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A review by emergencily
He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan
5.0
An incredible follow-up and conclusion to She Who Became the Sun. The book rotates through the POVs of 3 main characters. Zhu, who has passed the moral point of no return in her rise to power as the self-titled Radiant Emperor, leading an army to the capital to take the throne; Ouyang, on a frenzied death march away from the wreckage he wrought on his own life, towards the culmination of his revenge and self-annihilation; and Wang Baoxiang, working in the shadows as he angles to set himself on the Mongol throne to spite the ghosts of his father and brother.
These are characters maligned by the world for the essence of who they are: for their transgressions against traditional morality, and for blurring the lines of gender and sexuality. Zhu is recriminated for her ambitions of power as a woman (disguised) and for her missing limb, considered a shameful mutilation of her body that makes her unfit to lead. Ouyang, as a eunuch, is considered the embodiment of the ultimate shame, daring to stay alive in a dishonorable life. Wang Baoxiang, outcast by his own family, is seen as unforgivably effeminate - a "peach-bitten f*ggot" - by Mongol standards of masculinity.
The addition of Wang Baoxiang's POV is a breath of fresh air - apart from Ouyang and Zhu of course, he was one of the most interesting and complex characters in the first book. In contrast to Ouyang, who, shamed by the manhood that others deny him and that he sees as his stolen entitlement, tries to emulate masculinity in other ways (warmaking & woman-hating, the classics of toxic masculinity!) he delights in spitting on gender norms, and turns that into his weapon. WBX works in the shadows, subtly manipulating Ouyang and Zhu throughout the entire book. By his design, Ouyang and Zhu, inexorably drawn together in the first book but always pitted against each other, find themselves in a tentative alliance when their goals align. The respect and understanding they form of each other, as two people cast out for their difference and forced to claw their way towards survival, is probably some of the only nice stuff in the book. Ouyang is basically a sopping wet feral cat that Zhu is trying to bring in from the cold, with varying degrees of success. Having known powerlessness, they understand each other in ways no one else can. Knowing that they're stronger together, you even let yourself feel hope of seeing a better ending to their stories - which of course makes it all the more painful when it inevitably crumbles (again, by WBX's hand!). This book is emotionally devastating from start to finish - no one in this book, ever, is having a good fucking time!
On that note, no one in this book, except Ma and Zhu (our only semi-healthy relationship), is having the sex they want. We have a stone top lesbian having sex with a man for the sake of securing a military alliance; a straight man having gay sex with a closeted homophobic gay guy for political protection; a closeted subby gay guy pining his dead straight boy crush in a non-sexual BDSM relationship with the stone top lesbian, disguised as a man; a woman so estranged from her own body and emotions that she disassociates through sex with the man she can't admit she loves until he's gone; etc. The characters in this book make weapons of sex and gender for their personal and political gain.
While the first book was dark and somber, this one is downright grim - this is absolutely a tragedy. I went through the whole book gritting my teeth and dreading the tragic endings that each character was knowingly, stubbornly marching themselves towards - not to mention the constant personal losses of self, dignity, morality and love that they endure over the course of the book. It's like watching someone slowly die by a thousand cuts as they keep willingly walking themselves into the knife. This story is about the weight of fate - how the characters re-enact cycles of harm and violence in their respective quests for revenge, power, and recognition. In the end, Zhu and Ma make the choice to break those cycles and to forge a new fate from the ashes of the old empire. It's a beautiful and hopeful ending, but this is where my one complaint about the book lies.
At the end of the last book, Zhu commits an act that is, no matter how you slice it, unforgivably morally reprehensible. In this book, she continues on to do more of the same. The message of the ending is of course, that there is no such thing as a point of no return - you always have the choice and agency to change your fate. That lesson is driven home by Ouyang sacrificing everything he loves and walking towards his own miserable self-destruction (despite Zhu and others giving him a chance to stop), for a "fated" revenge quest that proves to be completely meaningless (SPC, you are cruel as hell for that last twist). But Zhu spends two long books stopping at literally no cost to gain power - even the loss of her closest friend, Xu Da, the only truly good, kindhearted person in this book (along with Ma), isn't enough to stop her. This makes her change of heart near the end of the book feel too sudden. I wish Ma, who is Zhu's (hell, everyone's) moral compass and North star, wasn't so underutilized for most of the book. If she had been more present throughout the narrative to engage with Zhu and make the changes in her heart more gradual, her decision at the end would have felt a lot more believable. Because it doesn't, it somewhat cheapens the impact of what could have been, if executed a little more neatly, an incredibly moving ending about agency, love, forgiveness, and compassion.
Regardless, this is still a 5 star book to me. This is one that's going to stay with me for a long time. I almost want this book to go viral so there's an active fandom and I have fix-it fanfic to nurse my deep emotional wounds, but I also don't trust people to not flatten the nuanced morality and genderfuckery in this book.
These are characters maligned by the world for the essence of who they are: for their transgressions against traditional morality, and for blurring the lines of gender and sexuality. Zhu is recriminated for her ambitions of power as a woman (disguised) and for her missing limb, considered a shameful mutilation of her body that makes her unfit to lead. Ouyang, as a eunuch, is considered the embodiment of the ultimate shame, daring to stay alive in a dishonorable life. Wang Baoxiang, outcast by his own family, is seen as unforgivably effeminate - a "peach-bitten f*ggot" - by Mongol standards of masculinity.
The addition of Wang Baoxiang's POV is a breath of fresh air - apart from Ouyang and Zhu of course, he was one of the most interesting and complex characters in the first book. In contrast to Ouyang, who, shamed by the manhood that others deny him and that he sees as his stolen entitlement, tries to emulate masculinity in other ways (warmaking & woman-hating, the classics of toxic masculinity!) he delights in spitting on gender norms, and turns that into his weapon. WBX works in the shadows, subtly manipulating Ouyang and Zhu throughout the entire book. By his design, Ouyang and Zhu, inexorably drawn together in the first book but always pitted against each other, find themselves in a tentative alliance when their goals align. The respect and understanding they form of each other, as two people cast out for their difference and forced to claw their way towards survival, is probably some of the only nice stuff in the book. Ouyang is basically a sopping wet feral cat that Zhu is trying to bring in from the cold, with varying degrees of success. Having known powerlessness, they understand each other in ways no one else can. Knowing that they're stronger together, you even let yourself feel hope of seeing a better ending to their stories - which of course makes it all the more painful when it inevitably crumbles (again, by WBX's hand!). This book is emotionally devastating from start to finish - no one in this book, ever, is having a good fucking time!
On that note, no one in this book, except Ma and Zhu (our only semi-healthy relationship), is having the sex they want. We have a stone top lesbian having sex with a man for the sake of securing a military alliance; a straight man having gay sex with a closeted homophobic gay guy for political protection; a closeted subby gay guy pining his dead straight boy crush in a non-sexual BDSM relationship with the stone top lesbian, disguised as a man; a woman so estranged from her own body and emotions that she disassociates through sex with the man she can't admit she loves until he's gone; etc. The characters in this book make weapons of sex and gender for their personal and political gain.
While the first book was dark and somber, this one is downright grim - this is absolutely a tragedy. I went through the whole book gritting my teeth and dreading the tragic endings that each character was knowingly, stubbornly marching themselves towards - not to mention the constant personal losses of self, dignity, morality and love that they endure over the course of the book. It's like watching someone slowly die by a thousand cuts as they keep willingly walking themselves into the knife. This story is about the weight of fate - how the characters re-enact cycles of harm and violence in their respective quests for revenge, power, and recognition. In the end, Zhu and Ma make the choice to break those cycles and to forge a new fate from the ashes of the old empire. It's a beautiful and hopeful ending, but this is where my one complaint about the book lies.
At the end of the last book, Zhu commits an act that is, no matter how you slice it, unforgivably morally reprehensible. In this book, she continues on to do more of the same. The message of the ending is of course, that there is no such thing as a point of no return - you always have the choice and agency to change your fate. That lesson is driven home by Ouyang sacrificing everything he loves and walking towards his own miserable self-destruction (despite Zhu and others giving him a chance to stop), for a "fated" revenge quest that proves to be completely meaningless (SPC, you are cruel as hell for that last twist). But Zhu spends two long books stopping at literally no cost to gain power - even the loss of her closest friend, Xu Da, the only truly good, kindhearted person in this book (along with Ma), isn't enough to stop her. This makes her change of heart near the end of the book feel too sudden. I wish Ma, who is Zhu's (hell, everyone's) moral compass and North star, wasn't so underutilized for most of the book. If she had been more present throughout the narrative to engage with Zhu and make the changes in her heart more gradual, her decision at the end would have felt a lot more believable. Because it doesn't, it somewhat cheapens the impact of what could have been, if executed a little more neatly, an incredibly moving ending about agency, love, forgiveness, and compassion.
Regardless, this is still a 5 star book to me. This is one that's going to stay with me for a long time. I almost want this book to go viral so there's an active fandom and I have fix-it fanfic to nurse my deep emotional wounds, but I also don't trust people to not flatten the nuanced morality and genderfuckery in this book.