The World Building of The Case Files of Henri Davenforth

 

Last week, I put out a review of the series “The Case Files of Henri Davenforth”, a mystery/police procedural series set in a fantasy world which is more or less a magic-infused version of our early twentieth century. This week, I want to take a look at the world building of this series, especially the racist and sexist aspects, which are tackled in an interesting way.

 

The first thing to note about the world of the series is that humans are far from the only sentient beings. There are dwarves, dark elves, brownies, dryads, and several were-creatures so far as well (and every additional book might add another species). The interesting thing is that the author doesn’t use them as a stand-in for any kind of real-world minorities. The different species are integrated into the world, they live among the humans, they work in different jobs, from low-grade workers to high positions (such as a museum director), they own and lead stores as well. The only kind of prejudice I’ve encountered so far (in the fourth novel), is the idea that werefoxes are too mischievous and unreliable, which makes it harder for them to get jobs. There’s also no prejudice towards humans with different skin tones - both a medical examiner at the precinct and the new magical examiner hired in the fourth book are dark-skinned, but not treated differently because of it.

This take on how different species that have lived together for a long time would interact is actually one I’ve always thought made most sense. First of all, there’s no reason humans would see skin colours as something specific while sharing the world with elves, dwarves, and other beings. It would be easy, however, to fall into the trap of making people discriminate against other species. This also makes little sense once you think about it. If humans, dwarves, elves, and other beings have lived together for a long time, the usefulness of people from all species has already been proven. They have built towns, cities, and kingdoms together, worked and fought in teams. There’s no reason for them to think that someone who happens to be a dwarf is worth less than a human, for instance. Their next-door neighbour might be a dwarf and they might be very glad to have them living there.

It’s also a lot of fun to see all those different species together. To have a member of the investigative team immediately accept that a werewolf would know that there was someone smoking in a house they delivered the mail to as the postman. Of course he would - his nose is far better than that of a human. Of course a dwarf might be smug about the fact that it needs more humans to transport a certain amount of a metal than it would take dwarves, because dwarves are stronger and everyone knows that. Of course the dark elf officer at the precinct can be a much greater threat with a new fighting technique, because he’s much faster and more agile than a human. That’s just the way of the world and nobody sees it as anything special.

 

So all is perfect in this world and people are just skipping around, all equal to each other? Of course not. There is no racism, but there’s sexism. As at the beginning of our twentieth century, women do not have the same chances in life, the same access to education and the workforce as men do. The current ruling queen of the kingdom the stories are set in is adamant that this has to change, that women have to have access to every job. She is pushing for it and she’s not happy to hear of cases in which women are turned away from a job for being women (as happens in the fourth novel, where she overrules the police president, because he didn’t want a female magical examiner).

The sexism is not excused, however, nor is it simply accepted by the majority of the female characters in the books. It’s still there, embedded in the morals (which are pretty late-Victorian) and in the past, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t be challenged and that it will always be that way.

It’s notable that the main force behind ending the sexism isn’t the traveller from earth, the woman who was kidnapped and dragged into this world and does have another approach to the treatment of men and women. The main driving force is Queen Regina, who was born and raised on this world. Neither do women approve of the sexism, whether it’s female police officers who are restricted to domestic disputes, women who feel threatened and are brushed off by the police because they’re considered hysteric, or women who are not considered for a position merely because of their sex. They do make it clear that it is not okay for them, that they don’t see themselves as anything less than a man. Therefore, the ‘White Saviour’ trope (which wouldn’t fully work, because Jamie Edwards, the traveller from earth, is part Asian) doesn’t come to pass. It’s not the person from another culture who knows better and teaches the stupid locals. It’s the locals who see the problem and act against it. Jamie joins that fight, but she doesn’t start or lead it.

 

The technology level of the world is also interesting, since it, too, matches the early twentieth century on earth instead of the medieval times as so many other fantasy settings. There are cars around, but they don’t usually make more than thirty miles per hour (there’s also the superstition that it would hurt humans to move faster, just as there was on earth at that time). Jamie boosts the technology by introducing things from her own world which are quite often realized with the additional help of magic and also by the female guild master of the Guild of Artificers. Magic is integrated into the world with about five percent of all humans being born with magical talent. Magic and technology work together, so there’s no technophobia or suchlike. A technical object can be powered by magic and magical objects might include technical parts.

 

The world building of “The Case Files of Henri Davenforth” is as interesting as the cases Henri and Jamie take on in the novels. It doesn’t overshadow the actual story and there’s no big information dumps, yet it introduces the reader well to the world and keeps them informed about everything they need to know.