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Gnomic Utterances. These are traditional, and are set at the head of each section of the Guidebook. The reason for them is lost in the mists of History. They are culled by the Management from a mighty collection of wise sayings probably compiled by a SAGE—probably called Ka’a Orto’o—some centuries before the Tour begins. The Rule is that no Utterance has anything whatsoever to do with the section it precedes. Nor, of course, has it anything to do with Gnomes.
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Dumbledore is Gay
Date: 2010-09-28 03:39 pm (UTC)I had precisely the same reaction when I read the book. I'd been hearing gossip about how those characters were East Asian, and then found no evidence of that in the book. Apparently, Lo cast them as East Asian and has said so on her blog, but also wanted a world in which the characters were not subject to race as a social construct. She thus found herself in a bind where she couldn't find a clear way to tell the reader what race people were:
Writing About Race in Fantasy Novels
Writing About Race in Fantasy Novels, Part 2
So maybe I should have said that Lo attempted to write a fantasy Britain that had always had East Asians. And that the world she envisioned is interesting in the context of Woo's essay. However, I think it is safe to say that no one who came to the books unprimed would walk away thinking that given characters were East Asian.