Reviews with content warning for Incest - He Who Drowned the World

Very cleverly written. Enthralling. A perfect continuation of the story of Zhu and all of the other beautifully queer and/or violent people we follow. I didn’t like everyone, but I understood them, at times better than they understood themselves. That automatically springs compassion for almost everyone. Such a wonderful portrayal of going down the path of no return, of outwardly being evil with no redemption but having an insight into that as a reader that allows comprehension and empathy. Every event is believable, and everything is crafted so well even in the final pages, which are perfectly paced. I usually try and look for a negative but this book was everything I could have wanted.

Before reading, I thought maybe watching Zhu triumph and their buoyant nature would get boring in this book but the character growth and strength of plot meant that, it was nowhere near an option. I loved the first one and I'm so glad this one didn't dissapoint.

Though generally, it is very dark, so be prepared. There are a sea of content warnings. Generally handled pretty well but the self-harm and assisted self-harm is quite intense.

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC!

Content Warnings

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adventurous dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

5/5

Nobody would lift a finger to change the world for us. To make a place for us. What choice did we ever have, but to do it ourselves?

This is a masterpiece. I have never encountered a book so visceral, I have never encountered a book that bleeds.
She Who Became the Sun is one of my favourite books of all-time and I just hoped beyond hope that He Who Drowned the World would live up to it. It is everything I could ever have possibly dreamed and more. This is my book. I am tethered to this story like it is my centre of gravity, I can't imagine a world without having read it. There has never been a book so perfect.

Shelley Parker-Chan writes so effortlessly, their construction of such a complex and riveting narrative is astounding. I am in such awe of their talent. You can feel the weight of the labour and the love that was put into this novel, yet it also reads like we're flying across the pages. Every detail is so vivid and steeped in emotion. The scenes spill off the page, creating such vibrant images as we dance between each word. There is clear intention behind every sentence that allows us to feel the raw emotional weight of every line. It is beautiful writing and even more beautiful storytelling.

Each character plays such an important role in the story and I found the addition of new perspectives to be so interesting. Each one brought something completely different to the story, yet Parker-Chan controlled all of these narratives with such refined skill, spinning these webs together, drawing parallels and contrasts, twisting each moving part until every action became bigger than what it was. In linking these characters together through this narrative, their every action became enlarged into the vastness of the question, what does this mean for the others? The links and subversions added upon this duology's themes created such a fascinating opportunity for exploration. He Who Drowned the World took everything that She Who Became the Sun said and delved deeper.

The core themes perpetuated in The Radiant Emperor duology have always been desire and suffering. If She Who Became the Sun was the focus on desire, He Who Drowned the World is the focus on suffering. She Who Became the Sun explores grasping the intent of desire with both hands and claiming your fate, it is the hunt for greatness, it is about the strength it takes to become great, it is the knowledge that you will do anything and suffer anything to achieve that greatness. He Who Drowned the World explores the consequences of greatness, it explores loss and pain and suffering to newer heights, and with savage glee tears this clarity on suffering into something more warped, it questions whether the suffering that has been endured for greatness is worth it.

This is where He Who Drowned the World strides in larger steps than She Who Became the Sun (as perfect as that book also is). Its focus on suffering and on pain is where this book shone even brighter. We are tortured by the shifting moralities of the main characters, by the new ambiguity around how much suffering is worth the ultimate goal of greatness. We witness these characters driven to madness by their pain, we witness their suffering as it eclipses their hope, we witness them despair and cry and break. There are many ghosts that haunt the characters of this story, there are many torments that the world wounds them with, but the most fascinating element of this discussion around pain is when we witness the pain the characters inflict upon themselves.

Ouyang reaches into this place of pain to shield himself from a greater wound weeping inside of him. He is haunted by his duty, by his need for revenge. He drives himself onwards, against reason, running headfirst to his end. He wants to achieve this vengeance and have it be done, he wants this gaping wound inside of him to stop flowing out blood, he wants to reach the end before his pain bleeds him dry. He wants everything that he's done to get there to be worth it.

Another character overwhelmed by this pain is Baoxiang. Baoxiang's pain spills out of him and drowns the world in its darkness, it is a poisoning pain with a bitter touch. It is an uncontrollable pain that Baoxiang cannot recognise for what it is. He cannot recognise it for grief.
This shared pain these two characters are plagued by pulls very evocative parallels, but it proves these character's differences more. We see the biting edge of a pain that is weaponised against the world and we see a maddening one that is sure to be their doom.

In Baoxiang we find an incredibly interesting perspective. What is so brilliant about these characters is that even if you dislike them, they are still riveting to witness and to explore.
Baoxiang believes that through his pain he will find something worth its suffering. He believes, like Ouyang believes, like Zhu believes, that what he endures now will be worth it later. But his experience is immensely different to theirs and adds a whole new layer to the fascinating conversation this duology has around gender.
Baoxiang wields his effeminacy against the Mongol Empire and its warriors like a sword. He becomes the things they think of him, as we have already seen in the first book. He shrouds himself in the worthlessness that they perceive of him. He performs the role that they have given him.
What is so vital to understanding Baoxiang's character is to understand his hatred. He hates the way they view him, he hates the way they discard him, he hates that they find him worthless. But what he hates more is the hypocrisy he views. They condemn him because he is no warrior, yet their own true warriors are more like what they think of him than he is. He finds the secrets some of the great warriors keep indistinguishable from his own experiences and treatment. He hates their blindness, he hates their desire. He proves to us here how much his hatred infects every move he makes. And even when we start to unravel this hatred and glimpse his grief, it is an inescapable burden that he carries across his back as his pain turns in on himself and consumes him. There is a point where, after swallowing the world, the only thing left for his darkness to swallow is him.

Baoxiang is only one part of a very detailed and nuanced discussion of gender and queerness throughout these books, but a new layer that I thought was added in this story was the layer of perception. I found the element of perception hidden all throughout this book and what intrigued me most about it was the questions that it ended up asking. Whose perception truly matters? Is a thing real because it is perceived to be so or does another person's perception not matter at all to the truth of one's being? What then is the answer to whether love is real if only one person can perceive it? There is so much rich ground to cover here that I cannot without giving too much away, but I found these elements of the story so engrossing as I tried to pick apart every different angle that was uncovered.

What enriches the already ingenious conversation on gender (alongside this addition of perception) is that of performance. We see performance used in Baoxiang's perspective as he fits into the role they have decided for him, we see it in Zhu's perspective as she plays into and adjusts the world's perceptions to achieve her end, we see it in Madam Zhang and her porcelain surface, as well as in so much more.

Madam Zhang brings a new aspect to this in her performance. In her perspective, we witness how she uses her own body—detached from her mind—to wield other people's desires against themselves. We see sex used as a tool to discuss these elements of desire, body, performance and gender. Madam Zhang is so disconnected from the pain of her body that she becomes unfeeling, she controls her body as you would a clockwork toy and winds herself up again for her next performance. She is conniving because she has to be and she so desperately desires more of the world but her options and perceptions of her possibilities are limited.
She is a porcelain doll, perfectly broken and made up again, all smooth surfaces without cracks and without scars. She need only apply another coating of makeup and slip into the appropriate façade. It is her means for survival in a world that does not care if she survives it.

Ultimately, The Radiant Emperor duology focuses on a collection of different characters who are all people that the world does not want to win. It shows us their brokenness, it shows us how fractured and desperate and damaged they are and asks us to root for them anyway.

I claim my place. And if the pattern of the world refuses to let that place exist, I will change it.

Zhu and Ouyang have always been the most interesting to me. In She Who Became the Sun we see their similarities discussed alongside their vast differences, but in this book we are allowed to see their connections in an even sharper light. We are allowed the clarity of their sameness, the ache of their joint wounds and sorrows, we feel the reverberations of that string pulled taut that binds them. And so it is with even greater betrayal that we see the jagged edges of their differences once more.
This dance between them is so riveting because it is so visceral. We are as connected to them as they are to each other and so we root for this connection to hold true, for it to mean something, for it to forge a new path—a path that we can follow them down.

Zhu reckons with the themes of desire and suffering the most throughout the duology as this is, after all, her story. But she struggles more with desire's demands in this book than she ever has before. We know as well as she does that 'desire is the cause of all suffering,' and that 'the greater the desire, the greater the suffering, and now she desired greatness itself,' but how much is too much for Zhu to bear?

Have you ever thought that it might not be worth it?

Alongside these characters we go through devastating losses and haunting realisations, we are left shocked and speechless. Shelley Parker-Chan always knows the most harrowing ways to wrench our hearts straight from our chests. (I will, in fact, be demanding emotional reparations!) It's an agonising, all-consuming masterpiece of a book and you will not regret picking it up.

I absolutely devoured this story, I couldn't get enough of it and never wanted to stop reading! I cursed my body for needing sleep. I have never loved a series so unfalteringly, there is truly nothing that compares to it. My love for the characters is so exceptionally strong (Xu Da steals my heart as always) and I cannot exaggerate how viscerally I relate to them and how heart-breaking this book truly was. One thing I can say with absolute surety is you guys are not prepared for this one!
I'm astonished to find that it's over. I need a million more books set in this time and about these characters, complete with Parker-Chan's lush prose and evocative themes. I could go on and on about this book forever! When I next reread I'll do a spoiler review with all my increasingly rambly thoughts.
Parker-Chan has secured their place with great surety as one of my absolute favourite authors, I will clamour for any scraps of writing they deign to give us. My life has been fundamentally changed with this duology and I am just honoured that I got to experience it.

Shelley Parker-Chan has not only created an exceptional piece of literature through their immersive and explosive storytelling, but has transported us through time into a world where we are as desperate and as ravenous as the characters themselves. It is always a shock to look up and discover that I am no longer inside the pages.

Perhaps in your next lives, or the ones after those, or in a thousand years, you'll find each other again, and the world will be different. Perhaps next time, you can have the courage.

I do want to issue a warning that this book is a lot darker than She Who Became the Sun so please look up the content warnings (I'll have them listed on my Storygraph) and read with care!
Thank you Pan Macmillan and Tor Publishing Group for providing me with an arc in exchange for an honest review.

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