Jade City is one of the best books I’ve read in years. That makes Fonda Lee’s decision to engage in virtue signaling all the more frustrating.
Last week, we explored the definition of a virtue signal and examples from past reviews. I encourage going back to read Part 1 if you have not already. If you have read it, let’s get into the virtue signaling in Jade City.
DISCLAIMERS
Overall Quality
Jade City is objectively fantastic literature. Lee is a very capable writer. While I’m going to get quite harsh in this dissection, it’s because I think that there’s a lot of blood that can be drawn from this particular stone. It’s still stone, though. The virtue signaling in Jade City is proof that even the best books can have flaws and that the best writers can make mistakes. What matters is that all of us learn from those mistakes and strive to improve in the future.
Spoiler Warning
This dissection will require heavy spoilers for Jade City, including in-depth discussions of multiple scenes. Granted, one of the things that establishes that an element in literature is a virtue signal is that it is utterly irrelevant to the integrity of the story, so hearing these particular spoilers should not have a significant impact upon the reading experience, but they are spoilers nonetheless. If that is something you want to avoid, go and read Jade City (something I highly encourage in any case) and then come back.
Series Potential
At the time of writing this, the Green Bone Saga is complete. I have not yet read the other books. It is entirely possible that the message pushed by the virtue signal in Jade City was is picked up and fleshed out into a full-fledged message (which may be written well or poorly) in later books in the series. With that being said, I am not of the belief that virtue signals can be redeemed by better writing in sequels. They are still bad writing within the context of the installment or installments in which they appear, and they can potentially drive away readers who might otherwise have picked up the later installments with better-written messaging. This dissection shall therefore assess Jade City in a vacuum.
THE SIGNAL FIRE
Lee chose to make Anden Kaul “queer”. This is the catch-all term within the setting for anyone with homosexual attraction. For the purposes of this analysis, “queer” shall therefore be used to refer to all non-heterosexual attractions, behaviors, and/or orientations. This shall be both for ease of use and so that this analysis will neatly line up with the book.
By itself, Anden being queer is a character trait so minor as to be background noise. The problem is that this fact is brought up in six out of the fourteen-odd scenes where Anden is the POV. By this, I don’t mean that his sexual orientation plays an important role in the plot, understanding the world, or fleshing out character dynamics. I mean that his sexual orientation is brought up in superficial ways that ultimately have no real impact on the story.
Signal #1: In his introductory scene, Anden wonders if the classmate whom he’s attracted to, Lott Jin, will be attending the festival to which another classmate has just invited him. (Given how all Green Bone academy students introduced to that point were male, the fact that Lott Jin is male seemed like a given as soon as this reference was made.) Then Hilo stops by to have a discussion with Anden. During this discussion, he teases Anden for being insecure about being queer before validating Anden’s sexual orientation by saying, “Some of the most powerful Green Bones in history were queers. You think it matters to me?”
Signal #2: During the festival, Anden ogles his other classmates and compares their attractiveness to Lott’s. The details read suspiciously like the speculation of a heterosexual woman rather than the inner monologue of a man. (I do have a point in nitpicking this, and it’s not the same one as in Notorious Sorcerer.)
Signal #3: Anden doesn’t speak up for the Kaul family when Lott and other students are speaking negatively about them (prior to the clan war). He privately speculates that his attraction towards Lott compromised his willingness to stand up for his family.
Signal #4: In the very next scene, Anden ponders whether Lott could also be queer. The narrative takes a tangent of roughly half a page to exposit about queerness in Kekonese society.
Signal #5: Anden rather aggressively calls out Lott for badmouthing the clan during the clan war. Hilo intervenes in the argument and disperses the students before playfully suggesting that Anden’s outburst was somehow motivated by his attraction towards Lott.
Signal #6: In Anden’s last POV chapter, he sees Lott and reflects on how he is too emotionally drained by the events of the story to pursue his attraction any longer.
None of these contribute anything to the plot. They are characterization in only the most technical sense of them pointing out a character trait, which is sort of like establishing that a character as smart by just saying that character is smart over and over again. Signal 4 is the only one that contributes to worldbuilding, but that contribution has almost no value outside of a story about homosexuality (which Jade City decidedly is not), and what little value remains is invalidated by superior instances of exposition elsewhere in the story. I thought that maybe there would be some form of payoff with Lott at the end of the book, but when Signal 6 established that nothing was going to happen, even that went down the toilet.
SIFTING THROUGH THE ASHES
The repeated reminders that Anden is queer come across as just that: reminders. Lee wanted us to remember that she had written a queer character. More importantly, she wanted us to remember how she feels about queerness.
There are three red flags here, any one of which would have marked Anden’s queerness as a virtue signal. These three points also raise potential alternative explanations for why Lee made such a big deal out of Anden being queer. I shall therefore begin the discussion of each red flag by presenting the alternative explanation, explain why it doesn’t hold water, and conclude by laying out why the red flag does indeed mark a virtue signal.
Flag 1: A Shell of Attraction
Signals 2, 3, 4, and 6 are the closest that Anden’s queerness comes to contributing something to the story. They introduce a potential character dynamic with Lott. Regardless of whether Lee made Lott queer as well, there was potential for Anden’s attraction to generate conflict that existed outside of the pre-established friction of his family connections.
Alternative Explanation: Anden’s Character Arc
Anden’s relationship with Lott demonstrates that he prioritizes his loyalty to the Kaul family over his own desires and comfort. He starts out the story being unwilling to challenge Lott. However, when the stakes are highest for his family, he makes a stand and argues against Lott.
This is fine in concept, but in application, this dynamic is worthless. Regardless of his sexual orientation, Anden is unwilling to instigate conflict with his peers. He’s barely willing to socialize with them at all. This is what he actually overcomes to stand up for the Kaul family. If anything, adding Anden’s sexual orientation to the mix muddles the narrative, as it makes it unclear whether the obstacle that prevents him standing up for his family is his personal history or his attraction.
The arc is also flat. Anden does not want to study to become a Green Bone. He is only doing it for the sake of the Kaul family. Anden has already committed himself to loyalty. Him standing up to his peers is a reaction to the stress of the clan war rather than personal growth. The development here is revealing the depth of his existing loyalty, not a change in his character.
Red Flag: Tokenized Relationship
When I was reading the book, I thought that nothing would change about the narrative if Anden just saw Lott as a friend. Upon reflection, that’s overstating the impact. Absolutely nothing would change about this story if Lott were just a classmate whom Anden had barely spoken to previously. Lee does so little with this dynamic that Signal 6 amounts to her admitting that she did nothing with it.
The attraction doesn’t even succeed in making us care more about Lott. He has so little impact that, when the story eventually tries to milk our investment in Lott by killing his father, it had no emotional weight. I felt only a general sympathy for a named character, not a deep sorrow for a loss suffered by a character I’ve grown attached to.
In other words, this queer relationship serves no purpose except to exist. Given the state of identity politics both now and when Jade City would have been edited and published, it’s clear that it was included just so that Lee could have a queer relationship. It serves no purpose except to call attention to her values.
Flag 2: Hollow Worldbuilding
Signal 4’s tangent about queerness is the closest any of these reminders came to contributing something to the narrative. While the focus is on the beliefs about queerness in Kekonese society, it also explores Kekonese superstitions about certain types of people bringing ill fortune.
Alternative Explanation: Reverse Allegory
Sometimes, fantasy or sci-fi story will use real-world elements to represent fictional struggles, rather than the other way around. A great example of this is “Far Beyond the Stars”, an episode from the sixth season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. In this episode, Captain Sisko is experiencing doubts about his role as the messiah for the planet of Bajor (a major pot thread throughout the series). The Prophets of the Bajoran people respond to this by sending him a vision of 1950s New York, where is finds himself living as a struggling science-fiction writer. He experiences racism on a daily basis and must weather intense backlash when he tries to publish a story about a black commander of a space station. This episode is a powerful story that explores historic racism with more emotional resonance and nuance than so many stories today, yet the actual purpose within the story of the show was to demonstrate to Sisko (and the audience) that he possessed the inner strength to carry on in his messianic role.
I explain all of this because a possibility existed that Lee was using the tangent about queerness in Kekonese society to help explain a mindset that also applies to prejudices against those who can’t access the mystical powers within jade. Within Kekonese society, the Abukei people have been relegated to second-class citizen status by their inability to use jade. There are also full-blooded Kekonese people who are unable to use jade, known colloquially known as “stone-eyes”. Stone-eyes are explicitly stated within Signal 4 to be viewed by the Kekonese in the same way that queers are.
However, “Far Beyond the Stars” also serves as a point of contrast to demonstrate how, if this was Lee’s intention, she ultimately failed. That episode was written to help Sisko overcome a specific manifestation of his flaws that wasn’t addressed elsewhere in the show (or, at the very least, was not addressed more effectively anywhere else). It was also a narrative that stood on its own, as it showed us the racism of the 1950s and Sisko’s insecurities about being a messiah. Jade City did not demonstrate the supposed prejudice against queers. It does show the struggles of stone-eyes, though. Later in the book, Hilo’s stone-eye lover makes an active effort to assist in the clan war despite Hilo brushing her offers aside. This is a far superior representation of the same ideas that could be gleaned from the tangent about queerness. Signal 4 therefore neither stands on its own nor contributes something unique and meaningful to the overall narrative.
Red Flag: The Struggle is Totally Real
It’s not uncommon for writers of science fiction and fantasy to use worldbuilding to slap in a cheap virtue signal. In the case of queerness, this is usually done by telling the audience that the bad people are against queerness (either persecuting it or failing to provide support). This then informs the audience that the author views opposing queerness as a villainous trait, which in turn informs them that the author is virtuous.
We saw this in Son of the Storm. Okungbowa used homosexuality and gender ideology to demonize the elites of Bassa. Had he actually put effort into showing the problems that needed to be overcome, that would have been one thing, but all he did was mention it. The clear intention was to call attention to him being virtuous.
For another example, we can look to A Reaper at the Gates, the third book in the Ember Quartet. Sabaa Tahir, the author of the Ember Quartet, slipped in some low-level virtue signaling in the first and second books of the series. In this third book (which, being published in 2018, would have been written, or at least edited, during the height of the social backlash following the election of President Donald Trump), she cranked the virtue signaling way up. The most glaring and laughable example of her virtue signals was her effort to validate queerness. A secondary character is suddenly revealed to be queer, with his pursuit of a sexual partner being a mini-arc that spanned three scenes. In the last scene of that arc, we are told that the Evil Empire of the story would visit unspecified horrors upon him if they found out about his queerness. The reason that this is patently ridiculous is that the Evil Empire is so cartoonishly evil and prejudiced that raping minorities is a common, accepted, and almost celebrated recreational activity among the military. These people do not feel any need to mask their feelings towards those they are prejudiced against. The idea that we could go two whole books without so much as a casual slur about queerness, only for it suddenly to be a huge deal in the third one, stank of Tahir trying to win virtue points.
This brings us back to Jade City. Lee tells us that things are hard for queers in Kekonese society, but that is simply unearned. The only purpose that this long tangent about hardships is to show that Lee views said hardships as a negative element of society. It only serves to call attention to her virtue.
Flag 3: Mouthpiece of Virtue
The real nails in the coffin for this being a virtue signal are Signals 1 and 5. Hilo validating Anden does not come from Hilo. It comes from Lee.
Alternative Explanation: Building Character
Hilo validating Anden could be considered characterization for Hilo. It demonstrates his loyalty to people over any other beliefs or system of values. Hilo knows how Kekonese society views queerness, but he doesn’t care, as he is loyal to Anden as a member of the Kaul family.
The reason that this doesn’t work is that there is no actual substance behind Hilo making this decision. We don’t learn about any obstructions to queerness until Signal 4, which is well after Signal 1 (and, as previously mentioned, none of the obstacles to queerness that are expressed in Signal 4 are actually upheld elsewhere in the book). There is, therefore, nothing for Hilo to prioritize loyalty over as of Signal 1. What's more, by the time we hit Signal 5, the character trait has also been firmly established more effectively by Hilo brushing aside prejudices and traditions that have been demonstrated, such as the fact he openly announces his intention to marry his stone-eye lover despite what other people thing about their relationship. Hilo validating Anden therefore fails for the same reason as Signal 4.
Red Flag: The Mouthpiece
Remember how, in Part 1, I called out Orso from Foundryside and Zagiri from Notorious Sorcerer for their active efforts to support queer relationships?
Neither of those examples were virtue signals. This is because of how they engaged with the fact that said relationships were queer: they did not acknowledge that fact at all. Both character provided non-specific relationship advice to people they considered to be friends, framed in a manner that fit what was established within their setting. Even with Zagiri being a mouthpiece for Evans, focus was kept on elements that were important to the story being told. Neither exchange came to a halt so that queerness could be validated.
Hilo goes out of his way to bring up Anden being queer just so that he can tell Anden that he is supportive. Even Anden seems annoyed by this. In Signal 1, the narrative indicates that Anden has other things on his mind than his sexual orientation, but just didn’t feel like correcting Hilo when Hilo validated him. In Signal 5, Anden was explicitly “appalled” that Hilo would make his sexual orientation the focus of the discussion. The only thing Signals 1 and 5 accomplish is to tell us that Hilo, who is arguably the main character of the story, is supportive of queerness.
This leads to a simple conclusion: Hilo is not saying these things because Hilo would actually say them. He is acting as Lee’s mouthpiece so that she can tell the character, and by extension the audience, that she is supportive.
It's nearly impossible for an author to fully separate personal perspective from his or her work. This is an extension of Write What You Know. A good author can absolutely write compelling characters or conflicts that appear to contradict his or her personal values; however, if one analyzes the narrative closely, patterns emerge, and those patterns reveal the true beliefs of the author. One of these patterns is which behaviors or perspectives are challenged or refuted by the narrative versus which are supported or simply allowed to slip past. Again, this doesn’t mean much in isolation, but as things start to pile on, you can start to see where the creator wanted to push certain ideas or else thought those ideas were self-evident and didn’t need any support.
Hilo is called out for many, many things in this story. Sometimes he admits that he was wrong when confronted with new information or consequences. Sometimes Shae or Lan criticize him directly. He is arguably the antagonist Shae needs to overcome to rise above the “testosterone-dominated culture”. His behavior in this last matter is condemned not only through Shae’s POV but also his POV: there is a scene where he orders his stone-eye lover not to get involved in the clan war, and the way it is presented makes him seem controlling and borderline abusive.
His validation of Anden, though? It’s never acknowledged outside of the scenes where it occurs. It is one of the few things Hilo does that is presented as being above any form of reproach.
What’s more, we are meant to like Hilo. We are meant to emphasize with him. So if he supports something, and the narrative doesn’t call him out for it, the implication is that Lee wants us to agree with what he’s saying.
Now, if this narrative was crafted around queerness as a theme, then this would just be a part of the messaging. It might even be an essential cog in the machine. The problem is that, as mentioned above, the narrative is not about queerness. Anden’s sexual orientation therefore serves no function outside of him being queer.
The only logical conclusion that I can draw here is that Hilo was Lee’s puppet, much like how Zagiri was Evan’s puppet. She wants us to know that she is an ally. She also wants to be sure we didn’t forget it, as she keeps reminding us of that fact as the story progresses.
INEFFECTIVE ACTION
The combination of three red flags gives Jade City the dubious honor of having the loudest virtue signal out of any book we have reviewed thus far. However, it gets worse. This isn’t just a case of a virtue signal undermining literature by dragging attention to the author. This is a case of the author then undermining the virtue signal by other choices made in the literature. Lee managed to hammer in a virtue signal to a maddening degree while also demonstrating an utter lack of investment in the virtue she was so desperate to signal.
The Fourth Alternative
Jade City leans heavily upon the romantic relationships of its POV characters. The past and present relationships of Lan, Hilo, and Shae are all explored. An argument could be made that Anden is nothing special, and thus, that his sexual identity warrants exploration.
This is a damning argument, not a redeeming one.
The heterosexual relationships of the other POV characters are integral to the plot and character dynamics. The story would be completely different without Lan’s failed marriage, Shae’s dalliance with a foreigner, or Hilo’s sexually charged romance with the sister of his lieutenants. The one queer relationship, though? You could delete it from this book entirely with zero impact on the book. I mean this quite literally – just highlight and backspace every paragraph that bring up Anden’s sexual orientation. The story does not suffer. I don’t think the scenes in which the signals surface would suffer.
And then there is the erotica to consider. As grateful as I was to finally encounter an author who doesn’t treat queer people as fetish material, the way Lee went about it shows that this was merely due to her not being sexually aroused by the idea of two men having sex. She was happy to smear her personal sexual fantasies onto the page. When it came to Anden’s attraction, though, she touched it as little as possible. Signal 2 was the closest she came to reflecting a man being sexually attracted towards another. As previously mentioned, it read like a woman jotting down her own notes on what makes men attractive without considering that men process that information differently from women.
Emergent Pattern
I am not convinced that Lee actually supports (or, at the very least, actually cares about) queerness. If anything, the pattern laid out by her choices in Jade City indicate that she finds it icky. By this, I’m not referring to the strawman argument used to dismiss advocates of traditional heterosexual dynamics. I mean that contrast between the handling of heterosexual and queer relationships is so sharp that I find myself wondering if Lee is actually repulsed by queerness. What’s more, considering how easily it could be wiped out of the book, I find myself wondering if perhaps she either added it in the final edit to appease some expectation of her agent or editors or else deliberately wrote it so that she could erase it quickly if necessary to boost her sales.
I realize that this is a spicy take. To be clear, I am not making a declaration about Lee’s actual beliefs or perspectives. I don’t know her personally, nor have I ever interacted with her. I am simply commenting upon what pattern has manifested within the text. It just so happens that said pattern contradicts the elements that are supposed to showcase Lee’s virtue. It’s entirely possible that the virtue being spewed by Hilo represents her genuine beliefs, yet if this book were the only judge of her values that existed, I would have to conclude that she merely claims to be supportive of queers to win the favor of the crowd and distract from her actual beliefs.
Let's give Lee the benefit of the doubt for the moment. Let's say that the virtue signal is a genuine reflection of her values. Even in that case, this is perhaps the worst virtue signal I have ever read (even worse that Tahir’s stunt in A Reaper at the Gates). The clash between the handling of heterosexual and queer relationships exposes the artificiality of the signal. Our attention isn't just called to the author’s virtue; it’s called to just how desperate the author is to signal. We have gone beyond ineffective action in terms of impact on the real world. We have achieved ineffective action within the closed system of the book.
Does this virtue signal make Lee a bad writer or devalue Jade City? Not in the slightest. Even the best of us make mistakes at times. However, mistakes are still mistakes, no matter who makes them. It’s important that we all learn from those mistakes and use them as a chance to grow.
CONCLUSION
Everyone has ideas that they want to convey through their work. These can be universal themes, sociopolitical commentary, or the author’s personal morals. They can be subtle or overt. Sometimes, they can be added by the author without any deliberate intention, manifesting through patters of choices as the narrative progresses. The virtue signal is one of the worst possible manifestations of this messaging.
Any author can slip into this pattern, no matter how good he or she is. It falls upon each of us to reflect upon our work to see whether the ideas we present are properly integrated into the narrative or merely a signal. There are questions we can ask ourselves, which include, but are not limited to:
Does that message we folded into a quick line of dialogue serve a greater purpose in the narrative?
Can the message be removed without damaging the story?
Are we truly crafting something that will resonate with audiences, spreading the virtues that we hold to others, or are we begging for moral validation?
These are hard questions to reflect upon. They can lead us to delete messages that we are desperate to share. For the sake of the readers’ experience, the strength of the narrative, and the integrity of the ideas that we want to share, they are also essential questions that demand answers before our work goes to print.
