On This Unworthy Scaffold concludes the Shadow Players trilogy, and I am remarkably sad to see it go. In part because of the pandemic, I feel like this trilogy has flown under the radar. I want to take this opportunity to put it on your radar as loudly as possible, because it’s a unique, strange, thoughtful, and anticolonialist fantasy YA series that explores themes of family, life and death, performance and reality, mental illness, and so so much more. The first one was For a Muse of Fire, if you are interested — plus now, all three of them are out! So you can barrel right through the series.
On This Unworthy Scaffold picks up right where A Kingdom for a Stage left off. Jetta has allied herself with the rebel king of Chakrana, Camreon, whose brother Raik is now under the necromantic control of the terrifying Le Trepas. The power she wields over dead souls is stronger than ever, but she is without the elixir that helps her to medicate her malheur, which means that she can never quite trust herself. Meanwhile, Raik has issued a decree that all Aquitan people are being deported from Chakrana — on a single ship that cannot possibly transport that number of people back to Aquitan. Camreon aims to save the Aquitans from likely death, in the hopes that they will throw their support behind him as kind (though also just cause, like, human rights). Meanwhile, they have to stop Le Trepas before he raises an army of the undead to fight them.
Alex Brown (one of my favorite reviewers! Hugo for Alex when?) noted that A Kingdom for a Stage showed many of its characters folding themselves smaller in the hopes of keeping themselves and others safe. In particular, Chakran characters use their invisibility to the Aquitan colonizers to erode the power those colonizers hold over them and their loved ones. In On This Unworthy Scaffold, the story is about reclaiming the space that has so long been denied to these characters and this country. No longer are the people of Chakrana required to hide their magic or their aims. Instead, they’re putting it all on full display, all the magic and power and resources they’ve had all along that the Aquitan occupation has demanded they suppress. It’s a gorgeous shift in theme that makes On This Unworthy Scaffold feel triumphant in an way that’s absolutely been earned by these characters over the course of their journey.
It’s also a book about the transformative power of art. Of course, the series always was about this, quite literally: Jetta can transform her fantouches (puppets) into living things with a soul and a drop of blood. Here, though, the theme is broadened to encompass not just the small stages of Jetta’s troupe of shadow players, but the world stage. Jetta, Camreon, and the others are performing for an audience of thousands in the hope of swaying hearts and minds. In the very first scene, we see Camreon cementing his claim as a leader by performing the traditional rice-planting ceremony that predates Aquitan colonization. Later, Theodora and Jetta face a battle of showmanship with the Mad King of Aquitan, in which each of them strives to tell a story that will resonate with the Aquitan people (and, in Jetta’s case, the Chakrans who have lived in Aquitan, overlooked for so many years).
But art does not happen in a vacuum, and On This Unworthy Scaffold knows it. Art requires a performer and an audience, and Heilig makes it clear that both are inextricably rooted in community. Just as Camreon’s fight for Chakran independence means nothing without the backing of the Chakran people, Jetta cannot channel her power productively without the support of those around her. Sometimes her community is the small one of friends and family (Leo, Akra, Camreon, Theodora), while other times she has to rally a broader group, like the Chakran expatriates in Aquitan, in order to stir the imaginations of the country at large.
By contrast, the deeds that are done alone and in the shadows avail the characters nothing. Driven by her malheur, Jetta tries several times to slip away from her friends to accomplish her goals. These efforts fail, and the only reason they don’t fall into complete catastrophe is that her people show up for her. While the book does end with Jetta getting her hands on a supply of the elixir she needs for her malheur, it’s clear that her health and prosperity depends not just on the elixir, but on the people who love her and whom she loves.
As in the past books, Heilig peppers On This Unworthy Scaffold with playful departures from a traditional format. Some portions are told as if they’re the scripts of plays; edicts and letters appear throughout the text; and as before, there are even some songs that add to the narrative story. This is extremely my shit, of course, but on a storytelling note, it adds to the feeling that we are in an expansive world that contains infinite stories beyond just the one we’re reading.