hi! i definitely agree with the idea that some people's treatment of wake is rooted in misogyny whether they realize it or not (and i think there's a big probability that they don't realize it). there's a post out there that i saw 873487 years ago talking about how people are more likely to judge wake once they know her whole deal because we see the first book through gideon's point of view and the realization comes to gideon in the second herself, and because we're attached to gideon we have this gut-punch reaction to judge her for what she did. but i think the specific circumstances that led wake to the position she was in are often glossed over, like all 3 of us are talking about: the desperation, the trauma, the horror, and that's also what i mean when i talk about the character and meaning behind wake being reduced in the fandom:
when we encounter blood of eden for the first time in a real and tangible way, i think the schism between the wakers and the hopers clarifies this horror a little further. i find it interesting that in some people's portrayals of wake (especially in modern aus but this is an essay that i don't want to get into here which i find really frustrating) they describe her as this lonely, single-minded figure, an island among men. but her portrait in the little room in new rho surrounded by flowers indicates that she was beloved, and we suffer and pash both obviously have warm feelings and good memories towards her. on top of that, she was obviously a capable leader of a fragmented and very old political faction, given the fact that wake's portrait is the only photo on the wall. the other leaders -- notably older men -- are illustrations.
so what does it say about the conditions of the world wake was living in, when you have a woman reviled by the empire (disrespected, mockingly called the wrong name so as to dehumanize her further) capable of holding her own against the saint of duty, a lyctor, of winning against and dismantling a herald to make bullets out of its body parts, of leading a faction that twenty years after her death lives on and manages to nuke imperial ships, and that still isn't enough? obviously it's not enough -- it's a single act in an act of thousands, but i think the largest and most egregious misunderstanding of wake is that she started off thinking she had to kill a baby to open the tomb, when the reality is that it seems she was pushed there out of desperation. due to the condition (for lack of a better term) wake is in when we meet her we get to know very little of her and what she was like, and i think the convo btwn we suffer and pyrrha shows this p well:
“I never thought her operation would begin afresh by extracting Housers from another Blood of Eden wing … and yet, it is unmistakably the first step.”
Pyrrha said, “It’s not one she would have taken.”
We Suffer looked at Pyrrha inquiringly, tapping her fingers on one knee. “I have noticed you love to make these statements,” she said. “‘Commander Wake might have said this. Commander Wake would have thought that.’ I have come to the conclusion that you are not simply trying to annoy me and others like me, but I have no idea what you are doing otherwise.”
Next to Nona, Pyrrha gave an ineloquent shrug. “Maybe I just like talking to other people who knew her.”
“And should they wax so nostalgic with you—her murderer?”
Pyrrha was unmoved. “I like to think I knew her as well as anyone else, Commander … as well as anyone could know her.”
i won't pick apart the reproductive horror elements re: wake changing harrow's river bubble just because there are some really good posts that do it already, and i think the gideon's-shitty-mom jokes are as funny as everybody else does most of the time, but i find it frustrating when the examination of wake stops there and goes no further. mercymorn says that she never wanted to be called a mother. that was clearly not wake's prerogative. you can glean so much about the way the empire holds domain and what it does waaaaay before we're put on new rho with nona, just through the implications of wake's existence and how she haunts harrow. she still named the baby, and she still carried that thing under her heart, even if she named it the bomb. y'know?
