Post for my Speculative Fiction Class Featuring The Twelve Kingdoms (Patreon)

I finally got a chance to reference The Twelve Kingdoms in one of my classes despite its out-of-print status. This is for the speculative fiction MFA course I'm teaching (the school uses that term to encompass sci-fi, fantasy and dystopian stories). The first forum post assignment was pretty in depth so I did an example post for the students.

This is an example for how you might approach your first post on the discussion forum this week. Since it is only an example, I just talked about one external and internal characteristic for my chosen character, but please remember that you are supposed to discuss two of each.

Hi! My name is Caitlin Donovan. I'm a MFA graduate and Creative Writing adjunct professor.  I am a published author. My most recent novel was a young adult dark fantasy romance titled In the Way of All Flesh.

One of my favorite characters of all time is Yoko Nakajima from Fuyumi Ono's The Twelve Kingdoms series. She's the main character of the first book in the series, Sea of Shadow. In the first chapter, she's yanked from her home in Tokyo by mysterious beings and ends up in a world full of demons, monsters and people she doesn't understand. She undergoes an incredible character arc throughout the course of the book, going from meek, passive character to an admirable, active one.

One important external characteristic of Yoko's is present from the very first chapter: "in a country where everyone's hair was black, Yoko's red hair definitely stood out. It had always been light colored (Ono 10)". Yoko has natural red hair, despite being Japanese. It's something that she's self-conscious about, and her parents hate how it makes her stand out. In a realistic novel, this would either be a weird quirk or a sign that Yoko might actually have mixed-race heritage, but because this is a fantasy novel, this is an early hint that Yoko comes from another world. In The Twelve Kingdoms series, people from the alternate world of The Twelve Kingdoms are sometimes accidentally born on Earth, and there are physical signs they 'don't belong'. Yoko's hair color is therefore an important detail of the book's worldbuilding, foreshadowing how people get lost between these different worlds. It's also important to Yoko's character. No matter how much she tries to avoid standing out, she left with this nagging feeling she 'doesn't belong'. This sense of alienation drives her to withdraw.

Now, let's look at an internal characteristic. Does Yoko have a driving ambition? For this first chapter, Yoko's only ambition is to please other people. This is demonstrated several times, like when it's stated "Yoko did do all her homework, but it wasn't out of any love of learning. She was just afraid her teachers would get angry with her if she didn't" (Ono 13) and when she doesn't object when a classmate is being mocked because "she lacked the courage to disappoint everyone around her" (15), However, even in the first chapter, this starts to shift a little. When she's confronted with a strange man and monsters chasing her, she's forced out of her people-pleasing ways and feels how good it is to let her real emotions show. "She couldn't remember the last time she shouted at anyone in anger. It made her feel powerful, euphoric" (42). Already, we see that when confronted with the fantasy world, Yoko is changing a bit as a person.

And indeed, throughout the rest of the novel, she learns to want more from life than simply to please others. She's stranded in a fantastical world where demons are after her and can no longer rely on just doing what she's told and following the narrow path her society laid out for her. The fantasy world forces her to take on responsibility, find her courage, and gain a strong driving ambition.

The fact Yoko wants nothing for herself at the beginning of the book and only exists to please others makes her stand out from a lot of other fantasy characters. Most are not as cowardly and unmotivated as her at the beginning of their journeys, but it's precisely because Yoko starts out this way that watching her grow is so incredible. She truly has to struggle and change throughout her journey and, for me, that's what makes a character memorable. The fantasy elements amplify her journey and function as metaphor. She grew up in a society she never felt she belonged in, one that limited her and told her how she should behave as a girl. When she breaks free from that society (to enter a fantastical world), she finds herself and what she wants. It's a larger than life journey, but it's something that anyone who's struggled with social expectation and trying to find themselves can relate to and it resonates powerfully. It's a great example of how important character is in fantasy and how deeply fantasy can affect us.

Work Cited:

Ono, Fuyumi. The Twelve Kingdoms: Sea of Shadow. Tokyopop Inc, 2006.