Politics of pronouns in the Imperial Radch

[kaberett]

(Not sure what's going on here? The answer is Ancillary Justice.)

We're told that Radchaai does not bother with gendered pronouns. It seems to me that the default pronoun used means gender-irrelevant (rather than gender-unknown or gender-specific, which seem to me to be a useful way of considering pronouns of gendered beings). We're told that Strigan's society uses gender-known pronouns even though it professes to consider gender irrelevant.

And yet: the Radchaai frequently refer to ships as "it" (I note that the standard English pronoun used to refer to vessels is the same as the way in which the Radchaai default pronoun is rendered). It's clearly not as simple as in/animate - ships have emotions, ships have personality and identity, ships are sentient, ships have ancillaries. Except that this is done in a literally dehumanising way - ships are explicitly not Radchaai, not citizens, and therefore not considered human; characters who are uninterested in or unsympathetic toward ships are far more likely to refer to them as "it", whereas characters who like ships seem to mostly not pronoun them; non-Radchaai humans are generally called the standard pronoun for Radchaai, despite being considered by at least some in the society to have sub-human status - and so I am left picking away at what distinction it is the Radch is making here...

Thoughts very much appreciated!

Comments

[kaberett]

(Useful, thank you! Bouncing off you here...)

The Presger as a species (and other alien species) are given barely any thought, and I think have not (yet!) been discussed as individuals rather than aggregate, so have not been pronouned. Non-human species are the most obvious category for "barbarians", but are mostly treated with wary respect at least by PoV characters. Ships are perhaps viewed as slaves, but using a different pronoun class for that seems like an interesting choice (and is not consistent with what Latin texts I've read); and especially is strange because we know that ships can have authority and the Radch is ruled by an AI, Anaander Mianaai. Interestingly, non-Radch people typically gender Anaander Mianaai, and AM gets standard Radchaai pronouns (instead of "it") despite being an AI. The exception that proves the rule...?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

[jack]

I remember it being fuzzy where AM came from. From the dyson sphere, but I'm not sure if it was full of humans or super-humans or AIs or post-human AIs or what. I assumed AM was originally a specific human and all their identical clones were of that original body, so people who gender them, use the gender of their bodies. But I'm not sure if there's any support in the book for that.

Good observation about the pronouns not applying to ships, I'd not thought about that at all. In a lot of sci-fi, there's an additional reason people may use "it" for AIs, if they're nongendered, but that doesn't apply in the Radch. I guess, they don't treat ships as people, but they do treat AM as a person.

[kaberett]

We're not told anything about stuff inside the Radch (strict sense), at least not yet. We're told that all of Anaander Mianaai's bodies are genetically identical (though it's not specified whether this includes chromosomes); we're told that gender markers as a thing don't exist in the Radch, and that Breq makes an effort to match the gendering of AM that her interlocutor uses. AM is "she" and "my lord" in Radchaai, consistent with calling officers "sir" etc.

Because humans are treated as mortal and AM clearly isn't (3000 years old! - and we know Justice of Toren is 2000 years old), and if the tech existed to turn humans into the kind of AI that Justice of Toren clearly is (or if it wasn't wildly taboo) I'd assumed AI originated as one of the earliest AIs; I'd expect that to at least be discussed - humans have access to the necessary tech to transfer AI consciousness into ancillaries, so one would've thought that if human-->human transference were possible there would at least be a great deal of suppression of it, particularly among the hideously rich.

(And I am now thinking of Jessie Hajicek's The God Eaters, which involves gods consuming other gods to gain power & domain...)

[jack]

One of the things I was a little bit unsatisfied by in AJ was that there were some things which I thought would be common knowledge, which were never quite brought up. Some of these I imagine will be in a sequel, but it still felt like I was missing something. Both "was an AI" and "was originally human" feel like most people would know SOMETHING about that, if only vague speculation, or common sense is-that-possible, but I don't remember anything.

Oh, God Eaters sounds fascinating, I want to read that.

[kaberett]

All of Jesse's stuff is available for free online and I adore it! Want me to dig out a link? (Though also I advocate chucking him a couple of quid if you can - he's not exactly rolling in it.)

ETA here's The God Eaters and some of the overview incl a link to his webcomic, Metanoia, which I loved; pretty much of everything is up at gomichan.

Also, sparked by the "was originally human" thing, STRONGLY recommend Benjanun Sriduangkaew's Hegemony verse (if you haven't already read, and even if you have! She was a John W Campbell nominee this year and is eligible again next year, and I really want her to get it...)

[sfred]

I liked that vagueness: the feel of the setup without the exposition. I do hope we learn more in future books, though.

[davidgillon]

"AM is 'she' and 'my Lord' in Radchaai"

Which is playing games with gender perception right there!

[davidgillon]

Possibly meaningless observation:
AM 3000 years old
Breq 2000 years old
Seivarden 1000 years old

[kaberett]

Ah-HA.

Insane Radchaai ships were a staple of melodrama, inside and outside Radchaai space. Though Radchaai entertainments in that direction were usually historicals. When Anaander Mianaai had taken control of the core of Radch space some few ships had destroyed themselves upon the death or captivity of their captains, and rumor said some others still wandered space in the three thousand years since, half-mad, despairing.

[...]

"I am," I said, "as Anaander Mianaai made me. Anaander Mianaai is as she was made. We will both of us do the things we were made to do. The things that are before us to do."

"I doubt very much that Anaander Mianaai made you so that you would kill him."

i.e.
(1) okay, we already had autonomous AIs with emotions when Anaander Mianaai "took" power
(2) interesting contrast of the pronouns there!
(3) the mirroring of the language with JoT-One Esk Nineteen talking about how they were made, and how AM was made
(4) very interesting about what this tells us about how AM came to power - bearing in mind that JoT is only 2000 years old
(5) ... yeah I'm still pretty convinced that AM is an AI who seized core Radch space out of some sort of drive to protect some specific humans (a particularly favoured captain and her family?), and then took great care (as post-Garsedd) that anyone who knew the truth ended up dead, which would explain the lack of rumours...


ETA ooooooooooh in which case the genetic template for her bodies could be said Particularly Favoured Captain...! HEADCANON IS GO

[jack]

I'm still pretty convinced that AM is an AI who seized core Radch space out of some sort of drive to protect some specific humans (a particularly favoured captain and her family?)

Oh, oh, oh. That does make so much sense...

[kaberett]

... which in turn would make the explicit parallels we're given between JoT and AM much, much more pointed...

[kaberett]

"The Radch itself" sourced house Awer, of which Lieutenant Skaaiat is a member, suggesting that the core of the Radch does in fact contain predominantly humans, and that AM (in line with my recollection) was acting to keep humans safe... there are some very telling lines from Breq in conversation with Strigan about ships being in love with their people, and again I say "lots of parallels between AM and JoT", so...

[kaberett]

It started when the Lord of the Radch multiplied herself and set out to conquer all of human space.

[kaberett]

But Seivarden. Captain Seivarden Vendaai, lost a thosuand years, found by chance, lost again. Appearing now at Omaugh Palace. Any Radchaai would be curious about that, with a curiosity that carried a religious charge. And Anaander Mianaai was Radchaai. Perhaps the most Radchaai of Radchaai. She couldn't help but notice that I had returned in company with Seivarden. Like any other citizen she would wonder, even if only in the back of her mind, what, if anything, that might mean. And she being who she was, the back of her mind was a substantial thing.

Notes:
- One Esk were not permitted to serve in the temple in Ors, but Anaander Mianaai does serve in temples
- ships are non-citizen but Anaander Mianaai is here explicitly citizen

... I'm still torn on whether this means that AM gets exceptionalism applied...

[vass]

"I can't be a captain. I'm not a citizen. I'm not even human."
"You are if I say you are, she said.

Late reply because I've been rereading this whole post/comments and have thoughts. And because I ran across that quotation and it backed up what you were saying about exceptionalism and under what conditions ships get to be citizens.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH (spoilers for first chapter of Ancillary Sword)

[kaberett]

“I’ll miss you, you know,” she said. “No one else will speak to me quite the way you do. You’re one of the very few people I’ve ever met who really, truly didn’t fear the consequences of offending me. And none of those very few have the... similarity of background you and I have.”

^ AM!!!

[legionseagle]

If we move into the Byzantine period rather than Classical Rome we've got the eunuch civil servants paralleling the role of the ships (don't have families of their own, primary loyalty to the Emperor above all). Also, "barbarians" are simply "outside the Empire" and not necessarily unworthy of respect as a result (see the Parthians, for example)

[kaberett]

Ooooh. Yes, excellent parallel, thank you. And that also has the obvious gender parallel... *chinhand*

[davidgillon]

Interesting parallel with Byzantium and the eunuchs, ISTR Narses was both a eunuch and commander in the field at times, though the parallel that draws me is the Ottoman Court and the Jannisaries (there are earlier slave soldier parallels in Islam with the Ghulams IIRC, but I don't know too much about their background). OTOH it seems clear AL was drawing on Roman Auxiliaries for the Ancilliaries.

[davidgillon]

I'd been reading AM as a multiple intelligence rather than an AI, isn't there something about them starting as a governor than making the jump to emperor in some undefined manner? Plus if they were an AI the whole non-citizen thing would work against them.

[kaberett]

Hmm, whereas I read them as AI at least in part because of the explicit parallels between AM's decision-making and Justice-of-Toren versus One-Esk's decision-making. Excellent point about the noncitizenship thing, though to some extent it seems like AM considers that... relevant? I mean, obviously she's immensely powerful, but her attitude of intense loyalty to the core of the Radch and the devotion to the religion seems... almost labrador-ish to me?

But then of course there's the complexity that AM clearly has emotions, but didn't originally design ship AIs to have emotions, and stuck those in later...

I don't recall the thing about governorship, but am currently ~1/3rd of the way through a reread and will keep an eye out. (I GET MORE OUT OF IT EVERY TIME, FOR SRS.)

[jack]

Oh yes, this was the other thing your post made me remember. It seemed (not certain?) that the ships had a central (non-organic?) brain in the ship, plus ancilliaries, whereas AM was distributed with (probably?) no central brain.

I wasn't sure if JoT's increasing self-determination as Breq was solely due to increasingly escaping programmed safeguards AM put in the main brain, or if there was a suggestion that organic brains were inherently more people-y, and Breq was more like "JoT Esk One brain, with JoT memories". I don't like that interpretation as much, because it's less interesting distributed-consciousness-wise, but it's somewhat straightforward and common in other SF.

[davidgillon]

Breq is also working on a much reduced processor and with a much reduced set of inputs (One Esk Nineteen alone in both cases). That is going to have a functional effect on their behaviour even without any other changes in the way they think.

[davidgillon]

Smiling at the comparison of AM to a labrador, though I wonder if that isn't rather AM considering herself and the empire as indistinguishable. OTOH this doesn't explain the religion.

[kaberett]

quotations and theorising above!