Swords, Sorcery, and Socialism - The Poppy War

Episode Date: December 6, 2023

*CONTENT WARNING* What happens when you take a YA novel and throw in a healthy dose or horrendous war crimes? The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang! We talk with our guest Shawn about fiction depicting barely disguised real history and the morality of retributive violence.Follow Shawn on twitter @theavatarshawnpatreon.com/swordsandsocialismEmail: [e-mail] The Show: @SwordsNSocPodAsha: @Herbo_AnarchistKetho: @MusicalPuma69

Music Hello everyone and welcome back to Sword, Sorcery and Socialism of Podcasts about the politics and themes hiding in our genre. Fiction is always I am Aasha and I'm joined by my co-host, Ketho Howesgoing. Howdy. We also are joined today by a guest, the Avatar Sean. Welcome Howesgoing. Hey, I'm happy to talk about genocide. You know, an important theme of this novel.

If it wasn't blatantly clear by, you know, the middle of the section, it's, you know. Yeah, and also I just have to point out that like based on the real world time that we are recording this, I feel like this is also a little timely and a little awful based on real world events that are occurring. Yeah, I was thinking about that when I was just like, you have, this like causes happening right now. Yeah, yeah. The second, you know, the second knock buzz happening as we record things are great.

We're going to talk about genocide and magic and magic. Magical genocide, Rainbow appears. So we are today are talking about the poppy war by RF Quang. Let me tell you say your name I hope. From 2018 and this is a barely disguised historical fiction novel with magic thrown on top of it We sort of mentioned before we started that it it sort of has some like YA elements It also has some horrendously not youth elements to it Which if you're not prepared for them kind of take you a little by surprise You know the beginning of this book is definitely like comfort zone like reading the beginning You're like, oh, yeah, I've read this like this is this is comfortable I can just kind of blaze through this and then you get halfway reading the beginning, you're like, oh yeah, I've read this. Like this is comfortable.

I can just kind of blaze through this and then you get halfway through the book and you're like, this is not comfortable anymore. This is something else entirely. Yeah, I mentioned wonder like, like is the target audience supposed to be of like actual a YA audience? Cause it's pretty dark.

I don't think so everywhere. I looked it up when we were originally planning what to do. They call it grim dark. Yeah. I look, I tried looking in the copyright page to see if the library of Congress had put their little categorizations in there, but they did not. So I can't tell you whether the Library of Congress considers this YA. But I would put this in the Grim dark fantasy, 100%.

This is darker than like the stuff we read last year for dark fantasy month minus Berserk. Like, this is just as dark as Berserk in a lot of cases, I think. Yeah, I'm going to do you with that. Almost as dark because it's actually based on real world events. So that kind of makes it worse in a certain aspect, I think. Because at least Berserk, you know that it's all invented, where this when you're like, oh, this is just a thing that happened.

We've put a veneer of fantasy over the top of it. But this book definitely starts a lot lighter. It starts with like, I'm a war orphan with a family that doesn't love me, who happen to be opium smugglers. And it hits a lot of those like, again, like those YA, like, I need to make it tropes. Because it's like, I'm going to study hard for the test and she's special because she can like study extra hard. And like, to use the pain to like propel her forward to like get the best test scores ever.

And she's going to go to school and like learn to be a. Yeah. You can actually really see the elements of her writing on college, I think. Yeah. I think this book does have what I call sort of like, I mentioned it before it's that there's elements that you see them coming or like as soon as they pop up, you're like, oh, OK, I know what that is.

Like, they're tropes. She gets to college and she sees the one professor who doesn't dress like the other professors. Who's weird and nobody respects. And you're like, oh, she's gonna end up with him. Like, he's the weird one, she's the weird one. Like, she's gonna end up his student somehow or another. Like, oh, she's got this rivalry going

with her classmate, who's the rich kid named Naja. Like, they're have a rivalry, they're gonna end up fighting it. Eventually, she's gonna defeat him. You're like, okay, I kind of see all this coming somehow. Yeah. There's a there's a there's a term for that with that I'm I'm blanking on but that character is essentially the Vegeta of this story there's a specific trope that I'm forgetting the name of the Vegeta, but it's it's that works. Um, it's like, I'm,

I'm, I'm fancier than you. I'm better than you and I'm supposed to be eventually through hard work. You overcome me and I go, no, and then eventually we become friends through shared combat. Um, and then you die in a poison gas attack. Oh wait, shit. Yeah, that's that's a second half of the book. So the first half is going to school learning some magic, making friends, overcoming obstacles. And the second half of the book is horrific war crimes by everybody Are heroes are not exempt as we will discuss. So she's got, you know, her her Vegeta, which is in the

jaw. She's got her like nerd I know logic friends, friend, Katai, her master, Zhang, her like idol, commander, guy she's obsessed with all time Creepy love interest Sort sort of but not not sure how hard that was going. I don't know. It was a little there

I think also abusive Yeah, that was like the pro for me is like why do you care about this guy so much? You've used to see The whole time she's like this guy and all he does is the same thing the whole time. She's like, I'm this guy. And all he does is hit her and yell at her. And she's like, but I need to impress him. I'm like, he's a piece of shit. He's my commander. I'm gonna shit.

I guess maybe that's just showing my inherent like anti-author, you know, anti-authority tendencies, but she's like, but I can't let down my commander. I'm like, your commander's a drunk piece, like a, like a, why do you have a hero in that? Oh, and I'll be honest. Your master was much cooler.

Your master was way more chill. Like, he was probably right. Yeah, but he didn't want her to do genocide. That was the problem. Him and the ghost of the last queen of spear. Yeah. What was her name again? Tears.

Tears. So you have like the ghost of tears and John who are both like, hey, one genocide doesn't isn't fixed by doing another genocide. And she's like, but what if I did? I was like, well, we don't know that till I try. Yeah. We can't know if a second genocide will fix the first one until we've tried.

And that's what happens. So she goes to school, she learns that there are such a thing, shaman's are real. That's the magic of this world is shaman's, where you access sort of the pantheon of gods, all 64 of them. I don't know if this is reflective of true sort of like pre-buddhist beliefs in China. I suspect that it might be fairly close, because so many other things in this book

are fairly close to real historical events that I feel like the idea of the pantheon of those gods might be realistic. But I don't know for sure, I don't know enough of that. Yeah, I don't know for sure. I don't know much about Chinese shamanism. I know Taoism has some Latin stuff from like pre-Daoist shamanism, but a lot of the shamanism remind me funnily enough about what I read up on Japanese shamanism.

But I don't know. I didn't think I would bring this up. They say there's several times the Muganesi of Soci, is like we've never had shaman's it's like yeah it's sort of like the author didn't care to which is fine she doesn't have to like it's her prog, she didn't like research on like history of Japan or whatever but it's like Japan has a strong history of shamanism. I saw a lot of it in like the book you know not one to one is I don't know what Chinese Charlemagne is, it was like, but I was kind of curious. I actually kind of think that the idea that like that that that that

So I think we're gonna interchangeably the enemy in this book are either the places called the Longbow Island The people are the Mugenies, but they're also called something Federation. The Federation is a Federation. Oh yeah. They call them the Federation, they call them the Mugenies. It's, we're gonna be out of the listeners. It's Japan. It's just Japan.

And Nikon is just China. Spear is just probably Taiwan. And the Spear are wherever the white people are, are Europeans. I think they're Spanish. But what I was going to say is that I feel like she intentionally chose, it's not that she didn't know that in real life Japan had a lot of shamans. I think it's that she did it intentionally, like for thematic reasons, that like this, you know, sort of implacable, like vaguely industrialized enemy, like can't have the history of shamanism because that's what makes Nikon special, I think. Yeah. I think that what I think it was less a choice of her part that she just doesn't know that in real life,

Japan did and more of a four thematic reasons in the book were gonna make them that way. You know what I mean? Cause that way you can set up this whole like intense fear of the Spear Leaves and like they're, you know, the importation of what was it? Unit 134 or whatever it was, the Japanese had in China that were doing like human experiments.

Yeah. You knew seven, three, one or something. I don't know the number. You know what I'm talking. Everyone, look, if you don't know what I'm talking about, look it up, learn about some horrific war crimes. Yeah, it's safe, I've fucked up. Like so I, I, I think that was like an intentional choice on her part

to be like, no, the muggities have never had magic because it makes them more like, I don't know, foreign, more separate, more like other, if that makes sense. Yeah, it definitely otherizes them, which is definitely not going to talk, well, I don't they're talking about more probably, but I don't, I know that they're the fucked up, like main villain of this story, but like, I don't know. It's like, I mean, the shaman thing is like, they never had shaman before, and then, you know,

they literally just wipe on the entire country. It's like, yeah, I don't, like, I know we're supposed to set up rent is like, I don't like I know we're supposed to set up rent is like you know a questionable hero I was like I don't know is like really really just like I don't know I feel like it's like oh like there's like I could have been like a lot to explore there but I don't know I mean I do as much as I don't like it I also do like. I like it as it get ending of like a book. It's like, yeah, like you thought this story

was gonna be like this? Well, the main hero just drops an atom bomb on that whole country and they're all dead. So, you know, you don't get to explore that. It's like, okay. So I respect the book like that. He could have been, you know, he's like, yeah, I wish YA in the middle.

It's like, okay, we're not YA in. We're like, yeah, I wish YA and then it was like, okay, we're not YN. We're like, okay, we're YA again. It's like, no. I was like, all right, I respect that. Yeah, it was definitely like, the big, as we'll get into, sort of like the big moral quandary of this story is that this is just a very airbrushed, version of the second side of Japanese war. Like they talk about the previous war, which China only barely won with intervention from the West. They rehash left true historical events like when they see the result of the Mugenese Army making

it to the wartime capital and doing a bunch of horrific war crimes. But like, sort of the overarching moral question for our main character for Rin, what sort of punishment is justified against your enemies or your oppressors? Like, what level of violence against an occupying genocidal force is justified. Again, wouldn't want to point out that there's some real world parallels going on right now with things that are happening. But this concept of, people of Nikon and the Spear Lees

have suffered this much like, Rin is a member of a race of people who were completely genocide. Completely wiped out. There's two of them left, and by the end of the book, there's one of them left. RIP, Alton. What level of violence against the Mugenies on Rins behalf is justified. And I think Rins spends the whole book trying to figure that out. You know what I mean? Well, I think she kind of knows how much she'd do the whole time. She just doesn't know if she's willing to do it, I think.

Yeah, I think that's the role to your plays to like make her give her like our hurdle to overcome the moral hurdle. Please don't, please don't genocide. Just like, I don't know. Like, have you seen what they did at the wartime capital? Like, they need to get punishment too. time capital like they need to get punishment too. Yeah, that's goal in these. That's the name of the word. Yeah, I couldn't think of the name. Sorry, goal in these. Yeah. And I actually have a hard time figuring out the end of this book. I'm still trying to figure out if the author thinks that was a bad thing or not. Like I think I think my take is she purposefully doesn't come down as an author on one side or another. That's why she presents you with Rin and Katai at the end, I think.

Yeah, there's there's definitely like a push and pull there. And for a minute, you think that she's going, that Rin is going to fully regret what she did. And then she turns around and is like, actually, I think I'm gonna kill everybody on the mainland too that I don't like. Well, she's not done yet. You're like, she like feels bad about it.

But then she talks to like the twins. And they're like, yeah, we did it too. Because it was the right thing to do. You don't get to, you don't get to feel more guilty than we do. And she's like, ah, that's fair. She's like, I think there might be a civil war coming,

and maybe I'm gonna be the one who doesn't. I think, but then she looks at the twins and is like, she's like, okay, neither one of us gets to feel more guilty. Wanna go at a roaring rampage of revenge? Yeah. And the twins are like, yes. And they all high five. Genocide!

Ah! So, as we've alluded to this book ends, the whole story is like the war and you're bombarded over and over again with the crimes that the Mugenese commit against Nikon, which what they do at the war 10 capital is literally just a rehashing of the rape of Nanking. It's everything, like all the horrific tortures, the like children being, you know, babies being tossed up in the air and cut in half, pregnant women being killed, like all the horrendous things that happened

in the real historical event. Sort of get rehashed here at the wartime capital and go in Nice. We get to talk to you two characters, two of your classmates that survived the horrors. And so the whole second half of this book, you are bombarded with like the, there I say inhuman cruelty of the mugenies, you know, like setting off a salt Peter bomb in the middle of town just to kill civilians and all sorts of other stuff.

You get it over and over and over again. And then the end, Rin is like, I, these people need to be punished for what they've done. Not their army, their whole people as a people, because even the civilians are like guilty of like, at a reaping the benefit of being a part of the Mugenies Federation. And so she gives herself over or accepts the power of the Phoenix and uses like a volcano to essentially drop a nuke on Japan. And then that's what we're talking about, we say. Then she just literally genocides everyone in Mugen and then high fives her Mongolian friends about it.

Yeah, but the Mongolian friends who, you know, in the book, University or Hintrelenders, I guess, but like the Hintrelenders, they're, is like, yeah, but like they also killed like Nikonese, I don't know if that's one of the plural words for that, but they killed like probably millions and that it alludes to like the, her exercise earlier.

I think she even says it herself, where she thinks it herself, like the exercise or like the logical problem she has to, is like, how do you, like, how do you deal with like a neat, a non-need, a moving ease army that's like deep in here. And then everyone, all the classmates, like, maybe we should do this and then the Professor guys like well it would fail because of this and then rinse is like well

I just flood the dam and kill everybody in her class which like you would kill like a lot of civilians and after the war There'd be like no recovery. She's like, but I win the battle And then yeah, they just go on and that's Litty what Alton has the twins do, who I just call them twins. Could I off the top of my head cannot remember their names? It was like Chaggan. I don't know if that's what he says name. Yeah, Chaggan and his sister.

And like they, yeah, they go and destroy the three gorgeous damn and just like flood a Significant portion of China. Yeah, actually I just remembered something This is actually I don't know if they would ever actually do it But this is like oh like a worst-case scenario a wartime strategy of Taiwan if like like China ever invaded them one of the strategies like we'll just fire a Fuck ton of missiles at like the real life three gorgeous dam. It'll just kill millions and millions of people in China. And that will be like, is there a equivalent of firing a nuke at them? Because I don't have nuke. I just remember that. That's an actual strategy of like Taiwan is like yeah, like if we're going down like we're taking you down with us

As there's like there's like like in real life people know like yeah that damn like yeah If it like breaks for some reason like a lot of people are dying Again like a lot of stuff for this story that is a real a real damn. Like, that's a real thing that exists. And that, I mean, that makes a lot more sense, because we have to remember that spear, we think, is also supposed to be representative of... Oh, that's right. Even think about that spear, like probably Taiwan. And the fact that Alton is one of the last two spearlies, and his plan is to then just destroy the damn, is something.

Yeah, so they like flood half the country, the genocide Japan, and then at the end they're just like, did we do the right thing? Who knows, but we're not stopping here. Yeah, like I'm pretty sure this, I was just gonna say like, I'm pretty sure this element sort of like before like Rin talk to twins, she's like, she like she's like oh because the twins aren't there yet, right? So Ryn's like just fucking smoking all day like I like I fucked up and then the twins come and she's like Yeah, like she's trying to tell like one of them like I fucked up and then she's like like no like don't say that Like if you say that then then then like, you're just, you're done.

Like, you have to tell yourself, we did the right thing. It's like, okay, I will tell myself that I was right. And that you were right. They were both right in committing genocide. Yeah, they both just like, it's the sisters. They're like, yeah, we just have to like, you have to live with yourself. And the only way to do that is wake up every day and is like, yeah, we just have to like, you have to live with yourself. And the only way to do that is wake up every day and be like, I did the right thing and move on.

Yeah. Oh boy. We're the cathode. You're the right thing. I'm going to tell you. The spotlight on me. Yeah. Oh, yeah, this is this was totally the right thing.

Good call. Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, this is this was totally the right thing good good call It it's kind of it's just ridiculous because like at its face The mugenies were doing terrible things to them obviously, but the ones who Committed it's like yes, the Mugenies killed the Taiwan equivalent. But they also kind of intentionally let that happen. Yeah, Nikon let that happen, yes. Like, again, it kind of feeds back into the art of war thing that is led through this entire book. Because they have an art of war equivalent in here. It's literally just the art of war.

It's just the art of war. The only difference is that the author specifies that it's like a log tone, but like through like, the art of war is like really short. It's like, it's a big term, yeah. But it literally is just sun zoo again. Like it's regularly hinted throughout the entire first part of the thing that everybody's like, you know, I think it's probably that island got genocided like they let it happen kind of like they wanted it to happen kind of.

Yeah. And uh, ergia, I don't know how I'm supposed to say his name. Like they wanted it to happen kind of Yeah, and Erja, I don't know how I'm supposed to say his name Erja like even he basically says without saying to right after she does like the crazy like Her like the logical like outcome is like yeah, I'll just flood the damn and kill people like you're just like That's something they're talking at all because I I remember now, yours are bringing something like, like, what about this essay role on Spirley? You like think that like, he can't let it happen.

And then you're, you know, after Rin says whatever she says, you're just like, he basically says without saying, is like, yeah, I know that happened, but it's a controversial topic. Don't bring it up. Ha ha ha. Well, in the book, like Rin's theory, which is like you said, more or less confirmed, because the Spearleys were always like a minority race within Nikon.

They were a conquered people. And where they were, that the emperor, like they let Mugen genocide the Spearleys because it would, the act would be so horrific that would force the Europeans to intervene in the war. Yeah. That's literally what it was. We just sacrifice spear that will make the white people be like, ah, this is horrific and we should intervene. And so, I mean, she...

Where are you going to get into the like? We are shown repeatedly how horrific mugen is. And even her own government is and then at the end it's still like she still manages somehow to be just as bad as they are. Yeah, I mean, someone say she's worse. Yeah, she. The very last like almost kind of final thesis of the Phoenix, like coming around and explaining all this is about how everything is, like, there's no destiny, like the gods don't choose

anything for anybody. You've chosen this yourself. And it's like, that makes this a very intentional, pointed and horrific choice that she made. Yeah, I mean, the Phoenix says outright, there's no, we don't have like desires or like will that we impose on you. Every single thing you've done was a choice that you made. You reach out to me and I'll help you if you want me to. I'll do shit, but it's only because you asked me to.

And they make it very clear that it is her active decision to push the nuke button. Yes. And wipe out an entire culture of people. It's not even questionable because again, tears as ghost tries to tell her every single time. Tears as ghost, every time she goes to see the gods, tears as ghost is like, this is stupid.

Save your own soul and don't do this. And every time Rin is like, I'm too traumatized to listen to you. Right. And Jean also says that to her multiple times. Yeah, Jean is also like, please don't do this. Yeah, I think she calls her like, well, you kind of did it in synagogue. And he's like, yeah, I shouldn't have done that.

And that's why I put myself in God prison. Hahaha. Also like, I do think though, I'll take the other side here. She does have a point that Jean does have immense power and doesn't use any of it to like try and stop the rape of Nanking from happening. Yeah. Which other side of the story that we've been coming at it from the one side, which is that Rin does make a bad decision at the end, which is true. But she also, I think, does she and Alton kind of do have a point

that if you're Jean and you have that much power, you could be doing something useful with that. Yeah, but then I think Jean would just say, like, well, my power would be like so many crazy beasts and stuff, and I wouldn't have no control of them and they just ruined the country. I mean, true. He did do. He did some in the weird face eating monster. Yeah, it's actually, I don't know, like, I'm sure we've all seen Avatar right. And like, it really reminded me of like the face stealing. Oh, yeah, co-avatar. Yeah, I wonder, like, that must be like a real world, you know, real world, like equivalent. Yeah, like a real mythical beast. Yeah, I wonder like that must be like a real world, you know, real world like equivalent. Yeah, like a real mythical beast. Yeah, yeah, China

Co the face dealer. You have the weird face dealer that like pretends to be Alton and then she kills him and then she's like, yeah, I get off of genocide and rape and horrific crimes for a little while and talk with smitter personal stuff. What the hell's her relationship with Alton? What the fuck is that? It's a fucked up one. That's a very naive traumatized one. Like she... I don't know. This seems to pop up in like every novel we read ever. It's like, it's just a abusive semi-romantic, not really romantic relationship, having up all the time. But this is what I force us to go back to like look win from time to time, because I know

it's the only place I'm not going to get like a weird abusive romance. Well, I'll accept into this possessed when it happens once. Yeah. I've also told you before that's like my least favorite liquid novel. So yeah. For long time listeners, we'll know that I have a very specific, um, we'll call it Bugbear, very specific thing, with all these books I read, where way, way too many, particularly sci-fi, but fantasies guilty of it too, sometimes stories are just like, what if we throw in some sexual assault for fun? What if we make this 15-year-old hook up with a 50-year-old man and portray it like it's

fine. This happens way more often than it should in these books and every time it happens I get just like a little more furious and so we know that I like read these books and every time it's like all right where's the fucked up sexual dynamic where's the fucked up relationship going to Rin. Instead, we just get all like the sexual crimes of the Muganese soldiers in Golemnese. But she does have a weird abusive relationship with Alton,

who is her idol and her commander and the only other remaining member of her race. And someone she's like horny for sort of a little bit. It slightly hinted at who also abuses the shit out of her like all the time. And it's again, the story is about war crimes and about abuse and trauma because we've certainly had a whole lot of it. And so as you learn throughout the book, so has Alton. Yeah, Alton was not just doped up on Opie.

He was put on heroin since he was what, six or something because of the fucked up, uh, Mugenese equivalent of unit seven, 31. Yeah. So like Mugenese seven, 31 was experiment doing like human business vivisection and stuff on the Spearleys to figure out why they were so good at calling fire and doing shamanism and so they started hopping them up on like heroin at like age 6 and then when he fought when he was freed and given back to Nikon they were like

we're gonna make this guy the ultimate weapon and surprise it did not lead to good mental health. Yeah, well they also like he's uh, often is just totally like lit, I mean like strong along by like, uh, puppeteers like his whole life like he's put in that uh, unit 731 equivalent and then when he's freed, he's sent back, or I guess not sent back anywhere, he's given to the Nicanese, they're like, oh, well let's just turn this guy into a weapon. So he's still an opium and he like, I'll put to the very end, he sends the letter to the Empress is like, I've got this crazy plan. I'm going to go to the God prison. I'm gonna free literally everyone in there

and we'll win the war and then we're like, oh yeah, sure. And then he gets there and then she just betrays him and then he gets, he and Rin get captured by Muganese soldiers. And honestly, it's probably for the good. You gotta imagine probably, I mean, Dempric, it's obvious he's, like,

it's made pretty clear, she's working with the Mugenies in some capacity. I don't know what the full extent of that is and I don't know why because I haven't read the second or third book. But I like the amount of the element. She gets the letter from Alters. I'm going to that God Mountain prison where we keep little gods in there. And I'm going to free everybody. She's reading, it's like, oh, this guy's fucking crazy. Okay. I need someone to stop him. Yeah, well, yeah, clearly she like wants to betray him and like get him captured. Like that's clearly been her intent like the whole time is to like let this happen.

But like, she's terrified of anybody who is shamanistic enough to challenge her. Yeah, because she's also clearly a shaman. Yeah, I mean, she's one of the three. What do they call the tri-factor? Tri-factor? Tri-unfer- I don't know, it's Rome called the Tri-unfer- I don't know. It was her and the dragon, like the dragon emperor and the gatekeeper, which we know the gatekeeper

exists because that's John who put himself in prison because he's like, I'm going crazy. I'm just going to go put myself in God prison now. The Emperor's MIA and so she's like the one left in power and she's so fat like obsessed with staying in power that she's like betraying anyone else that could connect to the gods in any way. It's kind of implied that she I mean because she's the one who put the lock on The other two isn't there isn't there a whole there's a whole thing early on that the gatekeeper Like he lost his memories and all that other stuff

Yeah, he doesn't have his memories. I didn't I didn't catch why he doesn't have some of his memories though. Yeah, I don't think they never explained that. They never explained that. I might have, I'll be honest, I read some synopsis of the later novels. Just hope some of the, so maybe that happens at a later novel. I know it is not explained in the first novel

why he lost his memories or what happened to the emperor. I mean, it's probably worth an assumption that she had something to do with it. Oh, that's what I've been assuming. She did something to the emperor. Maybe she did something to Zhang's memories. I don't know. But like, she's clearly, my guess is that her ultimate goal

in like letting Mugen like destroy a lot of Nikon was because she knew she couldn't maintain power forever over the 12 warlords. And so she's just going to let them genocide Nikon so she can rule over new Nikon. You know what I mean? You look up your spoilers for the later books. Yeah. Listen, I don't mind spoiling stuff for myself half the time. Yeah, fair. Life's too short. I ain't going to be able to read these other books. Well, this is a good place for us to pivot a little bit. Let's talk about the magic

system for a little bit. Let's let's talk about shaman's. So, you guys ever thought about doing heroin to talk to God? I prefer street bark. Hey, that's all the spearlies had before it was safer. We're getting forward into conch, that's all they had. The magic system of this book is very soft. It's this idea that certain people have the capacity to through essentially through getting high. Your soul can access like the pantheon of the gods and air go like sort of channel some of the gods power to give yourself power. Like, you get hurt like we're a little misfit band of the

psych. There's one guy who's just water. You only like interact with twice, which I felt was kind of weird. The guy who lives in a barrel because he's just water. There's pretty funny though. There's the guy who like channels the monkey god and is like tears people with his bare hands. There's Bodhi who I don't know what he's deal is, but he's got sharp teeth and he just like hits people real hard with a rake. With like a rake. He's the the boar god guy.

Oh yeah, he's like the boar god. He's got a rake. Obviously the god of the spearlies is the phar Leads is the Phoenix, which is like the fire, which is like Alton and like Rin can like some in fire. And then, well, I was supposed to tell you, he doesn't have magic, he just knows how to make bombs. That's not magic. It's magic to the layman. Yeah.

And then you've got the hinterland twins where like, he doesn't like call the gods, the brother. He just, he's got the thing going on where they're like, oh, he's more spirit than man. And he just like can like go up and hang out with them and like read the signs and like connect to people via the spirit world. He doesn't like actually ask the gods to do anything

and his sister just like commands birds like some sort of evil Disney princess. Yeah. Yeah, in like, in shamanism, like I don't know about trying, I mean, I guess it doesn't matter because they're actually not supposed to be Chinese, just to be like Mongol people, right?

But like, I know that like a lot of shaman cultures with shamanism, they'll have like, they'll have like equivalence of like the twins like in the book they're called like anchors to each other. Yeah. Like, so in the book, the male twin, Chagun, he's like, he's like the super spiritual guy and he goes up and he conferses with like the gods and then there's a sister who's named like cannot for the life of me remember and she's the more grounded one and she just she does basically what they have like all the other shaman's do and like calls the gods on to earth I guess to do their power and like in real life shaman's like in Japan at least which

is I don't know it's always funny that like my core knowledge of Shaman is from Japan and the books like, yeah, this books are coming to Japan, there's a half Shaman is like, okay. But like in Japan, like they'll have like the Miko, which is like almost always a woman. And the Miko is like the equivalent of like Chagun's sister. And then there's like the other one, which is like, I can't remember the specific Japanese term, but he's like an ascetic and he takes a lot of his stuff from the Buddhist influence in Japan. And he's like basically the books equivalent of like a chagga and the male twin and like they work with each other like the the

ascetic will work with the with the Miko to like you know hash out whatever problems is in the community with whatever spirit is going crazy in Japan so yeah I thought that was interesting to see that. Like, you know, the book is pretty, it like, you can almost say that it's just steel stuff from real life, which is a weird thing to say. Well, ultimately, every book does that. This one just does it in the most egregious ways. Not necessarily in a bad way, just in the most aggressive way. Yeah, what did I respect? Yeah, just just take it. Rather respect anybody. There is a degree of respect for anyone

who can lean into the allegory this hard without flinching. Oh, yeah, she's just like again again, this is all allegory and not even shying away from it at all. It's like if you're going to include allegory at least be honest about it and she's definitely honest. Yeah. Anything else about shaman's? Well, I mean, I was just going to talk generally about like the little bit about like the way the magic system works, because this is one that I actually kind of like in that we've seen it in a couple of other places is the magic system in which like the power is this sort of nearly uncontrollable thing that's just like out there and what humans do is simply try to like tap into it and access it. But doing so is also dangerous to you because if you don't have enough self control to like stop yourself, like you become like you know overwhelmed by it.

I've always found that to be a very interesting like trope of magic as opposed to like this very like you say the word the thing happens very controlled form of magic. I've all personally always liked the idea that magic is a sort of like this instant force that's just like out there and you can use it if you can but you have to be careful because that sort of power can like destroy you. You know if you if, but you have to be careful because that sort of power can like destroy you. You know, if you're not like strong enough or have the self will to like stop it

from overwhelming you. And I think that I am drawn to that sort of magic number one because it's real wishy washing. You can kind of do whatever you want with it, which I appreciate. But number two, I think it's because I think it leads more into the almost getting into my politics. So to like the danger of wielding power, because if you're a shaman, like as a book, this book points out, you wield like an incredible

amount of power. But it's also like incredibly dangerous for you to be doing so. I think that's a good parallel for like actual like real world power, be it political or authoritative or whatever. Like it exists and you can use it, but if you're not careful, it will like break you. It will break you, this like, this wielding of power. And so like, that's partly why I sort of like this magic system. And as we see, there is like a consequence to the shaman's in Nikon, where they get used as part of the psych and their powers are useful

as part of the Abbey, but is eventually everyone succumbs to the power that they're channeling and they eventually then get sent to God prison, which is this mountain that inside of which magic doesn't work. And then so by the time you've used your power this much, you are now no longer mortal. You can't be killed because you are partly divine due to the God you've been channeling. But also you're too dangerous to let live. So they just like chuck you in like a little stone sarcophagus under the mountain until the end of time.

Yeah. I think. Yeah. I mean, I'm not entirely sure what, like, you know, eventually the mountain is gonna get filled, right? So I don't know. But, like it's been going on since like before

the original Chinese emperor in this book. So I was gonna let me think that like, before Nikon took spear, like the spearlies were still using the phoenix, but surely they would have gone mad for vision the phoenix. I've always wondered if I would ever read about Nat, it's like, what did they do and they went crazy? Did they not go crazy? I don't know. I wonder if it's a combination of like the psych always end up in the mountain because they are channeling their gods. No, because like the Spearly's were also channeling the Phoenix for like combat and so I have a

feeling that like the Spearly's would just usually die before they could channel the Phoenix too much. You know what I mean? I got the feeling that the spirulites would just usually die before they could channel the phoenix too much. You know what I mean? I got the impression that because of what the phoenix does, because the phoenix is destructive, that if you channel the phoenix too much, you literally just burn away. That there is no way for you to continue to live while being taken over by the phoenix because of the inherent nature of the Phoenix. It wants to consume and destroy. And so it's not like you can become an aspect of the wind,

like the guy they let out, or an aspect of the monkey, or whatever. You become the aspect of the fire, which is just fire. Yeah. And that was what I thought. Sort of the answer to that sort of that debate, I don't know. There, there also might be something to be said about the kind of like the fact that they're using it. people and how they often use the gods as like a healing thing. And a lot of different charm andistic tendencies don't, you know, use it for the most like horrific violence known demand. I think it might just be the scale of the violence that the psych kind of participates in. If anything, it doesn't really, it mentions the spear would like raid, you know, but they weren't like an expansive, hyper-expansive empire, you know what I mean?

True. I think maybe along with that is the fact that like the, the shabans of Nikon are accessing their gods more powerfully through like poppy seeds and other like opiates or like other like psychedelics or whatever We're like until Nikon conquered them the Spearly's only ever used tree bark Which is a much like softer and like not nearly so like strong connection to the Phoenix as well So maybe that has something to do with it too because they weren't like doing it as heavily I mean at the end of the day is mostly speculation on what could could be in the later books I assume but if she actually covers that which I'm not a good. It's fine it hurts no one.

There's a lot of really interesting I think theological ideas present in this book mostly from John and then Chagon Chagon I think in ideas present in this book mostly from John. The combination of John and then Chagod, Chagod, I think, in the way that we reference the spirit world. Yeah. I really like a lot of the section where John is explaining all this stuff to Rinn for the first time and is asking him some, is asking Ryn some wild questions that I do want to bring up. Some of them are pretty straightforward and and totally fantastical where it's like, oh, how is the roster of Nicaragod's

change over time? It's like meeting us. But then there's ones like, how does the doctrine of separation of church and state affect hisparian politics? Why is this doctrine ironic? You're like, okay, that's just a statement. Like, like, that's not just a question in the context of the book, because the hisparian religion in this is That's why I think I'll post also part of the thing they are the Spanish partly because of the name and partly because the way they're describing like oh these are just Catholics Yeah But

But Mugan doesn't have shamans, his pariah doesn't have shamans. They worship men whom they believe are gods, not gods themselves. The Nicarabh leave an icons, not gods. They don't understand what they're worshiping. They prioritize ritual over theology. 64 gods of equal standing, how convenient, and how absurd. Religion cannot be packaged so cleanly, the gods are not so neatly organized. There's a lot of really, really interesting theological touch

points throughout this whole thing that are both interesting from a world building's perspective, but also interesting from a, I feel like it's trying to say something, a little bit more concrete. Let's try to say about, it's just, that statement, they worship men who they believe are gods, not gods themselves, and she uses that in connection with hisparia as well,

which I think is really interesting. I don't really know where I'm going with this, but ultimately I think that this is reflecting some amount of real world view from the author to a degree, just kind of an idea of a kind of wrote spiritualism being kind of a corruption of actual spiritualism where these sorts of people go through a lot of these processes of like spiritual practice, but don't actually talk about the people of Nikon. Like you do the ritual, but you don't actually. Like the way they talk about the people of Nikon. Like, like, you do the ritual, but you don't believe it. Yeah.

You do it because it's just kind of a thing you do. Yeah. I don't really know what she could be saying, but I feel like that she spends so much time on that. That there is like more of an underpinning here, throughout the novel about just spiritualism. Let's put the preshawter gas, gas, but it's just me.

I don't ask. I'm rambled. I thought that if I was to put it in a real little context, it was like oh, well Jesus is being like equated with The Japanese emperor, I guess and people Yeah, people revered them as gods, but like they're you know, if I believe the author is making a political sandwich I didn't even think about that one is reading it but you know if I choose to do that um I guess the author I guess the author would be saying is like yeah that's stupid well here for trying to know what the author was saying even when they didn't mean to say it or even sometimes when they're dead and it's definitely one of them is it like, oh, basically the Spanish and like the Japanese both worship men and believe them to be gods

then to be in like Having your characters say that both of those are like completely misdirected like faiths, right? Yeah, I feel I feel like the underpinning of a lot of novels like this is I feel like the underpinning of a lot of novels like this is to look at the mentor character because a lot of times they act as a mouthpiece for the philosophy of the book itself. I just one thing over the course of our podcast, we have learned quite a lot that authors love to use the mentor or teacher character to be like, here's the theme. They are like, I'm not going to call John a straight mouthpiece. Um, but John goes on so many. And also, I think the way she portrays even among like the three of the, the

trifecta or whatever, I think there's just something about the way she portrays the gatekeeper is always being like the right one of the three. Does that make sense? Because like the dragon emperor, like the emperor was there to like wield power and unite Nikon and the Empress was there to like be powerful and seductive or whatever. And then be a quite an interesting stereotype

of fear and fear and fear and fear and femininity. And then the gatekeeper is like the humble one. He's like, oh, I'm not special, I'm nobody special. I don't need god powers. I just want to help. I just want to be the door name for the gods. And I think that we're supposed to view that and John as like good or sympathetic, you know what I mean?

Even though our main character disagrees with Jong for as reasons as we've discussed, I think we're supposed to think that he's like, I don't know, more or less good than a lot of the other people we come into contact. I feel like it's pretty obvious. He's just, I mean, in the context of the, like, in like a meta context as a reader, you're supposed to, or she

hoes maybe, like as a reader, you can tell me what you want. But like, I feel like it's supposed to be like a reading carefully supposed to be like, yeah, Zhong is like, right? Zhong in the ghost of tears. And then like, yeah, yeah, Zhong in the ghost of tears. And then like, I assume as the books, in the second third book, Rin will then she will like,

oh, I guess they were right. Or maybe I'm totally wrong. And then at the end of the third book is like, no, they were wrong. I'm 100% right. And I'm going to do more genocide. His parents, parents are next. You didn't help us out.

I'm coming for you. I think that a lot of times like we were saying the mentor character ends up being like a mouthpiece, I think this kind of funny enough ties in with something we mentioned right before we actually started recording, which is that sometimes we come up with topics to talk about just in the middle of the actual conversation. At the beginning of this conversation, I was like, I don't know if she portrays this ambiguously

or not, or if she's betraying this genocide as like justified or not or if she's betraying this genocide is like justified or not. But the more I sit here and think about it, I think about how prevalent Jung is in the beginning and how abusive Altan, Altan is as a new mentor figure for Yeah, as like the counterpoint is a counterpoint job. And how that's that itself is kind of seen as a bad thing. Yeah. And so now I'm thinking about it.

I think she is maybe being more concrete with it than I first thought. That for Rin, it's ambiguous, whether or not this is like from her perspective, it's ambiguous whether or not this is Like from her perspective, it's ambiguous whether or not she thinks she did the right thing or wrong thing but I think we can safely assume John would not be happy with that decision But But John does save her life in order for her to then go do a genocide Yeah, and he doesn't know that that's what she's going to do. How you can't tell me that he doesn't know that's what she's going to do.

You can't tell me he doesn't. He's interacted with her so many times and then literally turns them down in God prison, which I keep forgetting the name of. In God prison, which I keep forgetting the name of That's true to the Korean to the Korean I I kept reading that my brain kept trying to auto correct Chulu The narrator call that the Chulu Kareek Also fun fact we'll talk about just stealing things from other places. The Empress's name is Sudaji.

That's one of the antagonists from a different famous work, Fengxin Yanye, which is the Investiture of the Gods, which is a famous Chinese story. So the Empress is just named after an antagonist from a different famous Chinese story. I'm sure it's just a piece. Are you guys okay with spoilers? after a care and antagonist from a different famous Chinese story. I'm sure. Are you are you guys are you guys okay with spoilers because I found I have listeners skip ahead like a minute or two if you don't want following books. All right. What is it? Yeah. The Empress or the Vipress is the one who sealed away.

The Empress or the Vipress is the one who sealed away The gatekeeper's powers And apparently she did it to the Emperor too not surprised so yeah that I was I was right by I saw it on the The wiki like an idiot. We're pretty cool. We're pretty cool if the Emperor was just like the tutor phase at the beginning. Just her guy. Yeah. Just like it's you. It's like, I don't know.

I've never had it all. Um, speaking of the Empress, do you want to, you, you brought it up, Kethan. Do you want to talk a little bit about, about the Empress and this like very, these like weird sort of gender roles of the power of the trifecta. I think it's probably also referencing some actual like cultural touchdowns, but at the end of the day, the fact that the only woman in the trifecta

is a espionage focused stealthy seductress. That's like, that's just a common trope. Yeah. You would have preferred it. John was the Empress. Oh yeah, you know, it's like that'd be really funny. You're really just a job guy.

He's like, oh my God, he's so lovely. It's, it works fine in the context of the novel. It's explicitly said that the Vypris is the only woman. She walked past the gods of war, the dragon Lord, the tiger Lord, the lion Lord, the leo, the snail goddess, and she chose quote, the woman's battlefield in deception and seduction. Which, that's, that's a bit rough, I think, the women's battlefield of deception, insiduction. Women be duplicated.

At the same time, I think the book, the women do. I think the women have hobbies. The book does, I think, do a little bit of, kind of a run around with that. Like it acknowledges the sort of sexism of the Academy, for example, and it acknowledges the racism of the Academy. Yeah, they do a lot with the racism of Ryn,

because she's got like darker skin and yada, yada. Until, obviously, say, until, she's like, they're all racist against her, until they learn that she's like, they're all racist against her. Until they learn that she's like a special kind of race. And suddenly, they're still racist, but in a really specific, like, tokenizing way, which is a whole different kind of racism, I think. Well, yeah, but yeah, that kind of, that actually kind of reminds me of video I saw on Twitter literally just today of a guy who was in Italy and people were being racist.

I saw that was black and people were being racist to him and then he started talking and it was an American accent and they all were like, oh, yeah. Yeah, I saw a video, he's like in a nightclub in Italy. And they tried to stop him from getting on like an elevator because of how like racist the Italians are against Africans. And he's like, but they didn't realize I was African-American. And so I was using my people that any American would do.

And I put my foot back on that elevator and sort of bitching her out. And as soon as they heard my accent, they were all like, oh, we're so sorry, we didn't know your American fool you want to go to, where are you trying to be? I'm a blah, blah, blah. That's great.

I haven't seen that video. It's really great. You take the, I saw it last night, I think before I went to bed, but you're right, it's the idea that like, their race against her for her accent and her dark skin, until they realize that she's like the special minority.

And suddenly it's like, oh, but you're the spirally. Like, there's still racist and horrible, but there's like a different completely like, overtone to it for being like the model minority, you know what I mean? As kind of a joke, I do want to point out. So my book has reading discussion group questions in the back. And you haven't brought this up till now? Because they're not great questions.

My copy doesn't have that. I don't know. They had books like that. There are questions that you would see. This, by the way, is confuses me greatly, because I'm like, this is not a YA novel. Why are you asking some YA-ass questions? Yeah, YA novels would not have the conversation with Venka.

One of the reading group discussion questions is what track would you pledge as a student of synagogue? Oh, and this is fucking Harry Potter-ass bullet. What? How's he, how's he, he's a man? Come on, but which one is the half of a full pile? Should I pick that one? That's going to be medicine, right right it's got to be the medicine

Medicine's gotta be half of Combat's griffin door what we don't have to keep getting into No, no, no strategy because combat was with the really angry racist guy There are no so be combat just because they hate rent. That was the other guy. Griffin door was eersia, which is strategy and Hufflepuff's medicine. We all know this. And Ravenclaw's a lord.

It's only a serious like Ravenclaw. There is one question in the back. Actually, two questions in the back that I want to bring up. One is it brings up the racism of the people in this. There are many underlying sociopolitical themes that play in the poppy war, including race and colorism. But challenges is reinexperience being darker skinned than most of the children in our society. How does it affect your experiences?

How does it affect your reading of the book? I find it funny that there's very little mention of anything from the center of this novel in this discussion questions. But I did want to point out that they mentioned the racism, So that's a thing. But the actual biggest question in here is what we've been talking about pretty much this whole time. But it's so casual about it that I don't know how I feel about this question being in here.

Do you agree with Tierz's decision? Or do you agree with Rinz's decision to obtain power from the Phoenix, even the ones that are telling it? What would you have done in this situation? That is fuck. Who's right? The person who genocide and entire people or the person did want you? No, it's up to you. It's crossing the line. Would you have done that? Would you do genocide against an entire people or would you sell out your people to slavery to a different empire?

That would have been a better phrasing. Because tears... I still have a bit of an answer. I mean, the way the book presented tears this choice. She did not accept the power of the Phoenix, and air go essentially relegated her people to eventual to slavery and eventual elimination. But then the other side of the coin is Rins, which is just doing a genocide yourself. So like, do

you do nothing and allow your own people to be genocide or do you do a genocide yourself? Are the options you're given here? And asking somewhat, especially given the context of the previous questions in that section, making me think that they are intended for younger audiences. I was like, my question is like, is the, do you think this book is like targeted? It's like for like a YA audience. That's, it's not some of those, some of them are like these are meant for kids But like I'm sorry you cannot have kids read Rins conversation with Venka

You can't that's not that is not for children Well, I mean particularly mature kids could probably handle it, but it's just sure I probably would have read this and I but you also weren't answering those questions like what does color have to do with it like? I do want to point out though if we can be slightly more serious for a second though I think this is a kind of important though for Let's be specific here white American kids because and I don't know You've seen these discussions before but like Americans see racism in like black people

and white people, right? Like Americans see race in just these very base, I call them very basic ass categories, right? We're like, and they're not, they Americans, I think, get overwhelmed that unable to comprehend the kind of racism that exists in other parts of the world that is like either older or more nuanced. That's why like Americans always get surprised and they hear about like racism and like the Balkans or Eastern Europe or like the way the British talk about Albanians or something where it's like this whole other level of racism that Americans didn't even like understand exists. Asia has that too.

But like Americans aren't aware of that because Americans go it's Asia They all look the same I don't know you know I mean they literally do all of the same but like I mean I just to be clear to the audience um I'm Asia Maybe I should have been an important thing I should have been an important thing. That is not white. I mean, I'm not just Asian. I mixed.

I'm like, Hawaiian Asian, but you know. But like within Asia, there are like levels of racism between the various peoples that live in Asia. Like it is true that the Japanese consider themselves somewhat racially superior to literally everybody else. The Chinese kind of feel the same way. You shouldn't. In China, there's like, I read this book.

It's kind of an old book. It was from the early 2000s, I think. So I don't know if this is still a thing in China, but like some people in China, they're like kind of split on it. And I don't assume this is like a mainstream thing. I assume this is like very niche thing that people in China and the internet talk about.

But there's this, how there's homo sapiens and the Neanderthals, there's a related human species. And there's one that's unique to China. Some people are like, some people are trying to say, see, we've all from these guys, not almost sapiens. So Chinese are, they're better But like some other Chinese like don't want to be like you know the I Assume it's not even like a million Chinese you were talking about this to be clear

I don't know but like there's other Chinese like Weird race guys like no, we don't want to be like associated with that because Evan is that they're a cannibal associated with that because Evan is the recannables. Why would you like want to like prop yourself up on? Yeah, but I mean, there's also like even within China, there's even going back a long time to ancient China,

there's like there's you know, racism between like, you know, being ethnically like Han Chinese or, you know, being one of the various other ethnic groups that exist within China. Not everyone in China is just Chinese. There are various ethnic groups within China. Yeah, even in like the, well I guess not really so much Chinese, but in the language Mandarin,

like there's like, they'll call them dialects. It's like, oh, we've got, you know, just a few dialects of Mandarin, but then like, if you look into it, like a lot of these dialects They're completely incomprehensible with each other, but like they want yeah, they want like they want people They're like no, it's a good big thing most people speak Mandarin, but the way they manners like half of you can't understand each other You speak different languages That kind of happens lightly in this book Yeah, I made me think of that more for I forgot about it. Yeah, she goes to synagogue.

It's like, I can't understand you guys. And everyone makes fun of her because she has what they think of as like a country bumpkin accent. Yeah, but if you're from like Southern China, you're going to have like you might speak essentially an entirely different language to someone from Beijing or someone from Manchuria or whatever right like those they're entirely different so I just particularly for like sort of white Americans that like This isn't some weird American import where it's like oh she has dark skin so people are racist against so there's like the whole Tears of racism within Asia and even within China that Americans don't even like think of or comprehend You know, I wouldn't advise asking a lot of people, you know, in like Japan or China or Korea,

how they feel about like Filipinos, for instance, you're not going to have a good time. So it's like, I think Americans, I think sometimes lose sight of the fact that it's not just like white and black when it comes to racism. Again, I always point out that you just ask any British person how they feel about anyone from Eastern Europe. Yeah, American racism is like, I mean, I assume it's the same as it would be in Australia or something. would be in like Australia or something. It's like, they're like the inheritors of the modern racism, if that makes sense. It's like, oh, like white people, I mean,

I think the concept of white wasn't even really a thing, then, right? Like, people from Europe, they go to America, and then they got to like establish a hierarchy, and it's pretty easy to establish that based on your skin color, right? In Europe, it's like, well, they all look white. I was like, you know, I got a point, but they've got a different kind of racism.

And they've been added for a lot longer, you know, like, again, the, the racism of like white people in the Americas can only go back to like the colonists where like in Europe, you get to have like, you can be racist against the people that live on the other side of that mountain because you've been hating them since like, you know, 900 AD or whatever. Right. Just like a like English people and make sure some still think this, but like, you know, go back to like, really 900s and what they thought of Irish people. I don't know how you can ask that. How do you feel about the Irish people now?

Yeah. Uh, but I mean, I think you can hear the Irish people now. But I mean, I think you can hear like British people like when they before they did Brexit, one of the reasons for Brexit was the way Americans talk about like immigration from Mexico. Racist British people would talk about immigration from like Albania or Romania, because those are the people who are coming in and like doing like farming jobs and like driving like trucks and that sort of thing Yeah, and this might be a little off like getting a bit too off topic here But it's fine. It's like the history of like year-ups relation to Russia I mean, I mean now actually you're seeing a resurgence in it But like for a long time like you didn't really see it so much because like Russia managed to like Some was successful like no, we're Europeans too for a long time, you didn't really see it so much because Russia managed to somewhat success.

You're like, no, we're Europeans too. But there's a long history of even people within Russia, there was a debate in the 1800s. I was like, there's a big faction. We're not European, we're our own thing. And now we see a very racist thing because of the war in Ukraine. People call like, I don't know how big of a slur it is.

I see it was a slur, like they call them orcs, like. That's a slur, I mean, that's, it's, like I see it was like the fictional race org, but I don't know, maybe it's like a total, like I don't know, I just know that they call them that. Yeah, I'm sure they took the fictional race and then applied it to the Russian people. Yeah. I need that. Yeah, they took the fictional race and then applied it to the Russian people. Yeah.

Yeah. They're not Europeans, but somehow Ukraine is and they're just, you know, they're all swallows right out of this. They're all swabs. But I think we can get back to the book here. So we were talking about racism in China, but China, Russia has the same thing that China does. It's so like geographically huge that you have so many various like ethnic groups within it

that like in America when they think of someone who's Chinese, you're generally thinking of like Han Chinese. When you're thinking of Russian, you're typically thinking of someone from like Western Russia, like near Moscow, St. Petersburg. They're not thinking of someone from you know, one of the like the more native groups from like Siberia, like the staff, they're not thinking of like, you know, someone from like Toronto, like, the various, like, all other ethnicities of people that exist across the rest of Russia that exists. Same thing with China, for the people that exist outside of sort of like the Beijing, Shanghai area, like, there's a lot of other China that's out there and a lot of other like ethnicities

of people that exist out there. And I do think it's interesting that, you know, that she decides to portray that within the poppy war. I do think it's undermined a little by then making you run one of the special minorities, but it is still good that like it exists within the, people understand that this happens outside of the US as well. That that was actually a point of disappointment I had with

the novel was making her one of the spear. I really wanted to be actually was kind of I was like, oh, okay. I was like, we're doing that. It I mean, it's a YA trope to kind of make your main character extra special in that sort of way. Right. It would be like if she found out she was an elephant or something. She is like, she is tears as granddaughter or something. Yeah. Well, I started saying, like, I think it said before we started, right? Like,

tears as full name, I can't think of what it is, but it's similar to Ryn's full name. Ryn's full name is, what is it, Ryn? It's Fang Ryn. Yeah, and then Tiers' name is like Ryn in, I think, or something. Tiers are Ryn in. Yeah. There's like an apostrophe in it. Yeah, there's like, I don't know.

I mean, you know, there's some authors like to do do like in Elder Scrolls, like not Elder Scrolls, I'm Elden Ring. There's a lot of, I don't know if you guys played the Elder Ring, but there's a lot of characters. Their names are almost exactly the same. And it's supposed to be like, yeah, if you bother to care about the lore, it's like, yeah, you look into it.

It's like, yeah, they're like, have strong relations with each other. And George Martin wrote, help write for that. And in his books, he likes to do that a lot. He'll have characters with similar names. But not every author does that, so I don't know. If you notice in Elden Ring, all of the characters with repeating names, their names either start with a G and R or an M

Specifically because it was George R. I'm already dead It's just really funny to me, but but yeah, it's the same same sort of thought tears it has her name My my Rinnon my Rinnon yeah, there's no, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, She's a spirally or it could be like yeah, it could be she's a spirally or it could be like Being a fantastical like she is literally her daughter I don't like the only thing the only strong thing to that. I don't know how strong it is But it's like well, you don't know where it came from It's like all the spirits supposedly died Or we're gonna we're gonna find out some nonsense like the emperor was her dad or something

I like hopefully not yeah so it's like I feel this is this is a sort of thing where I feel like the number of special things is getting stacked on top of her yeah she got too many chosen ones going on at the same time yeah she's she like was top of her thing at On the test in her region. She went to the best academy She got the special teacher. She learned the special magic She's from the special race of people Now she's got to be a special person from the special race of people Yeah, and then and then maybe she's a special person from the special race of people. Yeah, and then maybe she's a special person from the

like majority race of people too. Question mark, I don't know. This is totally, I didn't actually read her wiki page because I, while I'm okay with spoilers to a degree, I don't want to completely break it. And at the very bottom of Fang Runans page on the wiki, it mentions the Mao Zeydong thing, but also mentions that another influence on Ryn's character is a zoo or thing from Avatar to the last hairpender. Which I'm like, okay, so maybe Ryn is just supposed to be a bad person. Wait, wait, wait. We're staying a problematic queen. Obviously, we're good to have to do the avatar

as like a bonus episode at some point, because he's never done it. And I feel like we have, I feel like that would have like a waiting list of people wanting to be guests on that episode. Well, you know, I just brought throughout that, my name is the avatar shron. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha I've never seen it. I mean, just think to hear your thoughts as an adult watching it.

I watched the first three episodes. There we go. That's the problem. I watched the first episode. It was like, I'm sorry, this is too, like, I am not the target. It says, this is too much for children for me. Does that mean the especially season one has been being a little kind of star ticket like the elements of maturity towards the very end. Yeah. And then season two and season three, like season

one, especially the first like three or four episodes, I'm not going to go into this too much. This is the middle of a different conversation, especially the first like three or four episodes, I'm not going to go into this too much, this is the middle of a different conversation. But the first like three or four episodes have like these cartoony moments. Very happy. Like these hyper cartoony moments where and gets stylized into these like, like when he's running away from the Unaji and he's like suddenly like, he's just a little like it's truly a nickel-a-large. he's like suddenly like, he just like, it's truly a nickname.

He's like, I don't know. Yeah. But then they just kind of tossed that out the window because they were like, wait a second. He's like a whole number of animated shows. They were like, this is a kid show and then like five episodes and they're like, never mind.

Yeah, it's kind of a pre-cursion to like adventure time in that specific set. That was good thing because that was exactly what I was gonna say. Is adventure time does the same thing. You watch like part of the first season, and you're like, what's the fun little kid show? I then like, you get a little bit further in, and you're like,

this is heavy as shit. And you're right as, This book does the same thing. That's not gonna happen. This book does the exact same thing. You're like, the girl in her, like the adopted girl, she's gonna get into school. And then like five, like six, seven chapters later,

you're like, I'm reading about the worst war crimes I've ever heard in my life. The first inclination I had that this book was going to get dark is in like chapter three. One of the rickshaws, one of the big ones, essentially a busses, hits a kid, injures him, and then the guy who sits there goes, sits there and thinks for a second, and then runs the kid over again. Because it's cheaper to pay for a dead kid than a permanently injured one.

That definitely would have made it in the movie adaptation. and I made it in the movie adaptation. Hahaha. Hahaha. Hahaha. I was like, oh, I forgot this was supposed to be dark fantasy. There's so much YA trappings in this. I thought it was... Maybe 2019 I picked up this book and I'm ready.

I picked it up because I was looking for more, I started realizing like, I only need to be stuff from like white people. Hahaha. I need to read stuff from like non-white people. And this book scene interesting is like oh like it eludes to like the opium war and stuff is like okay yeah yeah yeah yeah that's what everyone when I look at I was like okay and then I get it's like oh I just like oh I don't know how how crazy it is again it seems like a typical like teenage like seems like a typical teenage, like, audience novel.

And then, you know, I read it and he's like, oh, okay. I'm like, it went there. When you're in the academy, you're like, okay, she's eventually gonna graduate. She's gonna come around and she and Naja are gonna end up like getting together because he's the rich one that hates her.

Like, you know, they're eventually gonna end up like, friends are like having a weird romantic thing. You know, you think it's gonna, which one that hates her. Like, they're eventually gonna end up like friends or like having a weird romantic thing. You know, you think it's gonna, like I didn't know where the book went. I knew there was going to be a war, but I assumed that the war would come like, I don't know, a little bit later,

and it would just be sort of like a button on the end of the story and not like the main story. Yeah, you know, she did kind of misdirect me with that one. I did get some inclination that it wasn't gonna be a typical YA, and then I really just nod to YA at all. I don't think it is, but the question's in the back of your book, maybe re-question, because those are very YA questions. But I feel like if it was like a YA novel,

I think it's, you know, would have spent a lot more time in the beginning where she's like taken that I would have like seen Like a whole chapter dedicated is like oh, I did this question of the test And then I noticed like it was cheating next to me, but like they just rushed through that. It's like oh, okay We're getting which are the way that like that test for anyone who's know that test is based on like a real thing That that like the Imperial China used to have, like, there was a test that you could take to join the civil service. Like, that was a very, that was a specific test that did exist. I guess the first inclination that the book was going to be a bit more dark

probably should have been the what she was running away for a forced marriage where she keeps thinking about him having sex with her. and she gets real grossed out. Yeah. I'm pretty sure she almost explicitly says to avoid getting raped. Yes, she has the rest of her life. Yeah, I met her adoptive mom. Okay, let it happen. And then slowly addict him to opium until he's useless.

Yeah, when I first read that, I was also reading this book. I can't think of the title of it, but it's a it's a very interesting book. I don't know if any y'all or the audience would care, but it's a book unlike Nietzsche's thoughts on women. Oh no, I'm not going to get to it. It's a very interesting book. I think people would enjoy reading it if they care about Nietzsche and women. But there's a part, and also I was also reading Kierkirkard at the time.

And Kierkirkard is like the master of irony. I wouldn't recommend reading his book on irony, because it's very hard to understand. But like, both Nietzsche and Kierkirkard they really write about women. But applying Kierkirkard's idea of irony to Nietzsche and like, well, Kikar, they really ran up a women. But like applying Kikar's idea of irony to like Nietzsche's idea of like women. Nietzsche like thinks like women like basically put on like a mask to like, please men. And then like in the Kikar sense, you could say that they're living like ironically

because of the embracing of this idea of like just of like femininity and they have to like live it in order to like survive and then they make it their own and like when I was reading so I was reading all that at the same time I read this I was reading the popcorn I get to this part I was like I don't know like as the my dome philosophy we brain was connecting dots that are probably not there. So I was, so I was like, Rins like foster mom, Aunt Fang is like, yeah, just like be the model like wife and then you're just gonna slowly dope them up.

Like you're still gonna be like the model wife but you're gonna have the power. I was like, that's just a very niche and kicker guardian. Not that they wrote about drugging up their husbands but. not that they wrote about drugging up their husband's foot. That also kind of the idea of the woman kind of, this kind of also goes back to the vipers being this sort of lying espionage.

But the wife is like the power behind the throne, through like, through like underhanded means. But that's, it also just made my brain think of Dune again. It made me think of the Benny Jesuit for that. That's not also like the only time that I noticed a connection to Dune in the book. She essentially she doesn't say fear is the mind killer but there's a scene where she gets afraid and she's like fear is just a physiological response. I have a little death. Can I say though that like this book I think it's there's a little on both sides of the whole like gender roles in the society because you have like her

adoptive mom right who's like and like for you've got like forced marriage and like the way her adoptive mother behaves and like to their stereotypical way the emphasis Presented right those are all very sort of stereotypical In like through like sexism and patriarchy in society But there seems to be no distinction when it comes to like Taking the test and like going to military school even though there are less women than men They're just equally allowed in. And the head of the military academy is also a woman.

So you know what I mean? Where there's weird, we're in her village, you can still be sold off as a child bride. But also you have a woman in charge of the military academy. And it just seems like there's a little bit of both things going on where like there's women that are like in certain aspects of society, women are like perfectly equal and nearly equal to men. But then also like you might also just be sold as a child bride.

That's also a thing that happens. And I don't know if that's supposed to be like a dynamic between like because Rins growing up like poor and like the provinces. So things are a lot more patriarchal still. Where like if you're rich and in like synagogue, the women get to be more equal because they're rich and more affluent. I don't know if that's how that's supposed to be or not, but it was just felt a little weird to me. I think primarily she's probably doing that is because she wanted more female characters

in the actual cast because just as a female author, I'm sure she would prefer to do that. And it kind of keeps the cast, I think, kind of dynamic. It's not just, you know, oops, all dudes. I think that was just a creative decision on the part of the author, I think. I'm just looking too deep in her world building okay. I think you can't elude to like if we like take her book and shove it into like the real-world timeline equivalent of like 1930s China. There definitely are people in the countryside that you know like oh like I can't eat so I'm gonna literally sell my daughter to the rich village headman. So I can get some money to eat. And they were doing that in Japan too,

as crazy as to think. Like Japan also is like a freshly industrializing. I mean, they're more industrialized than China, but like, there's still like a lot of places in Japan at the time. It's like, yeah, we're in Dirtport. And they're still selling their daughters to like brothels, to like live, but China more so. Like the only thing that is missing is like, I don't think I ever saw it mentioned is like,

there's just no foot binding there. I was just like, which is great. No foot binding. That's the only like dynamic in the country that I saw missing. Let's get that. Yeah. I don't know if you guys any final things. One final point I wanted to talk about here

before you wrap up is she definitely sets up a point counterpoint between what I'm going to call sort of like the industrial and like the mystical. And I think that the thing we see across fantasy novels, you know, going back all the way to, you know, to like to to my guy, you know, to Tolkien, right. You know, we were talking about like the modern industrial world that's non-magical and these sort of and fairy, you know, the magical the place where like rest and recovery and adventure happen where like Mugen is as we've talked about explicitly non-shamanistic non-religious outside of the emperor is God and highly industrialized same thing with with the white people where Nikon while being

technologically behind is mystical. It gets to be magical in the hinterland even more so, even though we don't see it, we know the way that like both Jong and the twins describe the hinterland. It's very much like we don't do tech, we do magic instead. And I, this book, it definitely leans into that dynamic where like, you know, even within Nikon, it's like the military people who are like, oh, we need to have a new modern military or like shamans who are never real. You know what I mean? And it's, but like the power that saves them, if you could call it saving them, you know,

we debated that earlier, is the power of the mystical. It is the gods. It is the, it is fairy. You know what I mean? I don't know if either you have thoughts on that, but it was just something I noticed and felt like we should point out because it seems to be a very common dynamic. Now, apparently in all fantasy, not just Western fantasy, also in, you know, Gideas fantasy as well now, apparently.

Yeah. Um, was like even, there's even like an explanation for it in the books, like there's like that whole section somewhere. Um, it's like, they at this book has its moments. It'll just go to different point of use and stuff that's not written. One of them is like, yeah, like hinterlanders, there's a group of hinterlanders that got driven out from the hinterlands and then they just went south and then they started doing crazy shaman stuff there. And then like so I assume the shaman are doing crazy anime shaman battles with each other a lot. And then like eventually like the first emperor comes and it's like yeah no fuck you guys and you just like to like make some stop like there's like a reason why they don't do shamanism because like the emperor or something. Yeah, the red emperor, the original one. You literally like in his unification of China, like, or of Nikon, like specifically eliminated

shamanism in his like drive to unify the country. And so shamanism is much more representative of like tribalism and like less unified version, less modern version of Nikon. I just think that's a really interesting sort of like dichotomy to set up. And I mean, I would say that the author comes down on the side of doing shamanism and not on the side of industry. Yeah, I would imagine she'll have a nuanced like like, just a little bit of shamanism. Don't go too crazy.

Well, it's like the, it's the junk position. Again, it's the, it's the usage of the shamanistic stuff for understanding and, knowledge, and knowledge and for healing and for, you know, just generally positive things and not for like destructive tendencies. He regrets it though. Not that he doesn't use it for destructive purposes, but he does it to save the kids, but like, Jon's role is the gatekeeper, it reminds me of The daidric prince, Paraheim, the Elder Scrolls It's like an Elder Scrolls like everyone, like even like even like Lotus reantex people like I was saying like yeah, Paraheim is the weakest But like if you like think about it like it, Parry is one of the strongest, daidric princes.

He's the one who controls the crossway between Oblain and the human world. And that's how I think, I mean, I don't actually know what the gatekeeper does, but I assume he keeps the gates. So I assume the gatekeeperers on the same powerful level as Perryite. And if I'm drawing connections together,

probably the Empress wiped his mind because she wants that barrier to just be gone for some reason, I don't know. But yeah, that's how I think about it, like, Jean. Well, the thing is, if you think about it, the Empress Her Power is essentially hypnotizing people. And like the gatekeeper can unleash beasts that I get the strange feeling hypnotism is very bad on.

It doesn't work very well against. So just like unleashing these sorts of monsters and beings from other from the spirit world, shall we say, would be kind of a natural counter to somebody like the Empress whose power seems mostly over people and not these like extra-dimensional beings that eat people's faces. Yeah, or where like the Emperor, you know, like the dragon Emperor that's gone now, the warrior, his power was like combat, you know what I mean? Like it was power over people like in a physical sense.

Interesting. Yeah, well, I don't know. Go out, eat some poppy seeds, do some shavings. Oh, yeah, there's a lot of drug use in this book. Oh, so much drug use. Look, I'm not saying if I knew I could take some mushrooms and like traverse the spirit plane for a little while, I'm not saying I wouldn't do it. It seems pretty fun. Be careful which of the 64 you talked to. I just remember not to talk to the Phoenix, huh? Just try to avoid the one that wants me to do

genocide. It'll be, it'll be cool and a funny info. There's a, there's an even worse god than the Phoenix. The Phoenix like, what are you talking to? Oh, I'm talking to this guy. Are you crazy? You know what that guy does? It's insane. I don't know. That's the lesson for today. Do some drugs, do some hallucinogens, get some heroin. Maybe just start with tree bark. Yeah. You know, tree bark or heroin whatever's available to you. get some, have a little chit chat with the gods, try and add to do a genocide. Maybe don't do a genocide.

Maybe don't do a genocide. Like I know we talked about it when over it, but like this book really does show that like people who have been the victims of like trauma and horrific things can also turn around to be the perpetrators of those same things. Yeah. Um, whether they believe it's an request for vengeance or whether they believe they're justified in returning that balance onto somebody else, you know, I think that's the same thing when people, it's an important lesson to talk about when people are getting really confused as to why like the state of Israel can do a genocide against Palestinians despite the fact that a large number of the original settlers in Israel were

victims of a genocide. It's just because you've been the victim of something doesn't mean you're incapable of doing it. Yeah, and we're doing like the obvious obvious real-world equivalent of Japan inflicting insane crimes against humanity on the Chinese, I don't know, there's a term that was coined for why the Japanese, how they could have even done that. I can't think of this specific term, but the gist of it is that the Japanese soldier, there's like a, all armies have like a pretty, like authoritarian hierarchy, obviously, but in Japan, like officers would like severely abuse like the lower ranks, they would slap them till like they bled and like they'd have to like, like I don't know, they would slap them till they bled and they'd have to like,

like, I don't know, they just go, I think that's like crazy, like humiliating abuse. Like they force them to like, do stuff that I don't even wanna describe honestly, but like, and then they take them to China and they're taught, from like elementary school, they're taught like, there's somewhere, some kids are taught like, yeah, Chinese people,

they're literally, they're like less than pigs. Like, that's a common thing that I read a lot. Like, like, they compare Chinese people to pigs a lot for some reason. I mean, you know, I know the reason to do me, I'm just, I just don't know why they choose a pig, you know, but whatever. And then they get to, you know, China, and like, the troops are to let free to do whatever they want. And like, it's like, oh, the guy who's been a prestus all they want and like it's like oh the guy who's been oppressed this whole time He now has power of this person who's like less than human and he just you know, he just goes crazy, you know That's a one explanation. I've seen it for it. Mm-hmm. And then I don't want to draw too hard of a comparison to Israel But like Israel, you know they suffered a genocide of Israelis or Jewish people, I should say, they suffered a genocide

and then they're part of this deliberate settler colonial project of Zionism and there is a people already there. Just draw the conclusions yourself. All you have to do is like see the statements that like the Israeli government ministers are putting out for Israelis to know how they feel about the relative humanity of Palestinians, I think. Yeah, so you know you can drive your own real world conclusions there. any final thoughts about the Poppy War from either of you. Pretty, pretty well written, easy to read book, as long as you're not easily disturbed. It's easy to read until you get to go in these. Yeah. It's written very smoothly. How about that? For like, for a book that she wrote in college while she was doing an undergrad? My only final thoughts on it is, well, two, I guess. Yeah, like, go to the knees. Go to the knees. In some ways, for me, it's like more fucked up than Nan King. Because Nan King, I mean, the

real world is obviously more fucked up than a fixture world, to be clear. But like a Nan King, like a lot of them would just like, they would kill them just out of boredom and they like ran, they just, they just pile up randomly. It's not systematic, but then you get the goal in this and then like, they're all systematically, like, they're laid out just to, so the first thing we would go there, like, look, we, like, lined up all and like up all and like it's pretty clear It's like it's like I don't like I don't know how to describe it It's like mathematical and how like they lined up like they want you to know like we did this with like

Intent just kind of are fucked up in that way and then the only other thing which I didn't really talk about is like I honestly don't really like like I really don't like the the idea that like the spearlies are like like the chosen people of Lephinics essentially I don't like that element um and I like sort of like it's how to racist like the racially chosen and deep percent of like Spirit supposed to be Taiwan. I feel like it's a pretty obvious like illusion And like a lot of people don't even know this they just think like oh, there's just you know Chinese people I mean they do live in Taiwan and they are the majority but like their natives like still there

natives like still there being colonized by the Taiwanese government and like yeah it's like that mean like the book is like oh like um like we don't like like the gods like they don't we won't don't want anything from you like you're the ones who asked us for stuff but it's like I don't know like the phoenix clearly favors the spear people like I don't know it's like, I don't know, like the Phoenix clearly favors the spirit people. Like, I don't know. It's like, I just didn't like that element of it. I feel like it was like, it just, I don't know what the right word, like, I don't think tokenized is even the right word. It's just like, I don't know.

I just don't like it. Yeah. It's a bad vibe. Like, ultimately, like, if you're from Nikon, you could like go to any of the gods. If you're a spiritly, you get the Phoenix. And you'll have a choice about it. You know what I mean? Like that's, yeah, that's not. It does kind of undermine the main point of the Phoenix's whole stick.

Yeah, it's almost like a false choice. It's like the illusion of choice. I mean, I don't have to help you. It's like, you will, you clearly clearly do actually till it make, bring it even one to a shaman context, like, a lot of like shaman cultures. And this is, I assume it's true in China. It, I know it's definitely true in like, in like, um, for like the northern Turkic people who live up there and in Japan too. Like, a lot of them will get like a call to be a shaman.

And like, Rin definitely gets that call. The Phoenix costs in these, like, hey, I'll give you power. Don't you want power? Like, come on, especially like a drug dealer. Don't you want the juice? Like, you fell some of it, like, wouldn't that be awesome? And then the Phoenix is like, look, I don't want anything from you.

I'm sorry, come on, man. I don't want anything from you. Come on man. I think that's a really good point is that like even though we talked about earlier the whole like you you made all your own choices to get here. The Phoenix is in the back of your mind the whole time being like you want it though but you want it but you want it which again all you want it, but you want it. Which again, all the Nikon like members of the psych kind of got to like choose their god, you know, whether you're like the water guy or the boy guy or the monkey guy, like they all kind of got the pick where Rin by

Dint of being spiritually does not get a choice. I would like her to not be a spirally, because then it'd be like, look, he's not just, he's not like a racial guy. Like, he'll go to anybody. Or he's like, no, Rin, you are a spirally. It's like, okay. Yes, she's like, the book is like,

there's no such thing as Destiny. He's like, well, if he's like Rin's destined to be like a Phoenix guy. Yeah, yeah, I think good thing is we just got to hear right at the end, which is like despite it's all like you get to make choices. Yeah, Ryn kind of doesn't know that's even even more blatant one. All in definitely never got a choice. Yeah. Like, I'll never got a choice to be a shaman of any other kind. And I don't think Ren does either.

Like, I think that's a good point we got to read the ed is like, it's almost an illusion of choice if you're a spirally, which again, just feels kind of like a weird kind of racism that like all the people in the con, if they become shaman, like get to choose which gods they like like what to like channel I'm not that not that I have not that I personally know the author obviously but like not to be too mean to her but like I like I'm I want to be clear. I'm incinerating that she's kind of racist I was like like someone wrote about anything else is It's like, ooh, the Cherokee have like a special God,

but only them. It's like, or like, you know. They get the really fucked up. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they get the fucked up God. And like to make it more personal context to me, like I'm not, I'm not any, like from my mixed muggle blood. Like I don't have any from Taiwan. Not really, like I kind of do. from my mixed muggle blood. I don't have any from Taiwan, not really.

Like, I kind of do, because I'm Hawaiian, and like, Hawaiians, you know, like, all Hawaiians, religions, and the Micronesians, if you, like, you can look it up, it goes all the way back to Taiwan, that's like the origin point. And it's like, so, like, I don't know, I can just, like, what if, like, an author wrote a book, like, so like, I don't know, I can just like, what if like an author wrote a book

and like, oh, Hawaiian people, like they're so special, like, it's some of the special war God and they will wipe out all of America. It's cool, is that would be? It's like, like, what if that's, what if there's a Hawaiian kid and he's committed to crazy genocide

and like America, you know? It's like... Yeah, I mean, that would be like a sort of similar context would be like, if this is in the US, you'd have like white Americans who could choose whichever God they wanted. And then you've got like the two last Hawaiians who can only channel like, you know, the blood God. And like, they don't really get a choice about channeling the... Yeah, again, not to be too mean, even though I'm saying so, they really mean. I think they're all those kind of racist. I mean, I guess I'll leave it at that. That's my final thoughts.

Chinese history. No. Current Chinese stance towards Taiwan The Taiwanese government stands towards native Taiwanese people American stance to Hawaiians, you know, whatever Well, I'm gonna go do some drugs and go talk to God To make me know how horrible the real world is right now. So, you know, if Nuke goes off somewhere,

sorry, that was me, chatteling the gods, I guess. Avatar Chaunt, thank you for joining us today. Thank you, it was happy to have you on. Yeah, no, yeah, it was great. And if you guys wanna read the other books, I'll finally read the second one, I guess, and I don't know, I guess I can talk about what I soon would be an even more fucked up How can she top this

I have full faith in her man made horrors beyond your comprehension Get the thanks a bunch everyone. Thank you all for listening I think our next episodes. I think that we decided we're going to do the Forgotten Childhood Comfort books next, right? For December or for November, we're going to do like, I think it was books from your childhood that you really loved and nobody else ever, no one else remembers. I think we're going to be those. And your pick for that was...

Yes. Was Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins? So it's the Suzanne Collins book that's not the Hunger Games. And then my choice is going to be The Transhalsaga by Gary Paulson, which is the sci-fi fantasy book by the guy who wrote Hatchet and, and it's not Hatchit. So, you guys can read those. These are books that are simply aimed towards children. They should be light, and a lot happier than the last few books we've read, and they should be easy for everyone to read.

Thank you all for listening, and if you want to hear more from us, you can join the Patreon where we do music and non-book stuff, like movies and TV shows and albums and such. Thank you all for listening, and I'll talk to you later. Come on! Good night. Are you fucking real man? Come on! you