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What I loved:
This tale takes place in 1877 around the places that would one day become Romania and Turkey, and itās very much a little-girl-vs.-The-World sort of journey. I liked the character of this girl Eleonora better than anyone else in the book. The author did very well at bringing in respectful and vivid portraits of Islamic and Jewish characters, so you do feel like this world is very alive.
The authorās heritage makes this book interesting too, as he described in this interview:
āIām Jewish, and my Christian-raised dad converted when he married my mom. My experience is probably more common than the character Joseph having a Jewish mom and Muslim dad. Iāve always been interested in that particular parentage. Because of the matrilineal descent in Judaism and the patrilineal descent in Islam, you can be officially recognized as a Jew and as a Muslim at once. I wanted to play with what it would be like if he were fully inhabiting both religious backgrounds. My connection to Islam and the Arab world in general comes from having lived in Cairo for a while and having studied Arabic and Hebrew in college.ā
Having this quietly Jewish Eleonora being raised in the middle of these warring countries where she is taught ānot to stand outā ā but she canāt help it ā makes for great conflicts throughout the tale.
Character analysis: Turning the āChosen Oneā upside down
In every class Iāve seen on literary fiction, the highest praise is given for āsubverting tropes.ā The bigger you can twist a tale that feels familiar in unexpected ways, the greater the applause. In terms of that, the author has done perfectly because no one saw this ending coming.
However, thereās also the tricky bit about leaving readers feeling satisfied at the end, which has a lot to do with the promises set up at a bookās beginning. Some people ā especially in the literary fiction community ā love an ambiguous ending where you can fill in the blanks so that the book ends the way you want inside your head rather than on the page. However, some people feel like an ambiguous ending is a cop-out, a shortcut when a writer just wanted the damn book to be over already. Hitting the balance between these two impressions is extraordinarily difficult, and Iām sure many would debate me on this. Iāll get to the ambiguity in this bookās ending at the last section of this post.
š”The Chosen One Trope Always Makes This Promise:š”
The Chosen One, and no one else, must do a big important thing by the end that greatly impacts a lot of people (often saving others from death, destruction, yada, yada, yada.) The entire plot revolves around them because they have the keys to solve the conflict.
"It's one thing to think that you're the center of the universe ā it's another thing entirely to have this confirmed by an ancient prophecy."
ā Douglas Adams (with more info on this trope at this link to TVTropes)
The Chosen One trope vs. āThe Oracleā
Now weāre going to talk about the big chosen one trope. Iāll break down the journey as the events happened in order for the book.
For anyone who isnāt familiar with āThe Chosen Oneā tales, hereās a quick refresher video that hilariously nails all the overused points about them: (Shout-out to Chad, the apathetic, most unlikely superhero youāve ever seen).
Now in āThe Oracle,ā our Chosen One looks very different (and more adorable, no offense, Chadš).
This is the real photograph of his inspiration for the main character Eleonora:
The author describes finding the photo in this interview here.
Next, letās look at where The Oracle broke the trope & how compelling were these subversion choices? Iāll be comparing The Oracleās structure to the Chad āChosen Oneā SNL episode for an easy reference point.
A Compelling Chosen One has š„ŗsympathy hooksš¢
Chad in the SNL example had no sympathy hooks, but rather, he was meant to feel sorry for the people trapped in the ice and snow world on the other side of his closet portal. Thus, the suffering people were the sympathy hook. I have seen this tactic done in other fantasy books, which can make up for the lack of exciting qualities or sympathy hooks in an otherwise dull character.
For Eleonora in āThe Oracleā I cared about her because of these sympathy hooks:
She is brilliantly clever, yet suppressed by her parents and under-appreciated
She never wishes to harm anyone, no matter how they treat her. Even when she disagrees with her parents, sheās never shown arguing with them.
She wants to be good, which keeps her very quiet & thoughtful.
Despite her desire to be good & not offend anyone, she never plays dumb.
Sheāll do anything to stay with her father, even planning impossible escapes.
Thus, her character actually fits all the tropes, so he hasnāt broken the mold just yet. This is important, because if you break ALL of the patterns people enjoy, then a story can feel ātoo differentā and put readers off, ironically enough.
Goals (The big āif onlyā¦ā)
Every good character should have a goal. Now Chad just wants to play video games, and he probably sees life like a game as well š. He is rather ambition-less beyond that, which is honestly what makes him Chad. Most Chosen One characters have a goal theyāre willing to fight for a lot more than Chad, but he was a parody character.
For Eleonora, other than staying with her father, her only other āgoalā or dream I found in the book was on page 43:
Eleonora began reading volume one of The Hourglass that next Tuesday, the first of October. Like anyone who has had the pleasure of reading that magical seven-volume chronicle of a notable Bucharest family in decline, Eleonora was quickly swept up in the current of events, the parties, the war, the revenge, the tragedy, and love affairs too numerous to count ā¦ Staring at the page, Eleonora felt sometimes as if she were a peasant pressed up against the windows of a great house in hopes of catching a glimpse of the ball. It was as if she had discovered the door to another world, a world filled with action and sudden violent reversals of fortune, greed, capriciousness, and desire. If only, she thought some-times, if only I were a baroness, if only I had grown up in Bucharest and spent my evenings in a literary salon.
Eleonora only progresses through birth to about 9 or 10 years old in this book, so I wasnāt necessarily expecting sheād have tremendously large ambitions. Still, she is rather indifferent about a lot of things that happen to her in general, which is a slight twist on the Chosen One.
Now keep that in mind because Eleonora does get a similar opportunity later in the book, which Iāll get to.
The Signs of the Chosen One:
Chad doesnāt appear to have gotten any big signs of his great destiny until the elvish figure appears out of his closet. Many contemporary Urban Fantasy books and even classic Fantasy novels do have this sudden strange appearance to signal that an otherwise average-looking person āhas been chosen.ā
Eleonora has a much more majestic opening. Midwives showed up at her house during the invasion of their city Constanta by Russian soldiers, and the midwives saw the āsignsā and know she is āchosen,ā almost like the Three Wise Men. Even more fun is the arrival of a flock of purple hoopoe birds that decide to live around her house and follow her from the day she is born. This is the closest thing I could find to a purple hoopoe online:
In this way, Iād say the author was fully embracing the trope here and embellishing it. I loved the hoopoes. They even brought her fruits to eat when she was hungry.
The talent display that shows āThey do seem differentā
In Chadās case, the fact that some humanoid creature appears in his closet, knows his name, and says āCome with me,ā ought to be enough to make the average person freak out or ask questions. But no, Chad replies with his customary, āOk,ā and isnāt at all stunned, which is apparently his superpower talent. While itās a parody, they make a good point at illustrating how many Chosen Ones do tend to accept wild things very easily compared to the average person, as a kind of foreshadowing.
In Eleonoraās case, we know sheās friends with animals, but itās not until pg. 30 that we see her āsuperpower,ā the gift of rapid learning:
āIt's just that we were surprised, of at least I was, by how quickly you were able to learn your lesson.ā
āIt doesn't make sense,ā said Ruxandra, flipping through the reader. "This should have taken at least a month, perhaps two weeks for a particularly bright child.ā
Yakob drew deeply on his pipe, then turned back to his daughter.
"Tell us how you did it, Ellie?ā
She didn't know what to say. How could she explain something so simple? She had learned the letters and, with a bit of concentration, there it was.
āOnce I learned the sound each letter makes,ā she said, taking a small step away from the fire, which had become quite uncomfortably hot, āOnce I knew that, I looked at the words and heard them in my head. And once I could hear the words in my head, it was easy to memorize the lesson.ā
Eleonoraās gift is that she memorizes and understands things very quickly. Theyāre subtle and not very life-changing gifts. You could argue that a lot of other people could develop these abilities over time if they were trained to do so, but she just develops them faster. In fact, because of the way itās written, the author seems to be downplaying her gifts as much as possible to make them seem normal from her point of view. She marvels that other people canāt do these things like her. That is definitely a twist on the Chosen One trope in that this surrealist fantasy makes you question where reality ends and fantasy begins.
Entering the āØnew worldš
Normally it is around this point that the Chosen One is forced to go to a new place where their quest and people await their help.
While Chad is taken through the closet into The Enchanted Realm (classic play on Narnia)ā¦
Eleonora chooses to sneak into her fatherās trunks to go with him to Stamboul by ship because otherwise, they wonāt let her go. She loves her father so much that she doesnāt want to be away from him for even a month (but who can blame her because her mom already died in childbirth, and her stepmom is hellish). I like this twist on the Chosen One trope because at this point, she hasnāt been āchosenā yet for anything and is just being a rebellious child, which is fun to read. She doesnāt know sheās being āpulled to her destiny,ā but as readers, we know because we had a chapter already by this point on a Sultan in Stamboul looking for advice, so the implied promise is that their paths must cross.
Facing calamity
Chad doesnāt face any calamity except for his video game being interrupted by the mythical creature who broke into his room through a portal, which I donāt know, could seem disastrous if you were about to hit the worldās highest score ever in a video game. But Chad does see the calamity on the āother sideā - how their world has been āplunged into ice and snow,ā so he should feel sympathy to help them.
About 40% into the book, Eleonoraās dad dies. This move is a classic Chosen One trope. Just think about how many Chosen Ones are orphans, and it works to evoke more sympathy for Eleonora. The interesting twist is that Eleonora doesnāt see much of the suffering of other people, rather; the focus is kept on how much she is suffering a lot herself throughout the book. She doesnāt feel a need to save anyone when she learns sheās āchosenā ā which is revealed out of place at the end rather than near the beginning as another surprise subversion.
Mentor(s) entering š©āš«
Chad receives his enchanted objects and maps and weapons from the people to help him on his questā¦which, when you think about, is really funny because these people clearly have all the tools they need to complete the damn quest themselves. You feel sorry for them that they have to rely on a schmuck to do this quest for them, but hey, itās a āChosen Oneā story.
Eleonora gets tutors in Stamboul finally, professors who give her a lot more books. Theyāre not actually smarter than her. They just give her more stuff to memorize. She begins breaking coded messages for them.
Making the inevitable choice to face destiny
Chad shrugs and accepts his destiny because āWhy not?ā and he has the promise of a virgin to marry at the end. šTypical.
Eleonora is forced into things without being given much of a choice. Worse, this prophecy is soooo vague that it doesnāt really even describe what she is supposed to do, or what change is supposed to happen, and how exactly itās supposed to impact the world.
The moment arrives on pg. 247, in the last third of the book:
āFor thousands of years,ā Mrs Damakan continued, āmy people have carried with us a prophecy - given by our last great king in the last hour of his deathwatch - the promise that a young girl would come, to push against the tides of history and put the world right again on its axis. There would be signs at her birth. A sea of horses, a conference of birds, the North Star in alignment with the moon, and two of our own. From these signs, he said, we would know she was truly the one.ā
Mrs Damakan looked at Eleonora with a mixture of fear and reverence, her face shadowed deeply by the sputter of the candle.
āYou are that one.ā
At this moment, when I imagine a child would ask the most questions, like, āTell me more about this prophecy? What does it mean? What did the prophecy say exactly about me doing the stuff? Can I see a copy of the prophecy? Where is the book describing it?ā The girl loves to read, so why does she want to read about every single other thing in the whole world, except the prophecy book describing her?
She doesnāt ask one thing about the prophecy.
We never get an answer.
Thatās the one inconsistency that really bothered me. She was so curious about everything up until this particular moment, when a sudden veil of ambiguity falls over the book. This is the part where you either go, āOh, thatās brilliant! I love the open-ended mystery!ā or you go āHow dare he not explain this prophecy or tell us what it means???ā
What happens next? (Hint: Subversion crescendo)
Personally, I felt dissatisfied because I hadnāt expected this book to end without the traditional, Chosen One ending I felt we were promised in the beginning. The prophecy said that this girl would āput the world back on its axis again. ā
Yet in the climax meeting with the Sultan where he asks her for advice, this girl just quoted two books that resulted in the Sultan making some quick decisions not to fight his enemies for now.
Then Eleonora bails. She does not save the empire. She doesnāt change the future of this kingdom; she does not have any really big impact on anyoneās destiny for more than about five minutes. As far as we know, the next ruler couldāve still taken over, and the Ottoman Empire would still have been destroyed. They skipped one battle, but they were still allied with the Germans, which was apparently one of the greatest reasons that they would eventually fall since the Germans were a sinking ship about to lose World War I. Essentially, you have a girl who learns that she has a big responsibility, and basically she says āWell, screw it; I want to be free,ā and she runs away.
Her thought process was very simple on pg. 300:
āShe thought of Miss Ionescu's maxim: āThere is no sage wiser than the dictates of your own personal heart.ā Then she recalled the lines that followed;
āWhen you follow the ardent instructions of your heart, when you follow not the easy path nor the selfish path, but the path you knew all along was correct, you can only but do what's right by the world.ā The truth was, Eleonora realized, she didn't want any of it. She didn't want the Sultan's protection, nor did she want the Bey's. She didn't want Constanta or Ruxandra. She didn't want Mrs Damakan's prophecy and she didn't want all these people asking her advice. What she wanted, more than anything, was to be alone, without anyone's plans or expecta-tions, unencumbered and unattached.
Iām an introvert too. I get it, Eleonora. Butā¦even introverts need a plan. She makes no plan, only disguises herself, takes some money, and runs away. Subversion accomplished.
The narrative continues on like, āOh well, even though sheās barely 10 years old, and alone with no help or contacts, abandoned by even her flock of birds now, sheāll be fine.ā
And I thought, āExcuse me?ā I didnāt feel Eleonora was safe, nor protected, nor would be ok because she had no physical fighting skills, no magic, no contacts, nor even her birds to help her anymore ā orphaned girls often get trafficked, so instead of feeling happy for her, I felt worried for her. The world was not a kind place to orphans in the 1880s, and even now, I canāt say itās much better. Yes, the surprise twist was revealed in a big and unexpected way, but was it satisfying? š¤
Final thoughts: What changed?
The Chosen One trope promises us that the world/ people/ things will be saved by The One, somehow, or at least will survive to fight another day.
In The Oracle, I wondered what was the point of Eleonora giving āadviceā if nothing really changed afterward? The city remained mostly the same. The same people stayed in power. Eleonora got a bit more self-confidence, but she lost everyone, gained an adopted uncle, and thenā¦ she throws it all away, for what? Freedom itself is not a goal. Freedom allows you to do other things, but the other things are the goal. Freedom is a means to an end, and there is no such thing as absolute freedom because everything has consequences.
The ambiguity in the tale questions if this girl ever really had any special insights at all. Her knowledge is coming from books, not intuition.
Is the author trying to poke fun at the Oracle concept? Is he saying that we āmakeā an oracle, but no one really is one, and theyāre maybe just smart people?
You could argue the Sultan was desperate to have another outside opinion as ambiguous as possible so that he could project onto Eleonoraās words whatever sort of advice he wanted to hear. Maybe he needed to pretend that she was giving him advice when really he was just projecting the choice he wanted on top of her super ambiguous quotes from books? Itās rather like getting the fortune cookie that says āSomeone is trying to ruin your day,ā so you walk around and see the one thing that you never liked anyway, and go, āA-ha! You are the thing that was trying to ruin my day. I knew it. Now I will destroy you so that I can have a good day,ā but in reality, you probably wouldāve made a similar decision without ever opening that fortune cookie because you hated that thing anyway and wanted to be rid of it.
There you have it, folks. What makes a Chosen One into an Oracle? Only you can decide.
Stay tuned for voting on my next read in the first week of July!
šMy Novelizing Update:
ā Completed month 1 of identifying structure issues & planning the rewrite
ā Mind is dancing around a new book idea based on a fanficā¦but should I dive into that for NaNoWriMo?
ā Scribbled several pages on my Venetian WIP thatās all vibes on haunting, beauty, and the undead
Other SubStacks You Should Read:
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