). It twists things to paint a bad picture of the Chinese and Indigenous and describes them as wild and dangerous (p.130, 131). Moreover, it actively neglects to report of fates like those of the Chinese settlers attempting to return their loved ones’ bodies to their homeland but are being denied permission for transport (p.130); instead, it focuses on white deaths and white tragedies.

The overall theme of migration in Lai’s story brings more contrasting aspects into play: Mok-Seung sometimes thinks of her memories from “back home” (p.127), already implying that Melbourne does not feel like home in comparison. She also admits that she hopes something good will come out of their stay, since she does not quite understand why they moved in the first place (p.130). At home, she is taught in classical and traditional arts connected to her culture, including cultural knowledge and etiquette (p.132), and her family friends and relatives who moved to Australia as well seem firmly rooted in the culture they left behind (“Can Sin-Man is austere and serious, uninterested in what Australia has to offer […]”, p.127). Melbourne is portrayed as a fast-paced progressive city with flourishing steampunk-esque innovations like augmented bicycles, carriages fueled by steam, and airships (p.125), but it also contradicts its progressive reputation with its regressive thinking: deep-seated racism and discrimination issues. Public establishments are free and normalized to ban who they please from entering (“[…] pokes her head in every restaurant, every sporting club, every place that doesn’t have a sign over the door banning her entry.”, p.130) and Chinese settlers and indigenous people are deliberately blamed for setbacks of the white colonizers (p.125, 126). Still, the young girl is fascinated by the new technologies and wants to utilize them to explore the unknown (p.127).

Connected to that, Australia itself is also described as a dichotomous continent, being a mix of the colonized modern cityscapes that Mok-Seung knows and the ‘wild’ desert that she reads about in the news and wants to see for herself (p.131). This also flows over in Mok-Seung possessing a hybrid identity: she combines two heavily different cultural influences in herself due to having moved in some of her most formative years. Can Sin-Man notices how she not only knows the ‘old styles’, she is also able to adapt to new ones more easily and therefore has an advantage (p.132) since a warrior ought to be adaptable (p.133), which makes Mok-Seung a more than suitable apprentice for the Jade Sword.

Afterthoughts

Mok-Seung as a young first-generation settler to Australia experiences two contrasting cultures at once and unlike her older relatives, represents a transitional generation, being connected to her heritage while also open to and influenced by her new surroundings. She is not only influenced by her traditional upbringing and childhood in China, but also by the new impressions from Australia. This is clearly reflected in her surroundings in The Fall of the Jade Sword, with Melbourne representing technological progress and regressive way of thinking at the same time, as well as colonial civilization in contrast to the ‘wilderness’ outside the cities. Mok-Seung’s two worlds are mirrored and literally represented in two competing newspapers that respectively focus on mostly their own communities, instead of one newspaper reporting neutrally about Melbourne’s citizens as a whole.

Review: Across The Nightingale Floor

In the following, I will talk about Lian Hearn’s Across The Nightingale Floor, an Australian fantasy novel. You might wonder why Australian fantasy specifically? Why am I not saying it is a fantasy book?

There is a reason for that. In Australia, there is the Australian fantasy subgenre, which differentiates itself from the fantasy genre. The difference is not as obvious as an Australian author or the author writing their book in Australia. If this sparked your interest you want to read up on it, I suggest you check out John Ryan’s Reflections on an Australian Fantasy. Constructing the Impossible.

For this review, I will focus on Lian Hearn’s connection to Australia in this book and why it falls under the subgenre Australian fantasy. As mentioned, the story plays out in pseudo-medieval Japan. This sounds very confusing now but let me shed some light on the matter. Between Australia and Japan exists a literary tradition, which intel’s that the Japanese write about Australia and vice versa but that is not the only reason why her book falls under the subgenre of Australian fantasy. If you pay attention you can also find aspects of Australia in how Hearn describes her world. Specifically the description of nature.

Now after this short detour, let’s get into it.

Across The Nightingale Floor by Lean Hearn was first published in 2002 and is the first book of her Tales Of The Otori book series. We are introduced to a pseudo-medieval Japan called The Three Countries. Tomasu is the protagonist and belongs to a persecuted religious group called the Hidden. One day, he returns home and finds his village burning and his family killed. To escape their fate he runs away but runs into the horse of Iida Sadamu, a feared man across the three countries.

His men chase after Tomasu but luckily the mysterious Lord Otori Shigeru, who later adopts him and changes his name to Takeo saves him. On their journey, Takeo learns a lot about himself and his family. Eventually, he is sucked into a scheme with his adopted father, their clan and a secret society called the Tribe. The Tribe turns out to be a huge part of his destiny.

Check the book and the author out https://www.lianhearn.com/

Across The Nightingale Floor is full of mysteries, secrets, love, betrayal, suspense and so much more. If you are as attracted to any of this as much as I am, this is the book for you. In her own way, Hearn explores Japanese culture with this book and if you want to know more about it, you should visit her website, where she talks about the experience of writing about another culture and the difficulties that come along with it.

I honestly was not able to put the book down once I started reading. The experience was such an adventure and hence I was completely drawn into the story and the characters. I felt so many different emotions ranging from happiness, sadness to anger, and probably a lot more. A complete whirlwind.

I read the book as a part of a seminar from my university, and I was doubtful. My experience with good and enjoyable books assigned by school or university was slim. However, I will totally read them again and check out the other books of the series. I personally think that Lian Hearn’s writing has a lot to do with it. I often read books of authors, with amazing plots but the writing not doing it justice. That is not the case here at all. She has a way with words, which sucks you in completely. Sometimes I didn’t even feel like I was reading anymore but watching a movie. Sounds odd but it does happen to me sometimes with very good books. So, to wrap this up, I can only recommend this book. It was amazing.

Exploring Sexuality and Queerness in Australian Fantasy: Nevernight’s Mia

The Nevernight Chronicle by Australian author Jay Kristoff consists of the three novels Nevernight (2016), Godsgrave (2017), and Darkdawn (2019). The fantasy trilogy (which is very much not YA due to very graphic depictions of sex and violence) follows the story of Mia, who joins the Red Church, an order of assassins, in order to enact revenge upon the men who killed her family. What follows are a lot of plot twists and dark turns sprinkled with some romance on top. The novels break with a traditional writing style by adding ‘historical’, fun-fact-footnotes and overall sassy commentary. 

When I first read Nevernight at sixteen years old, I was, to be quite honest, a little taken aback by the protagonist Mia. In contrast to the many female protagonists speculative fiction offers now, she certainly defies a well-developed stereotype. Of course she does not stand alone, as for example Suzanne Collin’s Katniss clearly showcases, but there is still something special about Mia that I would like to bring to your attention. 

“You think I should have saved myself, is that it? That I’m some gift to be given? Now forever spoiled?” (Kristoff Nevernight 11)

As much as society has changed, female protagonists are still often bound to a very particular set of rules and norms. If we just take a look at the several Disney princesses, the moral is still the same: Female protagonists have to be obedient, sweet, controlled, and can generally only go on adventures if a capable man is at their side (Wheelan 176). Even though Disney may disguise it by putting a frying pan into their modern princess’ hands, the message is still the same (Brave being an exception here):

“[M]en have power and agency, women who are submissive and obedient are rewarded with marriage, and disobedient and powerful women are punished for their attempts to defy the patriarchal status quo” (Hohenstein 92).

The same pattern also occurs in literature time and time again; the most obvious example here Bella Swan from Twilight. Adolescent women’s bodies are still depicted as simultaneously dangerous and desirable, which results in their presentation as creatures who’s bodies and sexuality must be controlled by explicit as well as implicit rules (Day 75).

Kristoff, however, throws all of these stereotypes and demands over board with his protagonist Mia and offers girls and women another perspective on the female body. Mia defies pretty much every regulation ever put on the female protagonist: She is violent, aggressive, short-tempered, swears quite a lot, and her sexual encounters are openly displayed (If you are in search of more characters like Mia, I suggest Korra from The Legend of Korra or Lyra from His Dark Materials). The exploration of her desires is no longer bound to warnings or eventual backlash of (sexual) empowerment (Day 75).

The take on a teenage girl having sex for the first time is emphasised clearly, as the scene is paralleled with her first murder in order to symbolise a loss of innocence in two ways (Kristoff Nevernight 5-11). Right from the start, the reader notices that Mia has conviction and agency, which allows her to decide for herself when it is time to have sex. Furthermore, the narrative makes no heightened fuss about the decision, quite the reverse; it is depicted as the most normal thing.

The importance of this representation is the lack of fetishisation of female purity and the social construct of virginity. If you need an example, just look at Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina; the whole four seasons are essentially about when Sabrina will finally lose her well-guarded virginity. Does any woman need this narrative in 2021? No.

Mia defies society’s expectation and demands by choosing her first time to be with a sweetboy (aka sex worker) – which sixteen year old does that? Mia, because she chose to do so. And no, this does not promote teenagers to go for sex workers, but the importance of choice. Her actions clearly illustrate how her sexual encounters cannot and should not be controlled by society, because these rules and regulations do not apply to her, as it is her choice alone. The emphasis on choice is very reminiscent of Arya Stark and her first sexual encounter in Game of Thrones, who just like Mia breaks free from gender roles and the boundaries that come with it.

Why is this relevant? Because Jay Kristoff’s trilogy allows women to have physical agency, to experience desire and act on it without being vilified like in the femme fatale trope – sex is no longer a taboo topic. Moreover, the overcoming of this cultural conditioning enables girls to gain power necessary to “become women, leaders, and heroes” (Day 76).

“[…] I thought about my life and where it’d been steered and understood I’d never really had a say in any of it. And I wanted something that could just be mine. My choice. […] So I chose her.” (Kristoff  Darkdawn 267)

Just as Kristoff resists the convention regarding the depiction of the body, he also explores the queerness of his protagonist in Godsgrave and the following novel. While there is no limitation to what authors can write about, but there is certainly a risk of getting it wrong whenever straight people decide to elaborate on these relationships.

While we are certainly seeing an increased portrayal of queer characters in several forms of media, it is still far away from the norm, especially when it comes to protagonists. More often than we like to acknowledge, queer representation is reserved for the side characters with minimum importance who ultimately die. This can get easily problematic when the only queer characters simply serve no other purpose than being killed off.

When looking at queer representation and canon relationships in other media, one will notice their high mortality rate and tendency for the very contrast to a happy ending. Prime examples for that are The 100, Holby City, Flores Raras and several others; the list is quite long. The message behind such storylines is quite simple: Queer relationships should not be treated equally, because they cannot be maintained either way. Another issue which just came up again is the erasure of queer representation in, again, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina: A queer relationship was suddenly turned back into a heterosexual one, because one woman was apparently a man in disguise. Portraying same-sex relationships seems awfully difficult, even though it is not, as Kristoff’s novels clearly showcase.

Mia underlines how queer representation is done right. When she falls for Ashlinn, who previously murdered her boyfriend Tric (Kristoff Nevernight 369), the arising controversy is not caused by their gender, but by Ashlinn’s previous deeds. Tric, when coming back from the dead, is highly disappointed in Mia and feels betrayed, but Mia remains true to her feelings and shuts any attempts of Tric getting back together with her down (Kristoff Darkdawn 266f.). Thereby Kristoff also lets go of the overdone love triangle trope and allows the readers to experience actual (satisfying) queer representation.

Even though he apparently does not believe in happy endings, Mia and Ashlinn do get one in a broader sense (they die, but then come back like Tric and get to spend the rest of their undead existence together; it is complicated). When taking the other queer relationship of Mia’s father into consideration who died for his affections for his lover, it is extremely important to balance these two events out. Because of that and Mia’s refusal to get back together with Tric, the queer narrative serves to normalise these relationships and stack them up as equally valid, important, and well rounded.

In addition to that, great successes like the Nevernight Chronicle help to spread more awareness of queer relationships and the support that is so desperately needed. Storylines like one mentioned from Chilling Adventures of Sabrina only add to the vilification and avoidance of the LGBTQ+ community and narratives, even if it was not intended. When portraying marginalised groups, ignorance is no longer tolerable, which is why it is crucial to put thought into the narrative presented to the audiences. 

Works Cited 

Day, Sara K. “Sexual Awakening and Social Resistance in Young Adult Dystopian Novels” Female Rebellion in Young Adult Dystopian Fiction, by Sarah K Day. et al. Ashgate, 2014. E-Book, pp. 75-94.

Hohenstein, Svenja. Girl Warriors. Feminist Revisions of the Hero’s Quest in Contemporary Popular Culture. MacFarland & Company, 2019. E-Book.

Kristoff, Jay. Darkdawn. HarperVoyager, 2019. 

Kristoff, Jay. Nevernight. HarperVoyager, 2016.

Whelan, Bridget. “Power to the Princess: Disney and the Creation of the Twentieth-Century Princess Narrative.” Kidding Around. The Child in Film and Media, edited by Alexander N. Howe und Wynn Yarbrough. Bloomsbury, 2014, pp. 167-192.