“Six people, but a thousand ways this insane plan could go wrong.”
Young Adult, Fantasy, and Science Fiction novels are rising in both readership and authorship, myself included. As an ardent reader, when I have time outside of college, I love to enjoy the increasing number of books on Barnes and Noble shelves. But my favorite part of reading these kinds of genres is the hidden regimes at work.
Beneath the surface of most Young Adult, Fantasy, and Science Fiction novels, are powerful governmental systems pressing down on the plot and characters. Mostly background in the main storyline, these systems are vigorous behind the scenes. They are the puppeteers driving the action and silently motivating characters.
One of my favorite books, Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo, is the perfect example of this with its large narrative comprising six characters who weave through the corrupt government in Ketterdam. The world is full of crime and prejudices all stemming from the governing authority. This book’s central plot is to save Bo Yul-Bayer’s character from a military base. Yul-Bayer has created a potent drug, jurda parem, that enhances the natural abilities of Grishas. Grishas, as defined by the Grishaverse fandom webpage, are “humans who practice the Small Science, the art of manipulating matter.” I struggled to first understand the Grishaverse and its separate classification systems and completely missed the most important part of this book: The Merchant Council.
The city of Ketterdam, where our story is set, and its country of Kerch are ruled by the Merchant Council. The Council is an oligarchy, a type of government where all power (e.g. executive, legislative, judicial) is fixed in a few key people. This oligarchy has thirteen members creating its Council, all from the wealthiest families of Kerch. The Council is briefly mentioned in the beginning few chapters of the book and near the end, but it is the momentum pushing the plot forward.
Councilmember Hoede is the character who begins our plot when he receives a sample of the drug jurda parem and a letter from Yul-Bayer seeking asylum. Experimenting with the drug on a Grisha, the Councilmember learns the true potential of this drug and the power it could give him and his country. The crooked merchant, Jan Van Eck, learns of this little experiment and goes to main character number one: Kaz Brekker.
The rest of the book follows Kaz Brekker as he assembles a team to break into the military prison to free Yul-Bayer and destroy jurda parem. While the characters never directly interact with Councilmember Hoede, he is the driving arc of this plot. His actions affect the characters and set the wheels in motion to rescue the character of Bo Yul-Bayer.
Furthermore, the Merchant Council has produced the landscape of the city which serves as the character’s inner conflicts. In Kerch, Grisha are actively bought and sold as slaves for various purposes. Even Councilmember Hoede has a Grisha, who thankfully escapes after he experiments with the jurda parem on her. Slavery is not just tolerated in Kerch, it is accepted and profited off of because of the Council.
The six main characters’ fears often lie in the city and the country, wondering when they’ll be found out as a Grisha, or captured again and sold back to slavery. The Merchant Council is the cause of this fear, freely allowing slavery and brothels to run amuck in the country. Without the Merchant Council and its authority, there would be no plot and no book.
Once you begin to analyze plots within Young Adult, Fantasy, and Science Fiction, you will find all types of governmental systems at play from monarchies, dictatorships,
theocracies, aristocracies, and oligarchies, like Six of Crows. Take a look at your favorite Young Adult novel and see what government system is working in the plot, they probably play a more important role than you think!
Meet the blogger:
LINDSEY is a senior at Hamline University majoring in Creative Writing and Political Science. She enjoys reading books of all genres but prefers writing in the young adult and fantasy. When she’s not reading or writing, she’s walking her dog, Finn, or drinking tea.
