The Filipina as lover, fighter in ‘The Hurricane Wars’

By Allen Gaborro

It wasn’t that Thea Guanzon’s novel “The Hurricane Wars” had achieved the status of a New York Times bestseller or that it was written in the alluring fantasy romance category that tempted me to write about it. With exceptions, I tend to be deaf to the sound of “bestseller” and the fantasy romance genre was never my cup of tea.

So why am I violating my preferences here? You see, I’m a student of what E. San Juan Jr. deferentially addressed as the “Filipina insurgency” in Philippine and Philippine American literature. San Juan gave Filipina characters and authors in fiction—as well as in history—the honor, respect, and distinction they deserve. 

A leading indicator in “Hurricane Wars” that it belongs to the literary Filipina insurgency is its protagonist Talasyn. She is not created by Guanzon as a Filipina exactly. The author, though, does stay grounded in her Filipina background as she incorporates composite strands of Filipino culture and traditions into her novel.

Talasyn’s story is the story of a valiant fighter, a brave and skilled protector of liberty against the great nemesis, the Night Empire. Talasyn lives in a consuming reality of warmaking, political agency, the battle of wills and personalities, the always conscious road signs of the lingering past, and the wild fluctuations of romantic love.

But there is more to Talasyn than all that. It is enough that much of her existence has been a tribulation, from being deserted as an infant to inheriting the awesome identity of being a vaunted “Lightweaver”. A lightweaver can weaponize light and wizardry and endow its possessor with incredible power. 

Talasyn, like the august Filipina exemplars of the narrative and historical past, derives strength from adversity to become both an angel and a sword of justice. She is a woman San Juan and other writers of Philippine feminist themes would put on a pedestal.

Talasyn is not the only female figure of strength and prominence in “Hurricane Wars.” There is Queen Urduja, a dowager-type who cannot be talked about without recourse to her guileful resiliency, talent for anticipating moves and outcomes, and disposition in going beyond the pale to attain her goal of retaining power. 

Guanzon attests to this portrayal of Urduja in testimonial form:

“Urduja of House Silim was old in the way that mountains were old—imposing and awe-inspiring, having transcended the ravages of time while other lesser entities had been destroyed….it takes a certain kind of woman to hold on to power in the cutthroat nest of political intrigue….Queen Urduja would be very much that kind of woman, given how long her house has reigned.”

Constituted on a florid canvas that traverses space and the universality of the human condition and experience, Talasyn strives to find mind-body-soul balance on the sweeping vistas of a long, drawn out war. It is a war of defiance of the expansionist Night Emperor.  

Talasyn serendipitously meets her Night Empire counterpart, the Night Emperor’s son Prince Alaric. He and Talasyn are martially- and romantically-juxtaposed. Their relationship resembles not merely what will be a binary symbiosis, but an unearthly yin-and-yang effect from which Talasyn and Alaric try to point themselves towards a natural and supernatural harmony.

“Hurricane Wars” entices us into thinking that the flowering of a love between Talasyn and Alaric has that Romeo and Juliet feel: at heart, a  melodrama featuring two lovers from adversarial camps. 

With respect to Guanzon’s effort, I can’t say I was especially enamored with her fictional turnout. Animated and spirited her novel was. However, I found “Hurricane Wars” too resplendent, too phantasmagoric, too fairy-tale, too Game of Thrones for my taste. 

I gravitated instead to my mental image of Talasyn: vigilantly individualistic, heart on her sleeve, receptacle of perception, a bulwark against misogynistic disdain, and a decolonized woman of the Babaylanic tradition.

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