ATLA if the MC was Azula and Everyone Was on Acid: RF Kuang’s ‘The Dragon Republic’
“I thought I brought peace.”
“You brought victory,” he said. “This is what happens after.”
So The Poppy War trilogy is, bounded in a nutshell, Avatar: The Last Airbender if the main character was Azula and everyone was on acid (as RFK described it herself in her glorious 88 Cups of Tea interview with interviewer extraordinaire Yin Chang).
TPW recap:
Fang Runin, an orphan from Rooster Province, one of the twelve territories of the sprawling empire of Nikan, tests into the notorious military academy of Sinegard. Here she undergoes three years of intense training, unlocking her shamanic abilities with eccentric tutor Jiang (also imbued with divine powers), enduring a brutal rivalry with Dragon province noble Nezha, and forging a fearsome friendship with soft cinnamon roll and relentless mood Kitay. Perhaps most complex of all is her idolisation of Altan, a fellow Speerly (making them the last survivors of the southern isle of Speer decimated by the Mugenese), who was also trained by Jiang.
But even as they attempt to survive the vicissitudes of Sinegard, the long-brewing conflict with their island neighbours, the Federation of Mugen, threatens to erupt with apocalyptic ramifications. As the invasion begins, Rin finds herself recruited to the Night Castle into the elite magical Cike unit led by Altan, and drafted to assist in the siege of the Osgiliath-like Khurdulain. When they finally realise it’s all been a ruse, it’s too late. And they rush west to find the empire has sacked the city of Golyn Niis (a brutal massacre based on the real Rape of Nanjing). Rin arrives to find the stronghold in ruins. Kitay is alive, her former rival and classmate Venka barely.
Swearing vengeance, Rin leaves with Altan to release the gods from the mountain prison Chuluu Korikh, but they also find Jiang entombed there after he sequestered himself following his display of power saving Sinegard (which also saw Nezha almost lose his life while fighting alongside Rin). Jiang tries to stop them, but they unleash the wind god Feylen anyway, only to be captured by the Federation and taken to the lab where Altan was experimented on as a child. It is here that Rin learns that it was really the Empress of Nikan, Su Daji, who sold Nikan out, who orchestrated the war, who sacrificed the people of Speer all those years ago in the last poppy war… she’s responsible for everything, seated upon a throne of blood and lies. They then summon the power of their ancestors to escape and Altan appears to die in the fire while Rin swims to the temple in the ruins of Speer and harnesses the power of her guardian god, the Phoenix, to destroy the entirety of the longbow island of Mugen in one fell swoop…
She’s found lying on a sheet of crystal upon the sands of Speer by the rest of the Cike, and by Kitay, her eyes as crimson as Altan’s had been. Back on the ship, the truth emerges, and Kitay is horrified by what they all suddenly realise was genocide. But Rin also learns that Altan appointed her the new commander of the eight-strong Cike, bequeathing her a power on par with the Empire’s warlords as the leader of its most lethal division. She forges a new understanding with the Cike’s Hinterlander Seer Chaghan, who also loved Altan, then she swears vengeance on the Empress, the Vipress, Su Daji, once and for all…
At the beginning of TPW, Rin drives herself to the brink of death to test into and then simply survive the torturous straitjacket of Sinegard, but along the way realises she doesn’t just want to be a good soldier, she wants power. Her heart cleaves to praise because she spent her entire childhood deprived of it, languishing in loveless poverty, longing for connection, peace, meaning. It is this fundamental yearning that so perfectly moulds the ardour of her sociopathy. Her obsessiveness, ambition, single-mindedness, lust for power, pursuit of perfection, existential angst, mental instability, independence, emotional reticence, isolation… She has to win, and for her winning isn’t about logic, reason, or the cold calculation of advancement, it’s about blood-rage, the torturous fire of pride and power.
And so her soul-consuming mission by the end of TPW becomes the insatiable need to acquire that power she so ardently covets, to eradicate forever its greatest living embodiment under the sun… the Empress.
TDR opens with this mission and dials it to 11 as Rin teams up with the Dragon warlord and his rebel republic to sail north and cut off the head of the snake right at its source. All the while she must contend with the crucifying contortions of her own conscience, dehumanising displays of abuse from the barbaric monotheistic Hesperians from the west as they lay the foundations for their colonising crusade, and an agonising war of wills with the god whose cataclysmic fires she commands. This tripartite angst consumes much of the first two thirds, and while it can feel claustrophobic and infuriating at times, it ultimately augments the sheer propulsive force of the conclusion.
But most of the truly god tier moments of this book feature soft reticent cinnamon roll-turned-feral jaded anarchist Kitay. His descent into bitter insatiable sedition is what happens when you push an INTJ-T over the edge. To quote a certain legendary Vulcan lieutenant… never mistake composure… for ease. The repressed psychological superstorm might just jump out and tear the whole world down in the process.
“Once you have an anchor, they become a part of your soul. Your very existence. They know your thoughts. They feel what you feel. They are the only ones who completely and fully understand you. Most would die rather than give that up.”
The magnitude of sweeping grandiose obsessive world-eviscerating soulmatery one can only yearn for…
Every thought, every memory, and every feeling he’d ever had shone out toward her. Nothing was hidden.
She was similarly naked before him. All of her secrets, her insecurities, her guilt, and her rage had been laid bare. He saw her cruelest, most brutal desires. He saw parts of her that she didn’t even understand herself. The part that was terrified of being alone and terrified of being the last.
A MOOD. A VERY PALPABLE MOOD.
She saw his fury.
How had it taken her this long to understand? She wasn’t the only one fueled by anger. But where her rage was explosive, immediate and devastating, Kitay’s burned with a silent determination; it festered and rotted and lingered, and the strength of his hate stunned her.
We’re the same.
Kitay wanted vengeance and blood. Under that frail veneer of control was an ongoing scream of rage that originated in confusion and culminated in an overwhelming urge for destruction, if only so he could tear the world down and rebuild it in a way that made sense.
The way (if one can be permitted to careen wildly into eisegesis for a moment) that this is both a Killing Eve and a Wuthering Heights reference all baked gloriously into one… I can’t.
It remains a truth universally acknowledged (or at least I shall not rest until it is so) that Fang Runin’s character arc, and I say this even before reading the third and final book, is just one of the greatest ever penned. And, as I recently ranted in highest dudgeon, I will fight off every single fully bedecked templar knight from that hill with nothing but my fists until the last breath leaves my body.
She reached for her anger, the anger that had always served as her shield, and couldn’t find it. Her emotions had burned her out from the inside; the raging flames had died out because they had nothing left to consume. She felt drained, hollowed out and empty. The only things that remained were exhaustion and the dry ache of loss in her throat.
“You are allowed to feel,” the Sorqan Sira murmured.
Crying…
Shout-out as well to pirate queen Moag and her Ching Shih vibes (aka the most successful pirate in history… In the 19th century, aged only 32, she became the sole commander of 1800 ships and 80,000 men, and reigned undefeated despite the best efforts of Qing Dynasty officials, the Portuguese navy, and the East India Company… eventually accepting an offer of amnesty from the government before dying at the ripe old age of 69).
A certain character does something in the outro of this book though that I ABSOLUTELY UNDER NO EARTHLY CIRCUMSTANCES SHALL EVER FORGIVE NO MATTER WHAT THEY SAY OR DO OR TRY TO DO. THEY ARE DEAD TO ME. REDEMPTION ARC WHO? I DON’T KNOW HER.
Suffice it to say, I am fully prepared (and by fully prepared I ofc mean I have never been less prepared) to be incinerated into naught but ash by this series…
Let The Burning God commence…
She lay awake with her trident clutched close to her chest, staring at the open roof above her, that perfect circle that revealed the night sky. She felt like a little rodent burrowing down in its hole, trying to pretend that if it lay low enough, then the world outside wouldn’t bother it.
Maybe the Ketreyids stayed in their yurts to hide from the winds. Or maybe, she thought, with stars this bright, if you believed that above you lay the cosmos, then you had to construct a yurt to provide some temporary feeling of materiality. Otherwise, under the weight of swirling divinity, you might feel you had no significance at all.
