Sagas & Sass covered The Broken Earth Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin in 2021; this is our summary of book 2 – The Obelisk Gate – as it was written to introduce Episode 22, covering the entirety of that novel.
In The Obelisk Gate, we pick up where we left off in The Fifth Season. Weeeelll, almost. First we take a brief jaunt back to the beginning of The Fifth Season, immediately after Jija – Essun’s husband – killed his and Essun’s son, Uche. We discover what happened to Nassun during the first book – essentially, how she learned to manipulate her father so that he didn’t kill her. And we fervently wish Nassun could have gotten some therapy, because damn. She had to grow up too quickly and some of us know all too well what that’s like.
And then we jump back to where we left off, with Alabaster trying to explain what a moon is. He convinces Essun (nee Syenite, nee Damaya) to summon an Obelisk. To do this she needs to go to the surface, which means talking to Ykka, the head of Castrima, the underground comm they’re living in. There’s a bit of back and forth, and then everyone heads to the surface. Essun connects not only to the Topaz obelisk that Alabaster was talking about, but also to an Onyx one.
And here’s where things REALLY get weird, because then we get to see SCHAFFA’S perspective! Remember him? Essun’s Guardian who smiles a lot and kills people? The last time we saw him, Essun was shattering the boat he was on. Apparently he survived by making a deal with…Father Earth? Or…something. He appears to lose most of his memories – except for his name – in the process. He’s rescued by a sailor whose grandchild, Eitz, is an orogene who begs Schaffa for his protection. Schaffa agrees and goes to talk to Eitz’s mother, but accidentally kills her…and takes something from her – some kind of energy. He ends up killing the whole family for their energy and realizes he can take a little energy from orogenes without killing them. He decides to essentially found a new fulcrum and sets out with Eitz to get started.
Meanwhile, Jija has heard of a Comm where they can “cure” orogenes. Since he hates them and wants to love his daughter he sees this as the only solution for them (though let’s be real, it’s all for him). But on the way, they are ambushed by bandits and Jija is harpooned. In another weird twist, it’s Schaffa who saves them! They go to the nearby Comm, Jekity, where Schaffa has set up Found Moon, a sort of makeshift Fulcrum. There are two other guardians who have been “changed” like Schaffa was, and some young orogenes that they have…let’s say…collected. (Ugh)
There Nassun begins to grow as an orogene, and Schaffa takes a special interest in her. He asks about who trained her and about her mother breaking her hand…juuuuust like Schaffa did to Essun when she was still Dayama. And Schaffa starts to almost remember….
But let’s jump back to Castrima, real quick! Alabaster tells Essun where he’s been for the last 10 years. Antimony, the Stone Eater that is always with him – the one who dragged him into the earth at the end of the first book – transported him to an island on the other side of the world. An island with dead civ tech. Amongst other things, they made obelisks there. Here’s a little recap within this recap: There was a war between Father Earth and orogenes, somehow the orogenes knocked the moon out of orbit and pissed Father Earth off, and now we have multiple factions, all in conflict with each other. Father Earth has taken over some Guardians, the Stone Eaters have multiple factions themselves, and the orogenes are mostly trying to survive and not be used as tools by, ya know, basically everyone else.
As for Nassun, the rift between her and Jija is growing wider. His hate is horrifying, but Nassun loves him. This is impacting her studies so Schaffa insists that she leave his home and come live with them at Found Moon. But at this point things really start piling on – first Nassun unconsciously connects to an obelisk, has a nightmare, and accidentally turns Eitz into stone when he tries to wake her up. Then Schaffa takes her and one of the other guardians, Umber, to the Antarctic Fulcrum, which wasn’t shut down at the start of the Season…even though it was supposed to be. They have a conversation with the local orogene leaders, who claim they should be able to continue, but Schaffa ain’t having that shit. He starts killing the leaders and sends Nassun outside – yes, in THAT order.
Nassun almost immediately runs into a girl who talks to her about the Fulcrum and Nassun realizes that Essun tried to teach her using the same tactics because that was how she was taught. She decides this is wrong and, um, turns everyone in the Fulcrum to stone.
Because of what she’s done, Father Earth (via a stone-eater named Umber) clearly wants to kill her. She’s too powerful. And even though Father Earth is also trying to make Schaffa kill Nassun, he says NO. It’s clearly hurting him to resist, but he does. On the way back to Found Moon, Nassun meets a Stone Eater (who she names Steel) and he shows her that she can remove Schaffa’s power. This would prevent Father Earth from hurting him, but Schaffa doesn’t want her to do it, because he needs his strength and power to protect her…and also, he doesn’t want to die.
So Nassun is talked out of this, but she’s not in a great place. And even though this clearly isn’t the best time, she decides to go visit Jija. She realizes that he will only “love” her if she gives up who she really is…which of course means he doesn’t REALLY love her. He wants her to pretend to be “normal”, which is an all too familiar – and painful – metaphor. He hits her for implying he ever loved or cared for Essun or Uche and for saying she doesn’t want to stop being an orogene. And then Nassun makes a decision: she ices the entire house, but ONLY the house. She and Jija are safe, but he is terrified, because he understands that Nassun could have easily killed him if she wanted to.
Not to be outdone by whatever all that was, there’s quite a bit going on in Castrima, too! Tonkee has been shirking her duties and apparently has found the control room for Castrima and locked herself in. She’s figuring out how the comm works and what all the dead civ tech does. It helps that she’s visited other dead civ ruins and knows more than most people about what symbols mean and how things work. This would be incredibly useful but she hasn’t talked to anyone about any of this and broke rules to get access. So Ykka tells her she is banned from the control room. Tonkee is horrified and tries to run off with a piece of dead civ tech…which instantely begins burrowing into her skin and heading for her sessipinae. Essun tries to remove the…thing…but accidentally cuts off Tonkee’s arm in the process. Thankfully Tonkee survives and starts helping out with the Comm.
In an interlude we learn what Hoa has been up to. Apparently he is old. VERY old. And he’s been killing other Stone Eaters who aren’t on his side or who are trying to harm Essun.
Over the next six months:
- A Castrima trading party travels to a nearby comm called Tettehee, but no one comes back
- Alabaster keeps teaching Essun, who also works with some of the more skilled orogene to train all the orogene in the settlement
- A group of hunters are attacked by these awful things called boil bugs that straight up burrow into people’s skin and boil them alive
- The Castrimans learn about an equatorial Comm called Rennanis that has formed an army and is coming for them
- A Comm meeting is held, but is interrupted by a Stone Eater carrying Hoa’s arm. The Stone Eater, who Essun dubs the Gray Man, tells the everyone that they are welcome to join Rennanis. Well – not everyone, because the orogenes aren’t invited. Oh, and anyone who doesn’t join will die.
Essun cuts off the Gray Man’s hand in response, but the hand acts on its own and returns to the Stone Eater. Her threats DO seem to make him leave, though, so that’s something. We guess. She can see the silver strands that connect everything flowing from Hoa’s arm to her room, so she takes it there. The rest of Hoa is there and Essun helps him reform his body. His original body, not the one he has been wearing to make Essun feel motherly towards him. And Essun recognizes him…because he’s the Stone Eater from the Garnet Obelisk in Alia!
The vote in Castrima is coming up, but things keep going wrong. Cutter, one of the other orogene who helped Essun with the training, ices a man for attacking him. Or threatening to attack him. It’s kinda one person’s word against the other’s, so a mob forms and Ykke has to kill Cutter to get them to stand down. Then one of the oregene kids gets attacked and Essun loses it. She turns the attacker to stone and pushes back when Alabaster tries to stop her from the infirmary. But she’s too strong now and overpowers him. Which…accidentally kills him. And then it’s finally time for the vote, but Essun refuses to let them go through with it and tells everyone that they better just fall in line. OR ELSE.
Essun goes topside to tell Rennanis to back off, and they admit that they need Castrima’s stores and were never going to let anyone live. Essun is distracted long enough for a Guardian to attack her with a glass knife, but Hoa saves her by pulling her into the ground. The army invades Castrima, but while they’re as prepared as they can be, it’s clear they’re probably going to be overwhelmed. Essun and Ykka link their powers together, similar to how Alabaster linked with her in The Fifth Season but more natural, and the network of their powers allows Essun to see and understand so much more – AND to control things. They push boil bugs at the Rennanis army, causing chaos and death.
But then the Stone Eaters arrive. They are killing orogenes, but once again Hoa protects Essun. He brings her to the surface so that she can connect to the onyx obelisk, and that’s when she realizes that she can create a network of obelisks. She uses this power to trap the Stone Eaters inside geodes the way Hoa was trapped inside the garnet. While the Gray Man isn’t there, she is able to take care of the others and then uses the power to ice the entire Rennanis Comm.
Unfortunately, just like what was happening to Alabaster, these actions turn her arm to stone. Just before she passes out from her effort, she sees Hoa, Antimony, and a new Stone Eater – ALABASTER! What the what?!?
Hoa takes her back into the Comm, and while Castrima is messed up, Hoa tells Lerna that Rennanis is now empty and can be used by the Comm. But Essun now knows where Nassun is and Hoa knows that as soon as Essun has recovered, she will insist on going to find her daughter.
Finally, we meet back up with Nassun. The Stone Eater who she calls Steel, but who we also know as Essun’s “Gray Man”, has returned and talks about Essun opening the Obelisk Gate. He doesn’t use her name but Nassun knows that it was her mother. In the midst of this conversation, who shows up but Jija, intent on killing his daughter once and for all. It’s fucking heartbreaking when Nassun says that she wishes that he could just love her as she is but realizes there’s no way to end his hate. She summons the Sapphire Obelisk and turns it into a sword. As he attacks, she summons the sapphire obelisk, which becomes a sword of sorts. She turns Jija into stone and he shatters, but not before he manages to stab her.
Steel tells Nassun that the only way to end the wrongness of the world and to end all of the hate is to bring the moon back into orbit. She understands that doing so will likely destroy everyone and everything…but she agrees to help anyway.
QUOTES WE LOVED
“…a satellite reacts to you reacts to you regardless of whether you try to make it react. It’s drawn to your presence, and the weight you exert upon the universe. It lingers around you because it can’t help itself.”
“There is such a thing as too much loss. Too much has been taken from you both – taken and taken and taken, until there’s nothing left but hope, and you’ve given that up because it hurts too much. Until you would rather die, or kill, to avoid attachments altogether, than lose one more thing.”
“It’s wrong to hurt someone you love. It’s wrong. It’s wrong. It has always been wrong.”
“You seem strong, healthy, but inside you feel like he looks: nothing but brittle stone and scars, prone to cracking if you bend too much.”
“I want to keep telling this as I have: in your mind, in your voice, telling you what to think and know. Do you find this rude? It is, I admit. Selfish. When I speak just as myself, it’s difficult to feel like part of you. It is lonelier.”
“…being useful to others is not the same thing as being equal.”
“She swallows. If she hurts him because she loves him, is that still hurt? If she hurts him a lot now so that he will hurt less later, does that make her a terrible person?”
