Kitay is Rin’s closest friend and fellow shaman. The two are magically bonded, which means that each can block the other’s powers, and when one dies, so does the other. Kitay is both a deuteragonist and a foil to Rin. Foils are characters who “have opposite traits or characteristics” (“Foil.” SuperSummary), while deuteragonists are “round and dynamic characters who support or oppose the protagonist or otherwise act as a neutral party” (“Deuteragonist.” SuperSummary). Kitay is a foil because his personality contrasts with and balances Rin’s. When Rin refers to her shamans as weapons, he says, “I’m a bit concerned that you’re referring to people as weapons” (441). Rin has a self-centered view of the world, while Kitay is more rational. He sees the hypocrisy in Rin rebelling against being treated as a weapon by powerful men, then doing the same thing to people more vulnerable than her.

Kitay is a deuteragonist because his contrasting personality leads him to alternatively support Rin, oppose her, or act as a neutral party between her and Nezha, making him a round and dynamic character with complex motivations and sympathetic traits. Largely unflappable and resilient, Kitay is the only person from whom Rin sometimes listens to reason. Only once does Kitay have a crisis of faith, after being captured by Hesperia. As the most intelligent Nikara, he is shaken to learn that their “knowledge of so many fields—mathematics, physics, mechanics, engineering—eclipses ours to a terrifying degree” (268). Since he doesn’t understand how even quotidian Hesperian technology works, he begins to think Hesperians might be innately more intelligent and Nikara subjugation “inevitable” (270). This shows how technology can be weaponized in the colonial enterprise to overwhelm colonized people, showing The Multifaceted Nature of Empire and Colonialism.

Kitay becomes collateral in Rin’s involvement with the corrupting influence of power. After Venka’s death, Rin becomes convinced that Kitay “might have been working against her this entire time, holding her back, stopping her from burning as brightly as she could. He might have been on Nezha’s side all along” (595). In reality, Kitay is simply practical. He can see that Rin’s desire for constant, escalating warfare is “not the stable foundation for a unified country” (594) and proposes an alliance with Nezha. Unlike Rin, Kitay is not stymied by personal vendetta, but assesses the future of the country logically.

Kitay is not entirely a victim to Rin’s manipulation and malice. As her anchor bond, he has the power to close off her powers at any moment. In their final moments, Kitay gives her permission to kill herself, and thus him, as they were “weighed down by the same culpability” (613). This asks the audience to contemplate whether the person who allows terrible things to happen is as culpable as the person who does those terrible things.

Rin considers Yin Nezha a villainous antagonist, though there is considerable evidence in the text to suggest that Rin’s unreliable perception of Nezha does not reflect his actual character. When facing the dragon, Nezha “walk[s] forth, arms spread and vulnerable, offering himself to the beast” to save Rin and Arlong (516). Moments later, “Nezha save[s] her from the dirigible” (519). Rin vilifies Nezha in her mind, but he saves her life multiple times and repeatedly suggests that they work together. These events suggest that Rin’s assessment of his character may be unreliable. Though he is an antagonist in the novel, he is not necessarily a villain. After Venka, Rin, and Kitay all die at the end of the novel, leaving Nezha alone to defend Nikan against Hesperia, he morphs into a potentially heroic character.

Nezha wants a different relationship with Hesperia than his father did. Kitay comments on Nezha’s “lab rat life” (255), showing that Hesperia has been conducting the same type of torturous, anti-shaman experiments on him they conducted on Rin in The Dragon Republic. Nezha thinks the Hesperian general is “a patronizing fuck” and wants to strategize so the Hesperians can’t “run roughshod over us like our government doesn’t even exist” (257), like they did to his father. He wants to be a different type of leader, but he also capitulates to Hesperia to the detriment of the Nikara people. Kitay tells Nezha he can’t “take [him] seriously when [he does] things like drop bombs on innocent children” (259). Nezha’s replies are: “That ambush was a mistake” and “I didn’t have a choice” (260). Both of these excuses are related to The Dehumanizing Effects of War, as they attempt to sidestep blame for the loss of human life. In this way, Nezha is similar to Rin, who justifies the mass casualties that result from her actions. However, unlike Rin, Nezha regrets this loss of human life and wants to mitigate it in future.

Nezha realizes that Rin’s complete destruction of the country might be the very thing to allow him to establish something new and better in its place. In the final lines of the novel, he plans to “ben[d] where he needed to” and “las[h] back at just the right time” (617) to ensure Nikara’s future, indicating that in Nikan’s next chapter, Nezha will try to be its hero.

Sring Venka is one of Rin’s key allies. Though they were enemies at Sinegard because Venka is a high-class, pale-skinned Northerner and Rin is a dark-skinned Southern peasant, they became allies after Venka was repeatedly raped at a pleasure house in Golyn Niis by the Mugenese. Throughout The Burning God, Venka works first as Rin’s spy and then as an important general, using her military expertise and her light-skinned Northern privilege to recruit that demographic into Rin’s army.

She and Rin are positioned as foils. Rin is shocked that she has “the pretty, pampered Sinegardian turned lean, ferocious warrior” as one of her best friends (314). Within Nikan’s culture, there is internalized colorism: well off, light-skinned Northerners with Sinegardian accents are prejudiced against the poorer, darker-skinned Southerners with “flat-tongued” accents. Rin and Venka represent two sides of this divide, brought together by “a shared, intimate understanding of hell” (314). Due to their mutual understanding of deep trauma, Rin and Venka are similar. They both left the Republic because “Vaisra had knowingly let those atrocities at Golyn Niis happen,” and to both of them, “[d]estroying was easy. The hard part was the aftermath” (131). However, Venka has no allegiance to Southerners “with skin several shades darker than hers” (131) and does not even nominally pretend to care about their greater cause. She allies with Rin for personal reasons because Rin is the only person who didn’t believe her to be “fragile and broken” after she was raped repeatedly and disfigured at Golyn Niis (132), showing how survivors of sexual assault are stigmatized and ostracized.

This makes Rin’s eventual betrayal of Venka even more tragic. Rin grows paranoid and suspicious, accusing Venka of having no reason to desert her Northern allies for the South. When Venka says, “I left for you,” Rin immediately disbelieves her, asking, “And why would you do that?” (575). Rin’s previous understanding of her and Venka as bonded by their mutual trauma and exploitation by powerful and corrupt men melts away as Rin becomes subject to the corrupting influence of power. Rin becomes so “convinced that Venka was the traitor, that Venka was attacking her” that she “burned ridges into Venka’s shoulders” (577), even as Venka took a crossbow bolt meant for Rin, dying in the process and proving her loyalty.

Su Daji, the unseated former Empress of Nikan, is an important character who is an ally to Rin while also looking out for her own interests. She is a shaman who serves the snail goddess Nüwa. She has the power to persuade, bewitch, compel, and brainwash people. She can also implant psychic venom into shamans, creating a “Seal” on their magical powers, hence her Trifecta moniker, the Vipress.

She tells Rin and Kitay that they “need [her] if [they] want any chance of surviving what’s coming” (148). Rin looks up to Daji’s experience and authority, wishing to emulate her. Though Rin is initially resistant as Daji urges her to forgo her ethical and moral frameworks to accumulate power and establish a mythos, this ultimately becomes Rin’s modus operandi and downfall. Though Rin used to think of Daji as infallible, their interactions through the novel show Daji’s humanity. When discussing the death of Kitay’s father, her minister, her “eyes were solemn, and the mocking curl had disappeared from her lips” (148). Later when discussing the regret she has for Sealing Jiang, she has “tears glistening on her cheeks” (322). Though Daji seems like the unshakeable “Vipress,” she is just a human being with complex regrets and motivations, like every other character.

Daji’s biggest weakness is largely not her fault. Her loyalty to Riga and faith in his redemption is borne from decades of emotional and physical abuse and manipulation. She believes that in becoming a shaman, Riga became “an utterly different person, a person who lashed out and hurt those around him and delighted in torturing her” (196), and thus she believes that she can make him return to what she perceives as his former self. However, she also admits in her flashback to the genocide of Speer that he “used to only inflict his strength on others” and she never thought he’d inflict it on her (196). This indicates that Riga has always been corrupt, power-hungry, and aggressive, which is supported by his remorseless betrayal of Tseveri and Hanelai. Unlike Riga, Daji has sympathy and a conscience and knows immediately that “this kind of evil would not go unpunished” (197). Though Daji holds more internalized morals than Riga, his fear- and aggression-based manipulation prevents her from ever seeking alternatives to her partnership with him. Though she regrets helping Riga gain power, she does the same thing when she brings Rin to the Heavenly Temple, disregarding Jiang’s fear and resistance. This weakness for Riga ultimately leads to the death of the Trifecta.

Jiang Ziya is the Trifecta’s Gatekeeper. As Rin’s former mentor at Sinegard, he is a father-figure, ally, and important character in her story. The version of Jiang that Rin knew at Sinegard is what was left over of his personality after Daji put a Seal on the cruel and powerful Gatekeeper, who controls the doors to the spiritual menagerie. Jiang’s main conflict is internal. As Daji’s Seal erodes, his two personalities clash. He expresses fear and distress as they get closer to awakening Riga, and the Gatekeeper becomes more dominant in his mind.

Rin compares Jiang’s personas: “The Jiang she knew liked to blow bubbles in the creek with a reed for fun. This Jiang discussed murder as if relaying a recipe for porridge” (223). The Jiang who trained Rin at Sinegard was childlike, lighthearted, and joyful. With the Seal eroding, Jiang acts more like the Gatekeeper, who committed wartime atrocities in the Second Poppy War. Jiang attests that he is neither fully the teacher Rin knew nor the Gatekeeper: “It’s like looking in a warped mirror. Sometimes we are the same and sometimes we are not; sometimes he moves with me, and sometimes he acts of his own volition. Sometimes I catch glimpses of his past, but it’s like I’m watching from far away like a helpless observer” (233). Jiang’s account sheds an unexpected light on the theme of the dehumanizing effects of war: Jiang’s innocence, sense of self, and autonomy are taken away as they grow closer to waking Riga, something they must do in order to stand a chance at defeating Hesperia. Jiang talks about the Gatekeeper in the third person, even while also claiming that “I’m responsible” (233) using the first person to take responsibility for the Gatekeeper’s atrocities.

When the Gatekeeper takes over Jiang, his powers are immense. He opens the gates to the spirit realm, releasing “black, mist-like wraiths […] a lion, a dragon, a kirin” who followed “no known laws of the physical world” (284). These moments submerge Jiang’s human personality. This battle between Jiang and the Gatekeeper makes Jiang fearful and troubled in his lucid moments. Daji claims that the Jiang Rin knows is “derivative […] a pale shade of the other, genuine personality” but Rin thinks the Jiang she knows is “a full person in his own right, a person with wants and memories and desires” (323). The novel opens the question of how human Jiang’s two personalities are, and whether each of them deserves its own life in full. As with most of its moral questions, however, the novel leaves these questions unresolved.

Jiang is the only one of the Trifecta that Rin thinks is worth memorializing after death, because he had been “complete and aware, reconciled with his past, and fully in control. And he’d chosen to save her” as his last act (436). Much like Kitay is made into collateral in Rin and Nezha’s feud, Jiang was collateral between Riga and Daji, but retained his morality. One unsettled question about Jiang is his true relationship to Rin. Rin “loved him like a father” (437). However, before Hanelai’s death, Jiang was going “to marry that spirited little Speerly general of his” (198). Later, Rin “suspects her relation to Hanelai” (356) is that of mother-daughter. Jiang’s romance with Hanelai would have lined up with Rin’s birth, and Rin states in The Poppy War that she has slightly lighter skin than a Speerly like Altan, introducing the possibility that Jiang was Rin’s biological father.

Riga, the Dragon Emperor, is the third Trifecta member. He and Jiang’s names faded from popular knowledge after Daji Sealed them, such that Rin expresses surprise and confusion that Riga looks like Nezha, not knowing that Riga is Nezha’s great-uncle.

Though Riga is a minor character, his presence looms large over the events of the novel and entire trilogy: His actions in the past led to the novel’s events, and his character highlights Rin’s descent into villainy. Daji’s point-of-view chapters portray Riga as cruel, unpredictable, and physically and mentally abusive. Without Daji and Jiang’s knowledge, Riga kidnapped Speerly children and handed them over to the Federation for experimentation. This earned him the Speerly general Hanelai’s ire and rebellion, and for this, he destroyed the Speerly race. These actions, while indisputably evil, lead to some of the novel’s most poignant moral questions. Riga committed a genocide against Speer, and for this offense, Rin misdirects her anger and commits a genocide against the Federation of Mugen—who are not blameless, but are also not as directly culpable for the genocide on Speer as Rin believes. Yet, Rin decides this makes Riga and the Trifecta “despots” unfit to rule while continuing to believe that her actions are excusable.

When she is seconds away from breaking Kitay, Rin recognizes that the way he is looking at her is the same way Daji and Jiang looked at Riga. She then asks herself: “But what kind of emperor would Riga have been? And how much worse would she be? Oh, but history moved in such vicious circles” (612). Though Rin previously aligned herself with Daji, her biggest moment of character development comes when she realizes her actions align her more with Riga. Recognizing her association with Riga motivates Rin to break the cycle and die by suicide, freeing Nezha to potentially save the country, rather than mutually self-destruct with her and Kitay, as the Trifecta did alongside Riga.

Souji is a minor but important character in the first part of the novel. He is a Southern guerilla leader who joins the Southern Coalition. Though he, like most powerful men in the novel, uses Rin as a tool and ultimately betrays her, he teaches her invaluable lessons about why and how the civil war is different from the types of battles she was trained to fight at Sinegard.

Souji initially acts like Rin’s ally. He urges her not to think of “strategies in terms of absolutes” (78), but to be subtle and win small victories by working in teams. This runs counter to Rin’s instinct, which is “extermination by fire” (78). Though Rin is Kuang’s correlative to Mao, Souji is actually the character who most vehemently advocates guerilla strategies and is “fighting for the people,” while Rin uses old-fashioned Sinegardian warfare strategies and is “fighting for the land” (94).

It is unclear why Souji betrays Rin alongside Gurubai. It is possible that like many other characters, he will do anything he thinks he needs to do to win. It’s also possible that he resents Rin for spurning his sexual advances, since he beats her and “kept kicking long after she’d passed out” (188), indicating a level of personal rage and retribution. Rin decides to turn him into a “scapegoat” for the Southerners, letting them kill him as a group rather than killing him herself. In this way, Rin weaponizes Souji’s death to firm up her control over the Southerners.