The Poppy War

“Rin, listen. Sinegard is a cruel city. The Academy will be worse. You will be studying with children of Warlords. Children who have been training in martial arts since before they could even walk. They’ll make you an outsider, because you’re not like them. That’s okay. Don’t let any of that discourage you. No matter what they say, you deserve to be here.”

Tutor Feyrik warns Rin about the classism and social striation of Sinegardian society. Though the Academy is supposedly structured on meritocracy, its admission structure favors those with privilege. Rin will be expected to compete equally with students who have had a lifetime of military training preparation.

“They had grown up hearing stories about the destruction of Speer, a tiny island that punctuated the ocean between the Nariin Sea and Omonod Bay like a teardrop, lying just beside Snake Province. It had been the Empire’s only remaining tributary state, conquered and annexed at the height of the Red Emperor’s reign. It held a fraught place in Nikan’s history, a glaring example of the massive failure of the disunited army under the Warlords’ regime.

Rin had always wondered whether the loss of Speer was purely an accident.”

In History class, Rin and her cohort learn about the Mugenese genocide of Speer, a Nikara tributary. Because of its famed warriors, Speer holds an infamous and exoticized place in the national mythos. Though Nikan officially claims they did not know Speer would be targeted by Mugen, Rin thinks they willingly sacrificed it. This quote, which follows a separate acknowledgment of patriotic propaganda in rural textbooks, suggests that national stories are not always factually accurate.

“‘Maybe he doesn’t know how to talk,’ Nezha suggested. […]

‘The Speerlies weren’t idiots,’ Niang protested.

‘They were primitive. Scarcely more intelligent than children,’ Nezha insisted. ‘I heard that they’re more closely related to monkeys than human beings. Their brains are smaller. Did you know they didn’t even have a written language before the Red Emperor? They’re good at fighting, but not much else.’”

Nezha demonstrates typical, if extreme, Nikara beliefs about the Speerly race, showing The Influence of Stories on Social Structures. His claims mirror real-life rhetoric often used by colonial and imperial forces against those they subjugate. He also perpetuates the myth that cultures with written histories are more civilized than cultures with oral histories.

“‘Understand this, southerner. The exam proves nothing. Discipline and competence—those are the only things that matter at this school. That boy’—Jun jerked his thumb in the direction Nezha had gone—’may be an ass, but he has the makings of a great commander in him. You, on the other hand, are just peasant trash.’”

While scolding Rin after she fights with Nezha, Jun demonstrates deeply embedded classism. He implies that Rin is incapable of demonstrating leadership qualities because of her origins. He also punishes Rin more severely than Nezha, banishing her from his class while simply suspending Nezha for a week. Jun favors Nezha and discriminates against Rin throughout the entirety of the novel.

“What a difference an accident of birth made. In another world she might have grown up in an estate like this, with all of her desires within reach. In another world, she might have been born into power.”

While vacationing at Kitay’s house in the Jade District, Rin gets her first glimpse of a privileged lifestyle. She knows there is nothing inherently superior about the nobility, but she recognizes the opportunities that are tied to wealth and status. Rin will go to great lengths to accrue the power others are given by virtue of their birth.

“She was finally beginning to understand the purpose of the last six months of research and meditation. So far she had been pursuing two separate lines of inquiry—the shamans and their abilities; the gods and the nature of the universe.

Now, with the introduction of psychedelic plants, Jiang drew those threads into one unified theory, a theory of spiritual connection through psychedelics to the dream world where the gods might reside.”

This quote distills several key aspects of Nikan’s complex spiritual universe. Jiang has taught Rin about the spiritual world and about shamans’ abilities. Psychedelic plants are the medium shamans use to connect themselves with that spiritual universe. This understanding becomes important when Rin joins the Cike, a Militia made up of shamans.

“‘Don’t you want to see the face of the enemy?’ Kitay asked.

‘No, I don’t,’ she said. ‘Because then I might think they’re human. […]’

‘Maybe they’re more human than we realize,’ said Kitay. ‘Has anyone ever stopped to ask what the Federation want? Why is it that they must fight us?’”

Dehumanization is a major element of The Brutality of War and the Dehumanization of the Enemy. Several groups and individuals dehumanize their enemies, including Rin, who wants to conceive of the Mugenese as wholly evil. Kitay, who is often Rin’s moral compass, takes the opposite stance, displaying a willingness to consider the individuals within the Federation. However, Kitay’s stance changes after he witnesses the Golyn Niis massacre.

“Children ceased to be children when you put a sword in their hands. When you taught them to fight a war, then you armed them and put them on the front lines, they were not children anymore. They were soldiers.”

While at school, Rin can think of her military future in the abstract. When the Federation attacks, all the theoretical training at Sinegard becomes real. Rin must acknowledge that even though she and her friends are only teenagers, some of them will certainly die in battle. One brutality of war is the forced maturity of children turned soldiers.

“‘You are Sealed!’ the general bellowed. But he backed rapidly away from the void and clutched his halberd close.

‘Am I now?’ Jiang spread his arms.

Behind him sounded a keening wail, too high-pitched for any beast known to man.

Something was coming through the darkness.

Beyond the void, Rin saw silhouettes that should exist only in puppetry, outlines of beasts that belonged to story. A three-headed lion. A nine-tailed vixen. A mass of serpents tangled into one another, its multitude of heads snapping and biting in every direction.”

The Mugenese General’s words allude to the fact that Jiang is the legendary Gatekeeper of the Trifecta that ended the Second Poppy War. Jiang supposedly has a Seal on his magical powers, but he is still able to open a gate to the gods’ menagerie. This scene marks the first major overlap of the spiritual and material worlds. Each time, these overlaps produce devastating consequences.

“The great military strategist Sunzi wrote that fire should be used on a dry night, when flames might spread with the smallest provocation. Fire should be used when one was upwind, so that the wind would carry its brother element, smoke, into the enemy encampment. Fire should be used on a clear night, when there was no chance for rainfall to quench the flames.

[…]

But tonight they were not using regular fire. They needed nothing so rudimentary as kindling and oil. They didn’t need torches. They had Speerlies.”

Sunzi is an allusion to the famous Chinese military general, strategist, and author Sun Tzu, who lived between 544 and 496 BCE. Sunzi’s Principles of War corresponds to Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, which details many advanced and revered military strategies. However, these strategies do not account for supernatural powers. This quote reestablishes the fact that shamans experience the world in a way that non-shamans cannot conceptualize.

“It was the first time Rin had gotten a good look at the Mugenese outside the chaos of a melee, and she was disappointed by how very similar they looked to the Nikara. The slant of their eyes and the shape of their mouths were nowhere near as pronounced as the textbooks reported. Their hair was the same pitch-black as Nezha’s, their skin as pale as any northerner’s.

In fact, they looked more like Sinegardians than Rin and Altan did.”

Rin is disturbed that her so-called enemies share many traits with upper-class Sinegardians. Faced with undeniable evidence of their personhood, she can no longer comfortably dehumanize them. This demonstrates The Influence of Stories on Social Structures, particularly the power of propaganda.

“He was so beautiful then, standing right in the space of the road where a beam of moonlight fell across his face, illuminating one side and casting long shadows on the other.”

Nezha has a notably inhuman flawlessness. This foreshadows revelations about Nezha’s identity in the second and third books of the trilogy. The imagery of the moon illuminating only half of his face symbolizes his inner conflict; Nezha constantly struggles with what he is told and taught versus what he wants and believes, and this appears most notably in his contradictory treatment of Rin.

“Rin could not understand how the Federation had found so many different ways to inflict suffering. But each corner they turned revealed another instance in the string of horrors, barbarian savagery matched only by inventiveness. A family, arms still around each other, impaled upon the same spear. Babies lying at the bottom of vats, their skin a horrible shade of crimson, floating in the water in which they’d boiled to death.”

The details of the Golyn Niis Massacre replicate the events of the Nanjing Massacre, in many cases nearly verbatim. The Nanjing Massacre was characterized by the brutal ways that the Japanese Imperial Army murdered Nanjing civilians, including boiling them alive. Kuang details these atrocities as a grim example of The Brutality of War and the Dehumanization of the Enemy.

“‘It’s not anything we did,’ said Altan. His left hand, Rin noticed, was shaking again. ‘It’s how the Federation soldiers were trained. When you believe your life means nothing except for your usefulness to your Emperor, the lives of your enemies mean even less.’

‘The Federation soldiers don’t feel anything.’ Kitay nodded in agreement. ‘They don’t think of themselves as people. […] They are accustomed to propagating such grotesque evil that they cannot properly be called human.’ Kitay’s voice trembled.”

Altan and Kitay discuss how a populace can be trained and socialized to dehumanize other races, enabling them to brutally torture and murder without remorse. This conversation shows Kitay’s character development; earlier, he wanted to view the Mugenese as people, but now, he believes them incapable of reason. Kitay dehumanizes the Mugenese to cope with what he witnessed at Golyn Niis.

“‘I don’t need your pity. I need you to kill them for me. You have to kill them for me,’ Venka hissed. ‘Swear it. Swear on your blood that you will burn them.’

‘Venka, I can’t…’

‘I know you can.’ Venka’s voice climbed in pitch. ‘I heard what they said about you. You have to burn them. Whatever it takes. Swear it on your life. Swear it. Swear it for me.’”

Mass sexual assault is another element taken from the Nanjing Massacre. At Sinegard, Venka discriminated against Rin; as a sexual assault survivor and a witness to the brutality of war, Venka no longer cares about intranational social structures. Venka’s words are a key factor in Rin’s decision to get revenge on the Mugenese people at any cost. This perpetuates the cycle of war and raises questions like these: What are the consequences of revenge? How does one break cyclical abuse?

“The Federation had massacred Golyn Niis for the simple reason that they did not think of the Nikara as human. And if your opponent was […] a cockroach, what did it matter how many of them you killed? What was the difference between crushing an ant and setting an anthill on fire? Why shouldn’t you pull the wings off insects for your own enjoyment? The bug might feel pain, but what did that matter to you?”

In the 2009 documentary Torn Memories of Nanjing by Tamaki Matsuoka, former Japanese Imperial soldiers discuss how they were taught from childhood that Chinese people were insects. This imagery is reflected here, and later, when Rin clings to similar sentiments to justify her genocide of Mugen. This quote further illustrates the influence of dehumanization and the power of national propaganda.

“‘Feylen? After what he tried to do? You don’t know what you’re saying. You are speaking of atrocities.’

‘Atrocities?’ Altan asked coolly. ‘You’ve seen the bodies here, and you accuse me of atrocities?’

Chaghan’s voice rose steadily in pitch. ‘What Mugen has done is human cruelty. But humans alone are only capable of so much destruction. The beings locked inside the Chuluu Korikh are capable of ruin on a different scale altogether.’”

The existence of gods adds another layer of complexity to the brutality of war. Chaghan does not think that the Cike should unleash the shamans immured in Chuluu Korikh, because they are capable of immense devastation and lack human morality. Altan, however, wants to use any resources at his disposal to get his revenge. Altan has an addiction to his rage; combined with his opium addiction and the stress of leading in a losing war, he makes dangerous, irrational choices.

“Did you know they strapped him down and made him watch as they took the others apart to find out what made them tick? What are Speerlies made of? The Federation was determined to find out. Did you know they kept him alive as long as they could, even when they had peeled their flesh away from their rib cages, so they could see how their muscles moved while they were splayed out like rabbits?”

Chaghan reveals Altan’s backstory: Altan experienced The Brutality of War and the Dehumanization of the Enemy in Shiro’s lab with the other Speerlies. This description mirrors the experiments done by the Japanese Imperial Army’s Unit 731, which engaged in biological warfare and human experimentation on Chinese people. It also foreshadows Rin and Altan’s capture and reappearance in Shiro’s lab.

“‘I want to save Nikan,’ Altan insisted. He repeated in a strained voice, as if trying to convince himself, ‘I want to save Nikan.’

‘No, you don’t,’ said Jiang. ‘You want to raze Mugen.’

‘They’re the same thing!’

‘There is a world of difference between them, and the fact that you don’t see that is why you can’t do this. Your patriotism is a farce. You dress up your crusade with moral arguments, when in truth you would let millions die if it means you get your so-called justice.’”

Jiang has a nuanced view of warfare that draws a distinction between saving one’s people and destroying one’s enemy. He has repeatedly stated warnings about the dangers of rage and power, especially in the hands of shamans, but Rin and Altan choose vengeance over rationality. This will eventually lead them into trouble: Rin and Altan defeat the Federation, but their actions have devastating consequences on Nikan.

“Shelves filled the sides of the room. They brimmed with jars that contained feet, heads, organs, and fingers, all meticulously labelled. A massive glass chamber stood in the corner. Inside was the body of an adult man. Rin stared at him for a minute before she realized that the man was long dead; it was only a corpse that was being preserved in chemicals, like pickled vegetables. His eyes were still frozen in an expression of horror; mouth wide in an underwater scream. The label at the top of the jar read in fine, neat handwriting: Nikara Man, 32.”

Kuang has stated that Unit 731 was a direct inspiration for Shiro’s experiments, and she has drawn many details from various primary sources. Shiro is a flat villain; he is characterized by his dehumanization of the Speerlies, a view which remains unchanged. Shiro is also tied to the symbol of scars; he inflicts long-lasting physical and mental scars on both Altan and Rin.

“‘They had the last Speerly in their hands, and they never tried to wean him off the drug? It’s obvious—someone’s been feeding it to him for years. Clever of them. Oh, don’t look at me like that. The Federation weren’t the first to use opium to control a population. The Nikara originated this technique.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘They didn’t teach you?’ Shiro looked amused. ‘But of course. Of course they wouldn’t. Nikan likes to scrub out all that is embarrassing about its past.’”

Shiro’s story exposes Nikan’s hypocrisy and confirms Rin’s early suspicions: Nikan’s national histories are biased propaganda. Though she was skeptical of Nikan’s official story about Speer, Rin has been loyal to Nikan. Now, she knows that Mugen’s use of Addiction as a Tool of Control, especially over Speerlies, originated in Nikan.

“Destiny is a myth. Destiny is the only myth. The gods choose nothing. You chose. […] At every critical juncture you were given an option; you were given a way out. Yet you picked precisely the roads that led you here. You are at this temple, kneeling before me, only because you wanted to be. And you know that should you give the command, I will call something terrible.”

The Phoenix emphasizes Rin’s freedom of choice regarding the Federation’s fate, placing the consequences solely on her shoulders. Rin has always sought power; she manipulated Jiang at Sinegard to gain access to the Phoenix after she first connected with it. However, the Phoenix is also manipulating Rin here; it does not acknowledge its powerful demands for blood and ashes, which are ever-present in Rin’s mind.

“She burned away the part of her that would have felt remorse for those deaths, because if she felt them, if she felt each and every one of them, it would have torn her apart. The lives were so many that she ceased to acknowledge them for what they were.

Those weren’t lives.

She thought of the pathetic little noise a candle wick made when she licked her fingers and pinched it. She thought of incense sticks fizzling out when they had burned to the end. She thought of the flies that she had crushed under her fingers.

Those weren’t lives.”

Rin’s explosive destruction of the Federation parallels the United States’ use of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Rin disassociates from the event to preserve the idea that she committed mass murder for the greater good. The imagery of flies is a direct callback to the descriptions of the Mugenese after the Golyn Niis Massacre, implying that Rin has become no different from her enemy.