The Obelisk Gate

Fraught parent-child relationships are evident throughout the text and motivate a significant portion of the plot’s action: Essun has treated Nassun abusively in her desperation to keep her safe, Jija murders Uche and wants to find a “cure” for Nassun, Schaffa wants to atone for a lifetime of abuse and harm through Nassun, and Nassun has to navigate this triangle of less-than-ideal parental figures, all of whom claim they love her and have her best interests in mind. Underlying this is the fact that Essun, Jija, and Schaffa all experienced childhood trauma that makes it difficult for them to form a healthy relationship with Nassun. Each character deals with this issue differently, but they all continue the trauma cycle in some way. Further underscoring the thematic importance of parent-child relationships and the potential consequences when they fail is the idea that the Shattering—the event that kick-started the Seasons, creating an endless cycle of disaster and suffering—was the result of Father Earth being separated from his child, the moon.

Before she arrived in Tirimo and had Nassun, Essun had experienced extensive trauma: She was taken from her family at a young age and then subjected to emotional and physical abuse at the Fulcrum, as a young woman she was forced into breeding with Alabaster, and she then lost the tentative happiness and family she had found when Alabaster was taken away, their partner was killed, and she herself killed their son to prevent him from being captured by the Guardians. All this informs how she raised Nassun, employing the exact same abusive teaching techniques that were used (to traumatic effect) on her. The result is that Nassun feels unloved and resentful toward her mother while growing to hate being an orogene. However, the text is relatively forgiving of Essun in the context it provides. Schaffa, for example, suggests to Nassun that it must have been very difficult for her mother to take care of both her and her brother. Even more importantly, Essun comes to terms with the trauma she has suffered and decides she wants to break the cycle. She realizes the mistakes she made with Nassun and admits she would have done things differently with Uche. She then applies this same attitude toward the world at large and commits to helping Alabaster complete his plan to reunite Father Earth with his lost child, the moon. Thus, Essun provides an example of how to break the cycle by confronting one’s trauma and committing to decisive action to bring about change.

Schaffa also experienced trauma in his childhood. He was taken from his family as a child and turned into a Guardian through a violent process that he still has nightmares about. While this experience forms a large part of Schaffa’s trauma, his dreams suggest that the atrocities he committed while acting as a Guardian constitute another wound. Like Essun, however, he recreates the conditions of his own trauma by using Nassun as a tool. He doesn’t directly force her to do anything and demonstrates what Nassun interprets as love and care for her. Nonetheless, he is first interested in her because she is powerful and because he needs someone capable of accessing the obelisks. He also takes her to the Antarctic Fulcrum when his plan is to kill everyone there: He does not directly tell her to kill everyone, but he knows what she is capable of. Like Essun, Schaffa does confront his trauma and past mistakes. However, because his mistakes are less sympathetic and his idea of what redemption looks like less clear (it might involve destroying the planet), he remains a morally ambiguous figure.

Of the three parental figures, the text is most critical of Jija. Jija’s trauma isn’t revealed until the end of the text, when he explains to Nassun why he hates orogenes. When he was a young boy, he had two friends that he played with often. One of them was hiding that he was an orogene and accidentally iced the other while Jija watched helplessly. This single traumatic event generates a hatred so strong that Jija later kills his own son upon discovering that he is an orogene. This ends up creating a similar experience for Nassun, as she discovers Jija standing over Uche’s dead body when she arrives home from school that day. This not only shatters the relationship she has with her father but also causes her to revert to a more infantile state so that she doesn’t have to process the traumatic event. Learning the reason her father is so hateful doesn’t comfort Nassun. Instead, it makes her “finally realize that that there is no reasoning with her father’s hatred” (312). She rejects his explanation as sufficient reason for the way he is and kills him shortly after. Jija’s life ends without redemption and exemplifies the text’s message regarding fraught parental love and cycles of trauma: Unlike Essun and Schaffa, who attempt to confront their trauma, Jija does not even recognize his for most of the story, and this denial is his biggest offense. Jija’s unwillingness to face the truth undercuts the positive memories Nassun has of him and ensures the cycle of trauma remains unbroken.