You asked how large my sorrow is, And I answered, like a river in spring flowing east. —Li Yu (李煜)
The Dragon Republic is a tale of many things—(4.5 ★’s)
You asked how large my sorrow is, And I answered, like a river in spring flowing east. —Li Yu (李煜)
The Dragon Republic is a tale of many things—festering anger and broken trust, learning to fight for hope and bearing failure’s inevitable rust, yes, but more than anything else, it is a tale of rankling inequity and unspeakable iniquity, of looking at the colour of one’s skin or the size of their head or the shape of their eyes, and deeming them lower, lesser, inhuman and primitive and stupid; of declaring a person chosen and evolved and another, unformed mud; of feeling righteous in reaching for what they have and carelessly trampling them beneath your shining heels.
As a Middle Easterner, I know first hand that stories like this are too common in Asia. We bear that legacy of pain on our shoulders—our backs are bent beneath their weights and our heads beaten down. Too often does the world gloss over the atrocities of the past, too often the response to history is “but that’s all in the past.”
Well, it is not.
You can tell the world to move on, you can shout it and chant it and point to the silent weapons and loud reforms promising freedom and equality, but how can one move on when we still live in an unfair world revolving around privilege, a world where the colour of your skin or the soil you were born on decide what you can and cannot have? The promises and well-intended declarations of “look to the future because what’s passed is in the past”? All they do is veil the injustice that forms the roots of this world, and by forgetting our history there is no way to shape a better future.
That is why The Poppy War trilogy matters. That is why this Chinese inspired military fantasy should be read and discussed and remembered. With The Dragon Republic, Rebecca Kuang aims to make you, dear reader, terribly uncomfortable. This is a book that is grim and dark and sucks your energy away like a black hole devouring all light. It’s not a wickedly delightful grimdark fantasy relishing rage and revenge, but one that unveils the leeches feeding and growing on your vengeance and makes you so furious yet so helpless that you are crushed underneath the weight of the world, exhausted and powerless even as you know that there is no fate, only choice.
“Happy New Year,” Kitay said. “May the gods send you blessings and good fortune.” “Health, wealth, and happiness. May your enemies rot and surrender quickly before we have to kill more of them.”
I’m not sure if I love or hate that Kuang can take glorious concepts such as ethereal worlds and gods and a revolution, and drag them down to earth so viciously that they turn into tangible, worldly, manageable affairs of everyday life. It’s rather frustratingly admirable, I admit.
But with a plot that does not fall into the passivity trap of TPW, added intrigue, improved writing, and awe-inspiringly deeper dive into intended themes like trauma and addiction, TDR managed to steal my heart in the way I’d been all but begging for, despite slightly lacking in development of some relationships (not characters, which were all stunningly layered and shaped)—but we’ll get to that in time.
If you write a book inspired by true events, you bet I, the history nerd, will dedicate an entire section to analysis of its influences and themes. Forget the characters and relationships and whatnot, this is the real reason why TPW trilogy is worthy of note. From civil war to western colonisation, Kuang unflinchingly tackles every dark nook and cranny of its Chinese influence to the ground, taming it and capturing it and putting it on disturbing display for our guarded eyes.
In my review of The Poppy War, I mentioned how I believed these books were largely inspired by the Qing dynasty which was the last imperial dynasty of China, and this sequel further strengthens my conclusion.
For one thing, the book’s Poppy Wars and their Hesperian relations are reminiscent of the Opium Wars, which were Europe’s early attempts at western colonisation of China during the reign of the Qing dynasty. Not only that, but Kuang also shows the shift in Europe’s attempts at colonisation through history, from forceful penetration in the 19th century to the economical coercion and civilising mission of the following years. The racism and greed inherent in those intervening, invasive hands seeking control of the resources of prosperous eastern lands excused by beliefs in the superiority of the White race is an infuriating and uncomfortable topic to witness for anyone of any ethnicity, and Kuang fearlessly lays its every preposterous audacity bare.
However, she has also jumbled the timeline of events and mixed nations’ and figures’ roles enough that I had to spend an insane amount of time piecing this puzzle together. To share my findings, I’ll have to give you a quick history lesson touching upon a few needed prominent moments:
Once upon a time the Qing dynasty ruled over China from 1636 to 1912. During its later years, the British who love tea bought their supply from China—but because they didn’t want to pay for it with their silver, they made up for it with cotton and opium exports from India, in which they’d just gained control. As opium addiction became an issue in the land though, the Chinese government declared a ban on all opium trade. The Great Britain was obviously bothered so, you guessed it, they showed up with their ships and guns in June of 1840 and demanded unjustified rights. The following years brought suffering and two Opium Wars for China as it was overpowered by the west, the US, France, and Russia all taking advantage of its weakness to press for favourable trade treaties and generally getting away with whatever the hell they wanted.
Eventually, people got fed up and, with various revolts, the 1911 Revolution succeeded in overthrowing the Qing. After more civil war and unrest, the Beiyang government was established as China’s central authority with Yuan Shikai being the first formal President of the Republic of China. But, seeking more of the ever-alluring power and monopolising the power of the new national government, Yuan made a short-lived attempt to make himself Emperor, died, power struggles ensued, and China ended up with two warring governments: the Communist Party of China (or CPC, based in North China) and the Nationalist Party of China (or KMT, based in South China, created by Sun Yat-sen who had previously opposed and then compromised with Yuan).
History is complicated and confusing, but there is one thing you need to know whenever it comes to the affairs of the east: that, after a point, you will always find the west peeking its head. So as China fought to unify itself, two things relevant to this historical fiction series were happening: on one hand, the foreign armies stationed in North China that had been brought in to suppress the rebellion were in danger of warring to gain power over the divided land for their “advanced nations” and on the other hand, the Soviet Union proceeded to pledge its assistance for unification of China. Thus, while everyone sought to retain both a compliant native government and equal opportunity for investment, the Soviet leadership initiated a dual policy of support for both Chinese parties, backing CPC with money and spies and aiming to reorganise KMT along the ideals of the Comintern—an international organisation founded by Russia that advocated world communism.
After years of division, Japan’s invasion of China in 1937 due to its decades-long imperialist policy to become a colonial power itself, led to a temporary unification of KMT and CPC as China fought the Second Sino-Japanese War with the help of the Soviet Union and the United States. And then there was death and tragedy and the Rape of Nanjing and WWII and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki...and you know how it goes—lives were destroyed, crimes were committed, and history was tainted and painted in black.
What happened with the Chinese Civil War after that is not in the domain of this book, so I’m leaving the story there.
As is evident, Kuang has taken events spanning across two centuries, shifted them and changed them and summarised them in a few decades: Mugen (Japan) became the main enemy in the Poppy Wars instead of Hesperia (Europe) and the Second Sino-Japanese War became the Third Poppy War, happening years earlier during the Qing dynasty instead of after its collapse. Vaisra is a Yuan Shikai (a Qing military strongman establishing the first modern army and a more efficient provincial government in North China) who did as Sun Yat-sen had done and sought foreign help, sending his people to learn from the Hesperians. The Consortium is the Comintern, observing and meddling in the precise same way. I could go on, matching every character and action with its historical counterpart because I am mad enough to have spent hours doing just that, but I will spare your poor braincells.
Despite the changes that brought the fiction to the historical, TDR ultimately maintains the main themes of its inspirations and boldly explores their implications. From fear and eradication of rumours of sorcery, to anti-Christianity and the cold treatment of western ambassadors during the Qing dynasty; from the colourism dividing North and South China with a line of prejudice and privilege, to idealist liberal movements that are in truth hypocritical and blind to the reality of the depth of injustice; from arrogant civilising missions, colonisations, and rapacity of the west, to beliefs in the superiority and chosen status of a race over the lowly and inhumane view of another, Kuang pours heart and soul into ink and parchment to develop each facet of the picture she draws.
“Do not shirk from war, child. Do not flinch from suffering. When you hear screaming, run toward it.”
And that, my friends, is why this book matters. It matters because it does not let you ignore what was and what is, still, laid in our foundations.
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Characters: Development & Relationships
If you strip away the powerful themes and exquisite world, you will be left with the characters—and they are just as faceted as the aforementioned aspects of the book.
“When you have the power that you do, your life is not your own.”
✿ Rin: It’s quite rare to read healing journeys gone wrong, weaving the ways characters slip instead of succeed in their battle with mental illness, so I appreciate how Kuang delves into Rin’s mentality, her excuses behind addiction, and her immediate flight when encountering grief and guilt. With Rin’s internal struggles, we soberingly witness the philosophy of violence and watch as its haunting consequences unfold.
But in all honesty, even as I love Rin’s lethal, unapologetic quickness and zero tolerance, she’s too much of a follower—needing to be disciplined, craving her abusers, picking paths rather than carving her own—to capture my heart yet. I do love that her incompetence is acknowledged, though; something that has me very hopeful for the path the story seems to be taking.
✿ Nezha: This idealistic, clueless, privileged, haunted, idiotically loyal baby boy has me so conflicted I want to simultaneously hug him adoringly and pummel him angrily. It’s a pity that his character and his dynamic with Rin did not get the time and attention they deserved, because they could’ve been my new obsession. But sadly, this relationship ended up being as lackingly developed as Rin and Altan in TPW.
Considering how impressively Kuang’s writing has improved though, with Altan’s promised theme of destructive tendencies now finally being shown and thoroughly written, I cannot wait to see Kuang grow even more and steal my breath with Rinezha as well as Nezha himself.
✿ Kitay: You know that character who walks through trauma and emerges as a bitter bastard on the other side? Yes, that one, the one I, however disturbingly, love—that is my Kitay going from an uptight, moral cinnamon roll to a viciously practical scholar slaying me with his sass. It was a little sad to see his righteousness come bite him in the arse, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say it was also satisfying; what can I say, I’m evil.
✿ The Cike: Last but not least, tiny, innocent, brilliant, and dangerous Ramsa, sarcastic, irreverent, and thrill-seeking Baji, hypocritical, tragic Chaghan, and all of the Cike’s forced companionship and solid comradeship left a mark on my heart. They might not be warm, they might not be friendly, they might constantly hit one another, never pulling punches...but to me, they are a testament to the unlikely friends, no allies, that one can stumble upon in times of pain and crisis when all you have is one more broken soul who might hate you for the mirror you are of their own doomed predicament, but they would have your back if you have theirs because, really, you’re all the other’s got.
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CW ➾ racism, colourism, colonisation, abuse, misogyny, PTSD, grief, substance use and addiction, self-harm, nonconsensual human experimentations and medical examinations, torture, rape, burning, genocide, mutilation, gore and violence
Books in series: ➴ The Poppy War (The Poppy War, #1) ★★★★☆ ➴ The Dragon Republic (The Poppy War, #2) ★★★★✯ ➴ The Burning God (The Poppy War, #3) ★★★★★...more
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