I like the Poppy War but there are many issues with it. Part 2.

Spoilers for the entire trilogy.

So in book 2, we meet the Hesperians. Honestly, they made the book feel overstuffed. We had North vs South Nikara, Mugen oppression of Nikara and everyone oppressing Speer and now we are adding European colonialism?! Thank god we didn’t meet Bollonia.

I guess you could say that they were more developed than the Muganese, but not by much.

The ages of the Ketreyids throw me off. So 20 something Chaghan has a cousin (Tseveri) who should be around Jiang’s age if she were alive (probably 50s). Okay, though I have to say said Ketreyids were more developed than Hesperia.

Rin doesn’t have a lot of introspection on having to possibly fight a war with the Ketreyids. Especially considering with what she did to the Muganese. Could have been interesting to see her thoughts.

Oh we finally meet Kesegi again. Now that I think about it, Rin barely thought about him. Some sister she was. And did she even think a lot about Tutor Feyrik anyway? More so than Kesegi, though it begs the question why she didn’t write to Feyrik, especially since we never see him again in the series.

The final part of the book was rushed. Su Daji appeared out of nowhere to fight Rin. Nezha betrays Rin. So now they’re enemies again. Would’ve felt more impactful if he didn’t bully her.

Speaking of the Yins, we never got the in depth reason why Vaisra wanted to let Hesperia take control. His wife seemed more of a wannabe Hesperian than him.

And Nezha in general said some inconsistent stuff. Yes Altan did abuse Rin, but were you any better to her at Sinegard Nezha? You said it yourself, you bullied her. And why would you suggest splitting the Republic’s Army to fight the Muganese and the Republic? Since when did he care about the South?

Finally, Rin decides that she cares about the South and Peasants like her inspiration Mao. Thing is, Mao was inspired by western works on Class. What exactly inspired Rin? It’s more jarring since Vaisra was inspired by the West for his democracy. Starts to feel the book is diverting too much from its inspiration

Book three

So does Rin have her southern accent back or not? The book seems inconsistent on this.

And we fight the Muganese again. Honestly, they are one of the most poorly written nations I have ever read. The few attempts at humanisation seem shallow since we barely get any names apart from one guy who Rin kills.

Why does Rin never interact with the Muganese? Especially since Kitay mentions having Muganese prisoners. What exactly happens to these prisoners? Why did we never see the Muganese call out Rin?

The first third of the book reminds you that Mugan = bad. As if the first book didn’t hammer it enough. Barely any nuance. We see a town that the Muganese integrated into. Maybe we learn more about the Muganese? See a dynamic where the town are fine with them

Nope. Also, who told the Muganese that Rin was attacking? We never find out.

The things that happened to the collaborators with the Muganese seemed glossed over. Also, the book tries to add some depth to collaborateurs, but it feels hollow. It made it seem that the collaborators were mostly men, despite evidence in real life that female collaborators faced a lot of abuse themselves. Why did we never see what happened to female collaborators, especially since the book made it seem like the Colloborateurs punished were just men who oppressed women.

I’ll continue this in part three.