The City of Brass (Part 2)
STATS
Title: The City of Brass
Series: The Daevabad Trilogy (Book 1)
Author(s): S. A. Chakraborty
Genre: Fantasy (Epic)
First Printing: 2017
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Rating: 5/10 (Fantasy audiences), 7/10 (Muslim Young Adult audience)
SPOILER WARNING
Mild spoilers will be necessary to properly break down this story. I will include “Heavy Spoilers” in the heading for any section where further detail is required. I will keep the first paragraph of these sections as spoiler-free as possible in case you want to read the book for yourself before coming back for the full analysis.
WORLDBUILDING - SETTING, FACTIONS, MAGIC
The Kirkus interview wasn’t blowing smoke when it praised Chakraborty’s worldbuilding. This book is a beautiful example of how passion and research can pay off. I may not be able to appreciate specific cultural elements reflected within this book, but as a Fantasy reader, I was enthralled.
Time and Place
This book is, technically, a historical fantasy. The events take place in the 18th Century, with Nahri's plot beginning in Cairo. However, the story leaves in Cairo on page 39, and thereafter takes place in wilderness or in the magical city of Daevabad. Nahri is the only character who has any form of ties to the real world, and even those ties are limited. The result is a story that is about as historical as the Chronicles of Narnia. (This isn't a flaw, mind, just an observation.)
Djinn
I am no more an expert on djinni lore now than I was during the review of The Stardust Thief, but coming into this as a Fantasy reader, I can say that the djinn in this book are fantastic.
Djinn are beings made of fire (just as humans were made from Earth). They originally wielded great power as incorporeal beings. Due to the chaos they caused, King Suleiman (Solomon) bound them to corporeal forms and scattered them across the world, resulting in the formation of six tribes.
Tribes
Save for perhaps the Daevas, each tribe corresponds to a specific region of the real world where Islam has a significant presence as of the 18th Century. Chakraborty gave each tribe a distinct subculture and ethnic traits that nod to their region, but only the Daevas get anything resembling in-depth exploration.
The Daevas are unique among the tribes in that they held onto the original name of their race (as they were not originally called “djinn”). They are the only ones to hold on to their pre-Islamic faith, in part because they have been so zealous about avoiding contact or procreation with humans. There was a time in the past where they ruled over the other tribes. However, their empire was broken in an Islamic rebellion, and Daevabad was seized. Now the Daevas control only a single district within Daevabad, though they retain enough wealth and influence to ensure that they live more comfortably than any other djinn.
One point that I personally don't like about the tribes is how Chakraborty introduced them: a three-page reference document at the opening of the book. I am not a fan of books that do this, as it tells me that the author couldn't even be bothered to try to fold it into the narrative. Say what one will about opening The Lord of the Rings with “Concerning Hobbits”, but at least that was written in a charming way that meshed well with Tolkien’s writing style. This is just dry and uninteresting. It's also unnecessary. There's a scene within the first third of the book that gives a Cliffnotes version of this reference document, and it does so in a manner that, while not great, still manages to make the exposition flow from the events surrounding it.
Shafit
Shafit are half-djinn (or, at the very least, near-humans with a noticeable trace of djinn blood). They do not share the extended lifespans or high tolerance to heat and flame that full-blooded djinn do, but they do inherit some djinn magic (though not all). How much djinn blood a shafit possesses can be gauged by the shape of their ears, since djinn ears are pointed rather than rounded.
Djinn are forbidden from procreating with humans, given the risk that this will expose them to humanity at large. Nevertheless, because only the Daevas strictly enforced this rule, a sizeable population of shafit formed over the centuries (and grew rapidly as shafit married each other, since shafit are far more fertile than djinn). This mingling of djinn and humanity exposed the djinn to Islam, making the shafit a gateway for converting all the tribes but the Daevas. This fed into the revolution that toppled the Daeva empire, with Islam providing ideological unity to the otherwise disorganized groups that chafed against the Daevas' control.
After the revolution, the new djinn rulers mandated that all shafit must be brought to Daevabad and never leave, thereby reducing future risks of exposure to humanity. Unfortunately, shafit quickly became a poor underclass beneath the pure-blooded djinn, rapidly growing thanks to their higher fertility (they are explicitly stated to be nearly a third of the population of the city at the time that this story takes place). The Daevas worsen this situation with their zealous hatred of the shafit. At the start of the book, the only real protection the shafit have is that the djinn are unwilling to outright purge fellow Muslims from the city.
Nahids
The rulers of the Daeva empire were a bloodline of incredibly powerful healers known as the Nahids. This family's magic granted then the power to sense injury and illness, whether mundane or magical, and heal it by either manipulating the afflicted individual's flesh or brewing magical remedies that only they possessed the power to create. Their mastery over flesh was so powerful that it makes the psychic bloodbending in The Legend of Korra seem tame by comparison, with one notable Nahid apparently being able to shatter bones with a mere look.
The last known Nahids were killed twenty years prior to the start of the story. However, their magic still holds away in Daevabad. The city's palace resents the djinn who now occupy it, routinely spawning various magical effects to irritate and torment the new occupants.
One detail that is emphasized but not actually fleshed out enough to make sense of is the role the Nahids play in the religion of the Daevas. They are seen as the most spiritually pure of the Daevas, with many of them dying as martyrs of their faith, and their purity exempts them from certain rituals of cleansing that other Daevas must abide by. The WHY of these things is not explained. I don't think this is a problem with the worldbuilding of the Nahids, though. As we will get into later, the worldbuilding of religion in this story has major problems, and this ripples out to affect the Nahids.
Slaves
Wish-granting djinn are an acknowledged aspect of this world and a vital part of the story. The lore is complicated, and I get the sense that more about the process will be revealed or clarified in the later books in the series. The short version is that a djinn's soul can be bound to an object, and the possessor of that object (the “master”) can then force the djinn to physically manifest and use their magic to fulfill the master’s desires.
The book does not make it clear what rules or limitations govern these wishes. What is does demonstrate is that wishes are less a matter of phenomenal cosmic power that alters reality and more of forcing a powerful warrior-sorcerer to achieve the desired objective. For example, if the master who possesses the djinn's imprisoning object wishes for the djinn to claim an enemy city for him, the djinn will slaughter the city's leaders rather than simply waving a hand and changing the names on all the royal decrees. The book does demonstrate that the djinn slave has no control over his or her actions once a wish is made.
It’s also not clear what constitutes a wish. The first wish that we see is in a flashback from Dara’s POV. This is one straightforward: Dara’s master at the time explicitly uses the words, “I wish,” with the word “wish” being italicized for emphasis. That would seem to imply that, much like Cosmo and Wanda in Fairly Odd Parents, a djinn slave is activated by that specific phrase being said. However, in the climax, a djinn slave is activated when a master begins a sentence with, “I only wish for.” Not only is this not phrased like a command, but the master was not even addressing the djinn slave. Further complicating this mess is that we get an instance of a djinn slave being invoked and forcibly summoned without any mention of a wish at all. On top of that, a djinn slave is shown to have a certain physical reaction to a wish being uttered, and that reaction is repeated in an instance when a command was uttered without a wish being mentioned at all. (I’m begin vague here because I’m trying to avoid spoilers, but believe me, this will be broken down next week when we do the content warning, where there will be very heavy spoilers.)
A relationship between a master and a djinn slave usually ends in the master's death. It's not clear how this happens. As stated, the wish overrides a slave's decision-making. A slave is simply not capable of twisting a wish's wording to betray the master that way. It's possible that this could be a result of a slave growing tired of a master and murdering said master between wishes, choosing to be re-imprisoned rather than continue to serve, or perhaps it could be that masters grow drunk on power and get themselves killed with a wish that they failed to think through and that the slave executed without any intent to do harm. The book doesn't lean into either option; these are just the possibilities that would fit into the established rules.
Other Magical Beings
This book is chock-full of other magical beings from Islamic regions, including marids, ifrits, ghouls, peri, and salamanders. I don't have much to say about their worldbuilding. Each of these beings has a minimal contribution to the story, are functional in their role, and are almost completely forgotten outside of it. Even the ifrits, who are presented as the main antagonists at the start of the book, fade into the background after the halfway point.
Soft Magic
The City of Brass is, for the most part, a good example of how to properly utilize a soft magic system. Most plot developments or character moments aren’t driven by the magic, and for those that are, the development or character moment hinges upon an aspect of magic for which rules were previously established. There is, unfortunately, a pivotal moment in the climax that is every bit as poorly handed as the soft-magic plot beats of Notorious Sorcerer, yet this is the only major exception that I can name.
Factions
Now we come to what I think is the best-written (or, at least, the most interesting) aspect of the worldbuilding: the three-way conflict that exists between the Daevas, the shafit, and everyone else in Daevabad. Chakraborty did a great job of fleshing out three distinct factions with both sympathetic motivations and reprehensible extremists. There are heroes and villains in every corner.
First, the Daevas. They are second-class citizens in their own city. The Muslim majority mocks them as “fire worshippers”, and persecution by that majority is at least implied. Only their wealth allows them to maintain some position of security, with a Daeva wazir who advocates unceasingly to the King of Daevabad on their behalf. At the same time, the Daevas actively stoke the resentment against them. Their belief that they are the purest of all djinn, along with the associated hatred of shafit, leads them to isolate themselves from and talk down to the other djinn. Criminal enterprises that target shafit are also run out of their quarter of the city with little intervention by law enforcement.
The shafit occupy the opposite end of the spectrum. They live in squalor, are denied privileges that would allow them to rise out of the underclass, and are routinely subjected to abuses by pure-blooded djinn. A group known as the Tanzeem struggles to build services to cater to shafit, like hospitals and orphanages, and to advocate for social reforms on the behalf of the shafit. This noble goal is undermined by the fact that the Tanzeem use the generous funds gifted to them by djinn nobles (at great personal risk to said nobles) to procure weapons for an armed uprising, including human muskets and cannons to offset their magical disadvantages. They are also quick to lash out at the Daevas for not being Muslim and to use that fact to fan resentment among other djinn towards the Daevas.
In the middle of these two sides, pushing back against both, is everyone else in Daevabad, with the King of Daevabad serving as the representative figure. The King’s characterization has flaws we will get to later, but within the context of this factional conflict, he's functional. He has no ill will towards either side. While he does favor the Daevas over the shafit, it is made clear that he genuinely believes that putting his thumb on the scale in this manner is necessary in the short-term to preserve peace.
It's a shame that this conflict is not the focus of the book. It has so much potential as setup for a gray-on-gray political fantasy, yet it ultimately is just a backdrop for Nahri's story, which sadly doesn't take advantage of it. Perhaps it gets more focus in the sequels as Nahri's story evolves.
Lessons Learned
Not to belabor this point, but passion and research are key to developing a vibrant world. Chakraborty had an abundance of both. This ultimately paid off. If you are the type of reader who only cares about setting and doesn’t mind flaws in plot or character, you will probably enjoy The City of Brass.
WORLDBUILDING - RELIGION
The exploration of religion in this setting is a sinkhole that undermines the plot. I maintain my position that religious worldbuilding, while effective at establishing a framework for how characters view the world, isn’t strictly necessary for every story. Even Notorious Sorcerer wasn’t doomed by the lack of fleshed-out religions. Developing the religions in that story would merely have provided a quick fix for other issues.
The City of Brass is a story where religious worldbuilding IS necessary. Every single conflict leans upon religion, with it either being the driving factor of the conflict or an element that strongly impacts the course of events. This, more than any other book we've reviewed this far, is one where religion cannot be handwaved … and yet it was.
Islam
As discussed while going over this book’s target audience, Chakraborty did not bother to explain even the basic aspects of Islam that would be most relevant to her story. In fact, the only aspect of Islam she bothers to spell out is the prohibition on drinking alcohol, something that isn’t central to any of the conflicts. She seemed to have operated on the assumption that her readers would simply know everything that's necessary to understand the ideological rifts and the divides between the characters. As stated in that analysis of the potential audience, this assumption was fine when she was only writing for Muslim readers, but when she decided to release this book to the general public without filling in the gaps, it became an objective problem. Chakraborty failed to understand the average member of her audience.
Typical Audience
I am an American who reads adult Fantasy literature. I am not Muslim, but per those Pew Research polls from 2017, the same goes for the vast majority of the people who might read this book. I therefore don't think it is presumptuous to assume that my personal experiences with and understanding of Islam meets (or, frankly, exceeds) what one could reasonably expect of the average reader:
I am a member of an Abrahamic faith, which provides some shared moral framework.
In high school, I read about the rise of Islam and about various Islamic cultures throughout world history. I also had to complete a unit on Comparative Religions.
In college, I attended a religious diversity panel that included a Muslim speaker.
I've read a couple works of literature by Muslim writers, including A Thousand Splendid Suns, which focuses in part upon the influence of Islam upon Afghanistan under the Taliban.
I’ve researched elements of the Islamic world while doing worldbuilding for my own writing.
I am a child of the 9/11 era. While the fallout of those events led to demonization of Islam and its followers, which is not a good thing for clear-headed discussion and mutual understanding, it still counts as a form of exposure. Some accurate facts do endure through these negative portrayals. This was then followed by a reactionary wave of works that either sought to present Islam in a positive light or explored a more nuanced portrayal of the faith, thereby providing a balancing force and vital context.
Bearing in mind that a large portion of Fantasy readers in the United States will not have all these points, how much sense does the worldbuilding in this story make?
I can certainly recognize Islamic influences here. However, that’s sort of like saying that I recognize Christian influences in the various generic European fantasy settings that pop up in Japanese media. There are recognizable symbols, but no sense that I am being exposed to the nuance and depth of another religion.
I can also piece together a head canon that makes the plot work. I can look at the different ideas that Chakraborty failed to connect, think to myself, “Okay, so these are supposed to be Muslim characters. How does that fact fill in the gaps?” This helps my personal understanding, but there is no guarantee that head canon aligns with Chakraborty’s intentions.
This is what I arrived with for my laundry list of experiences. Imagine how incomprehensible this book’s setting would be for the sizeable portion of Americans whose knowledge of Islam is limited to the occasional episode of NCIS and two decades of news reports about foreigners strapping bombs to children. This is the kind of limited, less-than-favorable coverage that Chakraborty claimed to have motivated this book in the first place. Her decision to not provide the necessary exposition about Islam to balance out that coverage was therefore a cataclysmic oversight that is as detrimental to her stated goals as it is to the reader experience.
Points of Contention
Let's pretend for a moment that a reader does fully understand the religions at play. Does this worldbuilding make sense within that context?
Well, I obviously can't argue as someone who fits that description. What I can do is assess the nature of the narrative and provide commentary from a purely literary perspective. I can try to imagine if this story would make sense to me if all of the Islamic elements were removed and equivalent elements from my own faith were stitched into its place.
From that perspective: no. I doubt that there is enough to work with even if a reader is Muslim.
This book isn’t a straightforward narrative about religious persecution or a widely applicable parable about spiritual pressures. Its conflicts lean upon the ideological divide between the Muslim djinn and non-Muslim Daevas. With how the conflicts are presented, there is more to this divide than just, “We don’t like the people who aren’t the same religion as us.”
For the conflicts to make sense, the narrative needed to identify the specific points of disagreement. It needed to establish what lines each side believed the other to have crossed. We get precisely one of these lines with the Daevas’ belief in their own purity, but that applies to the pre-Islamic beliefs of the Daevas, not to Islam. The clues in the text further indicate that there’s more to it than that. As we’ll get into more when we discuss the characterization of the book’s secondary POV, certain Muslims in Daevabad view the Daevas as morally degenerate, but the book doesn’t go into the specifics of what that really means, and the framing of those accusations shows that most Muslims in Daevabad don’t stand by that more zealous outlook.
To put this problem into another context: imagine if someone tried to write a fantasy story about Catholic and Protestant faeries in the immediate aftermath of the Protestant Reformation, but the only context the audience was ever given from the Reformation was that the Protestants don’t want to listen to the Pope. How much sense would the conflict then make if characters started branding seemingly random actions as heresy? We would have no content to understand what each side finds heretical, so the accusation would have as much weight as characters pointing and shouting, “Conflict! Conflict!”
Fire Worshipers
As bad as the worldbuilding is for Islam, the pre-Islamic beliefs of the Daevas are worse off. We don't even have a NAME for the religion or its practitioners. The only thing we are given to call them, “fire worshippers”, is explicitly identified in the book as a dehumanizing slur.
What's Established
Here is everything that we are told about the Daevas and their beliefs:
Fire is central to their worship. They maintain “fire altars" in both home and temple, with the devout ensuring that the flames never go out. (This is, of course, the point of origin of the slur.)
They don't eat meat.
Drinking alcohol is not forbidden.
Those a Nahid blood as seen as inherently more pure than other Daevas (the precise meaning of which was not elaborated upon).
Shafit are viewed as abominations. (This may not be an actual part of their religion, but rather just a social view that is not condemned by the faith.)
They mark their foreheads with ash.
That's it. We have nothing deeper to work with. It's just a handful of ceremonial practices without any insights into the moral truths behind them.
The Problem
Chakraborty cutting corners on the Islamic worldbuilding at least made sense when she didn't intend for the book to be published. Additionally, because Islam is a widespread and active religion within the modern world, readers have some frame of reference and can look things up.
The same does not apply to pre-Islamic religious beliefs of Northern Africa and the Middle East. Maybe if you are native to those regions, you might have some exposure to these beliefs in some form, but I have trouble believing that the average Muslim teenager in the Brooklyn or New York understands these things, much in the same way that most Jewish or Christian folk won't understand the faith of Canaanite Israel. Chakraborty needed to do the literary equivalent of building an entire religion from scratch. The handful of ceremonial elements she gave us would be fine if the conflicts of this story did not rest on an ideological divide between the Daevas and the Muslim djinn. They are not enough for the story that she wrote.
It's not like we needed to understand every aspect of their faith. We just needed something to capture the Daevas’ spiritual outlook and set up the ideological points of contention with the Muslim djinn. The anime adaptation of Fire Force manages to accomplish this very goal within the first three minutes of its first episode (and that was while also cramming a fight scene into those three minutes). A single prayer of just a few lines expressed so much more about the religious beliefs and worldview of the characters than The City of Brass managed in more than 500 pages. (I could not find a clip of that opening scene from a licensed source, but the prayer is repeated in the finale fight of the episode, which you can view on YouTube.)
Lessons Learned
Worldbuilding a religion for a story is a complicated affair. Whether or not that religion is one that exists in the real world or is commonplace doesn’t change this. If you publish book for an audience that you know is not for that religion, you need to include whatever exposition is necessary to explain the aspects of that religion that are relevant to the story. Furthermore, even if you can assume that the audience understands the religion in question, the relevant aspects will still need to be highlighted so that the conflicts of the story will make sense.
SINS OF THE MAIN CHARACTER
Next week will be dedicated to the content warning for this book. I had to hold off on presenting it until now because so much of the book’s mature content hinges on context provided by the worldbuilding.
The content warning will open with a straightforward list of the potentially objectionable items, and it will end with a few notes about what this book can teach us writers about engaging with mature content. The middle, though, is going to delve deep into this book’s handling of sexual assault. This struck a nerve for me, and it destroyed any sympathy I had for the main character. This section is going to be both a deep dive into how Chakraborty utterly failed in her attempt to absolve the main character – which means a deep dive into the sexual assault and its implications – and is going to outline my subjective reaction.
If you don’t want to read such an analysis, it will be clearly marked so that you can go around it. Alternatively, you are free to jump directly to Part 4 when it comes out. Nothing in the content warning will be required reading to understand the analyses of characters and plot.
Either way, Part 3 comes out next week, and Part 4 will release the week after that. Whenever you choose to return, I hope to see you then. Have a good day.
