ABSTRACT
Referring to the criticism of Jameson, Miéville, and their ilk on fantasy as an ideal mode for social and political commentary, this chapter will investigate the ways that machines in medieval fantasy literature allow us to (re)imagine real trauma in the interest of navigating the future—on the personal and the national scale. It examines a case study of this process in Tamora Pierce’s Tortallan universe, which features complex fantastic machines, the brutal assembly of which characterizes realistic, American anxieties regarding borders and boundaries immediately following 9/11. These “killing devices,” a frightening blend of mechanization and sorcery, are animated by the weaponized souls of refugee children murdered by Tortall’s political enemy. While these fantastic machines are ultimately defeated by the arc’s heroine, their destruction comes at an enormous, lingering cost. This chapter considers the residual effects of trauma, both individual and national, in order to explore the manifold ways that fantastic machines allow us to imagine the real future, and further, how they empower us to do so even when the future seems at its most unimaginable.
