World Of TEOTE #3: A Female Power Fantasy
Welcome to World of The Essence of the Equinox, a series exploring the worldbuilding, influences and ideas behind my completed gothic fantasy trilogy.
In this third instalment, we examine the creation of the solarites—an original fantasy race of fallen star women. Here, I’ll discuss their symbolic meaning to the story and how they are thematically opposed to the occassi.
For further context, you can read the post I wrote about the occassi here.
In the previous installment, I wrote about how I created the occassi to manifest the things I fear most. The solarites are my response to that fear. When I consider what would help me resolve my deepest anxieties only one word comes to mind:
Freedom.
Freedom from fear of male violence. Freedom from misogynistic expectations. Freedom from the threat of forced pregnancy and reproductive exploitation.
When I envision my perfect world, I think of a place where women are free. I’m not certain what that world would look like in our current one. Or whether it’s even possible. But I can explore the topic through writing about it. And so that’s what I did. In the making of the solarites, I created a race of women who are liberated from the constraints of patriarchy.
They are a self-sustaining species, fully in control of their own puberty and reproduction without external male input. They grow up with the understanding that their bodies are first and foremost for themselves—vessels for them to pursue their own pleasure. And so they eat well, they fuck for enjoyment, they manipulate and adorn their bodies however they see fit. And they do this without any insidious messaging that they are built for the consumption of men.
That’s why they’re fallen stars—they’re the manifestation of all my hopes, wishes and dreams infused into one being. Within them I can explore the ways in which a liberated woman might function. How might she approach herself, her relationships, her perception of the world around her? How might such a thing differ from someone who is brought up in our world, with those deeply submerged expectations blinkering in her mind like a faint signal?
I won’t say I have perfected the idea. I am still a woman born in this world, just like everyone else. The solarites still largely skew feminine due towards my own preference for certain aesthetics. (Although I do and always will make room for masculine women representation).
That said, I have no interest in writing a utopia and there is still plenty about the solarites that is worth dissecting outside of their base premise. Removing patriarchy from the solarites did not mean removing hierarchy, cruelty or the desire for control. If anything, that became one of the most interesting questions for me as I developed them. What happens when women possess extraordinary freedom over their own bodies but remain susceptible to ambition, jealousy, dogma, class prejudice and the desire to dominate one another? Liberation from one system of power does not mean liberation from power itself.
Deconstructing the utopia and exploring female on female violence
Solarites are all female and so they grow up with close ties towards their mothers, sisters and aunts. There is no Man of the House or Patriarchal House Head acting as a centralised authority they must obey. Their love and bond to women is unbreakable, forged from birth to beyond. Their value systems and psychology and outlook are, therefore, impacted mainly by the women in their lives. And they draw strength and power from that sisterhood.
However, that bond can come with its own pernicious effects.
A quote comes to mind from one of my favourite novels, Black Iris.
Girls love each other like animals. There is something ferocious and unself-conscious about it. We don’t guard ourselves like we do with boys. No one trains us to shield our hearts from each other. With girls, it’s total vulnerability from the beginning. Our skin is bare and soft. We love with claws and teeth and the blood is just proof of how much. It’s feral.
And it’s relentless.
I’m fascinated by forms of interpersonal aggression that are often coded as feminine—not because women are incapable of overt violence or men incapable of covert cruelty, but because the social tools available to women have historically shaped how female power and aggression can be expressed
Within solarite society, that gave me room to explore power through reputation, respectability, religion, class, emotional manipulation and social exclusion. You see all this and more play out among the solarites as they all battle each other for status. You see it in the way Amira brutally polices Laila’s behaviour and keeps her leashed by a sense of fear, inadequacy, and a desperation for acceptance. You see it in the way Laila tinkers her princess persona to perfection in order to present a certain image. And it only gets worse once elections are involved and the process of choosing their next leader commences.
During my teen years, Megan Abbott and Gillian Flynn were formative influences on my fascination with the darker sides of relationships between women: intimacy that can become possessive, competitive or even cruel. It’s how I began to formulate a character like Amira, whose forceful personality was enough to secure me my very first publication which you can download for free.
It goes into a lot of what I discuss here—the ways in which Amira conceals herself behind her public persona as a religious figure, and how it enables her to inflict violence and terror upon those beneath her. Particularly, those closest to her. In fact, Amira’s relationship with Laila becomes one of the clearest examples of how power operates between women in the series. I explore that relationship further in Toxic Motherhood in Fantasy: Mothers, Daughters and Female Power in The Essence of the Equinox.
Perhaps that contradiction is what ultimately interests me most about the solarites. They are my female power fantasy—but power itself is never uncomplicated in The Essence of the Equinox.
Ready to enter Vysteria?
When the Stars Alight is the first novel in The Essence of the Equinox, my completed gothic fantasy trilogy about a star-born princess, the future king of demons and a love affair that collides with politics, power and the fate of their worlds.
Start with When the Stars Alight →
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Previous: #2 — What Makes a Monster? Creating the Occassi in The Essence of the Equinox
Next: #4 — Upcoming
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