Virtue and virtue-signaling in science fiction & fantasy, Part III: The rise of Seth Dickinson
And we're back. I've been putting off the Seth Dickinson critiques because I have so much to say about the Baru Cormorant novels. I think the way to do this is to split this into two separate posts. This week, I'll address how the first book, The Traitor Baru Cormorant, avoids the pitfalls of virtue-signaling to work as a fascinating social commentary, and then next week, barring more distractions/procrastination, I'll do the next part, and address how the second novel-- The Monster Baru Cormorant-- missed the mark.
In Part II of Virtue and virtue-signaling in science fiction & fantasy, I tried to define my terms in some semi-coherent way, and provide an example of a modern author who avoids the pitfalls of virtue-signaling. I defined virtue-signaling as writing in such a way as to demonstrate one's personal social, economic or political virtue, or to cater to an audience that requires it. Thus, to write in such a way that avoids virtue-signaling is to write in a way that may incidentally demonstrate virtue, but that serves another purpose. My example was Nnedi Okorafor's Binti series, which addresses issues of race and gender, not for the sake of showing how good and pure Okorafor is, but to present a perspective in science fiction that is often not presented, and to do so in an interesting way. Okorafor, while not my favorite author, falls clearly in the tradition of Le Guin and Butler as not being a virtue-signaling author. She has a purpose.
Seth Dickinson, though. I sort of have a love/hate relationship with his books. I reference them periodically, and I wholeheartedly recommend the first Baru Cormorant novel, but I've spent weeks trying to figure out the best way to say exactly why I found the second novel so exasperating. Nevertheless, as I indicated in last week's post on "bad faith readers," I also think that some of what constrains writers like Dickinson is the fear of reaction from bad faith readers, and how that can sometimes require virtue-signaling. Hence, the more I thought about it, the more sympathy I had for Dickinson. Hence, more dithering. However, the contrast between how deftly the first book avoids the pitfalls of virtue-signaling and how completely the second book falls into that pit still leaves me unsatisfied. Hence... a two-parter, within a multi-part series of posts of self-indulgent nonsense. 'Cuz.
So let's get into The Traitor Baru Cormorant. Here's the set-up. The world is a vaguely fantasy-ish place in which the central rising power is the Falcrest Empire, which goes around the world taking over places more through cultural and economic domination than military might. Falcrest's merchants, and most importantly Cairdine Farrier, arrive on an island called Taranoke, to find a young genius-- Baru. Farrier is not just some merchant, though. He is actually "Itinerant," one of the "cryptarchs." Falcrest has a faceless emperor, supposedly, but really, there is no emperor. Falcrest is ruled by secret people who pull strings behind the scenes. Cryptarchs. One of them travels around. 'Cuz. That's Itinerant. He finds Baru, and decides to groom her as a potential cryptarch herself. First, though, she has to go to Aurdwynn, which is nominally under Falcrest's dominion, pretend to lead a rebellion against Falcrest, and then turn on them, just to show the futility of trying to fight Falcrest. That's Book 1, in short. It is absolutely brutal.
Like so much of science fiction and fantasy, the Baru Cormorant novels are political analogies. Falcrest is a critique of, if not specifically America, then at least Western culture and its political, economic and cultural influence around the world. More specifically, though, Falcrest is a sort of extreme right-wing, funhouse mirror version of America. It is vehemently anti-LGBTQ, racist to the point of eugenicist, and it hides its imperialist ambitions behind the trappings of capitalism, which is merely a vehicle for international control. Gee... do you get a sense of Dickinson's politics?
Amazingly enough, a book with a set-up like that avoids virtue-signaling! Yes, really!
How can a book like this work without falling prey to virtue-signaling? Dickinson is preaching from the mountaintops, right? That's not the determining factor. Okorafor did that. Le Guin, Butler... my favorite, Jemisin! Plenty of authors who handle normative political and economic questions write from ideological perspectives. Virtue-signaling means writing in such a way as to say, "hey, aren't you impressed with how pure I, Seth Dickinson am?" Avoiding that means either being unconcerned with such things, or better yet, taking risks and subverting tropes in ways that might give bad faith readers on the PC side ammunition. That's what Dickinson did in the first book, and failed to do in the second.
The first book works effectively as an almost nihilistic, or at least misanthropic book, partially because while Falcrest is clearly a critique of America/western civilization, Aurdwynn-- the place Farrier sends Baru to foment and then put down revolution-- isn't anything. It reads like a sort of generic, pre-industrial, vaguely European conglomeration of different places sharing a big hunk of land, but Aurdwynn doesn't read either as "the good guys," nor as anyone in particular. There aren't many good guys anyway, save for the romantic hero of the book, Tain Hu. Obviously, she has to die horribly, because Baru is just the worst. Mostly, though, The Traitor Baru Cormorant is a misanthropic book about vile people, doing vile things. And also Tain Hu, but she dies, because everyone else is horrible.
That point is going to be vital when we compare The Traitor Baru Cormorant to The Monster Baru Cormorant.
Next, though, consider Baru herself. The first big, obvious point about her is that she's gay. There are a variety of ways for authors to handle characters who are oppressed minorities. There's tokenism, which is a problem. As the main character of the book, that's not happening. There's stereotyping, and there's trying to make the character unrealistically perfect. Inhuman.
Well, Baru is kind of the villain, although you don't really get that until the twist at the end. So, Baru as LGBTQ model/hero/whatever? Yeah, that's not something of which you could accuse Dickinson. If an author did choose to make every oppressed minority character that, it could be virtue-signaling! (Watch this space, for when we get to The Monster Baru Cormorant, next week!) But, part of what was so interesting was how Dickinson went about treating Baru. She was not just morally flawed, but the villain, which you don't fully appreciate until the end!
And here's where it gets even more complex, because there are certain tropes about the villainous, gay woman, but Baru doesn't fit any of them. Sharon Stone's character from Basic Instinct is a famous/notorious example, not just for that scene, but because the character played to a stereotype about a villainous, non-heterosexual woman. Aggressively and manipulatively promiscuous.
If Dickinson wasn't going to make Baru a heroic, model-type character, the villainous stereotype is the Sharon Stone character from Basic Instinct. Baru is the opposite of that. Stoic to the point of self-denying, for a variety of reasons. Don't avoid the trope, subvert it. That's subversive writing.
And then there's Tain Hu-- the romantic hero. Tain Hu is Baru's... sure, let's say, lover. If there is anyone admirable in the book, it's Tain Hu. Hu winds up, not just Baru's lover, but her general in the revolution. Once the revolution is quashed, Falcrest captures Hu and chains her to some rocks as the tide comes in. They expect Baru to beg for Hu's life. The plan was to spare Hu, and then hold her as a hostage, using Tain Hu's life as leverage to keep Baru under control. Falcrest is just evil. Instead, because Baru is a cold-blooded psycho, she watches as Tain Hu dies when the tide comes in, then asks what's for breakfast?
Baru is cold.
So, tropes. "Bury your gays," and, "fridging," Is Dickinson guilty of the "bury your gays" trope, where gay characters die, just 'cuz? See, for example, the death of Tara at the end of Season 6 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (I love Joss Whedon, but...) Is Dickinson guilty here? A bad faith reader could levy the accusation! But... no! The point is that Baru let her die! That's subverting the trope in a way that also avoids virtue-signaling because the guilty character is the gay main character who doesn't fit any of the stereotypes for gay villains.
Add in fridging, where you kill the main character's love interest as a motivator for the main character. Big no-no in PC-land. Dickinson killed Tain Hu, and the bad faith reader could scream and yell about that. Is Dickinson guilty of that? Nope. Baru was complicit. Reversal. But look how Dickinson brazenly told the readers, nope, I'm not going to write your warm and fuzzy story where these events don't happen just 'cuz you've put names on them! I dare you to say something!
Think of how perfectly composed this is, from the perspective of trope reversal. If you write down every trope that gets the virtue crowd riled up, Dickinson did it! But, he did it in such a way as to flip everything on its end and subvert your expectations. So, the hollowness of anyone accusing him of "burying his gays" would be exposed immediately.
Even though he did it! He fridged Tain Hu! Tain Hu is dead in that fridge! But, Dickinson did it so masterfully that there is no basis for any real complaint.
Of course, as I pointed out last week, a bad faith reader can always complain, and that's the point. But, The Traitor Baru Cormorant works so well in part because it subverts every trope. It doesn't avoid them. It actually uses them, against themselves. That's risky writing. One thing it's not, though, is virtue-signaling. When you bury your gays, and fridge the love interest, with a main character who is a psychopathically evil woman who is not heterosexual, you're not writing a virtue-signaling book. In fact, it's amazing that he pulled that off without coming across as being as anti-LGBTQ as Falcrest itself.
Well done on that one, Seth. Well done.
That was the time to stop writing. Next week, Part IV, or, why The Monster Baru Cormorant failed in every way that The Traitor Baru Cormorant succeeded.
In Part II of Virtue and virtue-signaling in science fiction & fantasy, I tried to define my terms in some semi-coherent way, and provide an example of a modern author who avoids the pitfalls of virtue-signaling. I defined virtue-signaling as writing in such a way as to demonstrate one's personal social, economic or political virtue, or to cater to an audience that requires it. Thus, to write in such a way that avoids virtue-signaling is to write in a way that may incidentally demonstrate virtue, but that serves another purpose. My example was Nnedi Okorafor's Binti series, which addresses issues of race and gender, not for the sake of showing how good and pure Okorafor is, but to present a perspective in science fiction that is often not presented, and to do so in an interesting way. Okorafor, while not my favorite author, falls clearly in the tradition of Le Guin and Butler as not being a virtue-signaling author. She has a purpose.
Seth Dickinson, though. I sort of have a love/hate relationship with his books. I reference them periodically, and I wholeheartedly recommend the first Baru Cormorant novel, but I've spent weeks trying to figure out the best way to say exactly why I found the second novel so exasperating. Nevertheless, as I indicated in last week's post on "bad faith readers," I also think that some of what constrains writers like Dickinson is the fear of reaction from bad faith readers, and how that can sometimes require virtue-signaling. Hence, the more I thought about it, the more sympathy I had for Dickinson. Hence, more dithering. However, the contrast between how deftly the first book avoids the pitfalls of virtue-signaling and how completely the second book falls into that pit still leaves me unsatisfied. Hence... a two-parter, within a multi-part series of posts of self-indulgent nonsense. 'Cuz.
So let's get into The Traitor Baru Cormorant. Here's the set-up. The world is a vaguely fantasy-ish place in which the central rising power is the Falcrest Empire, which goes around the world taking over places more through cultural and economic domination than military might. Falcrest's merchants, and most importantly Cairdine Farrier, arrive on an island called Taranoke, to find a young genius-- Baru. Farrier is not just some merchant, though. He is actually "Itinerant," one of the "cryptarchs." Falcrest has a faceless emperor, supposedly, but really, there is no emperor. Falcrest is ruled by secret people who pull strings behind the scenes. Cryptarchs. One of them travels around. 'Cuz. That's Itinerant. He finds Baru, and decides to groom her as a potential cryptarch herself. First, though, she has to go to Aurdwynn, which is nominally under Falcrest's dominion, pretend to lead a rebellion against Falcrest, and then turn on them, just to show the futility of trying to fight Falcrest. That's Book 1, in short. It is absolutely brutal.
Like so much of science fiction and fantasy, the Baru Cormorant novels are political analogies. Falcrest is a critique of, if not specifically America, then at least Western culture and its political, economic and cultural influence around the world. More specifically, though, Falcrest is a sort of extreme right-wing, funhouse mirror version of America. It is vehemently anti-LGBTQ, racist to the point of eugenicist, and it hides its imperialist ambitions behind the trappings of capitalism, which is merely a vehicle for international control. Gee... do you get a sense of Dickinson's politics?
Amazingly enough, a book with a set-up like that avoids virtue-signaling! Yes, really!
How can a book like this work without falling prey to virtue-signaling? Dickinson is preaching from the mountaintops, right? That's not the determining factor. Okorafor did that. Le Guin, Butler... my favorite, Jemisin! Plenty of authors who handle normative political and economic questions write from ideological perspectives. Virtue-signaling means writing in such a way as to say, "hey, aren't you impressed with how pure I, Seth Dickinson am?" Avoiding that means either being unconcerned with such things, or better yet, taking risks and subverting tropes in ways that might give bad faith readers on the PC side ammunition. That's what Dickinson did in the first book, and failed to do in the second.
The first book works effectively as an almost nihilistic, or at least misanthropic book, partially because while Falcrest is clearly a critique of America/western civilization, Aurdwynn-- the place Farrier sends Baru to foment and then put down revolution-- isn't anything. It reads like a sort of generic, pre-industrial, vaguely European conglomeration of different places sharing a big hunk of land, but Aurdwynn doesn't read either as "the good guys," nor as anyone in particular. There aren't many good guys anyway, save for the romantic hero of the book, Tain Hu. Obviously, she has to die horribly, because Baru is just the worst. Mostly, though, The Traitor Baru Cormorant is a misanthropic book about vile people, doing vile things. And also Tain Hu, but she dies, because everyone else is horrible.
That point is going to be vital when we compare The Traitor Baru Cormorant to The Monster Baru Cormorant.
Next, though, consider Baru herself. The first big, obvious point about her is that she's gay. There are a variety of ways for authors to handle characters who are oppressed minorities. There's tokenism, which is a problem. As the main character of the book, that's not happening. There's stereotyping, and there's trying to make the character unrealistically perfect. Inhuman.
Well, Baru is kind of the villain, although you don't really get that until the twist at the end. So, Baru as LGBTQ model/hero/whatever? Yeah, that's not something of which you could accuse Dickinson. If an author did choose to make every oppressed minority character that, it could be virtue-signaling! (Watch this space, for when we get to The Monster Baru Cormorant, next week!) But, part of what was so interesting was how Dickinson went about treating Baru. She was not just morally flawed, but the villain, which you don't fully appreciate until the end!
And here's where it gets even more complex, because there are certain tropes about the villainous, gay woman, but Baru doesn't fit any of them. Sharon Stone's character from Basic Instinct is a famous/notorious example, not just for that scene, but because the character played to a stereotype about a villainous, non-heterosexual woman. Aggressively and manipulatively promiscuous.
If Dickinson wasn't going to make Baru a heroic, model-type character, the villainous stereotype is the Sharon Stone character from Basic Instinct. Baru is the opposite of that. Stoic to the point of self-denying, for a variety of reasons. Don't avoid the trope, subvert it. That's subversive writing.
And then there's Tain Hu-- the romantic hero. Tain Hu is Baru's... sure, let's say, lover. If there is anyone admirable in the book, it's Tain Hu. Hu winds up, not just Baru's lover, but her general in the revolution. Once the revolution is quashed, Falcrest captures Hu and chains her to some rocks as the tide comes in. They expect Baru to beg for Hu's life. The plan was to spare Hu, and then hold her as a hostage, using Tain Hu's life as leverage to keep Baru under control. Falcrest is just evil. Instead, because Baru is a cold-blooded psycho, she watches as Tain Hu dies when the tide comes in, then asks what's for breakfast?
Baru is cold.
So, tropes. "Bury your gays," and, "fridging," Is Dickinson guilty of the "bury your gays" trope, where gay characters die, just 'cuz? See, for example, the death of Tara at the end of Season 6 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (I love Joss Whedon, but...) Is Dickinson guilty here? A bad faith reader could levy the accusation! But... no! The point is that Baru let her die! That's subverting the trope in a way that also avoids virtue-signaling because the guilty character is the gay main character who doesn't fit any of the stereotypes for gay villains.
Add in fridging, where you kill the main character's love interest as a motivator for the main character. Big no-no in PC-land. Dickinson killed Tain Hu, and the bad faith reader could scream and yell about that. Is Dickinson guilty of that? Nope. Baru was complicit. Reversal. But look how Dickinson brazenly told the readers, nope, I'm not going to write your warm and fuzzy story where these events don't happen just 'cuz you've put names on them! I dare you to say something!
Think of how perfectly composed this is, from the perspective of trope reversal. If you write down every trope that gets the virtue crowd riled up, Dickinson did it! But, he did it in such a way as to flip everything on its end and subvert your expectations. So, the hollowness of anyone accusing him of "burying his gays" would be exposed immediately.
Even though he did it! He fridged Tain Hu! Tain Hu is dead in that fridge! But, Dickinson did it so masterfully that there is no basis for any real complaint.
Of course, as I pointed out last week, a bad faith reader can always complain, and that's the point. But, The Traitor Baru Cormorant works so well in part because it subverts every trope. It doesn't avoid them. It actually uses them, against themselves. That's risky writing. One thing it's not, though, is virtue-signaling. When you bury your gays, and fridge the love interest, with a main character who is a psychopathically evil woman who is not heterosexual, you're not writing a virtue-signaling book. In fact, it's amazing that he pulled that off without coming across as being as anti-LGBTQ as Falcrest itself.
Well done on that one, Seth. Well done.
That was the time to stop writing. Next week, Part IV, or, why The Monster Baru Cormorant failed in every way that The Traitor Baru Cormorant succeeded.
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