the poppy war and altan trengsin

100 as i write monday

spoiler warning for the whole saga of the poppy war

i decided to write some more, to finally put into thoughts what this book—this saga—put me through. and what is it that some words on paper put me through? utter, complete, suffering.

the poppy war is a fantasy retelling of the second sino-japanese war, as far as i am aware, and it is dementedly gutting. it follows fang runin, a teenager girl who is thrown into an almost foreceful marriage, but she can back down and save her life if she, somehow, manages to get into sinegard academy, the top military school in nikan, where the story takes place. she’s the protagonist, so of course she manages to get into sinegard, and then it all goes downhill.

war arrives, for the third time, and everyone is sent to fend for the country, while rin is sent to a secret division: the cike, the empress assassin’s. all because it turns out rin (fang runin) is a lost kid from speer, a destroyed nation of people who could control the fire. 

stuff happens, some more shit goes down and at the end it turns out that rin destroys the whole nation of mugen, the main enemy of nikan. everything is good now, right? wrong, it’s war. and war never forgives, it doesn’t forget, and it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. so more shit goes down when it turns out that the empress had originally permitted for speer to be destroyed, and because rin is so self righteous—an impulsive meathead through certain times—she decides to take matters into her own hands and destroy the empress. 

guess how the whole saga ends? with rin dying, nikan completely destroyed and at the hand of white conquerors, and no hope in front of my eyes. it’s so real it hurts, and i fucking hate it.

i must say that you can tell that this saga is r.f. kuang’s first published work. there are several times in which you find yourself reading an amateur, someone who’s too demanding in their tale, who falls into repetition of treason in the second book, and who contradicts their characters by betraying their nature. but still, it’s an amazing, astounding, work of art. the prose is plain, simple, but it’s wonderfully interesting, and it keeps you hooked through and through because you care so much for the characters it rips your heart apart—at least it did mine.

the poppy war is not a perfect saga, the first book in the saga is arguably the best book in the series, but it turns so endearing, so gutting, so real, that you can’t help but keep on reading. the way characters develop, engage, and fight is surprisingly linear (though sometimes contradicting), and i love all of them so, so much. 

my sweetheart, besides rin, is altan trengsin. and after finally getting into a more objective view of the book, i can now indulge into my love.

altan trengsin is, in my eyes, such a tragic character. he’s a boy that had everything, and then lost everything, and he kept on losing until he found his freedom in death. the type of characters that can only see themselves at peace when they die are always my favorite (i love robin swift so dearly), and the way kuang weaves altan’s tragic loving with his abusive tendencies driven by desperation turns wholly interesting, magnetic almost. he’s a character i can talk about for hours on end, and i do not care, i do consider him to be one of the most interesting characters in the whole saga. there’s something so wonderful on the character of a lone man who could heal—who can chose to—but ultimately turns to death. more so, when you throw a relationship in the mix, there’s an elevation that occurs, and that exactly happened to altan as a character. miss kuang may hate him (he was based on an ex-boyfriend of hers), but he’s so little fleshed, so tremendously confusing and cowardly, that i cannot help but fall to his charm.

it guts me to see and read a story about war, but i’m a romantic at my core, as well as an utter ignorant. and i enjoy my stories in no way they should be enjoyed, but i don’t care. because the same as altan, i believe i’ll only rest, only be happy, when at death.