Thoughts on Part 3, Chapter 54 - Lashunta Mental Illness & the Dark Side of Matriarchy
I want to comment on two things that happen in Chapter 54. First, the issue of mental illness among Lashunta. My premise rests on that, while being psychically and telepathically gifted has a lot of features we humans may consider exotically cool, it also has a downswide, namely being open to a whole new range of mental health issues. The condition I have named the ~Komori~ in this chapter is just one possibility. It is a personality disorder resulting from inadvertent transfer of memories and neurological patterns - even subconscious aspects and muscle memory - during psychic mindshare (think Vulcan mindmeld). After an initial seizure, symptoms varies widely, from mild confusion, paranoia, withdrawal from family and friends, to stroke-like symptoms, loss of speech or coordination, and even catatonia. Essentially, the patient needs to figure out who they are again. It is more common in people with higher degrees of psionic talent. While Lashunta healers have developed treatments for isolating the invasive memories in neuro-patterns, in more advanced cases, therapy often involves rebuilding a new sense of self to incorporate the personality additions and losses. The lives of not only the patient, but also their family and loved ones may be disrupted. Many Lashunta afflicted to a severe degree commit suicide.
Yet what happens if a Lashunta loses control of their telekinetic powers, effectively becoming an unwilling psychic poltergeist? What if they lose the ability to block and filter out other people’s thoughts? For that matter, why not the opposite: the patient psychically broadcasts a run-on of unprocessed thoughts and feelings to all nearby, who must work to block out the flow, or, even worse: an endless flow of psychic static interference, making any other telepathic ability impossible?
Here is the second thing I want to discuss about yesterday’s chapter. I have stated that Lashunta society has substantial capacity for injustice, particularly how men are treated. In Chapter 54, we see that injustice set into action.
Prior to this chapter, we have seen the right of ~Kezhi~, the ban-curse any female can speak against any male, forbidding him from her presence and house, and which also escalates to a trial to decide his banishment from the city at large. Back in Chapter 52, we witnessed Kaure’s right to use ~Kezhi~ upheld in such a trial, negating in some small degree the prejudice she has faced as a female Korasha. Perhaps we even cheered for her when the three males were fully banished, based on the nature of their crime. Not only did she gain a measure of entitlement, but her social power got used for good.
In Chapter 54, the same power does not get used for good. Our narrator Vaeol recounts a befuddled, awkward, messy situation. At her bridetide, after she withdraws with her lover Oshis to consummate the ceremony, something goes awfully wrong. The ~Komori~, an inadvertent psychic seizure, afflicts her. When help is called, Vaeol’s mother (the High Matron of Son) finds her daughter in convulsions besides Oshis. In her shock, frightened, and well-meaning but misplaced concern for her daughter, Lady Zhasael blames Oshis, and so pronounces the same curse that Kaure did: ~Satra kezhaf!~.
By the time Vaeol recovers from her attack, cooler judgement has determined the illness’s nature, which Oshis had nothing willful or direct to do with. However, the damage had already been done. Oshis is already nine days gone by the time she wakes, since apparently he left without awaiting trial, given the city’s ruler had personally banished him (spoiler: detail for later). Vaeol, realizing the truth, is understandably upset that her sworn housemate and lover is gone. When she confronts her mother, however, Lady Zhasael refuses to reverse the curse, perhaps from stubbornness, perhaps from unwillingness to admit her mistake. Nevertheless, she digs in against her daughter’s insistence, rather arrogantly claiming that she was within her right to do so, rather objectifyingly dismissing Oshis’s fate as a banished Korasha outlaw, without city, house, or kin.
One of the interesting outcomes of creating a matriarchy is that it creates a model in which a fairly entitled sub-group in our real world - men - many of whom (but not all) have never faced this kind of prejudicial treatment in their lives, would suddenly find themselves socially disenfranchized if they were transported to Castrovel, without any of the entitlement resources they would normally expect to have, and would even need to rely on a female’s goodwill just to secure some kind of station within Lashunta society. If the reader here happens to be be an IRL member of such a highly entitled group (to spell it out: cis-male, and possibly also white, depending on location), how would you react to being thrust into this situation? Remember: one wrong word or deed, and you’re on the wrong side of the city walls.
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