A Day of Fallen Night

Throughout the novel, the notion that there must be balance between opposing forces guides the plot. This is presented clearly by the alchemist Kiprun with regard to the balance of nature and how its imbalance causes the wyrms to wake. The notion that there is a natural imbalance is found across the world, as people see oddities in nature, such as hot springs boiling over and the snow thinning. This balance between forces goes beyond just nature and addresses the powers of the dragons versus the wyrms, siden versus stirren, and even the balance of political power in Seiiki.

As Dumai searches for answers about the rise of the wyrms and ways to defeat them, she encounters the alchemist Kiprun. Kiprun studies the earth closely and poses a hypothesis about the balance of nature: “The basic principle is that all the world is tuned to this duality. As one of the two waxes, the other wanes—an eternal balance” (478). He sees these two forces of coldness and warmth represented in the dragons and wyrms and their respective powers. The imbalance has caused the wyrms to grow stronger and the dragons weaker. Without balance, chaos and destruction descends. For Dumai, this worldview not only explains the crisis they are suffering through in the present but also the silence of the dragons for the past hundred years, as well as the intense droughts that much of Seiiki suffered.

The balance goes beyond the dragons and wyrms and can be found in the court of the Noziken dynasty. For hundreds of years, they have been battling for full control from Clan Kuposa, their stewards and overzealous advisors. When Nikeya finds Dumai in Mayupora Forest, she tells her the story of her family’s history and their affiliation with the Mulberry Queen. Clan Kuposa has siden in them, while the Noziken have sterren. These two families each hold the ancient powers that check the other, keeping the other from growing too powerful, just as dragons and wyrms can check each other’s power. This balance found its way into humankind, and the Mulberry Queen sent the Kuposa to be a balancing force to the Noziken. It is no wonder, then, that during the events of the novel, a time when fire rises, Clan Kuposa was able to make a play for the throne through the River Lord.

A Day of Fallen Night uses its fantasy setting to build a world in which LGBTQIA+ identity is not questioned or marginalized, creating opportunities for LGBTQIA+ possibilities in a world free of homophobia and transphobia. Perhaps the most impactful of such possibilities in the novel is the notion of LGBTQIA+ identity and its relation to family unity. There are two primary families led by LGBTQIA+ parent figures in the novel, and both are connected by Wulfert Glenn. In both situations, the families are held together by more than just blood relation, and they exhibit love and support to the people they have chosen to align themselves with. It presents a picture of unity and family supported not by a foundation of biological relation but rather by love and commitment.

At the Priory of the Orange Tree, the family of Esbar and Tuva grows. Tuva and Esbar are committed partners, and both have children with friends at the Priory. While Tuva’s child Armul, or Wulf, is presumed dead, she and Esbar raise Siyu together. Esbar even honors Tuva by naming her daughter, Siyu du Tunuva uq-Nara. This is significant in their naming practices, as is explained at Siyu’s birth: “As a descendant of Siyati du Verda uq-Nara, you may bless her with two names, in the way of the northern Ersyr—one for herself, and one to guide her” (23). Esbar births Siyu, but it is Tuva who raises her, guides her through the Priory, and chases after her each time she flees. They are a family of women, rejecting the heteronormative image of family and supporting each other through their actions and words, never doubting that they are meant to be there for each other.

To the North, Wulf’s adopted family is also one led by two gay men; the bonds between them and their children go beyond blood relation. Despite their happy times, his family came together through tragedy. Wulf was found at the edge of the haithwood and adopted as a presumed orphan. The rumors of his origins haunted him, but his family consistently reassures him that he should pay them no heed: “Wulf tried and tried not to imagine. His father held his face. ‘You,’ he said, ‘are not evil. Every night, I thank the Saint he brought you to this family’” (542-43). Wulf is loved by his fathers and siblings, and they support him in any way they can. Once again, Wulf’s family breaks the mold of a heteronormative family, but the love and support needed to make a family whole is most certainly present.