These are my thoughts on the book The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin up to the part of the story where Damaya is on her way to the fulcrum so that she can be trained to use her abilities.

Earlier, it was stated that Schaffa was her guardian, and initially, we saw that he displayed some type of sympathy or care for how Damaya was being treated by her family. This at least led me to believe he was sympathetic to her. However, now, on the road to the fulcrum, we see he’s there less to protect her from others but more to protect others from her. He even goes so far as to inflict pain on her just to teach her a lesson that if need be, he will hurt her to control her. And even if she doesn’t do anything wrong, he feels like he needs to hurt her. He still will.

Also interesting is that it seems he has the ability to read minds, or at least read her mind. And that also gives him an advantage over her. He tells this story from some years ago about this past orogene who went to the land killing people and eventually went to this Emperor. I don’t know, was probably going to kill him. But he had a bodyguard who understood how the orogenes worked, how their power worked, and she was able to defeat this orogene. That was when the Guardians, his people, were started.

I’m not yet clear on the order that Schaffa is in, whether one is born into it, or one is trained into it, but either way, there’s an order that exists just to monitor orogenes. Schaffa explicitly states that the Guardians watch the fulcrum, but I wonder who’s watching them.
Original draft written in May 2019