The Poppy War Trilogy

*Review contains spoilers!*

(though only minor and most likely wouldn't effect the reading experience too significantly)

The Poppy War trilogy is a gripping page turner following the anti hero Fang Runin or ‘Rin’ as she develops from a peasant opium-runner, passing the Keju test letting her into the most elite military academy in Nikan, Sinegard (to escape an arranged marriage) to becoming a legendary shaman, channeling the phoenix god and influencing the tides of war.

I absolutely adored this series, finishing the total 1810 pages in 2 weeks. R.F.Kuang has managed to integrate her passion and knowledge of Chinese mythology and history along with her inspiration of the Second Sino-Japanese War, for the first novel, into creating a compelling adult fiction educating western audiences. She handles heavy themes such as racism, drug addiction, and most importantly, the brutality of war and genocide- having been inspired by the Nanjing Massacre and Unit 731. I think this is an important way to pay tribute to history and to inform western readers such as myself who would have never recognised this part of history despite my own South Asian heritage. However, a criticism I have with such heavy inspiration from real genocide is the potential insensitivity to many victims in making part of their legacy as a plot point for a fictional book (although I recognise my own lack of knowledge in this topic, I recommend doing your own research and not letting this completely deter you).

Kuang has a wonderful word flow to her writing, hooking the reader immediately with her complex characters and world building, with themes of spirituality in her exploration of the pantheon of gods and their part in natural forces along with their personified myths.

My particular favourite part of this series are the characters. Rin is an extremely interesting and developed protagonist, subverting the idea of a self-insert or flawless female protagonist and making her narrative perspective clear along with her personality influencing her choices and impact in the story. However she is also shown to being limited in her autonomy due to the larger political forces in war (that have been there for generations). Her connecting with her ancestry is also well explored along with her foils: Kitay, Nezha and Venka. I love the differences in these characters being so distinct but still understandable in all their perspectives and conflict, making them painfully likeable.

One thing that the author does that was interesting was the way she utilises tropes. The trope of the ‘chosen one’ is shown through Rin’s heritage as a Speerly which is stemmed from the complete genocide of the island of Speer with the exception of Altan. Her relationship with Altan is complex as he is her commander, idol, crush, abuser and as her last connection with her ancestry. Rin’s experience as a ‘chosen one’ makes her powerful and revered among Nikara as a shaman but also comes with lots of prejudice due to colourism and stereotypes of people from Speer as ‘animalistic’, providing a social commentary on racial discrimination. Furthermore, Kuang subverts the idea of a ‘cool, mysterious’ love interest with Altan which is seen in dark romances and instead suggests to Altan being queer and involved with a man called Chaghan. A final, significant trope that she uses is the concept of ‘enemies to lovers’ between Rin and Nezha.

Both characters are foils to each other, in motivations (duty vs. survival), background (privilege and lack thereof), domains (water vs. fire), archetypes (leader vs. soldier), and relationships to their shamanism (Rin’s liberation found in shamanism vs. Nezha’s oppression). They both initially hate each other at Sinegard due to their prejudices, becoming rivals, before both put aside their differences and revelled in their connection in the first and second books when they fought together on the same side. The cliche of ‘enemies to lovers’ is used and incredibly developed but then turns into tragedy with betrayal due to loyalties and political motivations much bigger than their personal connection. Here Kuang shows the effects of war and uses the reader’s care for romance to do it- their love was doomed from the start to never coming into fruition and becoming imbued with hatred because of the cruelty of war. War does not show mercy to your favourite characters nor your love story.

Rin and Kitay are a personal highlight to me; their intimate yet completely platonic bond along with their unwavering love and loyalty holds a very special space in my heart, especially as an aro/ace spectrum person where it is too rare to see a non-romantic connection between the opposite genders being given the status of soulmates. Furthermore their banter and the overall humour of the book (especially the character of Jiang) whilst keeping the serious topics appropriately emotional gives the books a feeling of a tasteful emotional rollercoaster.

There are many, many other aspects that I could note in appreciation about this trilogy- it quickly becoming one of my favourite series of all time. I would like to note that similarly to Kuang’s other work ‘Babel’, The Poppy War explores generational conflicts with the parallels of the main characters with the famed trifecta- history does not repeat but it rhymes- along with topics of colonialism with the Hesperians standing as America to China’s Nikan.

Overall, considering the content warnings first, I would overwhelmingly recommend these books.

Written by Pm.