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The Dragon Republic (The Poppy War, #2)
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Prologue-Part 1, Chapter 5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Prologue Summary: “Arlong, Eight Years Prior”
Content Warning: This section discusses genocide, wartime violence, racism and scientific racism, colorism, rape, sexual assault, self-harm, physical abuse, and substance use disorder.
Eight years before the action of the main story, a young Yin Nezha (who is Vaisra’s son and Rin’s classmate at Sinegard) and his six-year-old brother Mingzha are wading in a grotto near their home city, Arlong, though they’re forbidden from being there. They are both magically sucked underwater. Nezha hears Mingzha screaming. When he surfaces, the grotto is shallow again and Mingzha is gone. A mysterious voice greets Nezha.
Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary
After Fang Runin, called Rin, destroyed the Federation of Mugen and its people with her powers, she and her squad of shamanic assassins, the Cike, became wanted by Empress Su Daji. They have been in the employ of the pirate queen Moag ever since, who agreed to help them assassinate Daji if they assassinate 30 targets for her. Their final target is in a port city that was ruined by the Third Poppy War between the Federation and Nikan. They expected the city to be deserted, but there is a large festival and parade.
Rin is going through opium withdrawal. She began smoking due to grief after the genocide she perpetrated on Mugen, but the Phoenix—the god associated with her power—fills her mind with memories of the genocide of her people, the Speerly, to fuel her rage. The Phoenix gives her hallucinations that the people around her are Mugenese, tempting her to kill again. However, she is shocked out of her rage when she sees Daji.
Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary
Rin wants to attack Daji, but one of the Cike, Unegen, holds her back. Daji makes eye contact with Rin. Fireworks go off behind Rin, giving her war flashbacks. The Phoenix overtakes her mind, and she cannot tell their desires apart. She begins to burn Unegan alive, stopping only when her second in command, Chaghan, puts a laudanum-covered cloth over her mouth. As with every time they sedate her, she imagines her war crimes with the detachment of a god, bouncing between that and overwhelming guilt.
Part 1, Chapter 3 Summary
Rin wakes up several days later on the Cike’s ship. Unegan and their healer, Enki, have left the Cike’s ranks. Chaghan scolds Rin for endangering them and for turning to opium to fix her problems. They bicker over command of the Cike, but Chaghan respects their late leader Altan Trengsin’s wishes that Rin be commander.
Rin finds the Cike members Suni, Baji, and Ramsa. Suni successfully assassinated their target in the confusion Rin caused. Rin tries to apologize, but they stop her and comfort her, saying that resisting the impulse of their gods gets easier.
That night, Rin sees a vision of Altan telling her that she should have died instead of him. She can’t control her power, so she stabs herself, using pain to stop her power from overtaking her. She smokes opium, which dulls her pain.
Part 1, Chapter 4 Summary
The Cike arrive at Moag’s pirate city Ankhiluun. Rin hates the city because of how easily she can get opium here. She meets with Moag alone and reports the killing of the target. However, Moag won’t give Rin the money and supplies she needs to chase Daji. She says Rin must first kill a ship captain for an opium skimmer in her employ who has been embezzling her. Rin agrees, and she asks Moag for her friend Chen Kitay’s address. Moag has him under house arrest, calculating taxes for her crime ring. Kitay asked Moag not to tell Rin his address, but when Rin shows up at his house, he allows her to enter. Since surviving the massacre at Golyn Nys, Rin notices his eyes are “dull and blank” (56).
Kitay, who is from a noble family in Sinegard, Nikan’s capital, doesn’t believe that Daji invited the Federation into Nikan, started the newest Poppy War, sold the Cike into scientific experimentation, and enabled the massacre at Golyn Nys—these are all details Rin heard from Shiro, the Mugenese scientist who experimented on her.
Rin notices burn scars up and down Kitay’s arms. He admits he burns himself to try and understand how the Mugenese felt before Rin incinerated them.
Part 1, Chapter 5 Summary
The Cike sail to their next assassination target. They see an unmarked ship heading toward them. They are suspicious, and Rin orders Ramsa, their munitions expert, to fire on the warship. The warship fires ink into the water, blinding Aratsha, who powers the Cike ship with his water shaman powers. The warship then releases opium smoke onboard, knocking the Cike out.
When Rin wakes, she and her team are tied up belowdecks. Out of a small hole, she sees a Hesperia-made warship. The general of the new ship boards and goes below deck to the Cike. He is angry when he sees that they have been restrained so harshly. Rin recognizes him as Yin Nezha, her old schoolmate, rival, and briefly, friend. Rin is confused as she thought she saw Nezha die during the events of The Poppy War.
Prologue-Part 1, Chapter 5 Analysis
These opening chapters highlight The Destruction and Inhumanity of War. Rather than using exposition to retrace the violent events of the previous book, these chapters revisit those events by focusing on their aftereffects: namely, Rin’s emotional trauma and guilt.
Rin’s connection with the Phoenix—a god of destruction and fire—is a metaphor for the all-consuming destruction of war. While Rin is very powerful, she is often overwhelmed by the Phoenix’s influence; the god exacerbates her natural tendencies toward anger and violence. For instance, when she sees Daji at the parade, Rin’s anger flares “so thick she almost choked on it” (23). The physicality of her anger, which tingles over her skin like “ant bites,” symbolizes the persistent wounds that war inflicts on the body as well as the psyche.
Rin’s anger moves beyond mere emotion since it is a manifestation of her psychological scars, and her hallucinations are symptoms of her post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Her “visions” are “more vivid than her surrounding reality” (16). In her visions, she sees the Mugenese alongside her ancestral race the Speerly, who were also victims of genocide—the violence of her past blends with the violence she has inflicted on others. This highlights how continued violence and trauma engender more of the same. Rin’s PTSD is not only the result of her being a victim of violence but also because she has perpetrated destruction and struggles with feelings of guilt.
Rin’s PTSD manifests not only through her hallucinations and extreme anger but also through panic attacks. Even regular events in her physical surroundings give her flashbacks to the Third Poppy War. For instance, when fireworks go off at the festival, she panics. When Unegan tells her the sound was only fireworks, Rin thinks,
she knew they were fireworks, but that was a rational thought, and rational thoughts didn’t matter when she shut her eyes and saw with every blast of sound explosions bursting behind her eyelids, flailing limbs, screaming children (25).
This passage illustrates how the trauma and violence of war distort reality and trap survivors in a loop of relived horrors. While Rin knows the difference between “rational” reactions and her reaction, the trauma of her war experience makes her feel as if she is physiologically and psychologically trapped in those events. Trauma does not end with the end of war, highlighting its destruction and inhumanity.
The Phoenix exploits Rin’s traumatic memories to flourish. He digs through her deepest wounds, forcing her to recall them, and “those memories fueled the rage” (16). Rin finds herself in an inescapable cycle of guilt and destruction that she dulls by using opium. The drug makes the “flames reced[e]” and the “memories disappea[r]” (41). It acts as a barrier between her and the Phoenix. However, this release is temporary and ultimately detrimental, highlighting the destructive nature of war itself; even beyond its immediate violence, it inflicts pain and drives individuals toward self-destruction.
Rin’s struggles are obvious to those around her, bringing up the symbol of scars that pervade the book. Her reliance on opium is criticized by people like Chaghan, who thinks this is an unfair evasion of responsibility, especially as Rin is Commander of the Cike and is responsible for all their lives. Her scars hinder her ability to lead effectively. While this section focuses on Rin’s psychological scars, Kitay’s scars are a physical manifestation of the destruction of war. His deep capacity for empathy made him scar himself to understand the Muganese’s suffering. This shows how the violence and destruction of war have far-reaching impacts beyond the people they immediately impact.
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