Comparing YA Fantasy Novels Inspired by East Asia
I’ve been interested in data analytics recently (in the hopes of becoming a more useful person in our society) so I thought I’d try something new and discuss my thoughts on Amélie Wen Zhao’s latest novel Song of Silver, Flame Like Night, which I got an ARC for, through a visually presented comparison with 5 other East Asian inspired YA Fantasy novels that came out recently. Most of them are sinocentric whereas The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea and Six Crimson Cranes aren’t. As I haven’t quite figured out how to convey all of my thoughts with my (“graphic design is my passion”esque) infographics, they will have to be accompanied by some explanatory notes.
I begin with a quick overview of their structural and linguistic elements. The first two sections are self-explanatory but it’s worth elaborating more on the use of epithets. It’s not something that I’m particularly keen on as I find it takes me out of my immersion in the world but I do appreciate how Amélie plays around with them by using them to further build upon her world’s lore. Next is the use of pīnyīn. I’m still not too sure about them but I guess it’s here to stay since all of the more recent publications have them. Literally translated place names is another reoccurring feature. Unlike how I feel about pīnyīn, I really do not like them as I find them reductive but it looks like it’s something we can’t quite escape.
In terms of representation, queer actors are all largely left to the backdrop and mostly inconsequential but we take what we can get. I wonder if I should split it further into whether they are plot relevant or inconsequential. I put up two categories for multiculturalism, one where difference is explicit and the other where it is only hinted at. It occurs when differences are suggested through variations in the naming conventions used and I’m calling this “colourblind” for now.
This is where I kind of struggled with my presentation of the data. Amélie’s novel doesn’t actually feature a branch of magic that utilises all three parts of the venn diagram at once as the infographic may suggest. Instead, there are various schools of magics based on the Chinese concept of Qi and one of them draws inspiration from the Chinese writing system while another is more akin to having control over metals. Nothing like Babel’s simultaneous use of both language and silver bars to achieve magical effects but still incredibly cool and my favourite part of the novel hands down. For those who are not familiar, A Magic Steeped in Poison works with Chinese Tea and Traditional Chinese Medicine whereas Six Crimson Cranes features magic that engages with origami though I wouldn’t say that it is a particularly developed practice.
This is possibly my favourite chart. Please note that I had to remove some of the books as I wasn’t going to count engagement with fantastical beings like mermaids and the likes as multiculturalism (unless they are reminiscent of any distinctive real world culture distinct from that which the protagonist mainly operates within). Awareness of differences is a start but the portrayal of tensions and conflicts within those community will constitute towards deeper interest. Six Crimson Cranes is an interesting one as while it features no characters that may be coded as White (as per my memory), the narrative uses a Hans Christian Andersen fairytale as its base so there is some engagement with East-West relations though it doesn’t exactly manifest within the story world.
Similarly, this is a chart that I also really enjoyed making. I consider a work to have deeper engagement where it takes narrative threads from folklore (as opposed to simply referencing it), more so if it takes plot lines from multiple myths and even more so if the story notes are intermingled. Unfortunately, my hazy is a bit hazy as I had never intended to do any of this when I read most of these books. There may be mistakes.
So because i’m not too sure about the accuracy of my work, I thought I’ll end off with something that cannot be wrong. I took these from Waterstones so they better be correct! Well, I hope this has been useful!
