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Chapter 7
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Poppy War, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Dehumanization and the Horrors of War
Identity, Cultural Trauma, and Coming of Age
The Purpose of Education
Addiction, Drugs, and Control
History
Summary
Analysis
Students get four days off to visit home and celebrate the Summer Festival. Kitay invites Rin to come home with him, and Rin accepts. A huge carriage picks them up at the Academy’s gates. Inside the carriage, Rin feels safe and clean, and she admires the wealthier neighborhoods the carriage passes through. They finally reach a huge compound, where the housekeeper immediately asks Kitay what he’d like to eat. Later, they sit down to a feast of expensive delicacies and discuss Kitay’s father, the defense minister, who’s working around the clock until after the parade to keep the Empress safe. Rin is overwhelmed by the luxurious estate and how many powerful connections Kitay and his family have.
Visiting Kitay’s home allows Rin to understand Kitay better, in addition to all her other wealthy classmates. It’s totally outside her comfort zone to be in such well-kept neighborhoods and to have everything she could possibly imagine laid out on the table for every meal. This visit essentially continues her education, as she gets to learn how the wealthy live—and how wealthy and powerful people, like Kitay’s father, work.
Themes
The next day, Kitay takes Rin to the market. She laughs when they come across tiny statues of boys that appear to pee when water is poured over them, and Kitay insists on buying one for her. As they continue through the market, Rin realizes how much of a difference money makes: Kitay can do and buy whatever he wants. This reinforces Rin’s desire to earn her place in Sinegard.
These statues are actually thermometers used to test the temperature of tea water. They’re silly and, to Rin, totally frivolous. But Kitay’s willingness to buy her one makes a huge impression on Rin. It shows her how different she is—while Rin sees the statues as unattainable, they’re not so impressive to Kitay.
Themes
That evening, Rin and Kitay attend a shadow puppet show. The story describes how the Trifecta—the Warrior, the Vipress, and the Gatekeeper—saved Nikan about 40 years ago. It describes the Trifecta, as children, coming from humble origins, training in martial arts with monks, and then approaching the gods in the Pantheon. The gods granted the Warrior a sword, the Vipress the power of hypnosis, and the sickly Gatekeeper the keys to “unlock the menagerie of the gods.” Now powerful heroes, the Trifecta then invited the 12 Warlords to a banquet, drugged them, and declared the Warrior the Emperor of Nikan. This united the country and allowed it to drive out Federation forces.
This story is part history, part fantasy—or so it seems. The fact that the Trifecta approaches the gods in a place called the Pantheon, and the impressive powers the gods give them, seems fully fantastical at this point. But the fact remains that the Trifecta certainly did something out of the ordinary to be able to unite Nikan, though what exactly that might’ve been remains a mystery.
Themes
After the show, Kitay is disturbed: the story portrays “Nikara politics as usual,” with warring Warlords paying more attention to their own squabbles than to the threat that Mugen poses. Rin, though, doesn’t want to talk politics—she wants to talk about the Pantheon and shamans. She insists there must be some proof to the story, since there are records of shamans dating back centuries. Perhaps, she suggests, the Cike are shamans. Kitay is exasperated and insists all the stories are just exaggerated and only help the Empress (the Vipress in the story) hold on to power. Rin doesn’t argue, but she does observe that the puppet show glossed over the fact that Nikan won the Second Poppy War because of the genocide on Speer.
Kitay sees the shadow puppet story as pure propaganda, and unsuccessful propaganda at that—children might be taken in by the theatrics and fantastical elements, but educated Kitay is not. Rin, on the other hand, finds that the story ignites her desire to learn more about Nikan’s history, particularly its spiritual and religious history.
Themes
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Rin and Kitay spend the next few days lounging, eating, drinking, and gossiping about their classmates. Kitay reveals that he doesn’t actually want to be in the military—he’d rather be a scholar—but as the Defense Minister’s only son, he didn’t have a choice. They briefly discuss Kesegi, but Rin doesn’t want to think about home. She’s too focused on trying to “erase her past” and become something better. Finally, it’s time for the festival’s parade. Rin stands with Kitay’s family beforehand, and Kitay observes that Nezha’s father, the Dragon Warlord, isn’t present.
This passage reveals that Kitay is going through a very similar coming-of-age process as Rin. He too must choose which pieces of his family and his past to keep, while also trying to forge his own path. For now, it seems as though he’s mostly choosing to let his father dictate his identity. Rin, on the other hand, seeks to reject her family outright and become someone—and something—totally different.
Themes
Then, it’s time for the parade to start, so Rin goes to find a spot to watch (she can’t march in the parade with Kitay’s family). Huge puppets of mythical beasts go first, and Rin marvels at the Vermilion Phoenix. The country’s “illustrious houses” are next, and they’re boring. The Empress herself comes last. She’s not conventionally beautiful, but Rin finds herself overcome by the woman’s beauty and, when she meets the Empress’s eyes, she feels compelled to do anything to serve her.
Rin’s interest in the Phoenix foreshadows events to come. Her compulsion to serve the Empress is particularly interesting, given that the shadow play Rin and Kitay saw suggested the Empress can hypnotize people. It seems, perhaps, to be true—and notably, Rin herself doesn’t seem aware that this is possibly what happened. Hypnotism perhaps explains why the Empress has such a tight grip on power, despite Nikan’s political instability.
Themes
