Rage as an Art Form
By: Rae
Female Rage has been a well loved trope in the fantasy and sci-fi genre from RF Kuang’s Poppy War to Circe by Madeline Miller. But the series that has brought us together today is N.E. Davenport’s The Blood Gift duology. Davenport uses rage like brush strokes painting the curves of Ikenna’s pain and anguish as she learns truth after truth. Ikenna is not perfect and that is what I love about her. She represents being unapologetically, morally grey and I love it. Her rage isn’t a sleeping dragon but a burning Phoenix that rises from the ashes of despair and doubt. Ikenna’s rage is an ombre of red and white fading between the two as sparks of reality ignite it over and over again. She is someone not afraid of killing or torturing those that stand in her way, yet she is not uncontrolled. Her rage evolves from splashes of color that cover everything like the blood from her blue steel to choreographed executions of vengeance and spite.
Ikenna has both righteous rage and murderous drive. That is a dangerous combination for someone with power both in the way of brute strength and charisma. She is someone that doesn’t see how she moves people to love her. In a way, she reminds me of Shonda Rhimes' Olivia Pope. Ikenna is her squad's Helen of Troy. She is a demigod with a face that launched a thousand ships. So many people die following her leadership, but few have abandoned her. Even her enemy, Canan joins her on her mission to right the wrongs of the wicked and protect the autonomy of the innocent. What is awe-inspiring about this character versus any other I have read thus far is she represents such a nuanced place in society so casually and effortlessly.
Ikenna is a young woman of privilege, she goes to the best schools and she is one of the best because she has to be. Her grandfather is a legend, and she has stood not only in his shadow but also as an eyesore to a society that persecutes not only her heritage but her skin tone. She speaks several languages and has travelled around the world as the kin of an ambassador, She is considered family to royalty and yet she lives her life looked down upon by Marinians. Some wonder why she does not leave, but I don't. To me, Ikenna exemplifies the upper class black experience so well. She has all the privilege of money and all the cultural upbringing and yet is still some how beneath most in the society she knows. It’s hard to live in a culture you weren’t born into, no matter how well you are treated. Sometimes you want acceptance more than inclusion. But with that drive for acceptance, comes the inevitable truth that you never will be. And this becomes the first spark to ignite Ikenna past her grief. She learns that her grandfather’s search for acceptance has ended in betrayal and murder. The red slides into white once again when she learns why, when she learns that the people she herself had come to love and trust were writing their own lines in her story. That they were adding periods where there should have been commas. That they were lying to her at every turn, not because of who she was, but what. From the ashes of her family and friends, Ikenna becomes even more of a force. She is more than a soldier, more than a leader. She is a revolutionary.
Her rage is not a bomb waiting to explode. It is sharpened precision, taking the form of any weapon necessary.
