After the unsteady state Yangchen left Bin-Er with her companion’s betrayal and the secret cover-up of one enemy allowing another advisary to take economic stage, Yee has a lot for the readers (and the characters) to balance. It’s all about diplomacy, geopolitics and deception and it keeps you at the edge of your seat the whole time. It’s all about heartwrenching conflict and death that leaves Yangchen struggling with her worldview and Kavik questioning his own choices of familial loyalty over the world.
This has possibly the most deveopment for Yangchen who is growing even more discontent with the actionns she commits but is realistic enough to see there is no other way to outmanuever her antagonists. The merchants and shangs are not airbenders, they hoard their material wealth and the power money brings. Most of them are also cynical about human nature and see no reason to better the lot of others’ lives, just their own. So it’s not like the temple’s koans annd teachings are going to urge their change of heart.
Blackmail does and if there’s one thing Yangchen has become proficient in is in the delicate art of saying one thing and threatening another. But the thing about dealing with corrupt officials and dirty money is that even though she is trying to put the work into a good cause, she inevitably gets dirty herself.
Yangchen’s disgust with herself is at its peak and its clear that she’s reaching a breaking point with all the juggling plates on her shoulders. Trying to dissolve the shang system, hiding the imprisoned Unamity and Henshe, rebuilding Bin-Er, trying to retrieve her sister’s soul from the Spirit World, rebuild trade amongthe three nation leaders, predicting and counter- acting Chaisee’s next moves, and fending off the spies of the White Lotus all on a few hours of sleep! She may be the Avatar, but she’s at her breaking point.
It leads to big mistakes where she reaps the heartbreaking consequences of her actions but she’s willing to. It eases some of her guilt and self-hatred compared to the praise of the unknowing crowds that see her as the amazing diplomatic genius airbender when she knows the lines she’s crossed to get her results.
Yangchen is not only disgusted with herself but she’s disgusted with the people she serves. Humanity seems to be intent on making the same destructive choices for short term satisfaction. They never learn and Yangchen is beginning to lose faith in the values she was brought up with as she forces the shangs to do the right thing, knowing they’ll be secretly plotting to undermine her suggestions. She has little recompensation for every “miracle” she wroughts, she knows people will focus on her failures and use them as leverage.
Her past lives have bred a constant fear of failure and her attempts to avert regret in the future leads to just that. It’s a Catch-22 and it’s fascinating to see Yangchen fight against the cesspool of overwhelming cynicsm and guilt as her past lives echo the her doubts that she should just let humanity destroy itself.
I’ve been talking about Yangchen a lot but Kavik gets a solid arc himself after his betrayal of Yangchen in the previous novel. He is now the informant and novice in the Order of the White Lotus, waiting for the day to make himself useful. He wasn’t hoping it would lead him back to Yangchen but it seems fate has them interwined. The White Lotus wants a spy to watch Yangchen and report her actions and decisions regarding Unamity and the upcoming trade conference. Of course, Yangchen knows he is spying her and leads to negotiations over what information he will give to them.
Inevitably, he’s not a popular with the rest of Yangchen’s companions (Jujinta, Akuudan, Tayagum are back and they’re badass as ever!) even as he tries to joke and act nonchalant about the whole situation. He knows he was in the wrong but he doesn’t regret his decision. . . too much.
As the stakes get higher, Kavik becomes more uneasy about his alleigance to the White Lotus and to his brother. He doesn’t agree with the Order’s ideology of sttaying neutral in order to shape the world of survivors instead of trying to help the living.
It’s really interesting to see this iteration of the White Lotus compared to the wise ones we saw in A:TLA and the ineffectual ones in LoK. This Order is more concerned with the long-term goals and focused on accumulating information and power from the shadows like puppet masters. In fact, Yangchen suspects they had started the Platinum Affair in the first place, painting them in a much more sinister light than we’ve seen them before.
Kavik’s loyalty to his brother, Kalyaan is tested as well. We see how Kalyaan is the untouchable golden boy older brother. Kavik can never compeate. But it’s probably better that way as Kalyaan is nearly sociopathically heartless and selfish. He’s like Azula level. While interesting, I feel like there’s a bit of a disconnect between how Kalyaan was portrayed here than in Dawn of Yangchen. Kalyaan seems so much more like an evil genius that I wonder what happened to him during his time alone or was he always that way and Kavik idolized him too much to see?
Kavik’s relationship is tested and strengthened during this difficult time. Even though they don’t trust each other, you can’t deny their importance to each other and how much they care for the other deep down. Dare I say I see sparks? Yangchen decides Kavik is a million times better than his brother and Kavik desires nothing more than for Yangchen to take a break and accept the praise she deserves. I can see it. But platonic or romantic, it is undenable that they balance each other as companions and come up with great banter. In fact, the scene with them playing three-layered sparrowbones and celebrating their victory was just the best. They let their guard down with each other even though they don’t mean to. Its the tiny moments that add some heartwarming levity to everything going on.
As for the antagonist-With a plot focused on espionage and outmanuvering, Shang Chainsee makes a good villain as she matches Yangchen’s level of hyper-planning with an understandable backstory that keeps her motivated while committing atrocities to maintain her own status.
The whole book is filled with constant subversions, deceptions and chess. Like literal chess with the sparrowbones scene I mentioned above and Yee plays around with that by juggling flashbacks so readers can have the suspense of guessing what is going on before the big reveals and revelations.
With all the great points of this book, there is a few threads I wished were picked up in the climax in regards to Chaisee’s secret island. I also wished there had been follow up with Kavik’s concern over Yanchen’s spiritual-hyped coffee-esque tea and hearing her past lives advise her to give up humanity. He’s fearful but he also feels its not his place to force her to rest since they’re already on shaky ground. I just wish that Yanchen got to have a conversation about the doubts she has with humanity instead of keeping it bottled up. But Yee is a masterful writer and I can understand why he held back in order to portray the characters’ humanness and that they still have work to do within themselves as well as the world.
As you may guess, 5 stars. 5 stars all around even as the book hurt my heart at parts and made me gasp in others.
It’s implied in the acknowledgements that this is the end of Yee’s run in the Avatarverse novels which is a shame as he did them all so well and I feel like he would have great fun with Kuruk since he spent so much time fleshing him out in the Kyoshi novels. Anyway, he did an amazing job and I wish he all the best in whatever new universes he comes up with.
Rachel Reads & Reviews 
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