This week, we turn back to fantasy for an in-depth look at R.F. Kuang's The Poppy War, a grimdark examination of power, war, and an alternative version of 20th Century China. In this episode, we discuss the real-world allegories and the ways in which Kuang plays with history of the Second Sino-Japanese War and Mao Zedong in particular, as well as the perils and prospects of using a Corruption Arc in a story.
CW for discussion of war crimes, including genocide, and drug use
Intro:
Pump Sting by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4251-pump-sting
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Outro:
Iron Bacon by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3925-iron-bacon
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
This week, we turn back to fantasy for an in-depth look at R.F. Kuang's The Poppy War, a grimdark examination of power, war, and an alternative version of 20th Century China. In this episode, we discuss the real-world allegories and the ways in which Kuang plays with history of the Second Sino-Japanese War and Mao Zedong in particular, as well as the perils and prospects of using a Corruption Arc in a story.
CW for discussion of war crimes, including genocide, and drug use
Intro:
Pump Sting by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4251-pump-sting
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Outro:
Iron Bacon by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3925-iron-bacon
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Matt: 0:06
Hello and welcome to the Bro-dacious Book Club.
Erin: 0:09
The podcast where we host a book club -
Matt: 0:11
and I haven't read the book.
Erin: 0:13
I'm your host, Erin Rockfort. And with me, as always, is my good good bro, Matt Thomas. As always, this podcast is for people who maybe don't have time to read, but still want to know what's going on in the world of fiction.
Matt: 0:24
If I know what's going on in this book by the end of our podcast, then you, Erin, have done your job.
Erin: 0:30
And as always, this podcast is for entertainment, we mean no disrespect to the book or the author involved. And we always encourage you to read the book for yourself should you be so inclined.
Matt: 0:40
And of course, as always, we're going to be going over the content of the book. We're gonna be analyzing it. We're gonna be discussing some of the themes. So obviously, spoiler warning. And if you don't want spoilers, then maybe you listen to it a little bit after you've read the book.
Erin: 0:56
Yeah, exactly.
Matt: 0:57
So Erin on that note, what are we reading today?
Erin: 1:00
Today we are reading "The Poppy War" by R.F. Kuang, which is maybe not a lighthearted distraction from your pandemic worries at this time, but is still an interesting book that I think will be rife for discussion.
Matt: 1:16
That's right. And for me personally, this is a light-hearted distraction from my pandemic woes because I have been wanting to discuss this book for some time. Don't get me wrong, as per the rules, I have not read this book. I am still your your classic uninformed observer, and Erin is still the informed here. However, I happen to be somewhat informed when it comes to the history of China, which is kind of what we're going to be focusing on, as I understand in this book. And Erin can speak to that more.
Erin: 1:51
Yeah, one of the things that we're gonna be touching on, and this is not a big secret about this book, it's something that the author has been very upfront about, is that it's kind of a bit of a fantasy reimagining of the history of China in the 20th century, specifically focusing on the personality of Mao Zedong,
Matt: 2:11
Which I am very excited to get into, Mao Zedong was a very interesting human being, and there's a lot to discuss there. Like I mentioned, my own personal academic background, without saying too much, focuses quite heavily on the history of contemporary China that the geopolitics that have come from that today. So I am quite excited. I've been looking forward to this one for some time, as Erin knows.
Erin: 2:39
Yes. Like I said, it is a fantasy novel, so it's not quite - we're not reading a biography of Mao Zedong. This is sort of ah fictionalized version of these kinds of events if they took place in a fantasy world and given that this is the first book of a trilogy, and this book mostly covers the analogous period of time to the Second World War. So I'll just take this opportunity to put a bit of a content warning in because, I mean, if you know much about history of what was going on for China during the Second World War, you are probably aware that it was not a great time for them. So if you are going to check out the book at any point in time, just be aware that there is quite a bit of heavy violence, a discussion of sexual assault. There's also, and we'll probably touch on this as we go, but as the name perhaps implies, there is quite a bit of discussion of drug use, both in the book itself and in probably our discussion of it, because it's a pretty major plot point.
Matt: 3:40
Indeed. And on that, actually, just before we got set up and started recording, I had to stop myself when casually discussing this book with Erin, just based on the title of "The Poppy War" and what I know about it, the fact that it follows a kind of mythical alternate universe Mao Zedong. It almost seems as though this novel is a mash up of the Opium Wars, which, of course, happened in the 19th century, World War Two, and the rise of the Chinese Communist Party. So I'm very curious to see how they mash all of those things together. What they choose to include, what comparisons we can draw, and what what analyses we can make from that. So I'm - with that, I'm ready to go ready and raring. Erin, if you wanna go ahead and tell us about it.
Erin: 4:30
Yeah, so the main character of this book is a woman, which is maybe the first big disruption to the obvious analogy of Mao Zedong. Her name is Rin and the fantasy country, which is not exactly China but is similar in a lot of ways. It's called Nikan and Rin is a war orphan. So she was orphaned during a war that took place over a decade before the beginning of this book, which was probably quite similar to the Opium Wars.
Matt: 5:05
Indeed.
Erin: 5:06
Like timeline, I think that that matches up, and at the moment they're at peace, but the effects of that war are still being felt. And she grows up in a small town, and she's been raised by this couple, who are kind of - they're a little bit cartoonishly evil. They're a little bit like the Thenarardiers in Les Miserables. You know, they're shopkeepers, but they are also smuggling opium, and they're very abusive to her. And when she's about 14, the story begins with them trying to sell her off in marriage to some kind of wealthy merchant that they can then use to continue to smuggle opium. But she, for obvious reasons, does not want that future. She wants to go to school. And that's sort of her main way out of this life, is to study really hard and to try and rise above her lot in life.
Matt: 6:01
Indeed.
Erin: 6:01
Her adoptive parents are not gonna pay for her to go to school, so she has to do well enough that these exams to get into a school without tuition, which means she has to do really well.
Matt: 6:11
Right. Might I ask, these exams - are these kind of along the lines of the real life Chinese Imperial examinations? The...?
Erin: 6:19
Probably? I don't honestly know that much about the period, but I imagine yes.
Matt: 6:21
Sure, sure, sure. Well, just to perhaps shed a little bit of light on it, in China for thousands of years, there has existed in various forms a civil service exam system through which young scholars would rise up the ranks by memorizing and reciting Confucian classics. And if they memorize them well and were particularly diligent in their studies, then they were able to rise, as you mentioned, above their station, above their lot in life. So it seems to me that that's kind of a direct comparison that's already being...
Erin: 6:55
Yeah, and we're right in the opening chapters of the book. So she manages to study for it, she develops a habit of burning herself to keep herself awake, to keep studying, and eventually she ends up as the top of her class in the region. She has the best score, and she manages to get admission to this school called Sinegard, and she then sort of packs up and is able to leave for it, which is a huge success for her. They aren't gonna charge her any tuition because her grades are so good. So Sinegard, the school that she gets into, is a very wealthy school, it's a very upper class school, and it's surrounded by a very wealthy city as well. And so she's kind of immediately at this disadvantage because she didn't have quite the same schooling - like she did really well in her studies, but she didn't get the expensive education that all of her classmates did. And she's a little bit darker skinned than her classmates, and she has an accent that marks her is being from sort of the countryside. Basically, how things work at the school is that students have to pass these trials. And then after that, they pledge to a certain discipline and/or are claimed by a master. That will determine what kind of jobs are available to you afterwards. And most of the masters are pretty strict upright men, but one of them, who's the Lore Master, Jiang - he is obviously using opium fairly frequently, which is illegal, but nobody really calls him on it. And he is just kind of seen doing odd things around the school.
Matt: 8:28
Right.
Erin: 8:28
We get a little bit of world building about the fact that there's something called ki, which is like -
Matt: 8:35
Like an energy or life force, I'm guessing?
Erin: 8:37
It's a kind of energy, I - my understanding is it's similar to the concept of chi, but the sort of Hollywood version of it, perhaps?
Matt: 8:44
Yeah,
Erin: 8:45
You can actually use it to do magical things, to some extent. But most people can't, most people are not able to do that, it's just the energy moving through them.
Matt: 8:54
Okay.
Erin: 8:55
She befriends the smartest kid in her class, Kitay, and she also starts a bit of a rivalry with one of the other students whose name is Nezha. She also meets and becomes aware of the student named Altan, who's a couple of years ahead of where she is. He's like the best student in the school and he is the surviving member of his race, basically. We get the world building that during the war that also killed her parents, which was the Second Poppy War, which was between Nikan, which is her country, and Mugen, which is...another country.
Matt: 9:34
Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and press that, is it - is it eluded that they are a Western...?
Erin: 9:41
No, it's - Mugen is more more similar to Japan -
Matt: 9:45
Okay.
Erin: 9:46
- in many ways which we'll sort of see as we go on, which is not - obviously, you know, the Opium Wars didn't really involve Japan
Matt: 10:30
Indeed
Erin: 10:30
But probably for simplicity's sake. During this war there was this island which was part of Nikan called Speer, which was not thought of very well by the rest of the country. The Speerlies were very heavily racialized, they were thought of as barbarians. And Speer was wiped out by Mugen in the war. And there's some speculation that perhaps Nikan let this happen so that other countries would see it and go like, "Hey, that's not cool. You just did a genocide." And step in and help them, which did end up happening. This is just sort of background socio-political context.
Matt: 10:31
Indeed. Now, while we're on social political context, would you relate the sacking of Speer to the sacking of Nanjing?
Erin: 10:42
No.
Matt: 10:42
That comes later, okay.
Erin: 10:43
We're going to get to that.
Matt: 10:44
I see.
Erin: 10:45
Hold onto your...hats?
Matt: 10:48
Indeed. Do go on.
Erin: 10:48
And Rin is always kind of getting herself in trouble, like she very clearly has something to prove. She's looked down on by a bunch of the other students. She kind of gets herself kicked out of combat class, which is not ideal. There's also an incident where she gets her first period, which sort knocks her out of being able to go to class for a week. And she's like, "Oh, this sucks. This is unsustainable. This is why there's not that many women at the school." So she visits the infirmary and gets a concoction that will make her infertile.
Matt: 11:22
Oh my.
Erin: 11:24
Yeah, which is kind of intense, and I mean sort draws attention, I guess, to the systemic sexism that exists in this world, that this was the length she had to go to continue in her studies, and she does have a moment where she's like, "Oh, if I do this like this pretty much shoots all of my marriage prospects in the foot." But she's like, "Screw it. This is more important." So that's kind of neat, and also, like, it's - at risk of going on to an uncomfortable topic, it is kind of need to see characters dealing with menstrual issues in books, because that doesn't happen all that often.
Matt: 11:56
Totally yeah hundred percent.
Erin: 11:58
And she she starts catching up in classes. She starts burning herself again. There's a line that I really like just cause it was raw AF: "This misery she revelled in because she had chosen it for herself."
Matt: 12:10
Oh my, yeah that's got some sort of energy to it, doesn't it..
Erin: 12:14
Yeah. And she tries to teach herself how to fight because she can't go to combat class, right, by using books and watching fighting matches between other students. But you can only get so far with that, but she encounters Jiang, the lore master while she's doing that, and he's kind of intrigued by her determination. So he starts trying to teach her how to do combat, which he starts by having her carry a pig up the mountain.
Matt: 12:38
As you do.
Erin: 12:38
Because he's a very chaotic human being.
Matt: 12:40
That's right. Apparently.
Erin: 12:42
He also explains - so he's the Lore master, which is not just the study of books in this universe, it's the study of magic, more accurately.
Matt: 12:51
Okay.
Erin: 12:52
And if you study Lore, you become what's called a shaman, where you can actually channel the ki into actual magic. And it's kind of a dying art because some people go mad when they open those doors to the energy, like a significant amount of people. And he wants her to pledge to his discipline. But she wants to pledge to strategy because that's the best one for -
Matt: 13:14
Career, of course.
Erin: 13:14
Yeah, you know, she could join in the Army. And she studies really hard, she does really well in the trials. She does actually fight her rival Nezha and beats him, but she almost loses control of the energy she's channeling as she does so. and Jiang helps her control it, but she's kind of seized by that rush of power. He thinks that she's too reckless and that she's similar to Altan, the best student in the school, who he was teaching for a while, but eventually had to kind of let him go because Altan was too reckless and and he held grudges. Jiang does agree to take her on as an apprentice as long as she doesn't ever let on how powerful she can be. And part of the upper levels of studying ki and studying shamanism is taking opium in order to connect with the "inner god" it's called, and involves a lot of meditating as well. It's sort of in that period where people tend to go mad of, like the meditation and the drugs to open up to magic. And some people just don't come back from that. And she eventually does manage to have a vision of the gods, which it's sort of unclear of, like if these are actual gods or if they're a part of herself, or like to what extent there's...
Matt: 14:29
A hallucination?
Erin: 14:30
Yeah, so to what extent all of these are separate. But she does become properly enlightened, and she can actually access her power more regularly, and she's called to by the god called the Phoenix who was the god of the Speerlies. And she is - she wants the power that's being promised to her, which is quickly becoming a theme, and war is starting to brew in in the air. There's sort of a bit of a weird interlude where we meet a character who is a shaman in the army and is one of the Empress's assassins. But then he is murdered by the Empress, and it's very unclear as to why any of this happens, but it does establish that the Empress is magical and will kill her own people if need be.
Matt: 15:18
Actually, I wanted to touch on that for a moment. This empress, do they - is just a mystical figure in a tower, do they allude on her character at any point at all? Because, at the time, to drop a direct parallel, there there is a very classically famous Dragon Empress of China called Cixi. History remembers her as a cruel and inept ruler who led to the collapse of the great Qing. However,, that interpretation...like a lot of successful and ambitious women in history, there is always the possibility that she was portrayed negatively by the historians who maybe did not like her in the royal court. That is always possible and considering the fact she did hold Qing Dynasty China together for 40 years, while it was collapsing over the course - the fall of the Qing. In any case, it is interesting because she's one of the most fascinating, and one of my favorite, characters in Chinese history. So if this - is her character explored at all -
Erin: 16:21
A little bit, a little bit. We get the back story that yes, she is very much a mythical being in some ways. There was her and two other people who were in charge of Nikan and who, I think they created it - or like, created it in its current form. So there was the Empress, there was the Dragon Warlord, and there was, the Gatekeeper. I think all of whom were magical, at least the Empress in the Gatekeeper were, and the Gatekeeper disappeared many years ago. But the Empress and the Dragon Warlord are still in charge.
Matt: 16:51
I see.
Erin: 16:53
She also has the nickname of the Vipress, which is not a name. I would probably want to be called.,
Matt: 16:59
No, but wouldn't you, though? Wouldn't you - I feel you like you especially might want to be called the Vi- I'm gonna log that one away actually, for later
Erin: 17:06
It is, it is a cool name, but also I feel like it has some very negative connotations.
Matt: 17:09
Definitely. And again just to draw another parallel between this Empress and Empress Dowager Cixi,. she was called the Dragon Lady or the Dragon Empress because she was known, apparently, to have a notoriously bad temper. And she was omnipotent. She was all powerful. She could do anything, right? She was - her power was unchecked, right? Like -
Erin: 17:32
Well, I mean, eventually it was.
Matt: 17:32
I mean, I - no kidding. I shouldn't say unchecked because they tried to check her and failed many times until she died. But in any case...
Erin: 17:43
In any case, all out war is declared between Nikan and Mugen again. We don't really - like I said in - obviously, in real life, this was part of the broader World War Two narrative. We don't really get that, we just get what is the Sino Japanese War. The second Sino Japanese War, I think, technically. We just get that piece. But obviously that's fine. We don't need to pull everything else in there.
Matt: 18:06
Indeed.
Erin: 18:06
Rin wants to call down the gods to help in this fight, like she wants to use the power as much as possible. But Jiang knows that there's a price to that kind of power, so he doesn't let her. But meanwhile, she keeps like seeing the Phoenix in her dreams. And then there's also this woman that she sees when she is in these meditative states who is trying to tell her to stop, and to not take the power. There's a lot going on in these dream sequences. Eventually, Mugen attacks Sinegard, that's one of the first strongholds that they the attack, and I think they evacuate citizens. But she's now graduated, and she's one of the people that's defending it, as are many of her classmates and she and Nezha, who used to be her rival in school, they end up fighting back to back.
Matt: 18:46
Love it, love it.
Erin: 18:46
Yeah, it's pretty cool. They do get overwhelmed by the Mugen soldiers, but Jiang calls on the gods, and he saves them but collapses a bunch of the city in the process, which is the sort of price that he talked about. After everything is kind of collapsed, the general of Mugen has survived, and he stabs Nezha and tries to kill Rin, but she takes some poppy seeds she stole from Jiang and summons the Phoenix, which kills the general, but it almost kills her as well. When she wakes up, the Empress is actually there with her and helps her not get consumed by the power, but then leaves before they can actually have, like, a substantive conversation. And she starts to suspect that Jiang, based on the amount of power he was able to call down, is the Gatekeeper from the old stuff stories.
Matt: 19:32
Interesting.
Erin: 19:33
Yeah, who obviously disappeared after the Empire was united.
Matt: 19:36
Hence the smoking got a lot to forget.
Erin: 19:39
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And she also starts to wonder if the reason she keep seeing the Phoenix and why she has all this power and her skin is very dark, and she says to question if maybe she is also a remaining Speerly, like Altan. Nezha is - his spine was severed by the stabbing, so he's obviously not in great shape, and he's in surgery. But Kitay, who is Rin's friends is like, "he's not coming back from this, there's, you know, they can save his life, ut you're not gonna, especially in Fantasy China - Fantasy 1900s China. They don't really have the capacity -
Matt: 20:17
To recover from a spine stabbing? No.
Erin: 20:19
Yeah, to recover from a spine stabbing. And Jiang has also disappeared in the aftermath of all of this.
Matt: 20:25
Yet again.
Erin: 20:25
Yeah, and she's originally locked up because she's dangerous. But they eventually agree that she can go as long as she agrees to join this group called the Bizarre Children, who are sort of the Empress's assassins, their elite group of shamans.
Matt: 20:39
Okay.
Erin: 20:40
And they're currently being led by Altan. Who is - graduated a couple years ago now.
Matt: 20:43
Indeed.
Erin: 20:54
And she finally accepts that she must be a Speerlie, and they bond over that because that means that they're the only two remaining of their people. Even if she doesn't have any memory of that.
Matt: 20:55
Is that gonna be a thing?
Erin: 20:57
It is a bit of a thing.
Matt: 20:58
Okay.
Erin: 20:59
Obviously they can't procreate,
Matt: 21:02
Indeed, she paid the ultimate price.
Erin: 21:04
But it is a bit of a thing. And he trains her in, you know, using the magic, channeling the Phoenix, and fighting better. And she joins them in battles which generally do pretty well. She has a bit of a block in using the magic now because she's worried that if she calls on the Phoenix again, the magic will just consume her completely because it almost did last time.
Matt: 21:26
Right.
Erin: 21:26
So she's having a little bit of trouble. But, you know, still, things are going okay and they get reinforcements, where they're sort of holding back the Mugen army, and Nezha is with them. And he's fully recovered from his spinal injury, which is one of the things that I get the sense is probably gonna be picked up in a later book.
Matt: 21:44
Mmhmm, I was going to say - I gave you a look there. Yeah, weren't we just discussing the fact that he can't?
Erin: 21:51
Yeah, and they make a big point of, like, this is not a thing that should have been possible.
Matt: 21:57
Right.
Erin: 21:57
But he's also a lot more chill. So they kind of hang out and have a discussion about how they were not very nice to each other during school. And they kind of equate the two things which - it feels a little bit unfair to me. Like he's like, "Well, you made me look like an idiot because you beat me at fighting" and she's like, "Okay, but, you know, I was massively disadvantaged indeed by your whole group," but they do, they do make up. So that's kind of nice.
Matt: 22:23
That is nice. Good feel-good moment.
Erin: 22:24
Yeah, exactly. And he's - maybe I've should mentioned this earlier, that he's very important. Like generally, all of her classmates were important, like, the children of wealthy and important people. He is actually the son of the Dragon Warlord. So he's quite important.
Erin: 22:39
Right. A princeling, perhaps.
Erin: 22:41
Yeah, maybe not quite to that extent. But, you know, the Dragon Warlord is the next down from the Empress, basically. So yeah, and Altan doesn't think they should spend time together, but they're forming a nice friendship, so she continues to do so. Then there's an incident with a beast that attacks the city. And she begins to realize that not only did Jiang doing the magic that he did collapse a big part of the city that they were in a time, he also opened a void to demons, which are now coming into the world.
Matt: 23:15
Right.
Erin: 23:16
This one in particular can eat people's faces and can put other people's forms on. And she and some of her buddies go out to fight it, and it tries to take Altan's form and is like, "Oh, you love him. You can't hurt him" and she's like, "You don't know me" and stabs it.
Matt: 23:32
Atta girl. Atta girl.
Erin: 23:35
So Altan has a lieutenant who shows up at this point, who's been absent for much of the novel. His name is...Chaghan?
Matt: 23:42
Lost on me, lost on me. You know, it's hard to say right, because it's unclear whether these are fantasy names or Chinese names
Erin: 23:48
Yeah, like I did. try to Google this one, I didn't find anything. Chaghan? Let's say Chaghan. I'm sorry if that's not right.
Matt: 23:56
Indeed. Yeah, no, that's - as a general disclaimer, we apologize for any mispronounced Chinese words or names profusely.,
Erin: 24:05
And he doesn't like Rin very much. He thinks she's a bad influence on Altan and thinks that they're getting too close. He also thinks that they're sort of going to be sacrificed for the sake of the war, and there's sort of this looming over them, the implication that something might become the next Speer. They're eventually attacked by a gas which burns skin, and during the fight in the middle of this gas, Nezha is taken and captured by Mugen soldiers. Rin tries to go back for him, but Altan stops her from doing so. She manages to call the Phoenix because she's so angry and upset, but she doesn't manage to get Nezha back, and eventually she has to deal with this block in her mind, which is, like I said, illustrated by the woman that she sees in her mind, who keeps saying that she's still pure and she kind of has these cryptic visions that something bad is coming. In the middle of all this, she and the rest of her team realize that the city they've been defending this whole time is actually a ruse and that it isn't the real target. And they torture a prisoner to find out the actual city that Mugen is trying to take, which they immediately rush off to try and get to try and defend it. And they're hopeful at first that they know a secret way, and they might be able to get there first. But they're not. It's been completely obliterated.
Matt: 25:24
Ah.
Erin: 25:24
They get there and everyone is dead, bodies desecrated.
Matt: 25:29
Right, right. Any significance to the city?
Erin: 25:32
Not within the novel, but I think this is sort of the analogous event to the Rape of Nanking.
Matt: 25:37
Indeed.
Erin: 25:38
And she has recollections of the genocide at Speer and thinks that this is the same kind of situation, and suspects that maybe Nikan knew that this was coming or like the Emperess knew this was coming and didn't have it be defended, in an attempt to drum up sympathy. She also realizes that her friend Kitay was in the division that was defending the city. And so she's immediately like, "Oh, God, what happened to him" and spends like days searching through the bodies, and she actually eventually finds him alive, which feels very -
Matt: 26:09
Statistically unlikely.
Erin: 26:11
He basically buried himself under some bodies of soldiers, and so did some of his companions, and they find out that the Empress was actually in the city at the time of the attack. But she fled as soon as the attacks started, and that increases their suspicion that this was allowed to happen.
Matt: 26:29
Indeed.
Erin: 26:30
And she tries to go to Altan for comfort and finds him completely drugged out and realizes that not only is he using opium to access the magic, he's also using it to cope with all of the bad things that they see.
Matt: 26:41
Right.
Erin: 26:41
And she has a lot of complicated feelings about drug use because she used to be involved in smuggling it. She's okay with using it to access the magic, but when it comes to people using it for pleasure, she has a lot of disdain for that. So she has a bit of a crisis around finding out that Altan, who she respects and loves, is using. So there's this mountain where they lock up all of the shamans who go mad, and Altan wants to break into the mountain and release the shamans, because some of them are like former allies. Chaghan thinks this is a bad idea, which it probably is.
Matt: 27:17
Might be right, might be.
Erin: 27:19
And they reveal the Altan is actually more powerful than even the average person - and, like, Speerlies specifically were very powerful - but he's even more powerful than they were because when he was a child, he was captured by Mugen and experimented on. So that's why he hates them so much and also why he's so powerful. And the Phoenix is the Speerly god, which they both get their power from in some way, is the God of rage, basically. So by tapping into anger is how they do a lot of their magic. She eventually agrees to help Altan go and release these shamans from the mountain and they go there, and the most recent person who has been put in there is Jiang. And he confirms that he's the Gatekeeper who fought beside the Empress to unite the empire, but he doesn't want them to release the others. He says it's gonna cause all kinds of bad repercussions, but they don't listen to him. So he just kind of sealed himself back inside the mountain.
Matt: 28:17
Sure.
Erin: 28:18
He's like nope, not dealing with this.
Matt: 28:19
Yeah, it's like that one meme of Homer Simpson retreating into the hedge.
Erin: 28:24
It's very much that, yes. And they managed to free one of the shamans, whose name is Feylen, who used to be one of the other members of Altan's team. But he went mad with power, and it's kind of implied that that happens to most shamans, and he's now completely controlled by the god he was serving. He refers to himself in the first person plural, so "we". And he tries to kill Altan, but he fails. But he does manage to escape, and we don't pick that thread up again, but I feel like it's probably going to come back if you were to pick up the next book in the series.
Matt: 28:58
Which I think we should. Just saying, later on.
Erin: 29:00
Yes, not gonna rule that out, maybe later on. As they're still at the mountain, they get attacked by Mugen soldiers. Because neither of them inside of the mountain can call on their magic, because it's a mountain meant to dampen that, they're captured. Rin and Altan both wake up in a lab, which is the lab that Altan was experimented on as a child. And the doctor comes in and he tries to get Rin to show him how she uses her power and reveals that the empire was doing all kinds of bad things to the Speerlies even before the genocide, but in particular was giving them opium and making sure they got addicted to opium to try and make them less powerful and to keep them docile. The doctor also mentions that Mugen is going to spread a plague within the empire in order to force a surrender basically ,so some biological warfare. He reveals that the Empress sold them out, like Rin and Altan. After laying out all the stuff to her very conveniently, he injects her and Altan with heroin. And I think the idea is that it's maybe a more pure version of it, and it has a bigger effect on them. But she and Altan managed to connect while they're high, like on this other plane.
Matt: 30:15
Been there.
Erin: 30:15
And she has a revelation that she used to idolize Altan and think he was perfect, but now she knows all of his flaws, but she still loves him. It's kind of unclear how much this is in a romantic way, but obviously still a pretty important relationship to her into the story.
Matt: 30:30
Sure.
Erin: 30:30
He shows her some of his memories of when he was a child and living in Speer, because he has memories of it. Whereas she was just a baby, and they kind of have the option to, like, let themselves drift away and die. But they decided to stay instead and to fight so they sort of come out of the high, but still with the power that it gave them, and just start blasting. They kill the doctor, they kill his assistants, they kill the rest of the people in this lab, which is -
Matt: 30:59
Right, right.
Erin: 30:59
Sort of a floating lab. It's on a boat, I think, or an island maybe.
Matt: 31:05
Sure.
Erin: 31:05
Anyway, he wants to completely destroy the research lab. And so he tells her that they are just off the coast of Speer, and if she just swims, she should be able to get there. But he's going to stay and basically self-destruct to blow the whole island up for the whole boat up - again, I'm unclear.
Matt: 31:23
Whichever, yeah, sure.
Erin: 31:23
Even though it will probably kill him in the process, so she doesn't really want to leave him. But she does, and swims to Speer and knowing that he sacrificed himself keeps her going. And eventually she washes up on Speer. She finds the old temple to the Phoenix, and she is confronted by the woman that she's been seeing in her visions. And it's revealed that she's the spirit of the old Queen of Speer, who had an opportunity to defend Speer from Nikan, back, I think, in the time of when the Empress took power and consolidated the empire. This old queen could potentially have kept Speer its own kingdom, country, whatever. But it would have potentially destroyed a lot more than she was willing to destroy, so she chose not to. And they have a bit of a discussion about whether or not this is destiny. And she talks to the Phoenix about this, and Rin maintains the destiny doesn't exist, and she asks the Phoenix to destroy Mugen entirely, she wants it completely wiped off the map. It says okay, but in return, it wants her to basically become an avatar for destruction. And there's this interesting bit of narration where she turns off the part of herself that feels guilt and burns it away and functions as a channel for the power. And it destroys Mugen, and she collapses in the aftermath of that. When Rin wakes up, she's been found by her allies, so Altan's team and also Kitay is there as well. She's burned so much that she's turned the sand around her to glass, that was the intensity of the blast. As she wakes up, she looks out and sees what's left of Mugen, which has a mushroom cloud over it. Apparently what technically happened was that a volcano erupted and wiped out most of the country. I think the, uh, the analogy to real life is - real history is pretty obvious there.
Matt: 33:18
I mean, the mushroom cloud.
Erin: 33:20
Yeah, I think that's a pretty intentional use of imagery. And Kitay is pretty sure that she was responsible for it, and he's angry with her for basically doing a genocide. And she says about how, "well, they're monsters, like look at what they did in the city that you were stationed in, like they killed so many of our people. They did so many horrible things." And he points out that she's a bit of a hypocrite because her attack also killed a bunch of civilians. They have a whole blow up, and he disavows her, and then she starts craving opium.
Matt: 33:54
Oh, dear.
Erin: 33:55
She has a thought about how she's choosing to be angry. Whereas Altan didn't get to choose his anger, he was just angry, he had no other choice, whereas she is angry and she's choosing to be angry. And now she's angry against the Empress who sold them out.
Matt: 34:10
Sold them out, yeah, exactly.,
Erin: 34:11
And, you know, has been doing all kinds of sketchy stuff in the background of this book. There's a little bit of discussion about whether or not Altan is actually dead because Chaghan didn't feel him die.
Erin: 34:21
Okay.
Erin: 34:22
I'm not sure if that necessarily means anything that we're supposed to take away from this as the reader, but thought I would put that out there.
Matt: 34:28
Well, if they alluded to it in the book, then who knows?
Erin: 34:31
She starts to realize what she did, and she realizes that her allies were at the same time doing some kind of not very ethical things to drive Mugen out of the country, including flooding some villages, to cut off a supply chain, which also killed some civilians. And she has to kind of believe that she made the right choice. They have a funeral for Altan, even though maybe he's not dead, I don't know. And they discuss that they're now basically rogue agents, and that they agree that they're going to move against the Empress and also Feylen, the previous ally of theirs, who escaped. They need to track him down too probably. She and Chaghan clasp hands to indicate that like they're gonna work together, and the book ends on this thought from Rin that the gods are her tools and she's going to do what she wants with them.
Matt: 35:22
Right.
Erin: 35:23
And that's how we leave things. And like I said, there's a sequel that's already out and a...tri-quel? No, that's not a word. The third book is coming out this year.
Matt: 35:34
Right, right. Okay, well, so, I loved it. I loved it. First of all, I suppose, just as a work of fiction stand alone on its own, I loved it. And I think that although I am myself biased, perhaps we can first kind of dissect you historical similarities, comparisons, and then we can get into looking at the actual novel itself as a work of fiction.
Erin: 35:59
Yes. Yeah, I think that's a good plan.
Matt: 36:00
Perfect. Well well, first of all, what I found interesting as you're going through it was, I was putting together the different historical elements as they exist where the alternate universe diverges from reality or our universe, I should say our reality. A little heavy handed. But one of the most notable exceptions, of course, was the presence of Western Imperial Forces that played a major role in the life and development and perspectives of Mao Zedong and his compatriots.
Erin: 36:36
Obviously Mao Zedong did not do the bombing at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in real life.
Matt: 36:42
There's that, of course. Yeah, a few of the more heavy handed ones. Yeah, like that, the more broad strokes. But I also found it - and I was trying to nail down certain characters and who they would be. I'm not sure if there were, not sure if those comparisons were possible in a lot of these situations. For example, Mao Zedong, the historical leader of the budding Communist movement, and then, after the Long March, the apparent leader of that movement and party going forward, he had a counterpart on the nationalist side who was, of course, generalisimo Chiang Kai-shek. I thought maybe it was Nezha, I thought maybe it was Chaghan. Or Kitay I don't know. So I'm curious to see if they focus on that in the second bit. But the main theme, which was really missing, was not just the the presence of the Imperialist West, but the fact that the presence of the Imperialist West on history was the rise of ideology and the rise of communism and the civil war in China, which was taking place before and during and after World War Two. Right, so the fact that that was completely omitted - but it does sound like based on the fact that you've said they are now a rogue agent, it does sound like that's going to be something that is perhaps touched on in the next book. Kind of turning in against the Empire.
Erin: 38:12
Yeah, I suspect that that is going to be the focus of the next book or, has been the focus of the next book, I have not yet read - it's called The Dragon Republic, which seems to be an -
Matt: 38:21
Indeed.
Erin: 38:21
Interesting title.
Matt: 38:22
And very on-brand, it seems.
Erin: 38:24
Yeah, like that to me sounds - you know, a republic is what happens when you overthrow an empire.
Matt: 38:29
That's right. What happened in China, the People's Republic.
Erin: 38:32
Exactly that seems like a pretty obvious - like that's where that's gonna go next. And it will be interesting to see if that happens. But yeah, I think your point about the almost complete absence of Western Imperialism - there are other countries and maybe that will be expanded on in the next book, I don't know, but there are other countries around that have had an impact in the Poppy War, have had an impact in this war that's happening. But it's definitely not to the extent of actual history, and I wonder, a little bit of that's and, you know, without stepping too far outside of my lane, but the author is herself a Chinese American woman, I wonder if that's sort of a desire to imagine her own history without some of that Imperialist baggage.
Matt: 39:14
Of course, of course, and there were a lot of similarities between Rin and Mao Zedong. But because of the absence of that historical, overarching oppression, which has been recorded, was a large impactful force on Mao's own development. You see Rin walk a different path. For example, Mao historically had a horrible relationship with his father because he did not like being told what to do. He did not respect the patriarchal systems of filial piety that you had to pay. He was a constant rebel. Maoism, the doctrine of Maoism, is later on clarified to be the doctrine of constant revolution, of constant destruction, of constant, unadulterated destruction, so that from that, something new and improved can be built. That's the theory behind it. So a few things. One, the fact that Rin also comes from a poor rural background. The fact that that oppression was not there from an Imperialist background at an early age, meaning that -
Erin: 40:19
Well, I mean -
Matt: 40:19
Well, maybe she's got less of a problem with authority. So she goes to school, as opposed to Mao Zedong, right?
Erin: 40:25
Yeah, I was gonna say, I mean, there is still imperial oppression, it's just it's Eastern Imperialism
Matt: 40:30
Indeed, which I think I very much so, is of a different flavor, right? A different connotation, all of that. And now that they, in the end of this book have a local and almost personal oppressor in the Empire itself, I'm curious to see if the next book does make a flip towards ideology. If maybe Chaghan goes the route of more nationalist more of the Republic of China vs Rin, who perhaps will go the route of the People's Republic of China and lead a Communist uprising like Mao Zedong. Very curious.
Erin: 41:07
Yeah, and you were saying too - I just wanted to jump back to the comment about Maoism as constant revolution, as destroying things - that's literalized in her magic.
Matt: 41:17
Indeed, indeed.
Erin: 41:20
I - again I don't know exactly where the book goes from here - I don't know if it's my policy to not read sequels, but I feel like it does -
Matt: 41:27
It seems to be, honestly
Erin: 41:29
I do feel like it maybe creates a purer experience of, like, reading it, to not have that - anyway.
Matt: 41:35
Fair.
Erin: 41:36
But yeah, I mean, she dedicates herself to destruction, she dedicates herself to anger. Like, there is definitely an undercurrent of oppression, and obviously that's influenced her upbringing and her desire to have power. But it is definitely portrayed as an individual type of power versus trying to, like, liberate Nikan. That's not really - maybe she's concerned about civilians, but I think it's pretty clear throughout the book that her main goal, her main ambition, is to get power for herself.
Matt: 42:08
Well, I mean again, on that note, I mentioned at the top of this podcast that Mao Zedong is very interesting human being, a very controversial figure. And of course, as a 24 year old man, I have never met Mao Zedong. I have not had such a pleasure, so I -
Erin: 42:26
That would be quite a feat.
Matt: 42:27
Indeed. No, I can't speak to the man's personal convictions. But it really does seem based on the doctrine of the cults of personality and based on the kind of loyalty - blind, catastrophic loyalty that Mao Zedong commanded - that he was for a while there concerned chiefly with his own power and security of his own power. Even after the catastrophic great leap forward, when Mao is forced to step back, he still maintained such a heavy presence that years later with the Cultural Revolution, he was able to impact China so profoundly that people refer to that decade as the lost Decade, right? Which, by the way, that decade was the very expression of Maoism as constant destruction, so that a new and improved revolutionary product can take its place. The fact that the book closes with Rin becoming an avatar for destruction and thinking to herself that the gods are my tools, right?
Erin: 43:29
Mmhmm, yeah.
Matt: 43:30
I mean, to give you an example of the cult of personality, the Mao Zedong vanity, when he would travel the country to see how the Great Leap Forward was progressing - I should give a little context here for our listeners who are not as familiar with Chinese history as some. The Great Leap Forward was a massive mass mobilization effort that prompted the Chinese people to become a larger steel producer than Great Britain within 15 years, that prompted them to have wheat harvests and and grain harvests that would be higher than ever before. And unfortunately, as a result of a lot of misguided measures, millions died. And while Mao was traveling the country checking on these villages to see if they'd implemented his reforms, they would take crops and plant them close to the railroad to make it appear as though these villages were thriving when in fact, the crops that Mao Zedong was seeing as he was taking his train in were the only crops that they had. Consolidating power for oneself would not be out of the question. Yeah, and I'm very curious to see how Rin develops going forward.
Erin: 44:38
Yeah, and I mean, obviously it's not - there's more, I think, to the story that the author is trying to tell them just a different version of Mao.
Matt: 44:46
Of course, of course.,
Erin: 44:47
Reimagining that period of Chinese history just more generally, I think, but obviously I think a lot of it comes down to the character because Mao was a pretty interesting person and was obviously very influential. And Rin is an interesting character in herself. And I'm wondering if we can kind of set aside some of the historical discussion to talk about the story as a story and Rin as a character.
Matt: 45:11
Of course, no. And I think that's very important to, as like you said, it may be loosely based on Chinese history, but would be we would be very misguided if we didn't examine the book as a work of fiction, standalone.
Erin: 45:24
Obviously, there's lots of things in it that are not analogous to Chinese history in many ways.
Matt: 45:30
In any case, I will start off by saying, I like I like Rin a lot.
Erin: 45:35
That was gonna be my main question, because I would consider this book to have or be what we refer to as a Corruption Arc, which is, for those who may not know the opposite of a redemption arc in a lot of ways. So instead of starting out for the character who is bad and having them become good and like, learn better - the Zuko, if you will - corruption arc is about a character who starts off, you know, maybe not purest of the pure and a saint, but a character who starts off generally good and then goes downhill. So like, famous versions would be Anakin from Star Wars or Walter White in Breaking Bad. Those are both two really classic corruption arcs. I guess within that, like I'm wondering, how do you feel about the direction Rin's character takes through the story? And the actions she takes?
Matt: 46:24
Indeed. And that might be more reflective on on me than anything else like that I like her so much, and I've actually never heard the expression Corruption Arc before, but I like that. It's got - again, it's got a certain energy to it, you know? I'm gonna remember that one. But my thoughts on Rin, I mean, if I had to choose a word to describe her, it would be indomitable, right? She has been faced with challenge after challenge throughout her life from being born poor from not particularly fitting in from being raised by a family of smugglers from having her period in school and having to deal with that to every other challenge there. After she has faced them all and come out on top. That is something that I admire. She's also proven to us and to herself that she can and will make the tough choices demonstrated when she obliterated a country. Yeah, right. So she's willing to pay the price up. Another famous example which he gave up the ability to reproduce. Right? She's willing to do what it takes, and I admire that. I'm very curious to see where they take it to see what atrocities she will inevitably commit in the future is a slippery slope.
Erin: 47:37
Oh, yeah, I mean, if you've already done a genocide...
Matt: 47:39
That's what I'm saying. How - where do you go from there, right? Ah.
Erin: 47:43
And I agree. Like I think, obviously, I don't think her actions are great, generally speaking, at least towards the end of the novel - I don't support genocide, hopefully that goes without saying - but she's a compelling character, and I think there is something compelling about people who are driven in that way, people who are ambitious in that way. I mean, we're two Slytherins having this conversation -
Matt: 48:06
Yes, yes.
Erin: 48:07
Which ismaybe a little bit of a bias of a certain direction, but it's interesting to read about, and she does come from absolutely pretty much nothing and succeeds against all odds. And there's so many things that she says they're like bits of narration that are just awesome, like they're just cool.
Matt: 48:25
Very curious to see how her character will play out. But I agree that a lot of her actions are deplorable, you know, for example, the genocide, again. Do you think that they're - any of them are are justifiable from the perspective of the reader? And also do you think that the fact that she underwent this corruption arc makes it - definitely makes her more compelling, in my opinion, do you think it makes her more relatable?
Erin: 48:51
I think the book also walks a good line with this where, like it's extremely understandable how she gets to where she is when she makes the decision to destroy Mugen. And it's - you know, even if you don't agree with it, you understand - which, like, hopefully you don't, don't do genocide - but you know you can still understand and have sympathy for how she got there and what's going through her mind at the moment. And I don't know that people come away going like you go, girl, you kill those people, all of those civilians. The book is kind of also in constant discussion too with the horrors of war, that's not an insignificant theme, I think, that's going on in the book. I don't think it excuses any of the horrors that happen, like it's pretty clearly not into the genocide at Speer, it's pretty much not into the city that Mugen wipes off the map, because we get really drawn up discussions and descriptions of what has happened to the people who were in that town, like it's pretty intense there. This is maybe not all that relevant, but I remember when this book came out a couple of years ago, there was a huge discussion about whether or not it was YA or not, because the main character is a teenager through most the book. So obviously this is a book for teens, right? And the author had to be like, no, this is not a book for teens.
Matt: 50:07
Yeah,
Erin: 50:07
I think it's described as like grim-dark fantasy, and I think I spent the first half of the book being like, oh, this isn't really substantially more grim-dark than most other fantasy stories. And then you get to that scene where they come upon the destroyed city, and it's like, oh, okay, I understand. I understand now -
Matt: 51:25
Why this was grim
Erin: 51:25
Grim-dark, because you not only not only have bad things happened, but it's described in great detail. I had a point with that, about the themes of war, that throughout the book there's bad things that are happening, and Rin starts off already maybe drawn in certain ways towards some of these more ruthless strategies, but she's held back in the beginning, and obviously, by the end of it, she's kind of let go of some of those feelings of guilt and morality.
Matt: 51:25
Indeed.
Erin: 51:25
We understand why she came to that decision and why she came to that level of action, which I think any good Corruption Arc does, it lets you understand the path that this person has gone on and how they got to a point where they were doing morally reprehensible actions. I think to a certain extent there's a part of most people that is a little bit ruthless and a little bit vindictive, and for most people, they have that morality that they would not do such things. And not that most people have the...
Matt: 51:25
The ability to do such things?
Erin: 51:26
The ability to do a war crime
Erin: 51:28
Indeed.
Erin: 51:29
But it comes down to a pretty basic question of psychology too, of what would you do in a certain situation wherein you were called on to do a violence, and lots of people do in the right circumstances. So I think in that way it is kind of - if you had the power, would you do it? Probably, most people would say no, but -
Matt: 51:46
Would most people be lying? Indeed, indeed. And maybe that's -
Erin: 51:48
Or maybe not even intentionally lying like, you know, I think most people don't believe they would do anything bad. But the research does show that for lots of people, if they're in the right circumstances, they will do bad things.
Matt: 52:00
So true, so sure. I think in response to just my own question there that the line of inquiry regarding whether it is more relatable because of these decisions that she takes because of her corruption. I agree with you that perhaps most people would say no, I would not harm another human being if I was given the order to, I think that perhaps somewhere deep down we are aware of the fact that maybe we're just lying and that maybe there is a dark heart within each of us. And maybe that that is something that this book acknowledges and that because of our awareness of that inner darkness and because of this book's flagrant display of inner darkness through this indomitable, powerful, charismatic main character, maybe that's something that we find attractive, this honesty. You know, good writing is honest. Maybe there's something to that..
Erin: 52:52
Yeah, and I think you're right. Like it's - it is definitely a compelling and in many ways relatable story - I mean, aside from the magic. But yeah and I mean, not to like be that person, too, but it's kind of neat that like, she's a woman.
Matt: 53:09
Absolutely it's neat that she's a woman.
Erin: 53:11
I feel like it's - we don't get these stories as much with women, which is not that, you know, I'm like I oh yeah girl boss, like, that's doesn't quite the vibe I'm going for. But just, men, or male characters at least, are allowed to be corrupt, and evil, and to be morally complex in that way, a lot more often than than female characters are. So yeah, that's always fun.
Matt: 53:35
Indeed.
Erin: 53:36
I think that was a good note to end on -
Matt: 53:37
Yeah, to be honest, it just kind of happened. So...
Erin: 53:42
So next time, for those of you wanting to tune in, I promise I'm picking something much - well, I don't know if it's more light hearted. In my opinion, it is a very fun story, and will maybe be a bit more of a distraction than this discussion of war crimes has been, although I hope this was enjoyable as well.
Matt: 53:59
Right. I enjoyed it, I was distracted and entertained and all sorts of wonderful things.
Erin: 54:03
Yeah, so was I! But next time we're going to be switching back to science fiction, and we're going to be reading "Gideon the Ninth" by Tamsyn Muir.
Matt: 54:11
Yes.
Erin: 54:11
Yeah, I'm I'm pretty excited about this. Not to give too much away, but this was my favourite book of 2019
Matt: 54:18
And that's saying a lot.
Erin: 54:19
And that's saying a lot, because I read a lot.
Matt: 54:22
Understatement of the century.
Erin: 54:25
Maybe just a bit.
Matt: 54:26
Oh my goodness. And with that I mean, I as always, folks, you can find us on iTunes, Spotify, you know the like. And don't forget to like and subscribe, drop a comment down below. You know the spiel.
Erin: 54:43
You always say "drop a comment down below", I just don't know -
Matt: 54:47
lt's a joke
Matt: 54:49
- if it's just your little joke? Okay
Matt: 54:49
That's the joke. It's brilliant.
Erin: 54:51
Okay. Thanks so much for tuning in. I've been Erin Rockfort, you can reach me @pineapplefury on Twitter.
Matt: 54:57
And I'm Matt Thomas. And yet, again, you can't reach me. Not yet. Maybe one day.
Erin: 55:02
Thanks for - guess I already thanked them.
Matt: 55:04
Do it again!
Erin: 55:05
Okay.
Matt: 55:05
Thanks for tuning in. And you can never thank them too many times.
Erin: 55:08
Thanks for tuning in, and we'll catch you next time.
Matt: 55:11
Catch you on the flippity-flop..