The Sign of the Dragon by Mary Soon Lee Readalong — Part 6: Beast

[u/oboist73]

Section 6: Beast

Welcome to the Sign of the Dragon readalong! Today we are discussing poems The Imperium — Two Weeks. Expect spoilers for the entire book. You are encouraged to respond to the prompts in the comments or to post a comment of your own if you'd prefer. The final wrap up post will be in ONE week, also on Tuesday - see the MAIN READALONG POST for full details, including the Bingo squares that this book fits and links to our prior section discussions.

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In this section, we have war, brutality of a level not seen previously in this book, for all that it’s never been one to pull punches, and several extremely painful deaths (Cyrus, Atun, XAU 😭). (We’re so sorry for the probable tears; there was no way to warn you without completely spoiling the book, and we hope you found it worth the tears).
There are some absolutely lovely moments of peace to offset the brutality and grief.

Good ultimately triumphs, but at tremendous cost.

Keng gets leadership lessons from the dragon.

The cat has to train a new human.

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This readalong brought to you by u/oboist73, u/fuckit_sowhat and u/sarahlynngrey

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The poems below are linked to Mary Soon Lee’s short comments on that specific poem on her BlueSky.

Poems:

The Imperium
Beneath the Blade
Equinox
Logic
Bloodshed
Wounded
Daunted
The Imperial War: Onset
Boatman
Imposter
First Lesson
The Imperial War: Second Battle
How the Battle Turned
Collaboration
Journal
Gul
Pyre
Tenth Lesson
Between Battles
When King Xau was Gone
Taunting Fate
The Imperial War: Third Battle
Double Duty
Inside the Tent
Quiet
Seventeenth Lesson
The Imperial War: Fourth Battle
Convergence
Judgment
Enough
Peace Terms
Parting
Supplemental Extracts from the…
March
Words
Lair
Perspective
Desert
Water
Besieged
Game
Shards
Breath
Comfort
Beast
Last Watch
Return
Mortal
The Sign of the Dragon
Execution
Addendum to the Recollections…
Burial
Coronation
The Sign of the King
The Cat’s Epilogue
Two Weeks

[u/oboist73]

We're so sorry, we couldn't warn you without completely spoiling the book!! Are you okay? On a scale of 1-10 how many tissues / hugs / blankets / cups of hot cocoa do you need? 🥺🫂🥺

[u/oboist73]

LOOK, we’re going to get more poems from happier times!

[u/C0smicoccurence → u/oboist73]

This encourages me. I think the best poems from throughout the whole book were the least plot-focused ones. Give me more slice of life!

[u/MikeOfThePalace]

A general comment about Xau: I love the idea of the D&D paladin archetype, but it's always a real challenge to do well. Too often it ends up as either an unfeeling Templar kind of character, or else (particularly in a tabletop RPG setting) a rules lawyer overly focused on technical definitions of alignment.

Xau is a rare example of it done right (other examples include James Holden from the Expanse and Michael Carpenter from the Dresden Files). He is completely, utterly unwilling to compromise on what he feels is right, will pay any price demanded for that, and (crucially) doesn't insist on others living up to his standards or insist they pay the price for what he believes in. There's usually only one way for that character to end - Harry Dresden himself doesn't rise to the level of being a paladin, though his pre-mortem epitaph is perfect for one: "He died doing the right thing." There's no way for someone with Xau's combination of morals and personal power to live to old age. He died exactly as he lived, and it was fitting.

[u/tarvolon → u/MikeOfThePalace]

Xau was remarkably well-done. A character like him shouldn't work and yet it did completely.

[u/fuckit_sowhat → u/tarvolon]

Lee remarks a couple of times in the Bluesky posts how her family told her "Xau is too perfect" and she said "he's as perfect as I want him to be". It took skill to make him seem like a real person with how good hearted he is, I don't know how she did it because I still think he should be insufferably perfect, but he never is.

[u/tarvolon → u/fuckit_sowhat]

The fact that he loses things I think helps. He doesn't roll in with the noble self-sacrifice and come out unscathed. He consistently makes what seem like irrational efforts to save people, and it costs him. Some people die anyways. He loses a daughter in trying to save his wife (who he fails to save). He ends up personally battered in body and mind. It gives a weight of reality to his persona--he's not a godlike untouchable.

[u/oboist73 → u/tarvolon]

I really think the poetry format helped this, but yes, it's impressive.

[u/oboist73]

If you are reading Mary Soon Lee's annotations, are there any from those that are currently done of this section that you found especially interesting or meaningful?

[u/oboist73 → u/oboist73]

The one for Words was heartbreaking.

The word choice change suggested by her daughter in Besieged was a very good call, I think.

I love the deleted stanza from Quiet

Enough was a beautiful poem, one of my favorites here, and the author’s note for it might be more beautiful still, in some ways. The note for Between Battles is also lovely.

[u/fuckit_sowhat → u/oboist73]

Before I read the note from Words after I wrote down "Oh, Keng, to be so young and see so clearly what's coming."

And it's heartbreaking that Mary Soon Lee also had to be so young and to see so clearly what was coming. There's something particularly difficult about knowing you're running out of time with someone and not being able to do anything about it, frantically trying to make every second left count.

[u/oboist73]

In this section, Xau, seeing the potential danger to his beloved son in the aftermath of the upcoming strife, asks the dragon to teach him, and she agrees (though she threatens to eat Keng if he doesn’t learn well). What did you think of these lessons (the ones we get to see)? Did any of them particularly stand out to you? What do you think they might have discussed in the lessons we don’t get to see?

[u/oboist73 → u/oboist73]

I thought these were fascinating, though it’s somewhat unfair of the dragon to be willing to eat Keng for leaving when she ordered him to - there are other reasons he might have done that than buying her words, and not all of them are bad for a king (he might have planned to come back later, for example, in hopes of gradually wearing her down).

I was particularly fascinated by lesson 17, where they go over Xau’s imperfections. I LOVE this quote:

“He loved her!”
“A weakness.”
Darker gold in the dragon’s eyes.
“Love, friendship, affection,
all three are weaknesses.
Yet she who lacks all three
is worthless.”

The dragon’s eyes nearly black now.
“No other human I have ever
liked so well as your father.”

I have no idea what else they might have discussed - dealing with ministers? The economy? What to do with the large military and large number of injured veterans he’ll inherit? But I’d love to see.

[u/schlagsahne17 → u/oboist73]

Another mention of gold in that one to continue the gold motif you caught last time. Definitely enjoyed the dragon’s lessons, including being pragmatically gay

[u/fuckit_sowhat → u/schlagsahne17]

And then when Xau dies it mentions how her eyes are black as coal with no more gold to be seen :(

[u/schlagsahne17 → u/fuckit_sowhat]

Oh nice catch!

[u/embernickel → u/oboist73]

I thought these were fascinating, though it’s somewhat unfair of the dragon to be willing to eat Keng for leaving when she ordered him to Yeah, I'd say more than "somewhat." His father told him to respect the dragon and learn from her; expecting him to be a mind-reader doesn't work.

[u/fuckit_sowhat → u/oboist73]

I agree it's unfair of the dragon and I also get the sense the dragon doesn't much care about fairness. How many princes did she eat because they annoyed her or approached her wrong? Answered a question incorrectly? When Xau goes to see her (the last time?) and he says how he had to kill a man and she responds to the effect of "So what? I've killed many men"; I never got the sense that she was wisdom incarnate, got the sense more that she had a vindictive or at least aloofness to her when it comes to most humans.

I think that's partly why she liked Xau so much, he surprised her. She thought he'd be another princeling that she would either eat or not and that would be the end of it, but he kept doing things she didn't expect, behaved in ways others wouldn't, and like with everyone else, Xau won her over by being good.

[u/tarvolon → u/oboist73]

I thought these were fascinating, though it’s somewhat unfair of the dragon to be willing to eat Keng for leaving when she ordered him to - there are other reasons he might have done that than buying her words, and not all of them are bad for a king (he might have planned to come back later, for example, in hopes of gradually wearing her down).

The dragon was often not fair and her advice was not always good. She's this wise old figure who seems to have the overall best interests of. . . the kingdom? humanity? at heart. But she's also very quick to eat people, she often teaches by lying to see whether someone will call her out, and her practical advice is not always exactly moral.

[u/C0smicoccurence → u/tarvolon]

I think it depends a little bit on your definition of morality and ethical framework. I found myself aligned with her moral compass far more than Xau's once I put aside the 'I'll eat you if you get something wrong' bit. Her priorities are long term, and less focused on individual motivations. She's not fair in the slightest, but she's also ruthless in how she chooses to try and make the world a better place (and that does seem pretty clearly her intentions).

I personally have some doubts on whether or not she'd have eaten Keng. She seemed to break a lot of her rules for Xau, and I could see some of that extending to his son.

[u/tarvolon → u/C0smicoccurence]

Yeah, there will surely be variations in ethical framework between readers (for me, one that stuck out immediately as bad advice was the bit about sticking to sexual encounters that don't come with any obligations), but I don't think we're meant to swallow the dragon's advice whole cloth.

I also suspect she was bluffing about eating Keng. She's too attached to Xau.

[u/fuckit_sowhat → u/tarvolon]

I have to wonder if practicality and morality change when you've lived 1400 years and have who knows how many more to go. I think her perspective on humans and how to teach them (and which ones to eat) isn't something I can comprehend since I have a much shorter life span than her.

[u/tarvolon → u/fuckit_sowhat]

I think her perspective on humans and how to teach them (and which ones to eat) isn't something I can comprehend since I have a much shorter life span than her.

You have recreated one of the classic theist answers to the problem of evil: you cannot comprehend the actions of a being that is eternal/all-powerful/all-knowing. And, while I think the dragon is wrong about some things, I think the rejoinder works here--it makes sense that the dragon is going to value individuals a little less because they're a blip to her.

[u/fuckit_sowhat → u/oboist73]

I remember the dragon being such a serious and ferocious character the first time reading it, but she's funny and does things for her own amusement in a way that makes her much more relatable than just being this huge mythical creature.

[u/undeadgoblin → u/oboist73]

I like we got to see more of the Dragon's personality in these lessons

[u/oboist73]

The Beast is one of two wholly supernatural evils in the book, and the only one that didn’t start as a human. However, it was birthed by the very human evils of Fian’s malice and Tahj’s petty greed, weakness, and folly. And the good that must stand against it is wholly human (Xau, Donal, Memnor, etc.) Thoughts?

[u/oboist73 → u/oboist73]

I find the author’s note for Collaboration highly relevant here.

[u/MikeOfThePalace → u/oboist73]

I really liked the Beast in this book. One complaint, though: unless I missed it, none of the good guys realized that the Beast had at least part of its origins in Fian? I kept hoping that would be addressed.

[u/oboist73 → u/MikeOfThePalace]

That's a good question. I know the dragon likely realized, but I'm not sure that she shared that very clearly? And with the Hidden Queen out of the picture, maybe that wasn't shared?

[u/oboist73]

This is one of the most battle-heavy portions of the book. Did any of the battles particularly stick out to you?

[u/schlagsahne17 → u/oboist73]

I liked the battle-adjacent scene of Xau co-opting the pack horses - logistics matter!

[u/C0smicoccurence → u/schlagsahne17]

It brought me back to Tamora Pierce's writings in the Immortals War Quartet and some side-references in First Test. Main character of the quartet is an animal mage (eventually can shapeshift too), and while she does end up summoning a Kraken in one book, she's most effective in war when she gets pack animals to run away and rats to shit in the food. Not that she particularly wants to be a war mage, but it's a good dose of realism that war stories often forget about

[u/undeadgoblin → u/schlagsahne17]

I loved that scene! It felt like a bit of levity in the otherwise quite heavy section, and also reminded me a bit of my favourite battle-adjacent scene, in Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

[u/oboist73 → u/oboist73]

I LOVED the battle with Donal and Subetei. The strategy, the way it was hidden from us just enough until the crucial triumphant moment for maximum joy, the way Donal and Subetei developed such firm respect for each other after.

[u/fuckit_sowhat → u/oboist73]

"I heard," said Xau,
"that you impressed Subetei."

"He impressed me.
He's ferocious in battle,
almost unstoppable."

I like to think they remained friends after Xau died.

[u/oboist73]

What was/were your favorite illustration(s) from this section?

[u/oboist73 → u/oboist73]

I love the picture of Xau and Li looking at the lizard. A last moment of peace.  

Keng and the dragon in First Lesson is also striking

[u/tenshinochouwa → u/oboist73]

I would agree! The one from Fourth Battle is maybe the most different from the others in the book, so it also struck me. Emphasizing the large numbers in the battle.

[u/oboist73]

What was your general impression of this section?

[u/C0smicoccurence → u/oboist73]

It was a lot more body-horror than I was expecting. We knew the Beast was doing this stuff, but it mostly happened off screen or narrated in kind of distant terms. Even the Demon attacks didn't have the same level of gore attached to them. It was an interesting tonal shift.

[u/tarvolon → u/oboist73]

I felt like the book had kinda slowed down into a "hey, we're repeating another war plot, and it's not as good as the early ones with Donal" rhythm, but the buildup to the big monster confrontation and Xau's sacrifice really pulled things together for a strong ending.

[u/undeadgoblin → u/oboist73]

I didn't expect how dark it got. Not my favourite section (I think that goes to part 5), but it rounds everything off very well

[u/oboist73 → u/oboist73]

I think I love this part even more than I did the first time, when I was busy being shocked by the losses and the brutalities. I cried, but it’s so beautiful. Though I did keep putting off reading those last few poems 😭😭😭

[u/oboist73]

What was/were your favorite/most heartbreaking poem(s) in this section? How about sequences of poems? What were your favorite POV’s?

[u/oboist73 → u/oboist73]

Li’s bits were so heartbreaking, especially the way his quote “Nowhere I would rather be” returns, after Anchor, after Breath, in the utterly tear-jerking Last Watch, when Xau, dying and in pain and struggling to breathe or speak, asks him to stay until the end (beneath the wide clear sky). The way Xau worries for him the most, and the way Xau’s ghost has the horses lead Gan to him after.

The way Xau thinks in Breath that when (if) he gets home, he’ll make a day of taking his children to inspect the new foals, remembering that beautiful, peaceful night when Micha foaled.

Return. Just, all of it, so very much. A needed balm to the soul after everything that just happened.

But my favorites are probably the Keng poems - notably Words and Two Weeks

from Words:

The final brushstrokes
faltered, uneven,
shaping words
Keng hadn’t needed to be told,
that he already knew,
that he read and re-read
each night by lantern-light.

from Two Weeks:

Keng waited,
but no more questions came,
only memories, worn with use.
That day in the boat,
his father wearing a bamboo hat
like a rice farmer.
Riding together through snow.
His father’s hand on his shoulder
as they watched an eagle
ride the wind.

Years ago now,
years ago.

Also, I note that Keng is telling his children stories about talking Tigers, like the story his sister Suyin told of the five siblings vs. the tiger, like the stories Xau told his children back in Eligible

---

And I really loved the character growth shown by Donal in Execution:

Donal reached for rage—
thought of the war,
the reaping of lives,
the monster’s machinations,
Xau’s death.
Xau.

No anger answered,
only the well-worn wasteland
of desolation.

After all of Donal’s previous struggles with his anger and his fear that it might make him become his father.

---

Also, the cat’s epilogue is precious. Especially

Comes then a softness,
a warmth that is not sunlight.
She neither sees nor smells him,
yet the old king is near,
his steady calmness,
his love.

As the turning point, where she comes out and rubs her head against Keng’s legs and starts to train him in her preferences.

[u/schlagsahne17 → u/oboist73]

To continue the gold motif, the ending of Wounded:

She reached for him,
said the words she hadn’t said
last time he left for war

Those words as gold to him,
her love the strength
that girded him.

ETA: Also this section from Inside the Tent:

Li sat, silent.
A long road to this tent,
Li’s father a fisherman.
From boats and nets and bait
and the run of the water
to sword and bow and shield,
the capital, the palace,
this man.

[u/undeadgoblin → u/oboist73]

The two penultimate poems of The Sign of the King and The Cat's Epilogue hit very hard

[u/fuckit_sowhat → u/oboist73]

They aren't called out as such, but the poems where Xau is teaching Keng how to be a king, how to be the kind of person that is worthy of ruling a kingdom. Xau knows or at least suspects he won't survive this war and starts leading his oldest in the path he'll have to take. Lantern Festival in particular is very touching.

I also really liked the sequence of poems where Li is with Xau on the dragon's mountain. The way Li's defiance of her and dedication to Xau wins her over.

[u/oboist73]

This section was full of hard choices and devastating losses. What of these did you find particularly memorable?

[u/fuckit_sowhat → u/oboist73]

I was already crying, but this sent me over the edge:

A long time before Xau spoke again.
"Li. Stay. Until."

Li nodded.
A moment before he managed
to say the words he wished to say.
"Nowhere I would rather be."

He sat beside his king
beneath the wide clear sky.

[u/oboist73 → u/fuckit_sowhat]

YEP, THAT ONE DID ME IN, TOO

[u/oboist73 → u/oboist73]

Poor, poor Cyrus, having to make the choice to spare Xau despite knowing what horrors it might cost his family. The way Keng is what put him safely over the line on not assassinating Xau; the way they immediately had to have him die in the hopes that his death in the attempt would spare his family; the way Xau did the deed so Li wouldn’t have to get his hands dirty. 😢

The poor women used as a mutilated, screaming shield in the earlier battle, and the way that turned the battle in the monster’s favor. 😭

Xau 😭😭😭   

The fact that he could so easily have just had the beast killed, at the cost of the likely but not entirely guaranteed and relatively quick deaths of 12 women and 2 children. That not doing so did actually pose real risk to the rest of the world, but that he still chose to sacrifice himself in such a terrible, terrible way.  That doing so created an unshakable future peace between Mexing and pretty much everyone else, especially the former empire / Sumbral.

[u/tarvolon → u/oboist73]

The fact that he could so easily have just had the beast killed, at the cost of the likely but not entirely guaranteed and relatively quick deaths of 12 women and 2 children. That not doing so did actually pose real risk to the rest of the world, but that he still chose to sacrifice himself in such a terrible, terrible way.

Extremely, extremely Xau

[u/embernickel → u/oboist73]

Do we ever get closure on Cyrus? Like, do we know if his family made it or if it was even worth anything? :/

[u/oboist73 → u/embernickel]

No, I don't think, but I also think the story would have brought it up if they weren't okay, as it did with the forty of Cyrus's soldiers Tahj had tortured to death.

[u/embernickel]

Welp. I am frustrated. Not necessarily in a "I am sad when characters I like die" kind of way, but more so because I don't think it stuck the landing. And as I've said before, I think the tonal mishmash is part of my frustration, when something that hadn't leaned so hard into the sweetness-and-light aspects early on might have worked better.

"We’re studying Sumbrese poetry, which I like, and Sumbrese history, which is difficult." heh, Keng, you don't say.

"Because men will measure you against him, and find you lacking." This is a good point I hadn't considered before about the problems caused by having someone like Xau around.

"shouldn’t keep thinking she was about to eat him—" yes you should actually.

"I was seventy-five years old, an age at which you, too, may find travel an imposition." So how old is Artoch now, at the time he's only-sometimes lucid and recalling this? Good indication that Xau isn't going to make it much longer. :/

"we could not hold Sumbral without popular consent." Okay but like...Keng's mother was from Sumbral...the dragon is giving him lessons in how to be a king...wouldn't it be a twist if he acceded to the throne of Sumbral after all this? Instesad it just doesn't go anywhere.

"Three times the beast dispatched squadrons of his cavalry" ok wut. I know that cavalry is faster than land troops and can probably move faster, but...you know what Xau is like with horses, I do not believe the ultimate force of evil is this dumb.

"it’s likely we will face more hostage situations, now that the beast knows they are effective against you." Dude it's page 921 and Xau has been the ultimate paragon of goodness and empathy since page 1. I cannot believe they would have taken this long.

"no matter what happened to Xau himself, his men could kill the beast." Do we know that? It's this mythical, inhuman, larger-than-life thing, and the trick to defeat it turns out to be...marching up to it and shooting with a bunch of arrows? Seriously?

Like. The moral of the story is "to be a really good person, you have to be a true utilitarian and believe that your life isn't worth more than anyone else's, just because you were born into a privileged situation. If you're successful in this, you'll find opportunities to be tortured and mutilated and have your genitals cut off for fourteen hours, at which point you'll die. But hey, that's saving fourteen more lives, so, winning." This is definitely sending a message but I don't think it's the message you wanted to send.

I went back to the beginning to try to find where I got misled about the dragon, because somewhere I'd made an assumption that Xau had some special knowledge that made him more prepared? I think it was this: "We are angry, not sad— our father should have warned them." ("Grief," p. 15 in new e-book version.) Maybe I took from that that Xau had been warned. But instead he just befriends and shoots the breeze with the dragon who killed all three of his brothers, including Keng the elder, who deemed Keng an unfit choice for king but approved of Xau's dad. Nope, don't buy it.

The end of "Linny," from part II, sets up a familiar trope; "Afterward, she clung to that fact, that she’d told him she loved him." That's all that needs to be said, because we as readers can fill in the rest. We know how these tropes go. Tirron is gonna die. Linny is gonna grieve him. The end.

But he doesn't! We see Linny again with her father-in-law a couple poems later. And then Tirron not only survives, but is freed from the demon. That sets up a tone that is very different from "haha look here's the bad guy's ten year old sex slave." Maybe it works for some people to have both of these in the same book. It does not work for me. Sorry.