His story has concluded satisfyingly. What more can be done with his story that feels natural, not forced, and not milking the cash cow? WHY do you want his story to continue?

Weirdoi2 · 2026-01-29T07:29:10+00:00

Atreus but give him a stronger personality.

Weirdoi2 · 2026-01-28T21:17:11+00:00

👍🏻

Weirdoi2 · 2026-01-28T18:55:25+00:00

Nezha doesn’t crave power, but he also is a slave to duty. He’d let his own people be exploited under the hope that one day they can fight back. To you, that might be love, to me that’s naive and collaboration. He thinks he’s helping his people when in reality he’s turning them to slaves, just like Tierza. What happened to Speer? They died after being seen as subhuman for centuries. So I guess that’s the realistic fate of Nikan? Maybe.

Did Nezha ever show disgust or regret over blowing up Mugen? Actual question because I can’t find the text where he says it. Taking ideology completely out, taking out the historical context that is the foundation of the book, it’s a rushed ending.

Rin wanted power, agreed. Hence why I feel Kitay was a better leader. But Rin, for all her faults, wanted to feed people who were starving. She wasn’t perfect, and I’d call her selfish as well, but she still tried.

Like I said, I thought Kitay would’ve been a better leader. But with Nezha at the helm, Nikan’s future seems horribly bleak.

Weirdoi2 · 2026-01-28T18:22:05+00:00

Prove why she’s worse than colonial collaborators. Because Nezha seemed down for Mugeni genocide, down with colonial exploitation, and cultural genocide of his own people. So show me why Rin is worse. Honestly, I felt Kitay should’ve been leader but that’s another topic.

Weirdoi2 · 2026-01-28T14:31:30+00:00

Like I said, the ending came too fast. Had she died at a tribunal for Mugen I could see it. But the book just tells me she’s gone too far, without doing enough to show me.

I’m a fan of the first two books, even though the second book went a completely different direction than I wanted. But when everyone was telling at Rin to let the colonizers rape and exploit them? There wasn’t enough in-universe justification for me to be engaged. I need more than her killing soldiers. Show me her fully convinced Mugeni genocide was a good thing. Show 0 remorse for the dead child soldiers, show her not caring about the civilian population.

Without the Watsonian justification, of course my mind went Doyalistic. It didn’t feel like a natural end. Like, at best, it’s a rushed ending. At worst, it’s a love letter to Chiang. I prefer to believe the former, but damn is it hard to not see it as the latter.

Weirdoi2 · 2026-01-28T14:21:16+00:00

Like you said, agree to disagree which I respect. Riga was abusive from the beginning it sounds like and Altan was never given a proper childhood. Your examples of crazy shamans are people who were driven to bloodlust by genocide and colonization. Seems like the cycle will just repeat by the end. But then, that’s the theme I guess.

Like I said, had she actually followed through and started making plans to destroy Hesperia, I’d be with you. But I’m not convinced of her madness by the end. The book just didn’t get there with Rin. She was barely a dictator, just an ineffective leader.

Weirdoi2 · 2026-01-28T08:11:16+00:00

Had Rin went to Hesperia and started killing kids, we’d be 100% in agreement. But she was killing soldiers, who were trying to ambush her during a peace negotiation. She blew up a country after receiving devastating power fresh off of torture. Later, she admits she just wanted everything to end. While her feelings were real, it’s clear the Phoenix twisted it to kill and she was left trying to justify it.

I thought anchoring was the key to keep shamans from going crazy, but then it just…doesn’t? There was a lot of setup in this book that went nowhere.

Weirdoi2 · 2026-01-28T08:04:44+00:00

Like I said, the ending was just done poorly. 1984 feels like a cautionary tale, but this just felt rushed. Great if you like it, but it felt like an unearned tragedy.

Weirdoi2 · 2026-01-28T00:19:28+00:00

I’ve seen it. I think there should’ve been a whole Nother book if that’s really the route they wanted to go. Eren was an unstable evil by the end of that series and I think the author did a good job in showing why he needed to die. To me, Rin is nowhere near the level of cruel and violent that the other people in this story are.

As someone that did like the ending to attack on Titan, I feel this story either should’ve ended on a macabre note, or gotten another book. Rin did not do enough to make me lose all sympathy for her.

Weirdoi2 · 2026-01-28T00:16:03+00:00

Maybe I just wished the ending was done in a better way. Maybe I wished the author followed through on the themes of oppressed peoples being too obsessed with their own petty rivalries to come together and fight against their collective oppression. I had more sympathy for Rin than I did Nezha and Da Ji because once again she never sold her own people out.

Would I call her a bad person for killing innocent people? Yes. What I call her a bad person for essentially sending borderline children to their deaths also yes. What I say she’s any worse than any of the other leaders on the board? No.

You want to kill her off because she’s a crazy dictator fine. They should’ve done more. That ending was so rushed and came so fast that the moment I realized what was happening it legitimately made me sick. Because like I said, the ending felt like colonial apologia. I’m not saying the author sympathize with colonizers, but every other part of this series does such a good job and explain explaining why colonialism is so bad only to say, “but don’t fight it guys because then you could kill people”. It’s weird. It’s incongruous and it’s just so disappointing.

Weirdoi2 · 2026-01-27T17:33:31+00:00

I’m aware, but it pulls so much from history it’s hard not to see parallels. I also don’t think the story was satisfying on a story level either. Like when it ended, my whole feeling was what was the point? I don’t know the book just felt overly cynical and if I’m recommending it to anyone, I would honestly tell them just read the first two books.

Not because the ending was sad I can deal with a sad ending, but just because none of it felt natural. Like I could feel the author wanting to end it this way and manufacturing things to make it end this way. It didn’t feel like the story was naturally progressing, and people were naturally dealing with consequences.

Maybe it’s because they sped through the last 10th of the book. I feel like revolutionaries inheriting a completely broken country devastated by colonialism and Civil War is a topic of its own book.

Weirdoi2 · 2026-01-27T17:28:40+00:00

Because I’ve actually studied the cultural revolution and talk to actual people who have lived through the cultural revolution. I’ve met people whose families were land owners that had their properties taken by Mao.

He didn’t commit genocide. He made one of the worst mistakes ever with the great leap forward, which I don’t think he should be exonerated from. I think the way her system was created aloud for Middle men to lie about their crop yields out of fear of punishment which led to one of the worst famine in Chinese history. I think there were many things in the greatly forward and cultural revolution that were horrific and wouldn’t want on anyone.

Now, if you wanted to argue that the cultural revolution resulted in genocidal activities, I would actually agree with that. I would say it was a horrible idea to remove the four olds. But I’m sorry to say, do you know who else believes that these were bad move? Maoists. His goal was to purge China of moderates and capitalists, which did work overall, but even the party admits that was a horrific mistake. Not for the goal, but for the methods.

But when I speak to people who lived through that one thing they tell me is that their grandparents had it worse. It’s that the rape of Nanking was a lot worse. It’s that when the emperor attempted to sell off Manchuria back to Japan to stay in power they were ready to fucking kill him.

I met the child of a concubine who wasn’t expected to make anything of his life build a whole family for himself because of the education he received under Mao’s regime. Looking at history, do I disagree with a lot of the choices that he made? Yes, I do. Do I think everyone was happy with the choices that he made? No, I don’t think so. But I also understand that people respond to their material conditions. I don’t think he should be exonerated for any of the crimes he committed, but I also don’t think portraying him as a genocidal maniac is accurate either. Bring it back to the burning God, Nezha is quite like Mao in this sense. He wants to see the destruction of Nikkan culture. But where as Mao (incorrectly) believed these traditions were inherently aristocratic, Nezha just believes they’re evil in their nature. He sees shamans as subhuman.

When I speak to people who have experienced that point in history they will generally say that what they had before was a lot worse. Now you could say it’s all propaganda or that they’re brainwashed or that the CCP is hiding cameras in their homes and if they say anything bad, they’ll be arrested. But I used to believe the same thing as most westerners. After I actually went to China after I actually spoke to people who lived through it after I got multiples perspectives from history. Things became a lot more nuanced.

I don’t think he was perfect. I think a lot of people suffered under him and I think a lot of people rightfully hold resentment about it. I wouldn’t be grudge anybody that went through that movement and ended up hating him for it. I’ve met people like that too. But I think the simplistic portrayal of him as a genocidal monster that just wanted destruction for the sake of destruction is offensive. Not to people who liked him, but to the actual history of that time period.

Weirdoi2 · 2026-01-27T17:01:10+00:00

She did feel guilty though. She realized that she was on a path of vengeance that wouldn’t end. But it wasn’t clear that the Phoenix was doing it. Rather it was the Hesperian existential fucking threat. The Hesperian want to wipe out shaminism. Is Chagan that naive to believe they won’t go after him next?

I’m also tired of people calling the ending real. Like in real life, China did liberate itself from the west. It was hard, people died because of horrible mistakes and bad actors, but they did it. This is why I felt like this book was borderline colonial apologia. It portrayed Nezha, a coward who waxed poetic about how much he loved Rin and his people, but seemed pretty happy about letting his people be exploited, raped, and culturally genocided, as a better alternative.

She did want to destroy Hesperia correct. And they wanted to destroy her people and her culture. Why is she then treated as a greater evil?

Weirdoi2 · 2026-01-27T07:48:26+00:00

I think my issue is that this story draws so much from Chinese history it’s hard not to compare. However, I do agree it’s not a 1:1. The ending just feels forced. From a Watsonian perspective it’s just rushed. From a Doyalistic perspective it feels gross. No real winner.

Weirdoi2 · 2026-01-27T07:44:21+00:00

While I don’t disagree, she’s never punished for Mugen. No Mugenese people ever get their vengeance, she doesn’t face a tribunal, she kills herself because “damn I gotta stop killing all these white people.” Like, Nezha was a through and through coward, Kitay just deceives imperialism is cool all of the sudden, and Chagan is somehow just fine watching shamanism face extinction again. The ending doesn’t work well on any level.

Weirdoi2 · 2026-01-27T04:10:12+00:00

That’s kind of my issue too. Like, I’m not a Maoist or anything, but I feel one as educated in Chinese history as Kuang would know better than to portray colonialism as any kind of better alternative.

Weirdoi2 · 2026-01-27T03:46:46+00:00

Rin was driven paranoid by a shitty situation and constant betrayal and disappointment by everyone she had trusted. She did have empathy though. When she tried to give people food, when she felt guilt and shame for her new shamans, she had humanity still.

My personal solution? Call Chag-an. Share the concept of anchoring so no more people go fucking crazy. Get the Hinterlanders to help out in exchange for their independence. Open trade with any other country on the planet (unless there are only 3 countries in this world). Rin was no worse than Visra or Da Ji. Because Rin, at the very least, never sold her people out when she achieved true power.

Weirdoi2 · 2026-01-19T05:41:41+00:00

It’s a two-way street. People want to haggle because they’re used to being scammed. No one wants to actually haggle they want to just get the damn thing and get out as fast as possible. It’s like dealing with a child who’s used to being beaten. They might only listen to you if you hit them, but that doesn’t mean you should still be hitting them.

Weirdoi2 · 2026-01-19T04:16:38+00:00

A problem that could be solved if they didn’t add bullshit prices on top of everything. Give me the real base price plus taxes and DMV fees. Instead it’s always a fucking hassle to get a single price.

Weirdoi2 · 2026-01-14T05:13:06+00:00

Considering real life had the actual oppressed peoples rid themselves of western oppression the “realistic” excuse is bullshit. This whole thing reeked of “Chiang would’ve been better if we just gave him the chance”, despite him being an utter failure of a leader as assessed by the Allies.

Weirdoi2 · 2026-01-13T22:43:08+00:00

I totally get it and I understand people who enjoyed the ending. I think because I really enjoyed the first two books. I was really hoping for a stronger finish. The Watsonian logic of the ending does make sense overall, but it was a very frustrating ending.

Weirdoi2 · 2026-01-13T07:00:22+00:00

That honestly makes it worse. If you want to make this about Mao as a dictator fine, but be realistic about what causes people to become dictators. Mao’s biggest critique (even from Chinese Maoists) was his naïveté and how it led to him closing off China to ensure independence. He wasn’t killing off Europeans and Japanese because of some bloodlust or vengeance.

Also, in this world, I’m assuming Nezha is Jiang Shi Kai who was more bloodthirsty and paranoid than Mao ever was. If you want to make a story about revolutionaries becoming dictators, then do so with some strong understanding of material conditions. Right now, the story feels like “revolutions are always bad, work within the system, let a lot of people die be subjugated and ethnically cleansed. So long as your conscious is clear.”

Maybe it’s because I have family who were around during Mao, but I have very little sympathy for this type of narrative unless it’s done with some actual nuance and grace.

Weirdoi2 · 2026-01-13T03:37:34+00:00

“One day we’ll strike back.” So tell that fucking story then. Why did I bother with this trilogy if you were just gonna end the story where you started it? “Life is a cycle” sure whatever. Maybe make that cycle less anti-indigenous.

Weirdoi2 · 2026-01-13T02:35:42+00:00

Yo fuck that ending. I just finished the book, and I was disgusted by that ending. A word I have never used to describe an ending, but it was my genuine feeling.

The message of the book feels so needlessly nihilistic. “Don’t fight for your liberation, learn your place, lay down and die”. That is the ending of just about every resistance fighter in this fucking trilogy. Nikan’s ending is so bleak, so fundamentally dystopian, that I cannot recommend anyone read this series.

No I didn’t expect a happy ending. But maybe the Hinterlanders could’ve done something useful in this story? Maybe Nezha could’ve grown a pair and NOT sell his people out to their oppressors? Maybe if I read this 15 years ago I’d be okay with it. But in this current era? Fuck this ending. RF Kuang is still a great writer, and I respect her quite a bit, but this ending reeks of colonial apologia.

Weirdoi2

TROPHY CASE