The Burning God

The Burning God is the 2020 conclusion to R. F. Kuang’s military high fantasy Poppy War Trilogy. It was preceded by 2018’s The Poppy War and 2019’s The Dragon Republic. Kuang, a Ph.D. student in East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale with two Masters degrees, has written another historical fantasy, Babel, or The Necessity of Violence, and Yellowface, a satirical suspense novel.

The Burning God concludes the story of Fang Runin, called “Rin,” a Speerly shaman who can summon the power of the Phoenix. With her allies Chen Kitay and Sring Venka, and a peasant army made of millions, Rin faces off against her ally-turned-enemy Yin Nezha’s Republican forces, backed by the colonial empire of Hesperia, who want to eradicate shamans and Nikara culture. The novel is inspired by the Chinese Civil War and Great Famine, and it deals with the themes The Corrupting Influence of Power, The Dehumanizing Effects of War, and The Multifaceted Nature of Empire and Colonialism.

The Burning God won the 2020 Goodreads Choice Award for Fantasy and the series as a whole netted Kuang the World Science Fiction Society’s Astounding Award for Best New Writer.

This guide refers to the 2020 Harper Voyager paperback.

Content Warning: The source material and guide contain depictions of racism, rape, mental illness, child abuse, child sexual abuse, child death, death by suicide, substance use, graphic violence, physical abuse, and emotional abuse.

Plot Summary

In the Prologue, Su Daji describes undertaking the anchor bond with Yin Riga and Jiang Ziya. An anchor bond fully melds the mind of a shaman with that of another individual to keep them lucid and stable. It also bonds their lives together so that the death of one leads to the death of another.

In Part 1, Fang Runin, or “Rin”—a shaman believed to be the last living member of the Speerly people—liberates cities from Mugenese occupation for the Southern Coalition. The Empire of Nikan—the primary location for the action in The Burning God—has been intermittently at war with the neighboring Mugen Federation for decades. A local rebel leader, Yang Souji, encourages Rin to work with the people of the South rather than decimating areas through sheer force. Rin thinks her magical abilities and nominal victories qualify her for leadership, but Monkey Warlord Lin Gurubai wants her to be patient. Rin rigs a vote so that she can take her forces south on an offensive in Rooster Province. Souji tries to teach Rin strategy, but the way civilians in Leiyang fight back against their Mugenese oppressors convinces Rin she can weaponize mass Nikara (an adjective meaning “of Nikan”) casualties. Villagers in liberated towns take graphic revenge on the Mugenese and their Nikara collaborators. Rin and her close ally Chen Kitay are joined by Sring Venka, who left her position as a spy in the North after nearly being discovered. Rin saves two girls, Pipaji and Jiuto, from being sold into forced sex work.

In Rin’s hometown of Tikany, they see that the Mugenese committed mass murder of civilians and fled before Rin’s army could arrive. They excavate the killing fields and find a boy, Dulin, buried alive. Rin hears some girls talking about an old woman in a hut and suspects it’s Daji. She brings Daji to camp. Daji tells Rin and Kitay that she wants to help them raise an army of shamans—powerful fighters who can access the power of the gods. Rin is interested, but Kitay thinks it is cruel to subject people to shamanism, since shamans inevitably die young, often after their gods take full possession of their minds. At a celebration dance, Souji makes sexual advances on Rin, but she denies him. During the celebration, dirigibles from Hesperia—a distant, technologically advanced empire with colonialist intentions—fly overhead, bombing everything. Rin fights with her former ally and now enemy Yin Nezha, but she cannot bring herself to kill him. She flees instead before falling unconscious. When she wakes, Kitay has been kidnapped. She’s captured by Souji and Gurubai, who want to hand her over to Yin Vaisra, the father of Yin Nezha. Daji bewitches the men and orders them to fly her and Rin to Chuluu Korikh to free Jiang.

In Part 2, Daji recounts watching Rin’s home island of Speer burn. Though she knows it’s Riga’s fault, his emotional and physical abuse of her and Jiang makes both too afraid to stand up to him. As Riga and Jiang fight, Daji puts a Seal on their minds, preventing them from accessing their memories.

A missive from Hesperian General Joseph Tarcquet details the resources they’re primed to extract from Nikan. They are experimenting on Nezha to build an anti-shaman weapon. Tarcquet thinks when Rin falls, the South will fall.

At Chuluu Korikh, soldiers carry Rin into the mountain and inter her in a stone plinth. She confronts the specter of Altan Trengsin, her former mentor who died in The Poppy War, then wakes to Jiang breaking her out. Rin is angry with him for abandoning her in The Poppy War. That night, she and Daji catch Jiang up on the political situation, while Jiang and Daji coach Rin on how to mythologize her legacy. They journey to New City, where Kitay is being held. Jiang can feel his Gatekeeper persona—his identity as one of the three ultra-powerful shamans known as the Trifecta, which also included Daji and Riga—breaking free from the Seal, and is fearful of his own memories. In New City, Rin is stunned by Hesperian technology.

They enter the church where Kitay is being held. She hides as Nezha visits Kitay. Nezha is frustrated with Hesperia and wishes he could fight alongside Kitay and Rin, but feels like circumstances are out of his control. When he leaves, Rin frees Kitay and they, Jiang, and Daji leave to get the Southern Army. Kitay confesses that after his internment, he wonders if Hesperians are superior to Nikara. At the Baolei Mountains, Jiang single-handedly fends off the Hesperian and Republican armies while Rin and Kitay meet Venka and help the Southerners flee through a cave system. Jiang brings down Vaisra’s dirigible, and Rin kills Vaisra.

Rin kills Gurubai, who faces his death nobly. She convinces the Southerners that Souki is responsible for their suffering, and they kill him. Venka guesses they’re going to wake the Dragon Emperor, and Rin confirms. Jiang grows frantically resistant to waking Riga, and Daji drugs him. Rin and the Southerners march for months through the snowy Baolei Mountains. Rin gets fractured information about the Speerly general Hanelai from Jiang. Starving, the Southerners turn to cannibalism.

Once they’re through the mountains, they’re welcomed by Dog Warlord Cholang. Rin is greeted by Chaghan, now leader of the Hundred Clans. He takes her to Hanelai’s vengeful spirit to show her Riga’s implication in the Speerly genocide and convince her not to wake him. Despite this, Cholang’s troops escort her, Daji, and Jiang to the Heavenly Temple on Mount Tianshen, where they wake Riga. Rin appeals to Riga for help, but he shows her a memory of himself handing over Speerly children, including Altan, to the Federation. Rin realizes she can’t work with Riga. Jiang takes a blade Riga meant for Rin and tells her to run. Outside, Rin uses fire to summon Hesperian dirigibles. She faints, and when she wakes, the dirigibles and Trifecta are fighting in a battle that destroys both sides. Though dirigibles have decimated Cholang’s troops leaving few alive, she’s elated.

In Part 3, Nezha recalls his father telling him a story about the first Yin family shaman, who turned into the dragon in the grotto. He tells Nezha he isn’t strong enough to carry their family burden.

Rin proposes that Venka and Cholang approach Arlong to the north, and Kitay and Rin to the south. While Kitay starts rebuilding Hesperian technology, Rin starts training Pipaji, Dulin, Lianhua, and Merchi as shamans. Pipaji accidentally kills Merchi the first time she channels poison through her god. Lianhua has healing powers, and Dulin can cause earthquakes and sinkholes. They use their abilities as they take over cities on their march. Rin becomes convinced she’s a fated ruler.

Rin receives word from Venka that Nezha proposed to meet in battle at the mountainous town of Xuzhou. After their offensive, Nezha retreats, and Rin realizes he wanted to measure the extent of her shamans’ powers. She resolves to poison the dragon in the grotto to kill Nezha’s power at its base. Her forces fight in Arlong while Rin and her shamans go to the grotto. She fights Nezha, who instantly kills Dulin and defeats Pipaji. Their battle awakens the dragon, who kills the rest of Rin’s men and starts to drown Arlong. Nezha offers to go with the dragon if it stops wrecking the town.

Dirigibles fly overhead, releasing anti-shaman lightning. Bands on Nezha’s wrists channel it toward him, giving Rin an opportunity to use her power to take down the fleet. The dragon retreats. She can’t bring herself to kill Nezha, so she takes Pipaji and flees. Pipaji is being possessed by her god, and Rin kills her after she begs to die. Later, she, Kitay and Nezha meet alone and drink to mourn their fallen. The next day, Rin is brought to Sister Petra, whom she kills by taking her mind to the Pantheon and leaving her there.

Rin and Kitay try to rule from Dragon Province, but Rin keeps finding letters from Nezha everywhere, though he’s fled to Speer. Rin accuses Venka of being Nezha’s spy. Venka denies it and is killed with a crossbow bolt when trying to save Rin from an assassin. Rin and Kitay leave for Tikany, where she tries to summon enthusiasm for an offensive war against Hesperia. Rin believes she’s become like a god on earth. The civilians are disillusioned, thinking they won the war by defeating the Republic and chasing Hesperia away. When they burn the poppy fields she was going to sell for supply money, Kitay suggests they ally with Nezha’s remaining forces.

Rin is now convinced Kitay is allied with Nezha. They meet Nezha on Speer, and he tries to present a truce. Rin lures out the nearby Hesperian fleet, destroying them and knocking out Nezha. Kitay closes their anchor bond, preventing Rin from accessing the Phoenix’s power. Rin wants to destroy Kitay and brings him to the spirit realm to break him, before realizing she’s treating him like Riga treated Jiang. Rin realizes she will continue on her current path of destruction until the world is destroyed. She thinks that if she dies, Nezha might have enough leverage over Hesperia to survive their occupation. After Kitay nods his assent, she wraps Nezha’s hands around her own and stabs herself, ending her and Kitay’s lives. Nezha, mourning, contemplates how by destroying their country Rin might have given him space to construct better systems in place of corrupt ones. He faces the coming Hesperian fleet alone.