Cassidy Ellis Salter on using fantasy to explore topics like anger and identity
When I was growing up, I thought I had no right to anger. It was an embarrassing emotion, ugly, and something that belonged to men; they were allowed to stamp around, mutter furiously to themselves, and grind their teeth. The women rolled their eyes and muttered Just let him get on with it while waiting for the storm to blow over. Like the other negative emotions I had, I thought the only appropriate response to anger was to shove it down until it started spurting out the cracks. My queerness followed a similar path. Of course I wasn’t queer! That was for other people, right? Right? Any suspicions that I might, in fact, be both gay and not-a-girl had to be shoved down and papered over, because the alternative was deeply embarrassing.
It’s no coincidence that I also loved fantasy. Reading it, writing it, watching it – I literally couldn’t wait to go to bed so I could lay down, close my eyes, and pretend to be someone else. It’s why I filled USB drives with my first rambling proto-novels (which I never finished) and watched The Phantom of the Opera every afternoon for three weeks. (The hill I will die on is that TPOTO is a historical fantasy. Come on, he has a candle-filled lakeunder an opera house and he sings at people through mirrors while wearing a mask! Also, I wanted to be him.)
Fantasy has always been a safe space to explore topics like anger and identity, and that’s true whether you’re a writer or a reader. Under the guise of being a bookworm, someone who feels unable to express themself can live a thousand lives fighting, being in love, showing their anger, and experiencing what it’s like for those things to both matter and change the world. I’m convinced it’s why so many fantasy books – especially those with non-male protagonists – are driven by the rage of the main character. Think: How dare you take my little sister for the reaping? Fiction, especially fantasy, is one of the only places where outwardly expressing rage is good, even necessary; in contrast, real life often demands that we don’t show it.
The same goes for queer identity. Even before the welcome explosion in LGBTQ+ representation, fantasy has been a home for queer people. Vampires have always been homoerotic, monsters are the othered, and demonic possession is about having something inside you that doesn’t conform to your body. Fantasy is where we can explore the parts of ourselves that we’re scared of and society thinks we should keep quiet. In these stories, being different is often what holds the story together.
In These Shattered Spires, everyone holds a lot of anger. Nixie, one of the human familiars, survives by being unimpeachably perfect, but the only way to maintain that facade is to crush her anger – at the unfairness of her life, and the ways she’s been betrayed – deep down. Alix, who was kicked out of their tower and skulks around the library while everyone misgenders them, resorts to silently and savagely cursing people to zero effect and pretending that’s enough for them. Elliot, a cursed insomniac who is literally dying from lack of sleep, resorts to using his anger to make himself a villain, because it’s the only power he has. In the end, they literally change the world by collectively using the force of their anger. The result is ugly, but it also saves them.
Fantasy provides us with a safe space to explore things like rage and identity without the dull limitation of what’s real (ugh! reality! How boring) or the need to worry about consequences. It gives weight to the emotions that we try to minimise, and it gives us the satisfaction of being heard when the rest of the world can’t accommodate it. I can’t think of a better reason to pick up a book, or to keep writing.
These Shattered Spires is published by Bloomsbury YA on 10 March 2026
