Class Signifiers

The implied aesthetic of the world of the Gordian cycle owes a lot to metal, punk, goth and BDSM fashion: Leather jackets, souped-up motorbikes and dog collars abound. In our world, these aesthetics have generally been counter-cultural. So it's been interesting, in Morgan and the Horizon especially, to try and figure out how to use them to depict both a dominant culture and a counter-culture; or at least, elite and non-elite groups.

Obviously, much like in other "wasteland" sci-fi, some things that say "rebellious spirit" in our time instead say "figure of authority" here, like jackets with patches. But there's still room for distinction; Cassius, a king, wears a flowing gold-coloured one, while Morgan wears black (perhaps her patches are more devotional or decorative, while his are emblems representing all his vassals?). And I'd long established that a chariot (which here is just a bike with a platform attached for the high-status rider) is considered more prestigious than just a bike, since it involves someone else driving you around. So while noble warriors leave all that business to their drivers and smiths, we see common riders (ha) taking greater care and pride in their machines.

The other big thing I hit on was a happy accident: somewhere during the second half of the series I realised I hadn't described anyone with piercings except Shrike's nose-ring, until the point Morgan accidentally gets an industrial-style bar earring while giant courtesy of someone (Thrax the Impaler) chucking a spear. I like to think that was forcibly compressed down alongside her when she shrank back to normal and that it's still there.

Anyway, this lead me to wondering if the Martian nobility perhaps disdain piercings and other body modifications. After all, it's often "spare" children they send to be modified into Hounds, and a ruling noble being blooded himself is framed as a punishment. (I've even speculated in one of these diaries if the process is a bit more carefully done when it's a noble.) It felt like there were plenty of dots to join to build up a sense that they view their bodies as something "pure" they're suspicious of modifying. Better, they feel, to do that to commoners--they're, well, common; nothing to ruin.

So in the penultimate story I played on this to imply they even consider dyeing their hair a bridge too far, and that too is a low-class signifier. Although, I mean, I would have written some version of that scene even if none of this had occurred to me at all. "Morgan vs hair bleach" was just too fun an idea not to use.

Incidentally, this again plays into Morgan's multiple axes of perceived impropriety. Well, you know, she was picked up off the street, she's been turned into an oil-guzzling cyborg, she turned herself into a woman, she's turned traitor, she's burning the colour out of (a very small part of) her hair...any one of these things is a sufficient mark against her being truly at rest among the echelons of high society, so she may as well do the others; she's already 'defiled' herself.