The Dragon Republic (The Poppy War, #2)

The final chapters of the novel contain two climaxes: One corresponds to the military confrontation between Vaisra and Daji, while the other deals with Rin’s interpersonal relationships.

The final battle in Arlong shows The Destruction and Inhumanity of War, especially the toll it takes on human life and the natural world. Rin sees the river “awash with blood” (567), and she can’t tell whose blood it is. This image highlights how war wreaks havoc and destruction on all—there are no victors in a war as everyone loses. Rin’s uncertainty about which side of the war she should be fighting on further accentuates this theme, as she is coming to terms with the moral ambiguity of all violence.

The motif of scars that runs through the novel also highlights the physical and emotional trauma of war. Even the landscape, with its ruined cities and displaced people, represents the collective trauma of the Nikan people. In the final section of the novel, Kitay and Rin communicate through the medium of scars, showing how they are both connected through their pain. Further, because of the physical trauma Venka has endured, her arms have become permanently damaged, signifying the extent of her suffering. Similarly, at the end of this book, Rin breaks her arm and the healer who evaluates it tells her she might need to have it amputated; like Venka, Rin is being physically broken by the war.

Rin’s encounter with Daji also reveals The Complexities of Power and Oppression, which further complicates the idea that there are clear-cut heroes and villains in any war. The empress shows Rin visions of life before the Second Poppy War, under Mugenese occupation and Hesperian oppression. Rin feels that these humanizing images close the distance between her and Daji since they have both experienced the same things. As Daji points out, Rin has “killed in numbers exponentially greater than [Daji and her allies] ever managed” (576), but Rin thinks that her violence was justified: Rin thought her genocide of the Mugenese would save Nikan. However, it launched catastrophic events like the displacement of Nikara affected by the flooding, Vaisra’s civil war, and the Mugenese gathering in the southern provinces. Rin sees that Daji’s past actions did not create the “greatest good,” so she begins to entertain the possibility that her violence, too, only caused more suffering.

Rin also begins to understand Daji’s insistence that the “Mugenese weren’t the real enemy” (583), but “poor puppets” under the influence of Hesperia. The Hesperians arrive when the battle seems to have been lost, and this confirms Rin’s suspicions that they planned to string along Vaisra to get him to cooperate, but they withheld their material support until both Republican and Imperial forces were too weak to resist Hesperian occupation. Rin later finds out that rather than just wanting “military support and trade negotiations,” the Hesperians draw a treaty with Vaisra that makes Nikan into “a colony” and Vaisra into a “puppet Emperor.” Vaisra has been manipulated but he also actively wants to keep his power, demonstrating his complicity in the occupation of his people.

Ultimately, war and political allegiances also break apart Rin’s personal relationships, causing her friends to die and Nezha to betray her. Nezha is conflicted between his love for Rin and his allegiance to his father and the Hesperians. His entire life is shaped by being the “inferior brother” to Jinzha, the reason Mingzha died, and his subjugation to the Dragon who unwillingly gave him power. These pressures lead Nezha to give Rin an ultimatum: “If you never call the fire again, you’ll be safe” (618). He tries to get her to agree to conform to the type of behavior the Hesperians deem acceptable. When she won’t, Nezha drives a knife “dee[p] into her back” (619), literalizing the common idiom for betrayal.

The division between Rin and Nezha symbolizes the larger division in the country between the aristocracy and the peasants. Vaisra’s rebellion only served people who already had power. He used and manipulated peasants, leading to the rebellion of the southern warlords. Rin says that “Nezha was the north” (653): He is an embodiment of northern, aristocratic privilege that protects itself at all costs. Rin realizes the real battle in Nikan will be “privileged aristocracy against stark poverty” (653), with herself the figurehead of the latter. Since Rin aligns herself with disenfranchised people, Ramsa sacrifices himself for her, in the hopes that she will escape and build her southern army, while Venka pledges her loyalty to her. This sets the stage for a new kind of resistance in the next book in the trilogy. The novel ends as Rin and her allies escape Arlong, with Rin just having realized the strength of her new coalition.