Race

While the kingdom of Otera is a fantastical one that exists separately from our world, skin color is still a social marker that sets people apart, which works to argue that racism is an artificial construct of society rather than an inherit order of nature. While most fantasy novels present a world in which those with dark skin are powerless and oppressed, as in our real world, The Gilded Ones reverses the structure of power in order to demonstrate how absurd and nonsensical racist thinking truly is.

The novel begins by replicating the dynamic between light and dark-skinned people in the real world in Irfut. The novel begins in Irfut, a small northern village where the people are almost all light-skinned. Deka, whose mother is from the South, is dark-skinned. The villagers make her feel like an outcast because of her skin: “No matter how quiet...