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Chapter 16
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
Rin and Nezha sit together, savoring the extra bread the Seventh Division brought and discussing Nezha’s miraculous recovery after the battle at Sinegard. It’s comforting having Nezha around, both because he understands where Rin came from and because he’s stopped acting so superior. Now, he’s a good friend. They argue about the Cike’s “madness,” and Nezha asks why Rin’s eyes aren’t red, like Altan’s are and other Speerlies were. Enki appears, interrupting their conversation, and Nezha leaves. Enki insists that Nezha is actually a shaman, as nobody survives stab wounds to the abdomen and survives, to say nothing of walking mere months later. Rin scoffs, but Enki sends her to Altan’s office. There, Altan forbids Rin from speaking to Nezha, whom he believes is spying for Jun. He then grabs her shoulders and shakes her, insisting she’s “deadweight” since she can’t call the fire yet.
Nezha’s transformation has made him a tolerable and even enjoyable person to be around. This highlights that every young character in this book is on their own journey as they come of age, and part of the struggle as they grow up is setting aside the parts of their identity that aren’t serving them (in Nezha’s case, his superiority). He makes an interesting point that Rin doesn’t have the Speerlies’ customary red eyes. This could be a quirk of genetics, but it may also point to there being something fundamentally different in how Rin approaches shamanism. Altan sows more division between the Cike and the rest of the military when he forbids Rin from speaking to Nezha.
Themes
Later, Nezha sits down across from Rin in the mess hall and immediately notices her red eyes and the bruises on her collarbones. He’s shocked that Rin is putting up with Altan’s abuse. Upset that Nezha seems to think they’re good friends now, Rin calls him out for tormenting her at Sinegard. He points out that she humiliated him in front of their class and in front of Jun—and that she almost killed him. Nezha admits that he was afraid and apologizes, but Rin is too shocked to accept his apology, and he storms away. Rin keeps watch alone that night, feeling like she can’t do anything to fix her situation. She then begins to hear strange noises coming from Khurdalain’s downtown, and civilians begin rushing away from the noise, terrified.
Rin isn’t used to seeing her relationships with others evolve. So far, she’s gone off (or has been cast off) when she’s ready to leave part of her past behind, as when she roughly rejected Kesegi’s affection upon leaving for Sinegard. Thus, it’s uncomfortable for her to have this honest conversation with Nezha about their past—and a clear peace offering that would let them move forward. This speaks to Rin’s independence, as well as to her general lone-wolf status.
Themes
Rin joins Baji, Unegen, and Qara on the street, and they all hurry to Altan’s signal. Altan and Jun are arguing about who evacuated civilians, but Jun insists it wasn’t him. Altan snatches a woman out of the crowd and forces her to explain: there’s a chimei downtown, and it’s tearing corpses’ faces off. She isn’t sure what it looks like, but it’s a huge beast with red eyes. Though Rin only barely remembers the little reading she did about the beast, she offers to go deal with it. Nezha volunteers to go with her, and Jun agrees. As they hurry over rooftops, they discuss chimeis, which can imitate people you care about—nobody wants to stab a beast who looks like their mother. Rin also notes that nobody has ever killed a chimei, so killing it won’t be simple.
Things take a decidedly fantastical turn when the chimei begins terrorizing Khurdalain’s residents. Rin begins to see how useful Jiang’s strange and unorthodox educational methods were when she realizes that she alone has done any useful research into this creature. The chimei’s horrifying actions—tearing people’s faces off and assuming others’ identities—speak again to how war is fundamentally horrific, whether one is dealing with human enemies or mythical beings.
Themes
The downtown marketplace is littered with bodies, all missing their faces. Some are Federation soldiers, and Rin doesn’t think the Federation sent the chimei. She remembers Jiang saying he’d “summon into existence beings that should not be in this world” just before opening the void at Sinegard. He always said there’s a price for everything—now, Rin understands. A few minutes later, Rin and Nezha discover a tiny, frightened girl hiding in a wagon. As Rin meets the girl’s eyes, she finds she wants to protect this girl, even with her own life. Nezha gently helps the girl down and asks her to tell them what happened. She does, and when Nezha points out a plot hole in the girl’s story, she smiles—and turns into a large furry beast with the girl’s tiny head.
Rin continues to encounter situations where she receives inarguable proof that Jiang had the right idea. She can see firsthand that letting the chimei loose into the mortal world was a bad idea—it’s wreaking havoc, and the beast itself is horrifying. But still, Rin feels the need to prove her worth—to commanders, to Nezha, and to everyone else who’s doubted her. It’s this need that leads her to continually reject Jiang’s teachings, even when she can otherwise acknowledge that he had the right idea.
Themes
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The chimei has Nezha, and Rin can’t cut through its fur with her sword. The beast looks into Rin’s eyes and suddenly transforms into Kesegi—and Rin finds that she no longer sees its massive body. When Nezha begins to hack at the chimei, Rin gets between them, feeling awful for abandoning Kesegi. But she slowly realizes this isn’t Kesegi and that the chimei is manipulating her emotions. The creature throws Nezha away and runs into the shadows, appearing above and then leaping down onto Rin’s back. It breaks Rin’s sword, but Rin still has her torch. She thrusts it into the chimei’s face. Then, the chimei becomes Altan.
The chimei preys on people by manipulating their love for fellow human beings. Rin genuinely loved Kesegi, her foster brother—and she also loves Altan in a complicated way. Thus, the question then becomes whether Rin (or anyone, for that matter) can put aside their love for friends and family to kill the chimei—that is, to see the chimei for what it is and recognize that it’s not human.
Themes
Rin knows she has to burn the chimei’s face off. The chimei, as Altan, screams and begs her not to. Then, it tells Rin that she loves Altan and can’t kill him. Rin loses focus and tries to tell herself that she isn’t actually killing Altan, but she then decides that she’s killing the beast—even if it’s Altan. She begins beating the face with the torch and then burns it until it stops struggling, and she reveals a tiny skull. Then, she vomits. Nezha comes to soon after, and they discuss what happened. Nezha reveals that his little brother died years ago, and when the chimei screamed, Nezha felt like his brother’s death was his fault. Rin won’t say whose identity the chimei assumed for her. They return to the base, and Nezha apologizes for mistreating Rin and insulting Altan. Rin forgives him.
This is a major turning point for Rin’s character. Up to this point, she’s been fairly intent on seeing others’ humanity, respecting it, and protecting it. But here, she decides it doesn’t matter if Altan/the chimei is in fact a fellow human being, and even one that she loves—she’s going to kill him anyway. With this choice, Rin begins to lose some of her humanity, even as she arguably does her country an immense service by dispatching the chimei. In contrast, Nezha becomes more human and sympathetic as he reveals what happened with his brother and apologizes.
Themes
Rin then goes to Altan’s office to share the news of the chimei’s demise. Altan is in the shadows, and Rin can’t see him. She’s fine with this, as she continues to flash back to the chimei Altan’s burning, gory face. She wonders what she’s capable of, if she was able to kill a being she genuinely believed was Altan. Perhaps, she wonders, it takes “a deep, burning resentment, fanned by a particularly cruel kind of abuse” to call the Phoenix.
For her part, Rin is too busy considering what she learned from killing the chimei to notice that it’s out of character for Altan to stay hidden—this suggests he’s hiding something. Still, she’s learning more about Altan, possibly that he's suffered immense abuse in his past and that the abuse has led to his constant, angry connection to the Phoenix.
Themes
