NOTE: Contains Spoilers for Seraphina and Shadow Scale
Rachel Hartman's Gorredd, the quasi-medieval fantasy world that Seraphina and Shadow Scale are set in, is particularly awesome for its sexual diversity, with a full cast of LGQTB characters. In an interview on The Midnight Garden, she says that "Diversity is very important to me, and I honestly don’t see how one could populate an imaginary world without it." What I like even more is that although this is YA, she doesn't shy away from sex at all: sex doesn't just come up as romance, it simply is, matter-of-factly, part of the story. After all, Seraphina is the love child of a dragon and a human. Raunchy jokes sprinkle the text as part of the fabric of medieval life (very believable, as any scholar will know, read Pantagruel and Gargantua for a start) rather than something written in for sensational reading, and Seraphina, a witty sixteen-year-old, is no stranger to sexual innuendo.
While Kiggs and Seraphina respectively revere and wrestle with propriety almost religiously (a self-imposed standard that we discover is of their own making), amid a conservative cultural background -- one where illegitimate children are scorned and Daanites (gay) are persecuted, and human-dragon intercourse seen as the most revulsive of all -- the characters we get to know are unhesitatingly sex-positive. Speaking about watching her dragon mother fall in love with her human father, Viridius tells Seraphina, "I'm a Daanite, I don't judge other people's love affairs." (Chapter The elderly and ailing Viridius cohabits with a much younger, oversized half-dragon. A decidedly unattractive, bald, white man falls in love with a transgender, dark-skinned ityasaari. Eskar, though devoted to Orma, apparently has no qualms being non-monogamous:
At the end of Seraphina, Kiggs (remember he's an eighteen year old boy) blushes to think of the mechanics of Seraphina's conception. At the end of Shadow Scale, Seraphina is unfazed by Dame Okra's learing comments about how Glisselda and Kiggs will produce an heir (Dragons have artificial insemination technology, right, Rachel?). Seraphina's reply politely indicates that she doesn't give any fucks about what Dame Okra thinks.
So many readers are uneasy with the ending, because it presents a lie, a fabrication not so different from the one that haunted Seraphina's childhood. I think there is a difference. Bluffing, wit, stealth, and deviously legal loopholes, have never been a liability in Seraphina's world: falsehoods are not inherently wrong though they have consequences, but honesty is not black and white, not without consequence, either. The truth that liberated Seraphina was a personal truth, coming-to-terms with whom she is and finding acceptance for that. A younger Seraphina -- the one tortured by all the rude jokes about dragons -- might have blushed to hear Dame Okra's insinuations about her sex life. Seraphina at the end of Shadow Scale is perfectly confident in her new role.
Eighty years later, it appears that the people -- or historians -- of Gorredd were not fooled by this subterfuge. "Is it true that you and Prince Lucian Kiggs, Heaven hold him, confessed your love for each other before the dragon civil war even began?" Father Fargle asks her. Seraphina, who was so tortured about having to remain discreet in her adolescence, has completely owned discretion now, to a degree that even the historian was complicit in, for he says, "yet I felt and still feel that her twinkling eyes answered, even if her tongue would not."
Rachel Hartman's Gorredd, the quasi-medieval fantasy world that Seraphina and Shadow Scale are set in, is particularly awesome for its sexual diversity, with a full cast of LGQTB characters. In an interview on The Midnight Garden, she says that "Diversity is very important to me, and I honestly don’t see how one could populate an imaginary world without it." What I like even more is that although this is YA, she doesn't shy away from sex at all: sex doesn't just come up as romance, it simply is, matter-of-factly, part of the story. After all, Seraphina is the love child of a dragon and a human. Raunchy jokes sprinkle the text as part of the fabric of medieval life (very believable, as any scholar will know, read Pantagruel and Gargantua for a start) rather than something written in for sensational reading, and Seraphina, a witty sixteen-year-old, is no stranger to sexual innuendo.
"Banished men, and likely troublemakers?; scoffed Guntard. 'They’re locked in the eastern basement, the proper donjon being full of wine casks for some significant state visit coming up."
"Sweet St. Siucre, which one might that be?" someone asked with a laugh.
"The one where your mother beds a saar and lays an egg. Omelette for all!"
-- Chapter 12, Seraphina
He thought we’d been up to something back here, with the curtains drawn. Tuning each other’s lutes, as they say. Practicing our polyphony. Playing the crumhorn.
-- Chapter 16, Seraphina
“All great houses are near a village and a river. We have a proverb: ‘In highlandts, every man is earl of his own valley.’ Thet means a lot of valleys. Also, means a rude joke in Samsamese.”
"Uh, I don't need that one spelled out."
-- Chapter 11, Shadow Scale
While Kiggs and Seraphina respectively revere and wrestle with propriety almost religiously (a self-imposed standard that we discover is of their own making), amid a conservative cultural background -- one where illegitimate children are scorned and Daanites (gay) are persecuted, and human-dragon intercourse seen as the most revulsive of all -- the characters we get to know are unhesitatingly sex-positive. Speaking about watching her dragon mother fall in love with her human father, Viridius tells Seraphina, "I'm a Daanite, I don't judge other people's love affairs." (Chapter The elderly and ailing Viridius cohabits with a much younger, oversized half-dragon. A decidedly unattractive, bald, white man falls in love with a transgender, dark-skinned ityasaari. Eskar, though devoted to Orma, apparently has no qualms being non-monogamous:
"I wonder if Eskar will consent to be mated?"
“She chose Orma,” I said throatily, still coughing.
“Nothing stops her from choosing me as well.” The old saarantras gave me a sly sidelong look. “Sometimes our reason will lead us to the same morality as your empathy and feeling, and sometimes it won’t. I find that …” His mouth formed not-quite words, waiting for his mind to catch up. “Exhilarating?” he offered at last.
-- Chapter 27, Shadow Scale
At the end of Seraphina, Kiggs (remember he's an eighteen year old boy) blushes to think of the mechanics of Seraphina's conception. At the end of Shadow Scale, Seraphina is unfazed by Dame Okra's learing comments about how Glisselda and Kiggs will produce an heir (Dragons have artificial insemination technology, right, Rachel?). Seraphina's reply politely indicates that she doesn't give any fucks about what Dame Okra thinks.
So many readers are uneasy with the ending, because it presents a lie, a fabrication not so different from the one that haunted Seraphina's childhood. I think there is a difference. Bluffing, wit, stealth, and deviously legal loopholes, have never been a liability in Seraphina's world: falsehoods are not inherently wrong though they have consequences, but honesty is not black and white, not without consequence, either. The truth that liberated Seraphina was a personal truth, coming-to-terms with whom she is and finding acceptance for that. A younger Seraphina -- the one tortured by all the rude jokes about dragons -- might have blushed to hear Dame Okra's insinuations about her sex life. Seraphina at the end of Shadow Scale is perfectly confident in her new role.
Eighty years later, it appears that the people -- or historians -- of Gorredd were not fooled by this subterfuge. "Is it true that you and Prince Lucian Kiggs, Heaven hold him, confessed your love for each other before the dragon civil war even began?" Father Fargle asks her. Seraphina, who was so tortured about having to remain discreet in her adolescence, has completely owned discretion now, to a degree that even the historian was complicit in, for he says, "yet I felt and still feel that her twinkling eyes answered, even if her tongue would not."
