Just a reminder: The future of LiA is very much in doubt, and it’s up to you to decide what happens next.  Thank you for all your support!

The metaphor probably doesn’t do Kingdom justice but if you look at history as a series of paintings, the role of a series like this really is to frame it.  Mind you history is paintings, not photographs (though we do have some of those for the past 150 years or so).  The image we have may not be accurate – it was painted by the winning side.  But whether the painting reflects historical reality or not, it’s what we in the modern world see when we look back.  It’s real, whether it’s accurate or not.  The history books, then, are the painting – and historical fiction and essays are the frame.

I think it was a pretty brilliant move by Hara Yasuhisa to frame this important moment in Chinese history the WAY he did in Kingdom.  It’s a romantic notion that these two great men sat and hashed out their worldviews in Yong as the future was decided on the streets of Xianyang – I’m sure it’s pure fancy.  But Hara’s aim here is to portray the essence of this conflict in a way modern readers could understand.  And while he still unquestionably demands a lot from his audience – this is high-level stuff and not dumbed-down in the slightest – I can’t imagine a better way to do that.

As such, you have the remarkable fact that the series’ main character is fighting for his life in the battle the entire series has been building towards for 124 episodes (I don’t know how many chapters) and it’s strictly a side story.  The main event is Zheng and his arch-nemesis Lu Buwei arguing over whose vision for the future should reign supreme – morally, ethically, practically.  It could be dry or theoretical but no, it’s visceral and real.  Because these two men fully understand the importance of what they’re debating, and because they both believe in their own vision unreservedly.

Who do you believe?  Or perhaps you feel, as I do, that both men are somewhat prisoners of their own circumstances, and both visions are thus incomplete.  I will say this – what Lu Buwei is proposing is more forward-thinking, cleverer in some ways.  And that he’s correct that what Zheng proposes is indeed to impose his will on the weak – which is what dictators do.  Zheng’s defense is “I’m the king of a warrior state, I’m bound by that fate” – but it’s not much of a defense.  Zheng is proposing, in a sense, the simplest solution a man in his position could propose that would still be ambitious.  His ultimate aims are, indeed, worthwhile.  But it’s different than the half-millennium he’s inherited only in terms of its scope.

Zi Xia was correct in her view that Zheng’s experience as not just a commoner but a hostage would set him apart from other royals.  We saw this play out even more eloquently in Seirei no Moribito with Chagum, whose time with Balsa and Tanda offered him perspective none of his predecessors had.  Both are good people at heart or it wouldn’t matter, but matter it does.  And Lu Buwei respects this, and is wary of it – for he was a commoner himself, and knows how powerful a weapon perspective can be in the right hands.  Nevertheless, I don’t see Zheng’s dream as being especially creative or revolutionary – only audacious.

Lu Buwei is no idealist, that’s for sure.  His methods in trying to accrue power are testament to that.  He’s cynical too – but is he wrong?  He knows that war has existed as long as civilization, and probably always will.  He understands its value as a tool.  But he is thinking outside the box here – the best way to minimize war is to minimize its appeal by giving both the levers or power and popular opinion the chance to take a more appealing course.  He aims to make Qin indispensable by making it the economic center of the world (as he knows it), a kind of soft imperialism of the sort that would come to fruition in very recent human history.  As noted last week, Zheng is looking backwards and Lu forwards – one of the few ways this debate can be broken down in simple terms without losing the plot.

You can keep the whole business about grasping hands and balls of light – that’s beneath the dignity of the rest of this episode for me.  But the rest of it is playing at a very high level, offering up difficult issues without commensurate easy solutions.  Lu Buwei is certainly a hard pragmatist, but I don’t think that means we can call Zheng an idealist.  We’re seeing in capsule form with Rongdi what we would see on a grand scale if Qin brings the other kingdoms under its sway by brute force – they may be subjugated, but their resentments will only fester.  There’s only one way, I believe, that Zheng’s path is more idealistic than Lu’s – the latter aims to reap the benefits himself, while the former has no illusions that his work will bear full fruit until after he’s dead and gone.