This series has gotten me thinking a lot about the concept of a Moral Event Horizon. The basic idea (for those who don’t want to fall into the TV Tropes rabbit hole) is that sometimes a character takes an action from which there is no going back - they cross a line from which no redemption is possible. The classic example is probably Grand Moff Tarkin from Star Wars Episode IV: from the moment he orders the destruction of Alderaan, his character needs to die.
I’ve come to question the concept, and realized I was always thinking about it wrong. I always thought of it as a thing that left it virtually impossible for a reader not to hate a character - someone like Tarkin or Joffrey Baratheon. But I’ve come to realize that it is entirely possible for a character to cross a moral event horizon and still retain sympathy. Consider someone like Jaime Lannister, or nearly every character Joe Abercrombie has ever written.
Rin didn’t step over the moral event horizon so much as take a flying leap over it way earlier in the series. She then hit the ground running, and kinda just sped up from there. I never stopped liking her and sympathizing with her (except for a few moments towards the end of this book). And yet she was, nonetheless, irredeemable. Credit to Kuang for pulling that off and sustaining it for most of the series.
This book picks up right where the previous book left off. A great deal of the book’s emotional energy is spent on Rin dealing with her feelings towards Nezha following the ending of book 2. Most of the plot energy of the book is Rin (and Kitay and Venka) trying to figure out a winning strategy (or at least a survival strategy) for their part of this very messy multi-sided civil war they are in the middle of. The biggest challenge is the Hesperian-backed Republic with all their advanced technology - firearms, airships, etc. (Parallels to actual 20th century Chinese history continue to be very clear.) Rin has her link with the Phoenix god, but she’s only one person and can’t be everywhere.
I’ve been worried since the beginning of this series about how it would get wrapped up, given that Kuang was explicit in saying Rin was inspired by the rise of Mao Zedong. As Mao was responsible for tens of millions of deaths, basing a book on him was a bold thing to do, and a difficult thing to pull off appropriately. I think Kuang managed it.
In the end, the Poppy Wars trilogy was both a fresh read and a horribly brutal one. I strongly recommend it, but it’s not something to be read lightly.