“Just so pitiful and ugly.” Blackface, Bigotry, and Dehumanization in P.C. Cast’s “Moon Chosen”
In Moon Chosen, the first book in the series Tales of a New World, P.C. Cast explores a post-apocalyptic world divided into tribes and clans, plagued by disease and bloodthirsty creatures, and infused with magic. This novel’s 600-page heft demonstrates its lofty goals, but it ultimately failed to satisfyingly achieve them. On the contrary, the seeming effort to make a statement about racism and human rights through the conflict between dark-skinned Earth Walkers and white-coded Companions continually sided with the view that Earth Walkers are lesser and Companions are noble but misled.
Ugly and Diseased
The more favourable treatment of Companions is immediately obvious from a simple comparison between how they are described versus how Earth Walkers are described. Where Companions’ features are “refined”, “delicate”, and ultimately beautiful, (p. 40, 113, 451, 458) Earth Walkers are “plain”, “unrefined”, or outright “ugly”. (p. 39, 147, 210, 427) This is bad enough on its own, but Earth Walkers are also afflicted with a terrible condition called Night Fever. Every third night, the women fall into inconsolable depression and the men become enraged, violent rapists. They have to be Washed by the magic of a Moon Woman or else the madness carries over into the day, causing the men to become increasingly animalistic and the women to grow so depressed that they eventually die. Earth Walker men are regarded as so vile and savage that the heroically-framed characters suggest committing genocide against them, regarding them as animals that “need to be put down.” (p. 504)
Companions also suffer from a serious disease, but it is handled much differently. They never become violent or deranged, but instead have a high risk of contracting a deadly blight anytime they suffer a skin-breaking wound. While it is difficult to imagine how a tribe that lives in trees has survived so long when any simple scratch can be deadly, the Companions are actually thriving, plus a permanent cure to blight is discovered by one of the protagonists. In contrast, a permanent cure to Night Fever is never discovered, nor is it even discussed as a possibility.
Prioritized People
Cast’s misled portrayal of people of colour isn’t confined just to the world-building, however. Large sections of the story are told from the point-of-view of Mari, who is half-Earth Walker and half-Companion.
Not only does Mari use the slur “Scratcher” to refer the Earth Walkers who raised her, (p. 7, 39, 270) but she spends most of the book adamantly refusing to use her magic as a Moon Woman to heal her Clan of Night Fever, instead choosing to leave them to suffer and presumably die. Cast even makes the baffling decision to include a scene where Mari calmly sits in her burrow listening to the agonized cries of her Clan suffering Night Fever, making notes to herself about the screams. On the other hand, Mari shows no hesitation about healing Nik, an injured Companion, despite the fact that Companions have captured and enslaved Earth Walkers for decades and are responsible for the death of her mother.
Mari also lives in fear of her people, believing that they would kill her for being part Companion. This drives her to disguise herself. To do so, she dyes her hair to make it “dark and muddy” and a “matted mess”. (p. 39–40) She also uses a paste made of dirt to make her appear “thick-featured” and dark-skinned. (p. 9) This is a form of blackface and serves to re-emphasize the portrayal of Earth Walkers as almost universally ugly.
Intention vs. Execution
It is hard to say exactly what Cast intended when she designed Earth Walkers and Companions. I wasn’t able to find any interviews in which she discussed this aspect of the book. However, the book certainly gives the impression of attempting to parallel real-world dehumanization and enslavement of people of colour.
The Companions view Earth Walkers as animals with childlike intelligence, completely unable to care for themselves. When they capture Earth Walkers to use them as slaves on Farm Island, they essentially regard it as using livestock for labour. This is treated as completely justified. The Companions simply don’t understand that Earth Walkers are human beings. Plus, it is dangerous for them to tend fields due to their blight, so enslaving Earth Walkers to do the labour for them is regarded as a matter of survival, not morality. Therefore, they aren’t monsters for using slaves. This is then pushed on Mari as her responsibility to fix: She has to use Earth Walker moon magic and medicinal knowledge to cure Companions of their blight so that it is no longer necessary for them to use slaves.
Though Mari wishes to see the Earth Walker women freed from slavery, it is never a driving goal for her. Even when she goes to the Tribe to cure the blight, she at first plans only to Wash the captured women, telling Sol that “[she’s] not asking [him] to release [her] people”. (p. 572) Though she does eventually decide to free them, it is a last-minute decision.
When the moment comes to finally heal the women of the crippling depression they have suffered under since being captured, it is framed in an incredibly unsettling light. None of the women ask to be freed. None of them try to escape while they are out of confinement. Instead, they crowd around Mari, desperately grabbing at her and begging, “Moon Woman! Wash us, Moon Woman! Save us!” (p. 580) That Mari is a fair-skinned woman standing above them, holding their salvation in her hands after spending most of the book deliberately withholding that cure, only makes the scene more disturbing.
Whatever P.C. Cast’s intentions may have been, she ended up creating a truly horrific tale of justified slavery and white superiority. I don’t know if this carries through the rest of the series, but I, for one, am not interested in finding out.
References:
Cast, P.C. 2016. Moon Chosen. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press.
