{"id":5301,"date":"2020-11-06T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-11-06T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=5301"},"modified":"2020-10-27T09:12:04","modified_gmt":"2020-10-27T16:12:04","slug":"mark-reads-the-stone-sky-syl-anagist-zero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2020\/11\/mark-reads-the-stone-sky-syl-anagist-zero\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads ‘The Stone Sky’: Syl Anagist – Zero"},"content":{"rendered":"

In \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Syl Anagist: Zero,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the tuners make their fateful decision. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read The Stone Sky<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Trigger Warning: For mention of grief<\/b><\/p>\n

Well, they tried, didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t they?<\/p>\n

It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s worth something to me. In the greater scheme of this story, the tuners recognized that Syl Anagist was built on a constant source of exploitation\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe Niess and the tuners\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand that they were created to help exploit another living thing forever<\/i>. A perpetual machine of exploitation, if you will. Faced with the reality of an existence that would be violent in perpetuity, they made a choice, one that was supposed to be final, one that spoke to how their captors and oppressors misjudged their ability. Because oppressors always do, don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t they? They have<\/i> to. They have to minimize and diminish and insult in order to posit that they themselves are the superior beings. And in doing so, they become unable to see the truth.<\/p>\n

And so, the tuners struck.<\/p>\n

But Hoa\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s story loops around, shoots back and forth between the present and the past. In the present, I believe he was referring to Essun: she committed \u00e2\u20ac\u0153to the change.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I assume that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the change in her body? Or maybe this is all a reference to the last Essun chapter. Look, Hoa has outright admitted to us that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s had his own motives in all this, and we know he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been willing to manipulate Essun to reach his endgame. And now, Essun will shortly be on her way to Corepoint, to reunite with her daughter, where the choice will be presented again.<\/p>\n

What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the solution? Does Essun return the Moon and try to repair things with Earth, to grant Earth the recompense it deserves? Or will Nassun destroy them all, both out of fury and out of mercy?<\/p>\n

I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know. Yet.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s talk about what is revealed here, because Jemisin has tied up so many questions in this mind-blowing, upsetting, and shocking chapter. I feel\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 well, first, lemme say that I feel satisfied. Deeply so! The answer to the mystery of the origin of orogenes is given to us. So is the origin of the Guardians and the strangeness of their corestone implants; so is the mystery the sockets and those strange iron needles. The Moon. Kelenli. The tuners. The conductors. THE IRON THING THAT TONKEE TOUCHED IN CASTRIMA\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S CONTROL CENTER. Why Hessionite was murdered!!! This chapter was like a dose of adrenaline and dopamine and serotonin ALL AT ONCE.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s start with Alabaster. I appreciated that we opened with his story because it grounded the reader in what was to come: the tuners having a similar breakdown as they tried to understand reality. And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really what this is, isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it? I think any person who considers themselves knowledgable and aware in our own world has a moment like this. They realize how fundamentally broken the world is, and the despair and rage settle in. At first, that is. But what do you do<\/i> with that? What happens, in particular, when Alabaster learns the truth of the tuners and the Moon from Tablet Three? (OH MY GOD WE FINALLY FOUND OUT WHAT WAS ON THAT, TOO.)<\/p>\n

He leaves. He abandons the Fulcrum and his Guardian. I mean, who wouldn’t<\/i> try to run away from an epiphany that horrific? I was fascinated by his Guardian\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s reaction, but it does explain why they had such an odd relationship. It wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t hard to see what was happening here: I think this was a way to reference Steel\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s conversation in the previous chapter. What if Leshet loved<\/i> Alabaster? What if that was her way of resisting the will of the corestone? And didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t Alabaster visit Leshet as she was dying? I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know, maybe I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m just connecting dots that aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually there, but with the reveal at the end of this about the origin of the Guardians, I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t help but think this was all part of that!\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

From here, though, Jemisin gives us another crucial scene. Now that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve read it again, I realize that this was the final time that Hoa saw Kelenli. And what a goodbye: a goodbye without words, just a single stare. But a stare that communicated so much:<\/p>\n

Kelenli stands gazing after him until he is gone. Then her head turns and she looks right at me. Stahnyn makes a choked sound beside me, but she is a fool. Of course Kelenli will not report us. Why would she? Her performance was never for Gallat.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

She gave Hoa the last piece of the puzzle:<\/p>\n

I close my eyes, aching as I finally, finally, understand. Kelenli is one of us in every way that matters, and she always has been.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And the tuners always will be the same in the eyes of the conductors. They will never ascend to anything greater because it is impossible within this system. It was designed that way. The interpersonal relationship between Gallat and Kelenli isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t just a matter of a pregnancy that isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t supposed to happen. Both of them cannot escape what this world has decided they are. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll always be damaged goods in the eyes of others, even the people they love. Well, even worse for the tuners and, I assume, Kelenli: they won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be anything<\/i> after Geoarcanity. Syl Anagist will have no use for them, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure that if they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d done as they were ordered, the Sylanagistine would have found a new way to fold the tuners into their genocide of the Niess.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So they decide, in an act of poetry, to destroy everything with the very engine that was supposed to grant them perpetual magic. Well, perpetual relative to them; it never could have been actually<\/i> perpetual. But they were too arrogant to ever see that. To ever see that magic comes from life, so something at the core of the Earth had<\/i> to have been alive. To ever see that this whole venture would always have ended in a terrible, terrible violence.<\/p>\n

That being said, no one expected the violence that came to be. First: THE MOON. OH MY GOD, I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe I was technically right with my The Obelisk Gate<\/i> prediction about them going to space. I WAS JUST WRONG ABOUT THE TIMELINE. Zero Site was never on Earth, IT WAS ON THE MOON. Even worse, Jemisin chooses a particularly disturbing means of revealing that Earth uses metal as a means of communication and control. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s here that the true context and meaning of corestone becomes apparent. Again, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s such an incredible display of hubris. The very thing that leads to the downfall of Syl Anagist is the object they proudly put on display INSIDE THEIR SECRET MOON BASE. Earth spied on the humans through it!!! And even when Hoa warns them all that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s definitely alive and it is DEFINITELY angry, they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t fucking listen. Because the tuners have no value outside of being tools, and tools can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t warn those that wield them. At least not in the minds of these people.<\/p>\n

I admit to a glee, even knowing that this wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t going to end like the tuners had planned. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something deeply satisfying about reading this all unfolding with not one of the people in Zero Site even slightly<\/i> suspicious of the tuners. I accept that glee because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a power fantasy for me. Wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it be wonderful to turn my oppressors\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 tools against them? Wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it be great to see the surprise on their faces when they realized just how much they had underestimated me and my<\/i> people? Yet even for Hoa, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not that simple, especially once he finds out that Gallat left Kelenli behind on Earth. As promised, love plays a part in this unfolding apocalypse, and Hoa\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153love\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwhatever that love might be\u00e2\u20ac\u201daffects his decisions at Zero Site. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s this part, which\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 whew. THIS HIT HARD:<\/p>\n

She should survive the initial convulsion of magic; even if she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in contact with any of the devices that flux, she has more than enough skill to shunt the feedback away. Then in the aftermath, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be just another survivor, made equal in suffering. No one will know what she really is\u00e2\u20ac\u201dor her child, if it ends up like her. Like us. We will have set her free\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 to struggle for survival along with everyone else. But that is better than the illusion of safety in a gilded cage, is it not?<\/p>\n

Better than you could have ever given her,<\/i> I think at Gallat.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an elegance here: I see tones of Essun\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life, which is fitting given who Kelenli is. The idea of hiding orogeny in plain site\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Essun tried that. Twice. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also an echo of what Nassun is struggling with: her love for Schaffa and the ramifications of what she is about to do. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s part of a long cycle, but Jemisin continues to leave us wondering: Will Nassun or Essun be able to close this loop? Or will they destroy it? Bend its shape into something else?\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And how exactly did Hoa help shape the world we see in the present day?<\/p>\n

We learn that here, and again, so very many hints and clues from over the course of the series come to fruition. Like this:<\/p>\n

(There is a stutter here, quick and barely noticeable in the heady moment, though glaring through the lens of memory. Some of the fragments hurt us, just a little, when they detach from their sockets. We feel the scrape of metal that should not be there, the scratch of needles against our crystalline skin. We smell a whiff of rust. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s quick pain and quickly forgotten, as with any needle. Only later will we remember, and lament.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Because that was Earth<\/i>. Because Earth communicates and controls through metal. Because in a way, Hoa and their tuner friends were doomed from the start. Sort of, that is, since part of the whole reason this war is ignited is because neither party has a definitive victory. Earth had the advantage in many ways, and the tuners were also ignorant<\/i>. They didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know that if you stuff enough magic \u00e2\u20ac\u0153into something nonliving,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that it would come alive<\/i>. And what happens when you have a collective of obelisks, all used as conduits for magic, that remember<\/i> what was done to them? Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ALL. THE ONYX WANTED JUSTICE SO IT LET HOA CONTROL IT. Even then!!!! Even with that on their side\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 fuck. I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ready for the sheer chaos of this sequence. Jemisin writes Hoa\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s narration with a beautiful poetry. He is accepting that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to die (but not alone) while eradicating this entire monstrous system.<\/p>\n

But.<\/p>\n

But<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Remember. We were not the only ones who chose to fight back that day.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Three sides to this war. Stone eaters. Earth. Humanity. And Earth wrenches twenty-seven obelisks away from the tuners\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 control, bringing this into a stalemate\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 until Burndown. That word. That word we heard so long ago. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what Earth wanted to do: to utterly destroy everything<\/i>. But Hoa was in love. Hoa couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t fathom a world destroyed with Kelenli still on it. And so, he made a choice, a split-second one, and he shattered the moonstone cabochon. The power flung the Moon out of orbit.<\/p>\n

And then.<\/p>\n

And then.<\/p>\n

The transformation.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I have said that it held us responsible for the attempt on its life, and it did\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbut somehow, perhaps through its years of study, it understood that we were tools of others, not actors of our own volition. Remember, too, that the Earth does not fully understand us. It looks upon human beings and sees short-lived, fragile creatures, puzzlingly detached in substance and awareness from the planet on which their lives depend, who do not understand the harm they tried to do\u00e2\u20ac\u201dperhaps because<\/i> they are so short-lived and fragile and detached. And so it chose for us what seemed, to it, a punishment leavened with meaning: It made us part of it. In my wire chair, I screamed as wave upon wave of alchemy worked over me, changing my flesh into raw, living, solidified magic that looks like stone.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thus, the stone eaters were made in an instance of retribution and justice, at least in the eyes of Earth. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s poetic, too, to create these beings who, like the Earth, last forever. Who will understand the impossible stretch of time. Who will have an eternity to ponder the long-lasting ramifications of their actions.<\/p>\n

Well, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not all of it:<\/p>\n

We didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get the worst of it; that was reserved for those who had offended the Earth the most. It used the corestone fragments to take direct control of these most dangerous vermin\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbut this did not work as it intended. Human will is harder to anticipate than human flesh. They were never meant to continue.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Incredible. That<\/i> is where the Guardians came from, and based on what we know from what Steel said in the previous chapter, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s easy to connect the dots: Human willpower allowed some of them to resist Earth\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s control. And these same humans who subjugated the Niess and the tuners started all over again, didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t they? Which leads us to the last piece as it falls into place<\/p>\n

Only Kelenli\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s children, who did not stand out, whose strength hid in plain sight, continued. Only Kelenli\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s legacy, in the form of the lorists who went from settlement to settlement warning of the coming holocaust and teaching others how to cooperate, adapt, and remember, remains of the Niess.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Because they had one hundred years before those 27 obelisks burned down to the core. Because they had time to prepare for the very first Fifth Season. And in that time, Kelenli gave birth to the very first orogenes, or at least what we now understand as orogenes.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think this explains everything about the origin of both the orogenes and the Guardians, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s enough. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s enough to get a portrait of that time, back when both groups came into existence. I am certain that there are Guardians who don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even know what their original purpose was: a punishment. Instead, they became part of yet another system of theft. They stole orogenes, and they stole from<\/i> orogenes.<\/p>\n

No more, right? That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re leading to. As Hoa notes, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Essun to end the world again. Or Nassun? Or both? OH GOD, WHAT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S GOING TO HAPPEN IN THESE LAST THREE CHAPTERS????<\/p>\n

NOTES<\/b><\/p>\n