The City of Brass (Part 3)

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.

CONTENT WARNING

The City of Brass features graphic violence, human (technically shafit) trafficking, mentions of rape, references to prostitution, heavy-handed references to both heterosexual and homosexual sex, and some sexually charged moments of flirting and a moment foreplay that nearly became a sex scene before the plot interrupted.  This last point is revealed after the fact to be sexual assault (and attempted rape).

Young Adult Content

While this is a content laundry list worthy of Shadow of the Conqueror, the presentation is such that it never leaves the realm of Young Adult.  The violence and shafit trafficking, in particular, are treated as spectacles.  They are hyped up and then wrung dry to manipulate audience emotions, without ever actually presenting anything that will truly traumatize or impact the audience in the long term. This, ironically, makes them less horrific.  They are so overdone that the emotions they should supposed fuel can’t properly settle in.  Events that would otherwise be traumatic experiences are reduced to hollow symbols of the emotion we are supposed to feel.  I saw more traumatic content in the magical girl anime Yuki Yuna is a Hero than in this book.  That show is far less graphic, but it takes the time to both earn the trauma induced by its body horror elements and to let those emotions stew when the elements are revealed.

Sexual Assault (Heavy Spoilers)

This section of the review leaves the realm of objective analysis and focuses upon my subjective experience a reader.  I include it for two reasons.  The first is that the sexual assault element left me with strong negative bias against the protagonist of this book (who is perpetrator of the assault).  Isolating this criticism of her will allow me to focus on the more objective aspects of her writing in Part 4 while providing fair warning to others who might experience the same emotional reaction that I did.  The second is that I strongly suspect that this problem was a result of Chakraborty blowing something out of proportion.  The implication of sexual assault and attempted rape exists regardless, but the way that Chakraborty attempts to let the protagonist of the hook makes the implication explicit.  There is an objective lesson here about not messing with or dwelling upon aspects of your narrative that don’t need to be meddled with.

You do not need to read this section to understand the rest of the review.  If you do not want to read about sexual assault, you can skip to Part 4.  Alternatively, if you just want the lesson for writers, I have written that up at the very end of the content warning.  That section includes enough detail to provide necessary context without delving into the more traumatic elements.

Okay, that was your chance to bail out.  Let’s get to it.

The Incident

The sexual assault and attempted rape are framed as the Big Kiss of the book’s romantic subplot.  It is perpetrated by Nahri, who is the protagonist of our story and a scion of the Nahid bloodline. The victim is Dara, the Daeva warrior who is her love interest and a devout servant of the Nahids.

This is supposed to be the big moment of passion where Nahri and Dara throw aside their reservations and chase their desires.  They kiss.  Dara tries to break it off, calling attention to the power dynamic between them.  Nahri then mounts him, says, “Shut up, Dara,” and got to work gratifying her urges.  She fully intended to push this all the way to sex.  The narrative tries to frame this as a mutual thing, with Dara reciprocating both kisses, but … well, we’re going to get to that.  Let’s take this one layer at a time.

Nahri’s only reservations before smashing through Dara’s rejection are selfish.  She thinks about pregnancy and STDs … as consequences for women specifically.  As consequences for HER.  How Dara’s life would be impacted didn’t matter to her.  At this point in the story, she knows that he is a loyal servant of the Nahids.  He is subordinate to her, and he is trying to warn about consequences to both of them, yet she only thinks of herself before forcing herself upon him.

Here’s the thing, though: if you just read the scene in isolation, the assault is not obvious.  Yes, the power dynamic raises questions about whether Dara’s consent has any weight, but the scene is from Nahri’s POV.  She doesn’t fully grasp the nature of the dynamic at this point, and thus, neither does the audience.  The fact that her only reservations are for how this will affect her feels like the natural reaction of someone caught in the heat of the moment.  Dara also reciprocates both kisses, so it really does come across as a mutual decision.  (Again, we are going to get to that.)  There is also the matter that they are interrupted by an action scene.  Things don’t go far enough for the reader to really start to question what’s happening.

And then, 200 pages later, Chakraborty decides to bring it up again.

The Reveal

I suspect that Chakraborty was aware of the implications that Nahri and Dara’s power dynamic would have.

To be clear, this power dynamic is so much worse than one character simply holding a position of authority over another.  This isn’t a rehash of Disney’s Mulan, where the Mulan-Shang romance was cut from the live-action remake to placate #MeToo.  Nahri’s position is so far about Dara’s that, by making a pass at him, she put him in a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation.  If Dara consents, he has broken strict taboos of his people, and will face severe punishment if the truth ever gets out.  If he rejects her, he has disobeyed a direct order from someone he is sworn to serve, thereby breaking another taboo.  There are moral frameworks in which this sort of thing doesn’t actually affect consent, but given how Chakraborty brought up her “privilege” when talking about her faith, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that she doesn’t adhere to those frameworks.  It doesn’t seem like a stretch to assume that she believes that a person with “privilege” has an unreasonable level of power over someone without it - or, to use terms that matter to this analysis (because what the author does or does not believe should not matter to objective artistic quality outside of what impacts the work itself), that she might write such a worldview into her book.

This may be why Chakraborty goes out of her way to try to absolve Nahri.  She brings the assault up just so that Dara can assure Nahri that he consented to the encounter.  By doing so, she dropped the ball.  She exposed the assault to the audience in plain terms … and then, rather than granting absolution, she damned Nahri.

(I should acknowledge the possibility that Chakraborty did not see the implication at all and just wanted to write a lovers’ spat that referenced the kiss.  There’s nothing that outright refutes this possibility.  However, given the focus on power dynamics and consent in the scene I am about to describe, I am not inclined to believe this.)

The assault’s true nature is revealed once Nahri and Dara have been in Daevabad for a few weeks.  (It may have been longer, as it gets hard to keep track of time after they arrive in the city.) Nahri is being rapidly educated about her role as a Nahid in Daeva society.  There is a scene where she is brought to the Grand Temple of the Daeva faith to learn more about her religious role within this society.  Here, she sees firsthand just how wide the gap between herself and Dara actually is.  Dara remains friendly with her, but he also bows deeply and won’t stand up until she gives explicit permission, and he cannot touch her in front of other people.  During a moment during the tour when they are alone, Dara tries to do his duty as servant of the Nahids by advising her on political advantageous marriages, given that he is not a valid candidate.  Nahri gets offended by this and brings up their nearly having sex.  This is how Dara reacts, and it is the moment when Nahri reveals her true colors.

He shook his head, a faint flush stealing over his fact.  “That should never have happened.  You were a woman under my protection.  I had no right to touch you that way.”

“I remember it as being mutual.” But as the words left her lips, Nahri recalled that she had kissed him first - twice - and the realization twisted her stomach into a knot of insecurity.  “I … was I wrong?” she asked, mortification rising in her voice.  “Did you not feel the same way?”

That’s right.  It’s all about HER.  It’s about her insecurities.  It’s about having her feelings returned.  The fact that she initiated, while he is outright telling her that he could not consent in that situation, means nothing to her.  The fact that Dara’s values were violated, that she is now aware of the potential consequences to him in Daeva society for touching her at all, means nothing to her.

It should have stopped there, but it didn’t.  Dara tries to assure Nahri that he wants her, but they can’t be together.  This goes beyond his personal values.  The Daevas cannot escape the oppression of the djinn without the Nahids.  Only Nahri and her heirs can save their people.  Dara cannot have children, and thus cannot be the man she chooses as her husband.  Bear in mind that Dara is not actually forcing her into anything.  He is simply denying her … himself.

Yet Nahri goes off on him, lashing out for him trying to plan out her future for her.  She reveals her desperate need to be in control.  She is not getting the thing that she wants, so the one who denies her is treated like the villain.  How dare he deny her a romantic relationship.  How dare he withhold himself sexually from her.

The Subjective Take

I’m not going to lie … this scene hit a little too close to the mark.

My own experience with sexual assault differed from Dara’s in some key details. Namely, I didn’t reciprocate (but believe me, we are going to get to Dara’s reciprocation). There was also no power dynamic that would have inhibited my ability to give consent. However, the aftermath was the same. Like Nahri, my attacker made it all about her own feelings and desires.  She tried to gaslight me into believing that I was the bad guy for not reciprocating.

I saw shades of my attacker in Daylen Namaran, too, but the whole point of Daylen is that he was the villain.  We were supposed to hate what he did.  He certainly hated himself for it.  I felt sympathy for his descent into a monstrous mindset, just as I still feel some measure of sympathy for my attacker and how she was the product of her past relationships.  I found catharsis in seeing the resulting creature try, however poorly, to atone for past indiscretions.

Nahri is supposed to be the hero.  We are supposed to be on her side.  We are supposed to celebrate her getting her end in and hate the object who denies her sexual gratification.

This scene broke Nahri for me.  Her narcissism and abusive behaviors were on display as early as the journey to Daevabad - she twisted an argument to invalidate Dara’s past traumas and precarious social position, making herself out to be the victim at every turn - but there were ways to rationalize her behavior then.  This incident is just cold-hearted selfishness.

Now, I must admit that my personal history is coloring my subjective experience of these scenes. It’s why I’m isolating this discussion from the rest of the analysis.  Yes, I despise Nahri as a character for this, yet it’s possible that I’m merely overreacting to an unintentional trigger. Even if I am not overreacting, this doesn’t make her an objectively badly-written character by itself.

Maybe people with a less personal connection can look at it and say, “It’s not as bad as you are making it out to be.  There was no assault here.  The only conflict is one of emotions.” And you know what?  I am willing to concede that the problem could just be me jumping at shadows.

At least, I was willing to concede that.  Then I read the book’s climax.

It Gets Worse

An important detail about Dara is that he’s a djinn slave.  One of the few well-written plot threads of this story is the mystery of how he’s able to wander around and go on adventures with Nahri.  He should only be able to manifest if a master possesses his prison, a magical ring, yet not only is there no master around, but he is the one wearing the ring.

The climax reveals that Nahri has been Dara’s master this whole time.

This information removes all ambiguity from the sexual assault.  Dara is utterly incapable of withholding consent from Nahri.  He cannot refuse her desires.  He must obey her wishes.

And let’s be clear: per the rules laid out in this book, Nahri’s command of, “Shut up, Dara,” was a wish.  It was an assertive command for Dara to fulfill her desires.  She didn’t say, “I wish,” but given how she triggers him in the climax, that specific wording clearly isn’t required.  Then there’s the inciting incident of this book.  Nahri never uses the word “wish” when she summons Dara and kicks off the plot: she sang an invocation for a Daeva warrior to come before her, and Dara was forced to obey.  Her issuing a direct command and enforcing it with body language should therefore be enough to override Dara’s free will.

Lastly, the physical reaction.  In the climax, when Nahri’s wish triggers Dara, the first sentence we get to describe him is:

Dara let out a choked gasp.

This is his reaction to her mounting him, commanding him to shut up, and kissing him a second time.

There was no sound of protest now.  There was a gasp – half exasperation, half desire – then he pulled her down against him.

It’s the same physical reaction – explicitly a “gasp” – both times.  In both the sexual assault and the climax, this gasp is followed by a blind, incoherent rush to fulfill Nahri's desires.

At this point, all the evidence points to Nahri having complete mastery over Dara.  She used a wish to assault and nearly rape him.  Yes, she was unaware that she had this power.  That ignorance would spare her of any responsibility in most stories.  The problem is that, because of how she is characterized when Chakraborty tries to absolve her, I do not believe for an instant that she cares enough about Dara’s free will, feelings, or well-being for that to matter to her.  Everything about how she is characterized suggests that she would have gone through with the rape even if she’d known that Dara had to obey her wishes.

And the final scenes of the story confirm this.

Dara is killed in the climax. Afterwards, Nahri attempts to resurrect him by summoning him again, using the same invocation that gave her mastery over him in the opening of the story. She knows now that he was her slave, and she is perfectly happy to exploit that to bring him back to her. Her grief would make this quite sympathetic in isolation. When taken into the context of the sexual assault and Nahri’s narcissism, though, it demonstrates that Nahri has no problem with leveraging her control over Dara when it serves her own desires. She wants him to return to her, so now she is trying to drag him back. Are we really supposed to believe that she wouldn’t, say, wish for him to discard the values that keep him from getting together with her?

Objective Lesson for Writers – Acknowledging Difficult Content

I think that the handling of the sexual assault in this book is a good example of an author trying to solve a minor problem and ultimately making it worse.

The scene in which Nahri sexually assaults Dara is not framed as an assault.  Sure, eagle-eyed readers might notice the power dynamic between them and might comment on how Nahri has a lot of power over Dara.  Others might go down the rabbit hole of how Dara’s unique position invalidates his consent entirely.  If the scene is taken in isolation, though, it just reads as a kiss that nearly progresses into sex.  The fact that Nahri is the POV character also makes it clear that she did not fully comprehend the situation she was getting herself into in the moment.  Much of the audience would therefore have missed the implications based solely on the fact that Nahri’s limited information makes everything seem okay.

It is ultimately Chakraborty’s attempt to absolve Nahri of guilt that damns the character.  She could have kept the focus on the emotions and skated past the physical acts.  She could have had Nahri express horror at violating Dara rather than just being upset that he might not have reciprocal feelings.  She could have had Nahri accept the difficult position Dara was in rather than lashing out because he wouldn’t give himself to her.  Instead, Chakraborty made the physical acts and how Nahri felt the exclusive focus.  She chose to characterize Nahri as a sex offender.

It is important to reiterate that having a protagonist who is a sex offender is not objectively bad writing.  The issue is that the narrative paints Nahri as the axis of our Protagonist-Centered Morality, while simultaneously relying on outrage bait to define good and evil. Glossing over a sexual assault so that Nahri can remain a paragon destroys the moral foundation of the narrative.

Could this situation have been avoided entirely?

It’s hard to say for certain without understanding the specifics of how the failed absolution came to be.  For example, Chakraborty might have written the assault scene without seeing the problematic implications, then received feedback from a beta-reader or editor that made it sound like the issue was purely about reciprocal emotions rather than sexual acts.  Nahri’s reaction is more understandable in that hypothetical context.  Another possibility is that, given when this book would have been published, Chakraborty would have been sensitized to issues involving consent, and so she tried to make a proactive fix to emphasize Dara’s consent without fully thinking through how the ripple effects of the worldbuilding invalidated that consent.

(It could be none of those.  As mentioned above, I’ve been operating under the assumption that Chakraborty wanted to absolve Nahri of wrongdoing, but it’s entirely possible that she only intended this as a lover’s spat.  The thought that she might reveal Nahri to be a sex offender might not have crossed her mind at all.)

Lacking the specifics, I think the best lesson that can be drawn from this is to not put focus on things that we don’t have to.  No narrative is perfect.  Sometimes a combination of factors can make protagonists into villains or undermine our intended story without us realizing it.  It’s not ideal, but it happens.

Mistakes should ideally be corrected if we find them.  This is usually best done by rewriting whatever aspect of the story has broken.  There are also many cases where a quick patch, like a few lines of dialogue, can correct an issue.  The flip side of this second solution is that the patch should not create more problems.  We need to think through the patch in excruciating detail.  Failing to think through the consequences of our solutions can produce a new situation that is more disastrous than the initial problem.

And sometimes, we need to know when addressing a potential implication, rather than just leaving it alone, would just make the situation worse.

HEART OF A STORY

Well … that was certainly heavy.  On to less weighty matters.

Next week, we will explore the characters of The City of Brass.  This won’t be an exhaustive analysis of the entire cast.  Rather, we’ll focus on our protagonist, her two most significant supporting characters, and the main antagonist.  All these characters had potential, and Chakraborty put an effort into making them multifaceted and nuanced individuals, yet there were flaws in the execution that resulted in an uneven experience.

It’s all coming in Part 4.  Hope to see you all then.  Have a good day.