The Cost of War: Exploring the Power of Kuang’s The Poppy War

The Poppy War trilogy contains mature themes, including graphic violence, war crimes, genocide, sexual assault, substance abuse, and explores trauma, colonialism, and systemic oppression. Reader discretion is strongly advised.

Photo Courtesy: @aconjuringofmagic on Instagram

It is easy to forget the gravity of war when it is told in stories. We are used to seeing its aftermath more than its violence in motion, quick to absorb the numbers and statistics but not the individuals caught in the crossfire, nor those involuntarily causing the fires.

While many books depict the tragedies of war, few do so in a way that leaves you heaving, trying to catch your breath between pages. Even fewer manage it with such poetic brutality and fantastical force. Chinese-American author R.F. Kuang’s debut, The Poppy War trilogy, does exactly that. Its pages grabbed me by the collar and dunked me into a vat of sick, rotten water, forcing me awake to the ugly, unrelenting truths of war.

Spanning three books—The Poppy War, The Dragon Republic, and The Burning God—the series is a dark and unflinching reimagining of mid-20th-century China. Its fictionalized counterpart, Nikara, is impoverished and wracked by power struggles, opium, and famine. 

We witness this world through the lens of Rin, a war orphan turned soldier, whose rise to power forces her to confront the monstrous cost of vengeance, empire, and survival.  

In all honesty, it took me nearly three years to finish the trilogy—not because I didn’t enjoy it, but because the content made it impossible to binge-read. Some books are meant to be ingested slowly and carefully, and this series is one of them. The Poppy War isn’t just meant to be read; it’s meant to be dissected, reckoned with, and swallowed piece by piece. So whether you’ve read the books or are only beginning to step into Kuang’s world of military fantasy and shamanistic mythology, let’s take a closer look together.

The Shadows of China in Kuang’s Nikara

The Poppy War stands on its own as a gripping fantasy, but with even a glimpse into the history behind it, the story becomes something deeper, darker, and far more haunting.

“Then I will die on my feet,” she said. “I will die with flames in my hand and fury in my heart. I will die fighting for the legacy of my people… I will not die a coward.” 

There is no doubt where Kuang drew her inspiration from. Nikara is a striking mirror of China, from its geography and provinces to the lives of its people. She does not shy away from revealing the harsh realities of Chinese cultural history.

The series channels the turbulent events of 20th-century China—from the devastating Second Sino-Japanese War to the fractured struggles between warlords and competing ideologies. Through Rin, our protagonist, we witness the harrowing consequences of a nation broken apart by colonialism, classism, and the deep scars of imperial invasion. 

Kuang draws heavily from key events such as the Opium Wars, the Rape of Nanking, and even the Cultural Revolution, rendering scenes so vivid they feel like moving photographs pulled straight from history books. And Rin—a broken girl who became an even more fractured soldier—must live through every single one. She fights her way forward, not just as a warrior, but as a child of Nikara, forced to carry the weight of a nation’s trauma on her back.

“Let them think of us as dirt, Rin thought. She was dirt. Her army was dirt. But dirt was common, ubiquitous, and patient, and necessary. The soil gave life to the country. And the earth always reclaimed what it was owed.”

Kuang’s world is filled with fictional countries and regions that reflect real historical counterparts: Mugen stands in for Imperial Japan; Hesperia echoes Western colonial powers like Britain; the Hinterlands parallel the rural interior provinces of China such as Shaanxi, Sichuan, Yunnan, or Guizhou; and Speer evokes the experiences of non-Han ethnic minority groups like the Tibetans or Uyghurs. Even the cities carry weight—Sinegard, the seat of the elite and privileged, often draws comparisons to Beijing; and Golyn Niis, a southern city reduced to ruins by invasion, mirrors the horrifying violence inflicted upon Nanjing. 

These geopolitical parallels not only ground the fantasy in reality, but also deepen the moral weight of the story, reminding us that the horrors faced by Rin and her world are not confined to fiction, but drawn from wounds that history has yet to fully heal.

ALSO READ: https://www.chinoy.tv/chinese-historical-events-we-shouldnt-forget/ 

In the Act of Calling the Pantheon

Just like in any other fantasy series, Kuang’s world is dotted with magic—but here, it’s stripped of the familiar whimsy. If fantasy magic could ever be called wild and mad, this would be it. The power that runs through The Poppy War trembles at the edge of gift and burden.

The fantastical elements draw from Chinese shamanistic beliefs, centering on a pantheon of gods often depicted as mythical creatures. These deities are volatile and consuming, and only a rare few can serve as living conduits—vessels through which the gods can act, speak, and destroy. 

“She wanted to forget everything, to forget the war, to forget her gods. It was enough to simply be, to know that her friends were alive and that the entire world was not so dark after all.”

To wield their power is to risk losing yourself entirely, but what Rin quickly comes to realize is that war requires sacrifice—whether voluntary or not. The use of shamanism in The Poppy War goes beyond simply adding a layer of fantasy. It becomes a symbolic commentary on the political and cultural landscape of Nikara, mirroring China’s own complicated, often suppressed relationship with indigenous spiritual practices.

In Kuang’s world, magic is neither fancy nor refined, it is coarse, brutal, and unpredictable. It is not used for escapism; it is used as an extension of the country’s history of violence, belief, and rebellion.

Photo Courtesy: Georgetown University’s Website

The Cost of Becoming

“Children ceased to be children when you put a sword in their hands. When you taught them to fight a war, then you armed them and put them on the front lines, they were not children anymore. They were soldiers.”

I once came across a digital artist’s rendition of the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse”, and their vision of “War” instantly reminded me of The Poppy War—of Kuang’s own image of violence, fury, and devastation embodied in Rin and the world she inhabits. 

IMAGE: Artist Nez’ Vision of War

Rendered by digital artist @NN_EE_ZZ, this vision of War is all fire and resigned fury—its gaze hollow, its presence relentless. A blood-soaked horse bears a bound child atop its back, and what struck me most was the mane and tail: matted, heavy, and dark with blood. It felt like a visceral reminder of how war drags its weight behind it; how even when it surges forward, it is burdened by the lives it consumes. No matter how far it charges, death clings to its heels.

In many ways, The Poppy War is less a story of battle, and more a reckoning with the tracks war leaves behind. It is the story of the child atop the blood-soaked horse—her fate bound to choices with irreversible consequences made in moments of trauma, forced to lead others to their deaths. Rin is the embodiment of the cost of becoming something larger than the world ever intended. Her choices are the very definition of “morally grey,” and throughout the trilogy, it’s difficult to keep in mind that she never asked for any of this. That she was just a girl studying martial arts and literature—until she was thrust into the heart of a war she couldn’t walk away from, faced with choices no one should ever have to make.

No one is ever prepared for destruction, but what happens when you are forced to become a weapon? And what happens when you start thinking like one? At what point does the line blur between hero and monster?

Rin is far from a perfect heroine—if she can be called one at all. But she is the perfect embodiment of war and its flame. She fights for freedom through devastation, not because she wants to, but because there is no other way. Because in her blood-streaked world, vengeance means justice, and justice means survival. And sometimes, that is the only kind of freedom left.

It took me nearly three years to finish reading the trilogy because I needed time to shudder, to grieve, to rage, to listen, and to collect my thoughts enough to share them with you.

In the end, The Poppy War is not the tale of your next favorite hero—it is a reckoning. It forces you to sit with every kind of monster and every kind of victim that wars leave behind, all set against a landscape shaped by what China might have been. Because sometimes, we have to reimagine a thing in order to grasp the full weight of its truth.

And if you’re someone who seeks stories that don’t flinch—stories that play with power, grief, and history—then perhaps, like me, you’ll find something in The Poppy War that stays with you long after the final page.

About the Author