65 pages • 2-hour read
A Magic Steeped in Poison
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Themes
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of violence and death.
The Galvanizing Force of Sisterly Love
This theme provides the emotional backbone of the narrative and forms the foundation of Ning’s strength and resilience. At each point of conflict or indecision, Ning’s choices are motivated by her love for her sister, Shu, and her desperation to save her from the poison that killed their mother. This is the impetus for her decision to enter the shennong-tu competition in the first place, and it also stands as her guiding light amidst the labyrinthine court politics that beset her there.
In the competition, Ning experiences isolation and alienation from the other competitors (except for Lian), facing sabotage and physical threats as she struggles to confront her own ignorance and insecurity. At each step, however, her love for Shu gives her the determination to fight through her setbacks and persevere in the competition despite the mounting dangers. Despite her efforts to focus on her goal, however, Ning soon becomes entangled in court intrigue, corruption, and vague threats of rebellion. Though she wishes to avoid such complications, she is compelled to become involved in order to secure the antidote for her sister. Thus, her sisterly love becomes a powerful motivator and a source of strength.
Ironically, this is a trait that Ning shares with Zhen. Though Zhen’s relationship with Ruyi is romantic rather than sisterly, it has a similar effect on the princess’s actions. In Chapter 46, for example, she bluntly states, “[Ruyi] is my family, and they tried to hurt me through her. I’ve tried to send her away for her own protection, and she crossed the entire empire to save me. I will never leave her again” (346). This vehement declaration reinforces the similarities between Ning and Zhen, as both are determined to protect their loved ones at any cost. Just as Ning is willing to face deadly court politics for Shu’s sake, Zhen is likewise willing to do whatever is necessary to keep Ruyi safe from harm, even though the handmaiden is sworn to take risks in the princess’s service. Zhen even goes so far as to make a deal with Ning when Ning strategically withholds her healing skills over a mortally stricken Ruyi. Crucially, this moment reveals another aspect of love as a motivator, for although Ning has a strong moral compass, she discovers that she is willing to commit immoral acts in the service of following her stronger imperative of acting in her sister’s interests. When she threatens Ruyi’s life and uses Zhen’s feelings against her to secure Shu’s safety, Ning is forced to acknowledge the fact that love and loyalty can inspire people to act in ways they might never otherwise contemplate.
Notably, Ning occasionally loses sight of her primary objection, as when she becomes embroiled in court politics and the allure of palace finery. As she progresses farther in the competition, she is briefly seduced by the court’s influences and begins to entertain ambitions of gaining power and respect. However, she ultimately recalls her duty and desire to save her sister, and this shift back toward her origins grows clear in Chapter 36, when she reflects:
I thought I wanted to bring home all the riches a palanquin could carry, show them that the pregnant girl they scorned has a daughter who is adviser to a princess, prove to my mother’s family that we are worthy of their recognition. But in the end, it is always the thought of Shu, the certainty she is waiting for me at the end that propels me (275).
Thus, despite the lure of gaining recognition and wealth, Ning shows that her loyalty to her sister always comes first. In this way, the narrative makes it clear that even when love occasionally compels someone to behave contrary to their nature, even these moral compromises are designed to serve a higher mandate.
The Corrosive Impact of Political Intrigue
This theme grows many different narrative branches, and as the novel progresses, new developments reveal the depths of danger, deception, and corruption that can thrive in a political system that incentivizes people to chase individual forms of influence, wealth, and power. As an outsider from a rural province, Ning is aware of the corruption that occurs when officials abuse their power, as the governor of her province does by perpetrating wanton cruelty on the citizens. However, even with her knowledge of these harsh realities, she remains perilously ignorant of the true depth of corruption that lies in wait at the palace, for the political intrigue in this setting is of a different caliber entirely, hiding beneath infinite layers of etiquette, deception, and dangerous maneuverings. Ning receives her first lesson in these games when she witnesses several shennong-tu competitors blatantly cavorting with the judges after hours and realizes that those with wealth and political power, like Shao, will always come out on top in such broken systems.
Crucially, Ning is determined to avoid such intrigue until Zhen forces her hand by threatening her family to ensure her obedience and press her into service as a spy against Kang. This moment underscores the ways in which even seemingly compassionate rulers may rely on underhanded tactics to stay in control of these complex machinations. Though the narrative eventually demonstrates Zhen’s kindness, loyalty, and noble goals, the fact remains that she is willing to play the game and use people like Ning as pawns to get what she wants. Even the competition reinforces this fact, as the tea itself symbolizes the class divide between Ning and the other competitors. It represents the unequal wealth and privilege that people like Shao and even Kang are willing to wield like weapons. When Ning innocently tries to bridge that divide in the first round of the competition by praising tea as a drink to be enjoyed “by the lowest farmer and the highest ranks of the court” (65), she is shamed and accused of treason.
In a world defined by political intrigue, no one and nothing is quite what they seem. Even Lian, who remains fundamentally kind and loyal, is not the rural peasant Ning first believes her to be, and Kang—the son of a seditious prince—first introduces himself to Ning under the unassuming and ostensibly harmless guise of a nondescript boy named “Bo.” As time goes on, Ning can only survive the machinations of the court by learning the discernment she needs to parse appearance from true intention and better decide who to trust. Many of her attempts prove wrong, leading to nearly fatal mistakes, as when she places her trust in the treacherous Chancellor. Ironically, by the end of the novel, she has learned her lesson in caution a little too well, and her trust in the fundamental goodness of people has been so thoroughly eroded that she begins to question the motives of those who mean her no harm, as when Zhen returns to rescue her from execution. The central argument of this theme, then, is that the more secrecy and behind-closed-doors intrigue that occurs, the more likely it is for corruption to form and spread from within, leading to a greater erosion of trust.
The Tension between Personal Desires and Social Obligations
This theme stems from the conflict between the first two themes, as the pressures of political intrigue and Ning’s orders from Zhen interfere with her primary motivation to save her sister’s life. Although Ning attempts to use this political intrigue to her advantage by making deals and decisions designed to ensure her sister safety, the reality of court politics occasionally distracts her from her goal. Moreover, her maneuverings ultimately fail to bring about the outcome she wants, and she is forced to rely on other methods to secure the antidote for Shu.
However, this is not the only tension that Ning feels, for she is pulled in many directions at once by her goal to save her sister, her desire to win the competition and earn recognition, and her burgeoning romantic feelings for Kang, whose motives she yet distrusts. She also feels an obligation to the kingdom itself, not because of the princess’s threats but because she cares about the innocent people who suffer under corrupt rule. She therefore feels trapped by these conflicting desires and obligations, and the more she tries to hold onto one of them, the more the others slip away from her grasp. She ultimately decides that these various goals and wishes are incompatible, and she gives up on her brief flirtation with gaining influence and power amidst the court itself.
Kang is likewise caught between conflicting wishes and obligations, though their precise nature is left vague and undefined in this first installment of the duology. Kang’s feelings for Ning are only one desire that pulls on him, but although he clearly has other obligations and motivations, they are left up to interpretation, and various characters come to markedly different conclusions. Kang himself claims only to have the safety of his people at heart, while Zhen and the Chancellor claim that he is working to help place his father on the throne. Whatever his intentions, they clearly place him at odds with Ning’s goals. In Chapter 37, for example, when she confronts him with the fact that the poison in the tea comes from his homeland, the heated exchange between them highlights the longing and distrust that pulls at them both:
Surprise flickers across [Kang’s] face, then his mouth draws into a thin line. ‘If I swear to you right now, on the old gods, that I didn’t know about this, would you believe me?’
I remind myself that he is an adept performer, able to wear his expression as smoothly as any mask.
‘Does it matter?’ I ask, and he flinches like I’ve struck him (280).
This exchange at once reveals the deadly serious nature of the matter that lies between the two, even as Kang’s shocked reaction to Ning’s accusation suggests that he genuinely cared for Ning and is sorrowed to lose her good opinion of him. Although her belief that he is an “adept performer” reflects the harsh lessons that court politics have taught her, his “flinching” reaction hints that in this case, her suspicions may be misplaced. In the end, however, both Kang’s true motivations and the remnants of the pair’s burgeoning romantic interest remain largely unresolved.
Confronted by a barrage of insoluble dilemmas, Ning concludes that the only reasonable option is to make a choice that aligns with her first and greatest obligation: to save her sister’s life. Thus, she resolves the tension between her conflicting goals by doubling down on her origins and rejecting the newer influences that have affected her recent decisions and emotions—including her romantic interest in Kang. Despite the dangers that she faces along the way, she concludes that nothing other than her sister matters right now; she therefore ignores her unresolved emotions and succeeds in the goal that she set out to achieve: healing her sister from the poison.
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