Exploring Queerness and Identity in Elizabeth Bear's "The Lotus Kingdoms"

The fantasy trilogy deftly interweaves its queer characters with the larger existential conflicts so common in the genre.

As soon as I began reading the first book in the trilogy, The Stone in the Skull, I was immediately hooked. Though deliberately paced and at times quite cerebral, there was still something richly compelling about the world that Bear created and, just as importantly, the story was grounded by a number of fascinating characters. In three books, The Stone in the Skull, The Red-Stained Wings, and The Origin of Storms, we follow these individuals as they have to contend not only with the fraught and deadly politics of the realms known as the Lotus Kingdoms but also with the looming threat of a force that threatens to plunge their world into chaos. 

While the trilogy’s epic trappings are enjoyable in and of themselves, what really drew me into the world was its engagement with rich, complicated questions of gender, identity, and power. Two characters in particular stand out in this regard. The Gage is a man made of metal who, at the series’ beginning, is dispatched to the Lotus Kingdoms with a message. Sayeh, on the other hand, is a middle-aged rajni who rules as a regent for her young son. Each of them, in their own way, neatly encapsulates the fundamentally queer sensibility at the heart of Bear’s secondary world. 

Though the Gage is a man made of metal, there are hints throughout that he was once a human woman, one who traded her mortality to a wizard in exchange for this gift. Of all of the characters, the Gage is possibly the most enigmatic, for though we get several chapters from his point of view, there is much that he keeps from the world and, arguably, from himself as well. Yet this is precisely what makes him so queerly compelling. He always seems to flicker in and out of our sight and, since he is no longer fully human–even though, as the novel points out, he still feels things as any human would–he also exists in some liminal space that resists classification and neat categories. 

Personally, I found Sayeh to be even more fascinating than the Gage or, for that matter, any of the other characters in the series. She is repeatedly referred to as belonging to the third sex, and it’s clear that, though she was assigned male at birth, she now has the body of a woman. She has even managed to give birth to a son, whom she loves fiercely and devotedly. The exact mechanism by which this was brought to pass remains a little ambiguous, but it’s clear that it required some sort of sacrifice on her part, and this makes her treasure her boy even more. What’s more, she’s far from perfect, capable of betraying others when she thinks that it will be in the best interests of her son, and she’s known to make a mistake or two in her political calculations. Bear’s skill, then, lies in being able to create a trans character who is neither perfect nor purely villainous but instead gloriously, complexly human. 

What I appreciated about Bear’s depiction of this particular phenomenon was how understated it was. It was obviously a key moment in Sayeh’s life–and that of the small and poor state that she rules–but the novel doesn’t give us prurient details. Given the extent to which trans and nonbinary people have become increasingly targeted by those on the right (and bad-faith actors in the LGBTQ+ community itself) in the real world, it’s nice to spend some time in a fictional universe where someone isn’t subjected to violence and discrimination just because of who they are or what body they happened to be born into. Indeed, everyone seems to just accept her as the woman that she is even though, as it proves, this proves to be something of a double-edged sword since far too many people believe women shouldn’t wield political power.

And, just because things weren’t queer enough, as the final novel, The Origin of Storms, approaches its conclusion we see Sayeh get married to her younger female cousin Mrithuri (a fascinating character in her own right), thus binding together two of the feuding elements of the scattered royal family. Though it’s clear that neither of them is particularly erotically attracted to the other at first, it’s just as clear that each of them complements in ways that no one else can quite accomplish. By the time the series ends, we’ve been led to believe that, together, they have the potential to lead a united Lotus Kingdoms into a bright new future, one that doesn’t need to be bound or restricted by what has come before. 

Throughout the trilogy, these characters all engage with questions of identity, loyalty, and responsibility. Their sexualities and their genders are an essential part of who they are, not just tacked on or done for a simple, blunt effect. And, in each case, their choices and their identities come to have enormous consequences not just for them but for the realms of which they are the head. This is particularly true for both Mrithuri and Sayeh, the latter of whom comes to be empress in both name and reality, even as she also comes to rely on Sayeh to provide her the emotional support and love that she has so long been denied. 

In the real world, queer life is often messy, fractious and, yes, even difficult. The books that Elizabeth Bear has given us manage to replicate these experiences in ways that don’t beat us over the head with the work that they’re doing. Instead she lets us spend time with a variety of characters who are just doing the best they can to survive in a world that grows increasingly uncertain and unstable with each book. I don’t know if Bear has plans to return to these characters, but I know that I, for one, would love to get to spend more time with Mrithuri and Sayeh, to see how they’re marriage works out. Even if we don’t get future books dealing with them I know that I, for one, am happy we have “The Lotus Kingdoms.”