Yes, I am back on my adulation of the Books of the Raksura series by Martha Wells. This is an expansion of a tumblr post I wrote while listening to the audio book for The Harbors of the Sun. While I was listening to it, something struck me as being extremely stealth-funny. This would be the way that the Kishan are Absolutely Dumbfounded that the Raksura can think strategically. The idea that the Raksuran warriors were driving the Fell into Kishan artillery installments deliberately seemed to cause instant worldview.exe errors and bluescreens of death. (Much to the exasperation of the Raksura and the Kishans who had actually worked with and fought beside them.)
Now, to be fair, the Kishans are more used to Fell, who I suspect are–unlike many other cultures that Kishan’s might think of as “warlike barbarians” who engage in Steal Everything Not Tied Down activities. The Fell are absolutely terrible at strategy. Or more accurately they have one (1) strategy and they do not deviate from it: “Use mind control to make the groundlings let us in so we can eat them while wearing their underwear.” <==Yes, they do a great deal of damage and they’ve wiped out communities and civilizations with this method but they only have one hunting strategy and have very little ability to innovate due to the entire top-down authoritarian mind control and possible generational trauma. And the Kishan military and defensive counter measures are all designed to fend off this one strategy that generally doesn’t have many variations.
It’s very clear that the Kishans have some very strong biases that get in the way of their ability to interact when they meet the Raksura. They make a number of incorrect assumptions based on their biases and however they have been interpreting Fell actions. The Kishans do not have a clear idea of Fell motivations, and this shows in the way they question Moon and the other Raksura, who they can’t differentiate from Fell.
(Note: what I mean by an “unclear idea of motivations” is that their questioning seemed to assume that Fell motivations involve invasion–in the sense of taking over/conquering territory/taking over resources. This isn’t quite the case. The Fell are nomadic and have to keep on the move in order to not starve–but that’s what the Kishans appear to have extrapolated. Or at least, that’s my headcanon.)
The Kishans are bigoted, and despite the empire being made up of many different species that get along, they are deeply hostile toward the Raksura, who look a little too much like the Fell. They do make some effort to be fair, but it’s clearly a struggle for them to understand that Raksura (and Fell) are actually people, and further, very different species, despite being related.
I liked the way this was handled. Wells shows that the Kishans are reacting out of intense fear and ignorance. She also shows Kishans who are honestly trying to help, and others who think they’re helping but are not, and Kishans who are just plain idiots. This is far from a sympathetic portrayal however. You can almost visualize the narrative rolling its eyes as it describes some of shocks the Kishans are experiencing as the Raksurans continuously fail to behave like the completely different though related species they are used fighting. (Or, refusing to act like their idea of what the related species–the Fell–are like.)
The Kishans in general don’t seem ready or able to differentiate between Raksura and the Fell. They refer to the Raksura as “brightly colored Fell,” for instance. At the same time they are trying so agonizingly hard to be both fair and to hold people responsible for their actions. They also attempt to provide legal defense for Moon–which Moon rightfully does not trust as the “legal defense” won’t even talk directly to him.
The end of Harbors of the Sun is basically a combination of court procedural, a little bit of “case fic” with a lot of First Contact themes and interactions. (The First Contact feel is very much in the diplomatic interactions and the wizard/scholar-type who is acting as Moon’s host /warden asking questions about the Raksura and Moon’s position and rank.) Ceilinel is a sympathetic character, but the narrative definitely sides with Moon’s (justified in my opinion) suspicion and paranoia about the situation he’s in.
Vaguely related to the subject of this meta essay: I am kind of interested in the idea of Kishan scholars wanting to trade knowledge with the Raksura, or to actually learn about the Raksura. It would be interesting to see what that would look like, since Raksura tend to be uh…really insular. They do have interactions with other species in the High Reaches, but not very many of them. (And of course, they have something of a relationship with the Golden Islanders, though mostly through Delin and his family. If fanfic, I would love to see a epistolary/document fic featuring papers and articles written by Kishan scholars. Or a “while you were studying us we were studying you,” type of situation, where the writers doing the papers are Raksura. Dueling Dissertations!)
The Too Long; Didn’t Read of this is that I loved the end of Harbors of the Sun because of the inter-species interaction. (Featuring the complete befuddlement of the Kishans.)
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