N.K Jemison’s The
Fifth Season takes place on the Stillness, an earthlike, rather unstable
world prone to natural disaster. The planet is host to stone eaters, sapient
but inhuman beings, as well as humans of both the normal and orogenic variety. Though
the orogenes of N.K. Jemison’s The Fifth
Season are immensely powerful, able to move the earth and freeze those
around them, they suffer under the yoke of systemic oppression.
Orogeny is a mysterious, powerful ability. As explained by
the guardian Schaffa, Misalem, an Orogene of approximately fifth ring ability
out of ten, was long ago able to “kill every living soul in several towns and
cities” (89). It is natural for humans to fear power that they cannot
understand, and this ancient orogene’s supposed rampage caused the formation of
a power structure designed expressly to bring orogenic forces under the rigid
control of those without the ability.
Key to this oppression was the formation of the Fulcrum and
creation of the Guardians, orogenically blooded individuals who undergo surgery
and special training to enhance their ability to counter the use of orogeny.
The present Fulcrum both breeds orogenes and picks up strays from across the
Stillness, as Damaya found when her fearful mother practically forced her into
Schaffa’s hands (29). To the Fulcrum, the orogenes are essentially tools. They
are indoctrinated in Fulcrum classes with a set of ideals that holds them to be
weapons, and taught that they are not human (297). The orogenes’ existence in
this separate society, at all times reminded of how different, destructive, and
inhuman they are, serves as a great hindrance to any attempt at changing the
status quo. After all, if the orogenes believe themselves to be such a
destructive force, it becomes harder for themselves to envision integration
with the rest of humanity. When Alabaster remarks that they “could try letting
orogenes run things” (124), Syenite is immediately dismissive.
Of course, oppression of a group such as the orogenes also
reaches in the other direction, deeply affecting those supposedly in society’s
favor and unoppressed. As Alabaster states soon after his remark, “They kill us
because they’ve got stonelore telling them at every turn that we’re born evil”
(124). When orogenes are discovered in a
village, the citizens panic, and when Essun’s husband Jija is confronted with
evidence of his son’s orogeny, he beats him to death (21). Jija is well-liked
by everyone in his community (15) – a good man. The same can likely be said of
the many other inhabitants of the panicking comm, caught up in a mob and
stewing in their mutual hatred of orogenic power they cannot understand. As
Essun states, “The kind of hate that can make a man murder his own son? It
[comes] from everyone around you” (57). Such is the nature insidious nature of
systemic oppression – it is so deeply entrenched that even the normal populace
lynches and drives away orogenes with the same willingness that the Guardians,
a police force tasked specifically with the oppression of orogenes, do so.
The Stills in The Fifth Season have a vast amount of control over the oregenes. You touched on a lot of systemic reasons why this is the case, specifically the Fulcrums ability to convince oregene’s that they are monsters, but there is a specific institution that directly controls the ways oregens act. This is the ring system. Jemisin writes “if a Guardian has doubts about an orogene’s willingness to follow the rules, that orogene doesn’t make it to the first ring” (Jemisin 63-64). The amount of rings an oregene has isn’t really dependent on ability but rather control. It’s reiterated over and over again that oregenes are born with an immense amount of power, a common phrase being oregenes can move mountains from birth. The amount of rings an oregene has has nothing to do with their power, but rather their control. An orogene is judged by other oregenes based on how many rings they have and can be killed off if they prove they’re unwilling to follow the Fulcrum rules. The oregenes then become so focused on moving up in the ring system, proving how “powerful” they are, that they follow everything the Guardians want. It’s the most effective way to make them comply, by not forcing them to, but rather convince them that it’s their goal to.
ReplyDeleteI think it’s important to point out that biases are learned and not inherent. The reason that orogenes are feared is because all of the negative things said about them are taught generation after generation, even if they aren’t true. The stonelore that is taught in the different comms teaches stills that they should be afraid of orogenes because they are inherently evil, but Alabaster mentions that “stonelore changes all the time […] Every civilization adds to it; parts that don’t matter to the people of the time are forgotten” (124-125). Even stereotypes that aren’t especially harmful are perpetuated; when Damaya’s parents realize that she is an orogene, they put her in the barn and give away her coat because they’d “heard that orogenes don’t feel cold the way others do” (31). The fact that these stereotypes and misconceptions about orogenes aren’t challenged season after season lends to the hatred of orogenes and the acceptance of violence towards them. When Jija killed his own son due to his orogeny, the other inhabitants of Tirimo approved of his actions because they were concerned for their own safety. However, the orogenes’ ability to quell shakes is what saved the comm from the effects of what was the beginning of a new season. The oppression and murdering of orogenes is not only counterintuitive because they can do so much to help the stills, but also because stills don’t make an effort to understand orogenes and simply accept the stereotypes and stonelore as true.
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