#speer

almost forgot to post this here !

(look closer, there may be some features)

Like, I know there's all that talk about Rin being ugly in Nikan, and she even says that about herself, but I don't think so, and I can argue against it.

This whole story about Rin being ugly seems very racist/imperialistic to me, since Nikan hates the Speerly and doesn't even consider them human. Besides, they have dark skin, and the Nikan value fair, immaculate skin like porcelain. But when Altan was in Sinegard, everyone adored him and considered him very handsome, even though they were wary of him because he came from Speer.

And there's the way the Nikara people of the north treat those from the south, so it's clear that by that country's beauty standards and Rin's social class, she would be seen as ugly. However, there are some nuances to this. Because, even though Nezha teased her and said terrible things about her and her skin color, he never explicitly used the word "ugly" to refer to her, and later, Nezha admits that Rin is the most divine thing he has ever seen in his life. Yes, it has to do with their relationship with the Dragon and the Phoenix, but the Dragon doesn't tolerate ugliness; he feels repulsed by ugly people, so it doesn't make sense for Rin to be something divine to Nezha if she wasn't beautiful or attractive enough to the Dragon.

Even though it's implied and you have to read between the lines in the book, Rin is the daughter of Jiang and Hanelai, with Hanelai being Altan's aunt, making Rin his cousin. Jiang is described as handsome, even possessing a timeless beauty. I believe Hanelai is beautiful too, even though Jiang probably values things beyond beauty; at the end of the day, he's a nikara man, so it could be said that he was attracted to Hanelai's beauty. Besides, Altan was incredibly handsome. Do you agree with me that having two supposedly beautiful parents would mean they would conceive a beautiful child as well?

There are many factors we can discuss regarding Rin's beauty, mainly concerning the social/ethnic class she belongs to. No one has ever seen the offspring of a relationship between a Nikara and a Speerly, so it was obvious that Rin would be viewed with suspicion. And she hasn't had access to learning about how to take care of her appearance (and I think she doesn't care either), so it was obvious that at first glance she would appear inferior. And there's the fact that nobody said Rin was ugly throughout the entire trilogy (that I remember), they only stated the obvious: she could be considered ugly because she didn't meet Nikan's beauty standards. But we, as a society, know that not being the standard doesn't always automatically mean a person is ugly.

this emphasizes the horror of genocide. millenia of culture and history, individual lives filled with love, pain, and passion, just completely wiped away. there were only two surviving speerlies. one of them was too young when he was taken away, and probably doesn't remember much. the things he did remember was also probably buried under years of abuse and drugs people were plying him with. the other one didn't even know she was from speer until the last few months of her life, and there was really no one around to teach her about their culture. and if there was, life as she knows it was falling apart. learning about her dead people's culture probably didn't even cross her mind.

without saying any of these things and by intentionally leaving readers in the dark about what speer was truly like, rf kuang said so much about the horrors of genocide. by not saying anything, she said everything. she did the "show me, don't tell me" tip for writers and it was brilliant.

Black Talons are back in the menu!

Well, not really, these aren't the dreaded "black dead" bullets, nor are they really available to the public. These are the Speer LE G2SR, a 147gr 9mm round that has been adopted by CBP.

These rounds even come in a special package, sporting the DHS logo alongside the words "Property of the U.S. Government, not for sale".

The colouring, reminiscent of the old Black Talon, is the product of a black oxide finish in combination with a nickel plated case, the hollow point has some kind of gel filler.

Rin never learned hers because no one knew it; it was destroyed with a whole island, its culture, its history, and its population. She never learned the Speerly culture, and even though she was the last Speerly, she was never able to learn anything about Speer other than what little Altan could tell her. It was erased and reduced to ash and political propaganda. Rin had to carry a legacy that she didn't even know; even her name, one of a person's most essential parts, was taken from her.

On the other hand, we never learn Robin's real name, not because he didn't know it, but because he had to suppress it. He knew his name, but he was told to hide it and to fit in as an Englishman. So he had to hide his identity, including and firstly his real name, and hope people will mistake him for a white man. Mind you, Robin is our narrator, and for him to hide his name from us, he has to internalize this suppression. Robin's real name is only told, not to us but to him, by his mother as he dies, when he finally is free from the hands of his oppressors. His name was known but suppressed.

These two cases show us two different outcomes of imperialism in Kuang's books (and in the real world). The first one is the case where the culture and a person's identity are utterly destroyed to the point someone who belongs to that nation doesn't even know it. The second one is where a culture and a person's identity are repressed to a point the person can't even dare to accept it and starts to believe their own act, internalizing what their oppressors are forcing on them.

We know that canonically, the Phoenix—the god of the island—is the god of fire and vengeance

But what if it gradually evolved into a god of vengeance only after the Red Emperor occupied Speer? And what if the Phoenix went completely insane when its people were experimented on in laboratories and genocided? I would’ve gone mad too if my people were treated like that