The Empress of Salt and Fortune

Rabbit is Salt and Fortune’s second protagonist and is a former servant of Empress In-Yo who eventually became her closest friend and confidante. She got her name from her prominent front teeth, and Vo associates her with rabbit imagery throughout the text. For example, in Chapter 11, Chih finds a “[p]ainting of the rabbit in the moon. Silk, paint, and wood. Against an indigo background, a rabbit curves inside the silver moon” (107). In several Asian cultures, including Chinese and Vietnamese, the rabbit in the moon is a mythological figure (much like the man in the moon in some Western cultures) with various associations and significances. The myth can be traced back to the third century and the Indian Buddhist text Jātaka, a collection of stories that relate the Buddha’s various lives; tale 316 relates how a rabbit came to be a bodhisattva with its likeness drawn onto the moon. Through Buddhist practice, the story of the rabbit in the moon made its way across the Asian continent, developing several different variations. This allusion to pan-Asian mythology by Vo is one of the many examples in the text of fantasy world building based on verisimilitude.

Rabbit serves as both protagonist and narrator in the text, progressively revealing the truth of In-Yo’s rise to power through descriptions of her possessions, emphasizing Objects as Sources of Personal and Cultural History in the text. In this capacity, she shifts between being reliable and unreliable. At the very beginning of the story, she deceives Chih, intentionally underplaying the depth of her relationship with In-Yo. Fourth-wall breaks throughout her narration reveal that she is intentionally withholding some information from both Chih and the readers. Speaking of Sukai, for example, she tells Almost Brilliant, “There was the name I called him, of course, but the habits of a lifetime die hard, and I do not wish that written down in any place where unfriendly eyes might see it” (68-69). Moments like this illustrate that Rabbit is very intentionally sculpting her own place in history, curating which details will and won’t be recorded by Chih and Almost Brilliant.

Then, at the end of the novella, her mysterious disappearance further calls into question whether Rabbit has been keeping key information hidden from Chih. In Chih’s dream, Rabbit and Sukai “start[] to walk, rising as they d[o] so, and from the lake, Chih watche[s] them fade into two stars that sh[i]ne just above the horizon” (115). When Rabbit is gone the next morning, readers may suspect that Rabbit has secretly been a ghost, like Sukai, the entire time. This point is open to interpretation; there is ample subtext throughout the novella for readers to analyze and determine for themselves how reliable or unreliable they believe Rabbit to be.

Empress In-Yo is the third and final protagonist of the novella, epitomizing the text’s thematic interest in Feminine Political Agency Within a Patriarchal System. Originally a princess from the conquered north, she is married to the Emperor of Pine and Steel in a political alliance meant to symbolize the unification of the two polities. When she first arrives at the Palace of Gleaming Light, she seems fragile and timid to the people of Anh. Rabbit recalls, 

The new empress was like a ghost. At first, we were all afraid of her, because the women of the north were all thought to be witches and sorceresses. Then they discovered her great secret, that she was only a lonely and heartbroken girl, and she became of no account at all (31). 

This initial impression is fueled by the disdain and fear, which intermingle and become xenophobia (as the malicious commentary about witches indicates). In-Yo is not as docile or timid as she first appears to be, however. In an interview, Vo summarized her intentions while writing In-Yo, noting,

How terrible In-Yo is, in the old meaning of the word: awe-inspiring, grand, monstrous and more than a little deadly. In-Yo’s choices are to be terrible or to be a footnote in an enemy empire’s history of a forgotten and subjugated people, and she knows which one she picks. When you’re cut off from the culture that birthed you, you have so many unexpected choices and sometimes what feels like none at all (“Revealing The Empress of Salt and Fortune an Publishing in the Age of Diaspora Fantasy.” Reactor, 7 Aug. 2019).

As this quote indicates, there is a sense of righteous rage bubbling beneath In-Yo’s calm surface—a rage that is not merely personal but cultural in nature. Despite her long distance from home, In-Yo remains emotionally and culturally tethered to the north in a way so profound that even Rabbit is not privy to it. Remembering their journey to Thriving Fortune, Rabbit tells Chih, “[W]hen she could, she rode with the curtains of her palanquin open, her face turned not west towards death or east towards civilization, but instead to the north” (48). This laser focus on her homeland and her people drives everything that In-Yo does throughout the novella, even surpassing her friendship with Rabbit.

Almost Brilliant is Chih’s companion, a talking hoopoe. Hoopoes are kept by the clerics of Singing Hills because of their supernaturally perfect memories, which are useful for preserving the histories uncovered by the clerics (in the Salt and Fortune universe, animals with this ability are called “neixin”). In several moments, Chih alludes to historical instances of violence against the neixin by those who have had motives to destroy the information they remember. They tell Rabbit, “The Singing Hills aviary was torched, but our Divine at the time sent three pairs of nesting couples to their relatives across the Hu River […] Among them were Almost Brilliant’s great-grandparents” (16). The threat of violence against Almost Brilliant and her species helps illustrate the gravity of clerical work.

Although Almost Brilliant is a primarily peripheral character with minimal dialogue and scenes, she has a distinctly sassy personality. Several times, she offers a humorous response to serious circumstances. For example, after discovering the messy storage room filled with fortunes, she dryly remarks, “Well, this certainly is a mess” (59). In one remarkable moment, however, she takes on a more earnest, gentle way of speaking. After Rabbit expresses her desire to make sure that Sukai is remembered kindly by history, Almost Brilliant tells her, “I understand. I will remember Sukai for you, and so will my children and their children as well” (75). The earnestness with which Almost Brilliant promises to remember speaks to the solemn sense of duty that she has regarding her job as part of the Singing Hills aviary. This solemnity ties her to Chih, who also has a profound reverence for the historical work done at the abbey and their own role in it.