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Chapter 2
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 enter the main hall and kneel with their other first-year classmates. The older apprentices sit around the room. Everyone falls silent as a tiny woman marches in leading five men and one woman behind her. She introduces herself as Jima Lain, the grand master of the school and a current commander of the Sinegardian Reserve Forces. Jima explains that this school trains generals, not just soldiers, so students who can’t keep up will be dismissed. They’ll be tested at the end of the first year and will then be invited to continue studying Combat, Strategy, History, Weaponry, History, Linguistics, Medicine, or Lore. Rin notices that the apprentices all wear armbands that match the masters’ belts, though one master doesn’t wear a belt at all. She also begins to panic, realizing she might be sent home. Finally, Jima warns students that drug use won’t be tolerated.
It's almost humorous how panicked Rin is at the thought that she might not be able to keep up—the lengths she went to as she studied for the Keju suggest that she absolutely has the drive to keep up with her better-prepared classmates. Thus, her panic emphasizes her naivety and inexperience. Jima’s warning about drug use is a simple message that says that drugs are bad and that students shouldn’t use them. The novel has already begun to explore the idea that drug use, particularly opium use, is actually way more complex than Jima’s warning suggests. This sets up Sinegard Academy to be in opposition to a more nuanced understanding of drugs, the people who use them, and why.
Themes
Raban, the apprentice who stopped Nezha and Rin’s fight, leads the first-year students to the dormitories and explains their schedule. Rin discovers that she’s one of only three girls in her year. Niang seems friendly, but Venka immediately insults Rin’s darker skin tone. The following morning, Rin’s class reports for their first Combat lesson. Master Jun already seems disappointed in the students. He explains that students must never fight “irresponsibly,” and if they do, he’ll get them suspended. Everyone but Rin has already had martial arts training before. Rin watches anxiously as Venka, at Jun’s command, kicks the head off a wooden dummy. He asks how she was able to do this, and when Niang answers that Venka used ki (spiritual energy), he scoffs that ki is just “plain energy” and that martial arts merely teaches a person to channel their energy effectively.
Again, there are people who scorn Rin for her provincial upbringing, and those who seem willing to accept her, like Niang. Rin might yet fit in and make friends. Master Jun comes off as wildly superior and dismissive of his students and any individuality they might have, shown here when he scoffs that a person’s spirituality or faith could help them fight better or more effectively. Rather, he seems to want students to focus solely on him and his teaching methods. This is in line with Sinegard Academy’s goal, which Jima laid out earlier: they’re training generals, skilled soldiers who can all think and fight the same and lead Nikan to victory.
Themes
The students have History with Master Yim next. Yim pessimistically lectures that while the Old Nikara Empire “was the birthplace of modern civilization,” the Red Emperor’s death led to fighting. This fighting ultimately led to the Poppy Wars of the last century, in which the Federation of Mugen—a former tributary—invaded Nikan. Niang asks why the Federation of Mugen invaded in the first place. Yim explains that Mugen has always detested Nikan and dehumanizes the Nikara, so they felt entitled to invade Nikan. He asks students how they won the Second Poppy War. A boy named Han suggests that the Trifecta were responsible. The Trifecta were three soldiers, the Vipress (who’s the current Empress), the Dragon Emperor, and the Gatekeeper, whose martial arts abilities have been highly exaggerated in the last few decades.
Now that Rin is in school, she has Master Yim to tell her outright that Nikan’s history isn’t actually an entertaining war epic, which is how she described it while she was studying for the Keju. Rather, it's a story about the country’s disgrace and its many embarrassing failures in the last century. However, helpfully for Rin, she clearly isn’t the only one who seems to romanticize history: Han’s choice to cite the Trifecta (which is implied to be the wrong answer) seems romanticized, even if there might be some truth to the story.
Themes
Finally, a boy explains that they won because they “lost Speer,” which caused Hesperia and its navy to intervene. Yim elaborates: western powers only got involved because the Federation committed genocide on Speer, a tiny island between Nikan and Mugen. Privately, Rin has wondered if Nikan somehow sanctioned the genocide, as relations between Speer and Nikan have always been tense—Speerlies have always been ethnically and culturally different from the Nikara. Resuming his lecture, Yim explains that they only barely got the Federation out of Nikan with Hesperia’s help. Today, Speer and its fighting force is gone, the Empress is the only member of the Trifecta still alive, Hesperia is unreliable, and the Mugenese remain focused on reinvading Nikan. He insists that they’ll be ready this time.
This is the first mention the novel makes of the genocide on Speer, an island inhabited by people who are “ethnically and culturally different” from the rest of the Nikara. And notably, rather than discussing how much of a tragedy such a genocide would be, Yim and the boy frame the genocide as just another calculation powerful people made in order to win a war. This speaks to how horrific war is, and how fighting a war necessarily entails fighting powers dehumanizing their enemies (or their disposable minorities). Then, Yim also makes it clear that students, too, will learn to engage in this kind of dehumanization, as Nikan is preparing for another war with the Federation of Mugen. This is a war Rin and her classmates will fight in, if they don’t actually lead it.
Themes
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Lunch is next. Other students complain about the small portions, but Rin is just thrilled to have regular meals. She ends up seated next to Kitay, the boy who gave correct answers in Yim’s class. He has a photographic memory and grew up with Nezha and Venka, but he explains that Nezha has stopped talking to him since they started at the Academy. After lunch, snickering apprentices lead the first-year students to an enclosed garden for Lore. The Lore Master doesn’t show up—and after about 20 minutes, the students realize that there are poppies growing in the garden. Students are afraid they’ll be expelled for being close to “illegal drugs,” but Rin laughs. Some wonder if Lore is even a real class, since there were no Lore apprentices at orientation. Everyone leaves but Rin and Kitay. They figure the Lore Master is just a drug addict.
Rin’s reaction to receiving small but regular meals continues to set her apart from her classmates. The small portions imply that part of what Sinegard is trying to teach its students is to be okay with austerity—something wealthy students like Nezha and Venka seem totally unfamiliar with. The students who flee the Lore garden after noticing the poppies highlight how effective the school’s heavy-handed policy on drug use has been (opium is derived from poppy seeds). That Rin and Kitay stick around suggest they’re interested in learning more—and that they’re less judgmental than their classmates.
Themes
