The Burning God

Content Warning: This section contains cursing and discussion of racism, rape, mental illness, child abuse, child sexual abuse, child death, death by suicide, substance use, graphic violence, physical abuse, and emotional abuse.

Fang Runin, called Rin, is the novel’s protagonist and close-third person narrator. She is a dark-skinned, red-eyed Speerly war orphan who grew up in Tikany, Rooster Province. When she dies, she is 21 years old. In The Burning God, Rin completes her transformation from anti-hero to villain protagonist. Unlike an anti-hero, who does morally objectionable things for sympathetic reasons, villain protagonists do bad or evil things for ignoble reasons.

In the early parts of the novel, Rin arguably remains an anti-hero. When appealing to Gurubai to launch an offensive, she argues that they are “dying up here. If we don’t take the offensive now, Nezha will” (58). Rin wants to take the course of action that will save the Southerners, rather than waiting to be attacked, and the morally objectionable act of assassinating the Southern leadership can be justified as necessary for this goal. Nonetheless, her violence is an outgrowth of her desire for power; she only wants to work with Southern leadership if they do things her way: “she did want to work with the coalition.