Essun

Essun is the main character of the Broken Earth Trilogy.

/!\ This page contains major spoilers for The Fifth Season /!\

"Discomfort is understandable. It’s the rudeness that isn’t."

Appearance
At the beginning of the Fifth Season, Essun is described as a 42-years old woman, "tall when she stands, straight-backed and long necked, with hips that easily bore two children and breasts that easily fed them, and broad limber hands". She's also described as "strong-looking and well-fleshed".Her hair are described as "ropy fused locks, each perhaps as big around as her pinky finger, black fading to brown at the tips". Her skin ocher-brown by some standard, olive-pale by others.

Personality
Essun is the character we most closely follow during the trilogy, and we can see her personality evolve as she grows. As Damaya she's proud and hardworking, as Syenite, she's arrogant, enthusiastic, curious, ambitious, and frustrated by a lack of recognition of her qualities, and by the limits of her orogeny. As Essun, finally she has become more grounded, patient and determined, she's grown into a powerful orogene who's enraged at the way the world is, and the way people treat orogenes, and more than anything at Jija for what he did to Uche.

Schaffa
Essun's first relationship that's shown in the story is with her guardian, Schaffa.

Alabaster
During her years as a Fulcrum Orogene, she's assigned Alabaster as a mentor, while she's also supposed to mate with him in order to breed powerful orogenes. She begrudgingly does what she's told, while resenting Alabaster for it, a person she at first dislikes and envies (for his powers). Her opinion of him starts changing during the Node Maintainer Incident, and she starts if not pitying him, at least feeling empathy for him. They grow closer after Allia, and their relationship evolves into a close and intimate friendship, that can sometimes be called romantic, thanks in large part to Innon's personality.

Jija
In Tirimo, she marries Jija, and has two children with him: Nassun and Uche. Both are powerful orogenes in their own right. She buffers Nassun's unskilled orogeny successfully as she grows up, and teaches her what she learned at the Fulcrum. She doesn't manage to hide Uche's orogeny quite as well, and Jija figures out he is a rogga when Uche is two years old, shortly before the Rifting.

Damaya
As a young feral orogene, Damaya Strongback Palela was discovered when she accidentally manifested a torus in the comm's creche. Schaffa brought her to the Fulcrum.

Syenite
Syenite is the name given to her by the fulcrum. It is a granite-like rock. She is a taught orogeny by the Fulcrum until she reaches four rings. Her constitution and orogenic skill make her a candidate for the Fulcrum's breeding program. She is sent on a mission with Alabaster, in order to mate with him and breed more orogenes.

Essun
In Tirimo, she introduces herself as Essun. She becomes a creche teacher there and marries the resident knapper, Jija. After saving Tirimo from the shockwave from the Rifting, she has to flee.