“Speculative fiction, at its best, makes the familiar strange so we can see it clearly. Jemisin does this masterfully.“
Laura Marti – February 19, 2026
A while back, my husband handed me a fantasy novel and said, “You might like this.” He is an avid reader (an understatement), and I am not—but I love science fiction and fantasy, and I trust his recommendations. The book was The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin. It is part of The Inheritance Trilogy, a story of gods and mortals, power and love, death and revenge.
I was hooked immediately.
Not far into the book, I noticed something unusual. The main character, Yeine Darr, described herself as brown-skinned:
I am short and flat and brown as forestwood, and my hair is a curled mess. Because I find it unmanageable otherwise, I wear it short. I am sometimes mistaken for a boy.
Another prominent character, Nahodoth, the Nightlord (a god), was described as darkness, but in a beautiful way, with flowing tendrils of smoky darkness, as if wearing a cloak of night. As a complex character, his darkness was not the usual evil that is associated with “darkness.” His skin color was mostly described as white, but interestingly, near the end of the story, his skin color seemed to turn visibly browner as he began to heal from some of his trauma.
A third mysterious, often discussed but mostly absent, character appearing late in the story was the Bright Lord of the Sky (also a god). Yeine describes him this way:
His face was perfect, with lines and symmetry that put mere etchings to shame. His eyes are the gold of a blazing noonday sun. Though white, his hair is shorter and tighter-curled than even my own. His skin is darker, too, matte-smooth and flawless.
The Default I Didn’t Notice
Several things surprised me about these descriptions. First, the main characters were not white. It is widely documented that science fiction and fantasy as a genre have historically featured predominantly white, often male, main characters, resulting in a significant underrepresentation of people of color. While the genres have been diversifying more recently, especially with the ability to self-publish, this genre is rooted in a tradition of white, male creators, which led to a default to white protagonists.
My surprise wasn’t because characters of color existed in the book but because they were central, significant, and powerful. They weren’t side characters or background figures. They did not exist to teach the white protagonist something meaningful. They were the protagonists.
White heroes are often the default—especially in epic fantasy. It is rarely announced. It is simply assumed. I found myself thinking, “Oh, wait. This character isn’t white… and she’s going to save the world?” I had to sit with why it stood out. I had to confront assumptions I didn’t know I had. But because of the ongoing racial healing work I’ve been doing, I was also excited for the triumph of these diverse characters. An inner voice said, “YESSS! It’s about time, and I’m here for it.”’
I was also struck by how freely and comfortably Jemisin narrates skin color. When Yeine described herself as “brown as forestwood,” it stood out—a detail I rarely encounter in traditional science fiction and fantasy, where authors often avoid naming race directly. It resonated with me because of my experience in Dr. Lucretia Berry’s What LIES Between Us courses and HUES of You Children’s Camps, where participants paint self-portraits and practice naming their own skin tones. People of color often do this with ease—mocha, warm cinnamon, sun-kissed cocoa—while many white participants, myself included, struggle because we’ve rarely been asked to think about it. It took me months to land on ‘roasted cashews.’ Learning to describe skin tone this way has helped me see how naming our hues can normalize conversations about race, celebrate our shared humanity, and gently dismantle stereotypes tied to color.
Who Gets to Be Powerful?
“I am not as I once was. They have done this to me, broken me open and torn out my heart. I do not know who I am anymore. I must try to remember.” —The Nightlord in The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
“ ‘That was before centuries of human hatred made me a monster,’ said the Nightlord, and for a moment his voice was sad. I had used the same word for him myself, but it felt strange and wrong to hear him say it.” –Yeine Darr in THTK
Nahadoth, the Nightlord, was one of the most haunting characters for me in The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. At first, he appears terrifying—volatile, dangerous, even monstrous. But as his story unfolds, it becomes clear that the monster he has become is not who he was meant to be.
Nahadoth’s violence is not innate; it is cultivated. For centuries, the ruling Arameri enslave him, shaping him through fear, expectation, and control into exactly what they need—a weapon that will never challenge their authority. His cruelty reflects the cruelty imposed upon him. Even his physical form bends under the weight of human fear and desire. As another character explains, mortals’ expectations literally shape what he becomes.
That idea unsettled me.
Jemisin asks a quiet but devastating question: If someone is labeled as ‘monstrous’ as opposed to ‘powerful,’ what does that do?
In this interview discussing her later work, Jemisin reflected on how Michael Brown was described during legal proceedings after his killing—as superhuman, terrifying. He was dehumanized. Once society defines someone as a threat rather than a person, it becomes easier to justify controlling and confining them.
Reading Nahadoth’s story, I couldn’t help seeing echoes of our own world. Black and brown communities are often described as dangerous or unruly. Immigrants are portrayed as threats to be controlled or removed.
When fear defines the narrative, compassion disappears.
Jemisin exposes how societies manufacture monsters by projecting fear onto those who hold power they do not understand. Nahadoth is feared for his immense ability to change the world—yet beneath the violence remains tenderness, grief, and memory of who he once was.
His story left me wondering: how often do we mistake woundedness for wickedness? And what might change if, instead of controlling or fearing those labeled “dangerous,” we chose to see their humanity—and the possibility they carry something more?
Pushing back against tradition
N.K. Jemisin is a groundbreaking voice in speculative fiction whose work reshapes what epic fantasy can be—and who gets to stand at its center. A New York Times bestselling author, she became the first writer to win three consecutive Hugo Awards for Best Novel, as well as the first Black author ever to receive the honor. Her work has also earned a Nebula Award, multiple Locus Awards, and a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship.
Her writing challenges the long-standing assumption that whiteness represents the “universal” human experience. Instead, she expands fantasy to reflect the full complexity of humanity. Reading Jemisin is a powerful reminder to me that Black/brown lives are equally universal and involve everyday experiences like falling in love, going on adventures, or solving mysteries, not just narratives focused on racism and struggle. We have a shared humanity.
Jemisin writes the stories she would want to read. In an interview, she shared that it took her many years to be able to write Black characters like herself as the main protagonist. She had always put them in the story, but the first time one of her stories was accepted with a middle-aged, overweight Black woman as the protagonist saving the world, she was elated.
Jemisin often explores power, belonging, and survival within unequal societies. Within that, she writes about people and how they’re growing, learning, and dealing with the world they in which they live. She said:
“I tend to write society as I see and understand it. My first series, The Inheritance Trilogy, in the first book you were dealing with a woman of color from an impoverished culture, being brought up among wealthy, privileged white people and having to cope and perform in ways that she has not been raised to do, and that was obviously drawn from some personal experiences.”
In her later work The Fifth Season, she widened that lens further, examining oppression not just through individual encounters but through entire social systems and the ways they shape people’s lives.
Yet her stories remain deeply hopeful. By pushing against traditional fantasy conventions, Jemisin invites readers to imagine different futures—and to believe that new worlds, both fictional and real, are possible. This is especially what draws me to her writing.
Why My Surprise Matters
My initial surprise in reading Jemisin revealed how deeply I had absorbed the idea that white characters are the “default” heroes of fantasy. Stories about world-saving adventures are universal—not just when the protagonist is white.
In the diverse worlds of speculative fiction that authors like Jemisin are able to create, we can experience the world through a diversity of perspectives—a fully reimagined world. By exposing oppression, othering, injustice, and dehumanization, we are able to see them more clearly. In these fictional worlds, when groups are subordinated because their power makes others uncomfortable, it brought clarity to how wrong it is.
Jemisin is a writer who is not interested in the conventions of science fiction or fantasy. She is more interested in challenging the narratives we perpetuate: Who can hold power? Who is complex? Who is capable of saving the world? Are those who are different from us really monstrous?
She masterfully showed me how the ‘many hues of humanity’ woven through her stories are equally deserving of love, trust, and agency.
It turns out my surprise was a gift. And discovering N.K. Jemisin was a gift.
RESOURCES
Diversity in Sci-Fi: Why Representation Matters | Boston Public Library | 2019
A True Utopia: An Interview With N. K. Jemisin by Abigail Bereola | The Paris Review | 2018
Interview: N.K. Jemisin – Lightspeed Magazine | 2016.
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