Dear R.F. Kuang, I am grateful to have discovered your art; The Poppy War trilogy is one of my favorite tales, and your storytelling is a tour-de-force. The Poppy War is the first book in the series. It is a haunting Historical Fantasy that symbolizes shamanism, while presenting the horrors of war for all participants, the ripple effects of vengeance, the harm of idolizing anyone, and the ethical gray area of major choices. It also shows how propaganda can dehumanize "the other" beyond ethnic caricatures, by simplifying the nuances, complexity, and dirty side of a sworn-enemy society's history, as well as their current politics. Furthermore, this story's symbolism of the real life Second Sino-Japanese War reinforces its cautionary lessons. The themes and characterizations in the sequel, The Dragon Republic, are even more complex than the ones in The Poppy War. Kuang understands that to be human is to be interwoven with contradictions, and this shines a light on empathy's heroism, which accompanies the narrative's theme of how not looking for the roots of individuals' cruelty can nurture its spread. Characters' perceptions on some sworn enemies and trusted heroes are also turned on their heads, while the themes of ethnocentrism and imperialism from The Poppy War are wisely joined in this story by the theme of dehumanization through religious exceptionalism. The final book is named The Burning God. It brings back some moments of levity that were present in The Poppy War, and the juxtaposition of humor with harrowing events intensifies the tragic scenes. Furthermore, by extending the personal focus of the numerous battle scenes to several individuals who had a significant presence since book 1, the action feels even more emotionally involving, as well as narratively enriching.
A new theme of assimilation's horror is presented in The Burning God, alongside a return of the previous books' themes. Similarly, this story is uniquely subversive to the prior two books, though it enhances the storytelling because it serves it, rather than shock value. Sometimes, what we deem to be our best laid plans are upended as if they were fleeting daydreams; that's why the ability to adapt is important, and the discipline for long-term goal strategization beyond triumph must be achieved (namely pondering on how to maintain victory, which involves allowing methods toward it to evolve, and planning for what happens after an end-goal is reached). The necessity of compromise to a certain point (even if it's for the lesser of two evil solutions) and the impact of its absence on the cyclical nature of war is starkly shown in this story, through vengeance and paranoia, which is fueled in the narrative by power addiction, accompanied and fueled by a type of reaction to trauma and fear. The book is devastating in ways that I wasn't prepared for. It would have been less difficult to turn The Burning God into a conventional tragedy. Bravo R.F. Kuang. Though the trilogy arrives at a definitive conclusion for its overarching narrative, it is still open-ended enough to reflect life's unstoppable progression (rather than too open-ended as to read as a tease for more stories in a franchise that keeps promising a conclusion but never reaches the end). After all, though real-life stories reach a conclusion, life goes on.
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