#but yes! this is the diegetic- for lack of better word- reason for this blog's limited palette!

[gimmighoulcoins]

Hestau, if you don’t mind my asking, would you happen to be colorblind?

"Am I? I dunno, how'd I know?"

"I have an idea. Have you seen pawniard other than me before?"

"Yeah, yeah, at least a dozen or so. Bisharp, too. I've gone close enough to the bamboo forest to see into it before. Why?"

"What color were they?"

"...The same as you?"

"You're colorblind then. I'm blue, most other pawniard are red. There's no way you've only seen blue pawniard."

"You are?"

[@inaris-pokemon-world]

[thereadingmoon]

Traci Chee’s A Sea of Ink and Gold: What Could’ve Been Better

In the first part of this review of a Sea of Ink and Gold, I’ve extolled its virtues as a series that manages to wrangle in a dozen stories together while managing to maximize its medium as a book to tell a story about the magic of reading with an inclusive cast to boot. Really, I find that it’s an amazing feat for a debut writer to pull through.

But also said in my last post, I did have a few grievances with it. Every story has its flaws, and that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily bad. It just means that they’re as human as the writers who make them.

Despite it being a wonderful story, I personally found a few things to nitpick about: an issue with the lack of worldbuilding, and the later benching of a large fraction of the cast.

One thing that I didn’t like in the worldbuilding of this book is something I haven't found a formal name for. I’ve come to call it non-ethnic diversity. I call it that because, yes, there are people of color at the forefront of this cast; but they have no inherent culture behind them, and there is no context to the cities, jungles, or societies they live in.

Characters are race-coded through descriptions of their appearance, but their societies are vaguely described besides explaining how they function with the lack of the written word, the effects and views of the transnational war, and the strings the Guard pulls in the Five Kingdoms of Kelanna. It also didn’t sit well when mentions of ruffly dresses worn by women and girls, streamlined military uniforms (translated into my mind’s eye as Napoleonic or Continental blues and reds), and individualistic outlooks in life (see: the need to leave a legacy) painted the setting as inherently western.

If you were to look at the map of Kelanna, you’d see that it’s a vast world. I find it a missed opportunity to even briefly mention the cultures of each nation and how distinct they are in a world rich with interesting worldbuilding that’s built on an intriguing concept.

The fantasy genre is somewhat infamous for it’s stereotypical and even racist allusions when it comes to fictional species/races. Warmongering "savage" races hit all the stereotypes and descriptions of indigenous or African peoples. Countries that are covertly Asian-leaning in culture always seem to be sneaky and manipulative. More often than not, the superior warriors and peaceful elves or fae are depicted white, or at least fair-colored. This uninspired and lazy race-allusion is not what I hope this series to have achieved.

Instead of assimilating real-world races into a fantasy setting, why not create a fantastic culture? Let's look at another modern Fantasy series, A Darker Shade of Magic. V.E. Schwab sets an alternate London in a country that’s inspired by Euroasian culture, where locals speak a language loosely derived from Turkish. The locals are tanned with dark hair, and their culture and values are implicitly explained throughout the series. What’s more, in the second book, the foreign cultures that are ushered into the story aren’t stand-ins for real-life ethnic groups. Sure, they were inspired by aspects from reality, but I personally found it something unique in that series: these cultures were distinct to the world of Red London, and can only be contextualized by the series itself and not real-world biases.

That is what I wanted in Kelanna, and what would’ve fleshed it out more as a world. Yes, there are people of color in this book. Yes, this is great in the terms of inclusivity and diversity in the Fantasy and YA genre. But in my opinion, the non-ethnic diversity takes away from the worldbuilding as well as an opportunity to flesh out the Five Kingdoms and the characters that inhabit it.

Another thing about the characters: some would say that the vast cast of Sea of Ink and Gold is an example of baiting or pandering the people of those communities by creating characters that are meant to represent them, only to be later discarded from the story and the plot. I would say that too. In fact, I am saying that.

I am so happy that books are becoming a platform of representation, most of all young adult fiction, which is fiction aimed at people who are still looking for their identity or for affirmation of their identity. But I found it absolutely jarring that there was a build-up of intimacy between we the readers and the merry misfits of the bloodletters—  the kidnapped children turned impromptu army. We read into their rapport and sympathize with their stories. We listen to the bloodletters speak of how they were kidnapped and turned into murderers in the quest to fulfill a prophecy. They revel in their atypicality, their uniqueness, and their strangeness.

Then, later, they are a collective group, almost only exclusively referred to as a unit. I can barely remember any of their individual names, and I can only categorize them through what makes them different. They are defined not as people, but what group they’re meant to represent. The only times a character is distinguished is if they become a plot point, if they need saving, or if they die.

This is a pattern: we are introduced to the intricacies to a person, but soon they are benched and put to the sidelines. From the extensively inclusive cast who aren’t Safia and Archer, only a handful was fully fleshed out as people and given character arcs to develop in. Everyone else becomes background characters and is briefly mentioned in passing. They simply slip right off the page.

Though that may be the point. Identities and people don’t need to have meaning. But one must remember that when writing a story, all things that are mentioned must have a purpose according to the principle of Chekhov’s Gun. Setup must have a reason and must follow through with a purpose. In Sea of Ink and Gold, there is little utilization of the liberal details we’re given of each individual throughout the story, and the characters become mere labels to glance over.

In writing a story, some things can only be cut out because of their irrelevance, or they can at the very least be briefly or implicitly stated through showing and not telling. Adeline and Isabelle's relationship in the book is heavily implied through their affection and loyalty with one another, but their love doesn't need any confirmation because it's blatantly clear.

That's not to say that the canonization of character traits like gender, sex, and neurodiversity shouldn't be done. But like more common character traits, I believe that there are more diegetic and natural ways to have them revealed other than jarring, jagged word-of-god narration that details the nuances of someone's identity. I've found this done in the book The First Sister, by Linden A. Lewis. There, a person's sexuality and gender are referred to glibly, and the pronoun "they" was used with little over-contextualization. Only once was there a very brief and in-character exchange referring to the gender of the character.

In a Sea of Ink and Gold, the characterization of Aljan is one such example of this. His neurodivergent behavior is deliberately noted in narration but never directly referred to. Some of his habits are offhandedly mentioned through dialogue in a way that alludes to the bloodletters' familiarity and acceptance, but it was never something that we've brushed by on an intimate level because it wasn't something relevant to the plot. What was important was Aljan's character as a whole.

I understand that not all characters can have this treatment. I personally think one pitfall of a Sea of Ink and Gold is the size of the cast and the number of plotlines that are forced to come together. In the quest to weave how many plotlines together, some characters are pushed back and forgotten, arcs falling weak or forgotten entirely. This may draw back from the story, but it doesn’t remove what good this series has in it.

A Sea of Ink and Gold is many things. It’s a magical work of fiction that I still encourage anyone who loves books and fantasy to read. It was ambitious, if not cliched, and it’s no reason to swear to never read the series out of spite. If this is Traci Chee’s debut, I only shudder to think what she’ll come up with next.

Want to see more essays like this? Check out my blog’s masterlist for more hot takes or book recommendations.