Elatsoe takes place in a world similar to the real world, but one where monsters, vampires, ghosts, and magic are a part of everyday life. Despite its fantastical elements, however, most aspects of American history—such as the fact that Europeans colonized the Americas and that Native Americans were killed and displaced as part of this process—still happened. The novel’s fantastical elements, and particularly its portrayal of monsters, allows it to portray colonialism and bigotry as genuinely toxic to people and the land. Meanwhile, the novel portrays white colonizers themselves as just another type of monster.
Both Ellie and Jay worry about the environmental impact of fairy magic, which their world’s current research suggests is extremely toxic: fairy rings, which allow people to instantly travel from one place to another, release toxic gases into the atmosphere, contributing to climate change. Fairy magic is framed as a fictional analogue for white European culture: its power allowed white colonizers to exert outsize power over indigenous people in the Americas, displacing and killing them in the process. Additionally, Ellie and her mom Vivian describe the white colonizers as a type of monster, one that’s decidedly different than the indigenous American monsters like the Wendigo or the Leech. They have institutional power and, notably, guns with which to shoot and kill Native people. With this, Elatsoe broadly makes the point that monsters are everywhere, hiding in plain sight. Moreover, it suggests that the most frightening and powerful monsters are those with institutional power, who see no problem with poisoning the land and dehumanizing, exploiting, and displacing Native and other marginalized people if they stand to benefit from doing so.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Colonialism and Monsters ThemeTracker
Colonialism and Monsters Quotes in Elatsoe
Hopefully, it happened through a police investigation that led to an arrest that resulted in a successful trial by jury and a murder conviction. However, the justice system was imperfect. Many crimes remained unsolved, especially violence against Natives. Plus, Trevor’s death was so strange, magic might have been involved. That was a potential death blow against justice. Magic, as energy from another realm, corrupted and altered the fabric of reality. The defense for Abe Allerton could argue that any trace of magic at the crime scene negated his chance for a fair trial, since there was no way to trust the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. Nine times out of ten, that argument worked for people with million-dollar lawyers. Strangely, it rarely worked for anyone else.
“What a view,” Al said, and he inhaled deeply. “Eugh. Bad idea. Can you smell that? Rotting fish, sewer discharge, rust. I hate how spoiled the world has become.” Al coughed, shuddering, and spat into the river. [...] “It’s the running water,” he explained. “Makes me sick. Don’t know why. Something curse-related.”
It took a while, but the Leech was finally dead. Ellie had finished Six-Great’s task.
It should have been a proud moment, but Ellie also felt profoundly sad. The Leech was the last of its kind. The monsters of her ancestors had been replaced by different threats. Invasive creatures, foreign curses, cruel magics, and alchemies. Vampires were the new big bloodsuckers.
Ellie couldn’t use the rings, however, because all portal travel had to be approved and facilitated by fairy folk, and fairies didn’t like “strangers.” Strangers, in their opinion, constituted anybody without familial ties to at least one interdimensional person, commonly known as “fae.” That wasn’t Ellie. Every time she had to pay for an expensive airline ticket or miss a field trip, her disdain for the otherworldly snobs increased. It seemed cruel that humanoids from a different realm could discriminate against her—and others—on her own homeland. The “fair” in “fairy” didn’t stand for justice, however, and they didn’t care about any rules but their own.
The lawn was speckled by white polka-dots, the heads of round mushrooms. Didn’t mushrooms usually sprout in moist environments? Exactly how much water did Dr. Allerton waste on his grass every day?
“Nathaniel Grace learned a lesson from the fire. He made friends with other Pilgrims by hurting the people who frightened them more than he did.”
Page five continued, with a picture of a boxy building, “Nathaniel Grace made a hospital with the money he earned. He saved many lives.”
[...]
The final page displayed an anatomically accurate drawing of a leech. It belonged in a biology textbook, not a historical biography. Brett concluded: “Nathaniel Grace is a great American because he saved the lives of many people like presidents and war heroes. Without him, the country would not be the same and there would be no Willowbee. He founded the town to be a good home.”
If the US had also controlled an army of dead hounds, there’d probably be no Lipan left alive. It was difficult enough to survive their deadly magic, powers that weren’t the same as ghosts. Magic came from an alien place, and the use of too much corrupted the natural state of the Earth. That’s what scientists were reporting, anyway. [...] In fact, that year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Magic Use, which was backed by over two hundred scientists, published a warning that excessive magic posed an existential threat, one nobody understood completely and very few people seemed to take seriously.
Ellie’s ancestors had known—hundreds of years before any report by an intergovernmental group—the damage magic could cause.
“Only one kind of monster uses guns,” Vivian said.
“He’s just one man.” Trevor leaned forward, rooted to the grave. “There are millions more who will continue to treat our family and land like garbage. Think of them like pests.”
“Pests...”
“Termites in your house. Locusts in your field. It doesn’t make any difference if you crush just one insect. The swarm will devour your home.”
Ellie always reasoned that Six-Great lived in a more violent era, one that transformed pacifists into warriors. Six-Great didn’t fight because she enjoyed it; she had to protect her family and friends from genocide.
There were still people to protect. That, Ellie now realized, would never change.
“Everything I do tonight will be for him. For justice.” The exorcist corpse’s head flopped to one side, as if trying to study Ellie with its cloudy eyes. “He loved you,” the emissary said. “He loved all his family.”
“I love Trevor,” she said. “Always will.”
“Someday, you’ll be reunited,” the emissary promised. “If you want that day to come sooner rather than later, interfere with my vengeance.”
“Vengeance?” she wondered. “Didn’t you say ‘justice’ a moment ago?”
“In this case, they’re the same.”
“There’s a lot I want to learn,” Ellie said. “My mother, her mother, and my grandmother’s mother taught me about the way of our land, our dead, and our monsters, but the times have changed. I need college to prepare for the next Willowbee.”
