Lisa asked Rod Duncan:

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Rod Duncan Hi Lisa. Thank you for this. I don't see myself as having any prior right to interpret the stories. However, my view on it is as follows:

I see two ways of looking at this.

On the one hand, Elizabeth is being presented with the first example she has seen of a society in which women have real power. Whilst the society is extreme and unfair in its present form, she also understands that it is in flux and might become something more moderate and fair if it has time to develop. Against this she is balancing a monolithic hegemony of men over women in the rest of the world, which is also a kind of violence, and on a vast scale. That doesn't mean she would tolerate any injustice. But neither will she be happy to see this single possibility snuffed out.

On the other hand, her relationship to her own gender is unresolved. All her life she has been presented with two gender ideals, neither of which perfectly reflect who she is. She gets round this by adopting one mode or the other, depending on the situation. The Sargassans present differently, and she is fascinated by this. It opens up an area of thought that she has not really needed to face before. Thus, the destruction of the Sargassan world would also represent the destruction of a possibility of resolution for her in a central issue of her life. The series title - the Map of Unknown Things - has a specific plot meaning. But it also reflects the physical and psychological journey that she is going on.

The issues raised here remain in this novel unresolved. I don't want to pin down exactly how that is going to develop in the novels that follow. But you will hopefully be able to see it in a wider context by the end of the trilogy.

But like I said at the top - these novels are what they are. Different people will take them in different ways. And that is fine. My interpretation carries no more weight than anyone else's. Except in the sense that I am aware of some things that are going to emerge in the next two books.

Thanks again for the question.

Rod

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