PAS 6: “The Raven Cycle” Only Circulates White People

Yet another recommendation from my very amazing bookish cousin! At the time of writing this, I’m still reading The Raven Cycle series by Maggie Stiefvater and I absolutely adore the characters and their antics. Her story is incredibly well written and I love how all the puzzle pieces fall into place and that each character has a unique contribution and perspective to add to their group.The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater is a four-book series following Gansey, Ronan, Adam, Noah, and Blue as they search for the grave of the last Welsh king. Gansey, Ronan, Adam, and Noah are Aglionby students, a boys private school with students known as the “Raven Boys.” Blue comes from a family of psychics and is herself a magical amplifier of sorts. Together, they navigate their individual struggles while making headway in their quest to find Glendower, before someone else does.

The Raven Cycle has a lot going on in the series, both for the plot as a whole as well as the individual characters. As I read the series, (granted, I’m only three books in) I didn’t immediately notice that there are no major characters that are POC.

I’m not sure why Stiefvater made this choice. The series takes place in Henrietta, Virginia, a fictional rural town. Realistically, there won’t be much racial diversity in rural Virginia, if at all. This is definitely reflected in Stiefvater’s character choice as every major character is white. Of all the people that the main characters interact with, I only remember one of them as being POC. It was an annoying rich Aglionby student named Henry Cheng, a Chinese-Korean from Vancouver. I spoiled myself a bit for the sake of this post and found out he joins the main group, but only in the last quarter of the series.  

I guess I could understand why she didn’t want to make too many layers for an already very complex storyline. She has economically diverse characters and representation for abused children, orphans, and single-parent children, but no racial diversity until the third book. The story itself is so immersive that racial identity doesn’t play a factor in any character, but I can see why properly making a character complex with racial backgrounds might add too many layers to the plot and make it more confusing than it already is. 

But at the same time, it’s fiction and can definitely be worked around. We’re dealing with a group of teenagers searching for an ancient being on a magical ley line and psychics. I think we’re pretty far already from being reality accurate. There would be no loss to Stiefvader for making at least one of her main characters POC, or even just having them interact with a POC character before the third book. 

The Raven Cycle: 4 stars (still reading)

POC representation: 1 star for Henry