War for the oaks5/26/2023 ![]() ![]() It may be found in individuals, the structural systems in which we place our trust, or even in ourselves. The strange evil we must grapple with in the fight for justice is not always self-evident. War for the Oaks by Emma Bull Publication date 2001 Topics Women rock musicians - Fiction., City and town life - Fiction., Women singers - Fiction., Fairies - Fiction. For Gaskell, it is a measure which rejects black or white morality. ![]() Perhaps for Bull, revolution can be found within an act of love. There may not be a violent overthrow of oppressors, but we are left with a suggestion that the phouka has cast off Fairyland’s dogmas to live on earth with Edi. Bull doesn’t provide a moral spectrum entirely undiluted by doubt. It suggests that urban fantasy as a genre is no guarantee of socialist values or radical shifts – but that isn’t to say it can’t be more quietly transgressive. It’s a class fable that gets distracted along the way and fails to live up to its revolutionary promise. War for the Oaks is perhaps too firmly rooted in the politics of Tolkien. Edi’s objective becomes all too clear: remove the evil outsider, and in doing so uphold the Seelie monarchy. Bull’s anti-authoritarian thread drops with the arrival of the Queen of Air and Darkness, ruler of the Unseelie Court. However, by the end of the book the Seelie’s rock-solid class structure has escaped destabilisation. ![]()
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