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It's so twisted that Nassun goes to her father in that moment when she walks in on him having just murdered her younger brother 💔

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(comment on The Obelisk Gate)

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"Damaya at the fulcrum of it all": A crack in an otherwise flawless story?

In Chapter 11 of The Fifth Season, "Damaya at the fulcrum of it all," we read about the bullying Damaya suffered during her early years at the Fulcrum, and the terrible fallout after she takes action to put a stop to it.

When Damaya realizes how dangerous bullying at the Fulcrum can be, she approaches Crack, another Fulcrum grit who is also being bullied, and enlists the other girl's aid to execute a plan to catch the conspirators who have been tormenting them. Crack agrees to help Damaya, and the two go through with their plan. However, things take an unexpected turn when a cascade of finger pointing reveals that it was Crack who was the mastermind behind the effort to break Damaya, leaving us to wonder:

Why did Crack help Damaya?

Me and my partner are not the only readers to wonder. This thread on Goodreads reveals some readers' frustrations with this part of the story. I found Reddit threads that also discuss this part of the story. At first pass, it doesn't seem to make much sense that Crack would agree to help Damaya when she's the one who was behind the bullying. It seems to make even less sense that Crack wouldn't fuck Damaya over—by hiding Damaya's shoes somewhere other than Maxixe's chest—after they've set the plan in motion. So why does she agree to help, and why does she do everything according to Damaya's plan? After a long discussion with my partner, this is how I've come to think of it:

First, we have to understan Crack's position.

We gather that she's been the target of bullying for some time before Damaya's troubles begin, and perhaps her bullying has been worse. Certainly, she's in danger because of it; remember that the stakes at the Fulcrum are life and death.

So Crack is angry and afraid and desperate when she goes after Damaya. Hers isn't the typical "popular kid hazing the unpopular kid" bullying—it's a matter of survival. She needs the other grits to expend their cruelty on Damaya; otherwise, she is the target of that cruelty, and she's at the end of her rope.

Note, here, that Maxixe—the target of the girls' plan—is one of the popular kids, and it's very likely that he's been participating in or even instigating the bullying of Crack. Note, also, that it's implied that Damaya has not been bullying Crack.

It's in this context that Damaya seeks an ally in Crack, and their first interaction is loaded with more complexity than Damaya can know:

Crack eyes her. “Really? Things are bad enough that you need me?”

It’s a good sign that they can be honest with each other right off. “Yes,” Damaya says, and sits since Crack hasn’t really objected. “They’re messing with you, too, aren’t they?” Of course they are. Damaya hasn’t seen whatever they’re doing, but it only makes sense. There’s an order to life in the Fulcrum.

Crack chose Damaya as a target because Damaya is the goody two-shoes grit who makes all the other grits look bad by comparison. Whatever Crack is expecting from Damaya, it's not empathy.

Crack sighs. This makes the room reverberate faintly, or so it feels for an instant. Damaya makes herself not react, because a good partnership should not begin with a display of fear. Crack sees this and relaxes, just a little. The judder of imminent disaster fades.

Damaya's empathy knocks the wind out of Crack. Then, when she doesn't react to Crack's literally palpable emotions with fear, Damaya gives Crack some of the humanity the other grits, in their fear of her, have denied her.

“Yeah,” Crack says, softly. Damaya realizes all of a sudden that Crack is angry, though she keeps her gaze on her plate. It’s there in the way she holds her fork too tightly, and the way her expression is too blank. All at once Damaya wonders: Is Crack’s control really a problem? Or is it simply that her tormentors have done their best to make her crack? “So what do you want to do about it?”

Damaya outlines her plan. After an initial flinch, Crack realizes she is serious. They finish eating in silence, while Crack thinks it over. At last, Crack says, “I’m in.”

I understand that initial flinch to be Crack reacting to Damaya's plan to use the very same ploy Crack used to land Damaya in trouble as a means of catching out the ringleader of the bullies. Crack weighs her options as she eats in silence:

She could confess to Damaya and apologize, but the risk that Damaya won't forgive her and will instead turn her in to the instructors is too high. Despite the goodwill Damaya has earned, Crack can't trust her that far.
She could refuse to help Damaya, but then there's a chance that Damaya might target Jasper. Jasper, who knows that the person Damaya is looking for is Crack.
She could agree to help, then betray Damaya instead. Damaya would get in trouble, but probably not the terminal sort. She'd still be around, she'd know that Crack was responsible for some of the bullying, and Crack would have earned a new and devastatingly clever enemy.
She could help Damaya get someone else in trouble, someone who can't implicate Crack in the original theft of Damaya's shoes, throwing Damaya off her scent and earning Damaya a new enemy—an enemy who might be so focused on Damaya that he wouldn't have any energy to spare on tormenting Crack. Two birds, one stone.

All things considered, that last option really does make the most sense. It could even have resulted in a lasting alliance with Damaya, even as Crack could have secretly continued to plot against the other girl.

But Crack didn't know that Maxixe saw Jasper steal Damaya's shoes. Didn't know that the popular boy would tell on Jasper. Didn't know that helping Damaya pin a trumped up crime on Maxixe would seal her fate.

Only Jemisin knows for sure why Crack agreed to help Damaya. (Maybe. I know that storytelling doesn't always work that way.) However, I haven't found anything written online that suggests she's talked about it in an interview somewhere. This is how I make sense of it. I'm comfortable with the assumptions I've made, and I'm satisfied with the conclusion I arrived at based on those assumptions. If this part of the book nagged at you, as it did me and my partner and other readers who went on to discuss it on Goodreads and Reddit, then I hope my short essay has helped you make peace with it—or at least given you more to think about.

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(comment on The Fifth Season)

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