Guest post written by author Zabé Ellor
Zabé Ellor is a literary agent with The Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency, and all-around creative nerd from Washington D.C. His debut title May the Best Man Win will be released with Roaring Brook Press/Macmillan in Spring 2021. Zabé graduated from Cornell University in 2016 with a dual degree in biology and English. An avid reader and writer, his non-literary interests include running, travel, and finding the perfect dim sum. Silk Fire is out July 5th in the US and July 7th in the UK.
The summer before my senior year of college, I tore through mass-market SFF paperbacks like Doritos. Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey sat at the bottom of my pile, until a friend insisted I pick it up. All I knew was the main character’s magical power was that she was a sex worker who took sexual pleasure from pain, and that didn’t sound like any fantasy hero I knew.
A hero is someone who does things. A sex worker has things done to them.
Kushiel’s Dart and its sequels are a bit of an outlier in the fantasy canon. Popular female-led fantasy titles like Twilight and Throne of Glass have led to dozens of imitators. When I started work on this piece, I looked for other books with sex workers as protagonists and found none. Phèdre, the protagonist of Kushiel’s Dart, is in good company with the female heroes of mid/late 00’s fantasy, many of whom choose careers that let them pursue political goals, magical destinies, and romantic and sexual satisfaction. But these women worked as bounty hunters, mercenaries, assassins, or spies. Even in a fantasy world, it’s hard to believe there’s more job openings for hired killers than sex workers. So why didn’t more fantasy novels about sex workers come out following Kushiel’s Dart?
At first, I thought it was just another example of Western media prudishness, how it’s more acceptable to depict a woman brutally murdered than her experiencing orgasm. But this is publishing, where the whole romance genre revolves around female pleasure. Fantasy novels gleefully cover taboo subjects like torture and witchcraft. I don’t think prudishness alone explains the deficit. The truth is, sex and sexuality are challenging to write.
Jacqueline Carey writes sex scenes like dances, where threads of power and desire pull at each other through each physical interaction. Phèdre’s first client, a wealthy nobleman who thinks he’s a much smarter political player than he is, throws himself at her like a wave against a rock, trying and failing to tease out her secrets. In contrast, elusive villain Melisandre Shahrizai plays with Phèdre’s desire for her, drawing out their intimacy until Phèdre’s longing is so strong, it overcomes her judgement and allows Melisandre to spring a trap. Sexuality gives us an intimate view of the characters’ strengths and weaknesses.
Most importantly, they characterize Phèdre and her growth into her role as the anguisette: one divinely blessed to derive pleasure from pain. At first, she sees her gift as a toy, a curiosity. Raised by the royal spymaster alongside her foster brother, her competitive nature drives her to push her limits to win her foster father’s approval by gathering information. By enduring pain, she can get closer to her goals. I keenly remember this resonating with me as a college student: suffer enough, get your degree.
Suffering takes on new meaning to Phèdre when her childhood home is destroyed and she’s enslaved by the warlord who plans to invade her kingdom. These chapters don’t draw out the sexual violence she experiences: Phèdre simply tells readers she did what she had to in order to survive. Navigating a foreign society where sex work is stigmatized, living without the luxury she’s accustomed to, she draws on her her ability to navigate suffering in all its aspects.
The experience opens her eyes to how her wealthy patrons’ political games destroy lives, awakening her fierce loyalty to her homeland and her determination to protect it. Understanding her sexuality is the gateway to understanding her destiny: as a courtesan, a spy, and a diplomat, she can prevent the suffering of others.
Sex and sexuality evoke character and demonstrate growth—but Western publishing thrives on plot. Acts of violence fit neatly into a traditional narrative structure, where the fantasy hero fulfills goals and wins laurels in their journey to power. Sex scenes are often criticized as ‘unnecessary filler’—after all, if there’s no dead bodies or ruined kingdoms left behind, has the story really moved forward?
Often, this is referred to as agency: the power of the main character to impose their will on others. Agency is commonly discussed when analyzing if a female character is truly ‘a strong female character’ grown from a long literary tradition depicting women as powerless objects. Sex work doesn’t bestow agency in the same way swinging a sword does; a sex worker lets their customers enact their will on them. But Phèdre isn’t interested in imposing her will. Her kingdom’s motto is love as thou wilt,and her own power is rooted in love.
The characters in Kushiel’s Dart draw their power from interpersonal relationships. As a young woman, Phèdre competes fiercely with her foster brother Alcuin for love and attention, only to discover their different skills complement each other and they’re meant to work as a team. She builds friendships with royalty and commoners alike, and can call on these friends for help as she needs them. Even the heroic swordsman Joscelin, a warrior without peer, relies on Phèdre’s diplomacy and common sense as often as she relies on his martial skill.
This isn’t agency as it’s traditionally discussed—Phèdre does not control her loved ones or use them to control others. Rather, Kushiel’s Dart subtly interrogates the value of agency. Phèdre doesn’t need absolute power to achieve her goals. She navigates her problems by building connections: with clients, partners, and friends. Absolute force is irrelevant. The military warlords and powerful schemers working to conquer her kingdom believe the people of Terre d’Ange are weak, more interested in sex than money and power. Yet they come and go, failing over and over to gain ground, while the people of Terre d’Ange hold together, united in their goal to preserve their freedom. The love they hold for one another may not be the same as agency, but it endures.
Kushiel’s Dart interrogates not only who can be a fantasy hero, but how they can succeed along their journey. It plays with conventions in a wonderful, subtle way, while creating a fantasy world where queer characters are normalized and female characters of all types are celebrated. After over a decade in print, it remains a stand-out entry in the fantasy canon and a classic I return to over and over, whenever I ask myself how power and desire in fiction combine.
