The Empress of Salt and Fortune

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of gender discrimination.

Within the Empire of Anh, mammoths are a symbol of In-Yo’s homeland, the frigid north. The people of the north ride mammoths both for everyday transportation and into battle, distinguishing them from their neighbors in Anh to the south. Vo positions the mammoths’ strong, formidable nature as suggestive of the north’s potential domination over Anh. At one point, Rabbit remembers that In-Yo’s mother had threatened to destroy Anh “with a battalion of mammoths to bring down the walls of the Palace of Gleaming Light” (24). Though In-Yo takes a more subtle tact at first, this allusion to the historical tension between Anh and the north, underscored by the extreme destructive power of the mammoths, foreshadows what is to come.

Throughout Salt and Fortune, Vo uses of a variety of animals symbolically, in addition to mammoths, emphasizing their importance in her fantasy universe. Sukai and Rabbit both have animal names that carry symbolic meaning (See: Character Analysis): Anh is represented by a lion, and Mai resembles a fox. Vo carries this animal symbolism forward into the other books of the Singing Hills Cycle, especially When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain, which follows a love story between Dieu, a scholar, and Ho Thi Thao, a shapeshifting tiger.