baihe_media | So You're Writing a Character in a Baihe Court Intrigue Novel: Four Paths to Political Power

The Chinese imperial court was a deeply hierarchical, misogynistic place. The Chinese imperial court of the popular imagination may, in certain respects, be an even more hierarchical, misogynistic place. This presents certain challenges if you're writing a baihe court intrigue novel, because you probably want the main characters to have at least some agency. From my (not that extensive) reading of court intrigue and court intrigue-adjacent novels, here are four approaches you could take.

The Tradwife. The character acquires political power through tried-and-true, historically-established means that are deemed 'acceptable for women', settling into 'her rightful place' in the patriarchal power structure. The formal power they have is often limited to the domestic sphere, but they also have considerable influence over the people (generally men) who hold formal political power, and by leveraging it cleverly, they're able to shape events to their will, or at least make a fair attempt at doing so. They're most often the wives and daughters of nobility and royalty. Examples include Wei Mingxi and Rong Yuge from The Collapsing Palace (宫倾, pinyin: gong qing) by Ming Ye (明也), both daughters of high nobility who marry, respectively, the emperor and the crown prince, from whom they derive much of their status and power. It might be argued that they do end up subverting the imperial succession to some degree, as Wei Mingxi uses the political power she has as the dowager empress to make sure the crown prince's daughter ends up on the throne after his death (traditionally only men can become emperors), but this is very much presented as a personal choice rather than a political choice, and there's no indication of the rest of the system being changed (or a desire to change it) to make it less patriarchal.

Not Like Other Girls. This is where the character is able to acquire political power through means traditionally reserved for men. Cross-dressing is a popular way of achieving this: see Xiahou Pei from Serenade of Tranquility (清平乐, pinyin: qingping yue) by Ruo Hua Ci Shu (若花辞树) or Gao Che from Dynasty of Beasts (pinyin: qinshou wangchao) by Yao Yi Chang'an (遥亿长安), who are presented to the world as boys almost from the moment of their birth, and go on to claim the thrones of their respective empires. There can be variations on this, such as Lin Zong from Across the Empire (纵横, pinyin: zongheng) by Lin Cuo (林错), who was born a girl (and everyone who's anyone knows this) but is raised as a boy and designated as a boy in the ancestry records as well as her father's heir. An undercurrent in the novel is her various rivals for the throne trying to take her out of the fight by stripping her of her legal status as a man and relegating her to the 'woman' box. A common thread in the novels within this category is that the characters have no particular interest in subverting or overturning the existing patriarchal order, and seem content (for a given value of 'content') to exist as exceptions to it. Another, more complex variation can be seen in Minister Xie, (谢相, pinyin: xie xiang) by Ruo Hua Ci Shu, set in an alternate version of the Han Dynasty where women can rule and hold high office. Here, both female emperor Liu Zao and her prime minister Xie Yi are able to wield real political power by occupying historically male roles. I'm placing Minister Xie here, and not in the next category, because both the main characters and the text are mostly uninterested in working out the full implications of this bit of world-building, or in addressing feminist themes overtly (indeed, Liu Zao eventually does what is arguably a highly UNfeminist thing by removing Xie Yi from her position as prime minister and installing her as empress). Other than Liu Zao and Xie Yi, there's a surprising dearth of prominent female ministers and politicians in this novel, notwithstanding the premise.

Smashing the Patriarchy. Unlike the previous category, the character(s) in this category actively work to subvert and/or overturn the established patriarchal order. A good example is Climbing High (登高, pinyin: deng gao) by Po Po Po (破破破), which is set just a couple of generations after the empire has just crowned (or rather, enthroned; we're more fussed about the big chair than the big hat) its first female emperor. We see the current (also female) emperor and her coterie of trusted female ministers (as well as various non-royal, non-ministerial, educated middle-class women, a nice touch) working to get rid of persistent misogynistic systems and attitudes, and to entrench gender equality firmly into the bedrock of the empire. This is particularly prominent in the first half of the novel.

Patriarchy What Patriarchy. Patriarchy is a thing of the past, if it ever existed. Women can do anything men can, and this is accepted as simple fact of existence. The text doesn't feel the need to explain why there are all these women in positions of power and how they got there, and whether the men feel threatened by this and need coddling/murdering; this is just the way things are. An example is the To Embers We Return (焚情, pinyin: fen qing) by Ning Yuan (宁远), which while not being a court intrigue novel, does have a lot of court-related politics especially in the first half. The major characters (and there are a lot of them) are all women (presumed lesbian), all in positions that would historically have been held by men in our universe. Women hold political office, women wield military power, women marry other women, and no one bats an eyelid (men do all these things as well, but the novel is not particularly interested in them).

Let me know if you have any other examples or any other approaches for female characters in historical settings to gain political power! Or whether you see/categorise them differently.

So You're Writing a Character in a Baihe Court Intrigue Novel: Four Paths to Political Power

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