This is a Korean historical epic fantasy compared to LoTR featuring Ryun, of the Nhaga lizard people; Byong, of the fire spirit Tokkebi; Teenahan, of the bird warrior Rekon, and Kagan, a human hunter (and consumer) of Nhaga as they unite to transport a dangerously and uniquely mortal Nhaga north in a quest that may have larger ramifications for their world.

I should say at the start I don’t like LoTR (liked The Hobbit, better but overall I’m not a Tolkien stan), so perhaps it’s not unexpected I didn’t like this book. However, I do think my problems are larger, speaking to greater philosophical concerns and intellectual laziness, than just “not liking quest fantasy” or “not liking epic fantasy” (and certainly I like other epic and quest fantasy).

Essentially, the book concerns one fantasy race, the Nhaga, who the author seems to be attempting to make matriarchal, but in a way which fulfills manosphere fearmongering instead of representing any meaningful understanding of historical matriarchal, matrilineal, or matrifocal societies (Yeong-Do writes a “reverse patriarchy” instead of a society reflective of modern archeological and anthropological evidence of the mother and child centered, collaborative societies matriarchies have been found to be.)

The reason I mention the manosphere, is that it’s difficult to take this out of the larger Korean political climate including the previous president Yoon Suk-yeol who in 2022 ran on an explicit platform of misogyny and abolishing the Ministry of Gender Equality, their “Birth Map” initiative (that published a heat map of “fertile” women aged 15-49), the nth room sexual assault and blackmailing scheme, and the Burning Sun scandal (where former BigBang K-pop idol and club director Seungri along with two other convicted accomplice men drugged, coerced, and gang raped women). This is reflective of a larger rise in misogyny and alt-right conservative politics in Korea and globally.

I think it would be easier to be gracious to Yeong-Do if his characterization of the Nhaga women wasn’t flat and a caricature. This is particularly egregious when compared to his nuanced examination of Kagan, the racist fighter who kills and eats the Nhaga he despises, who he both critiques and presents as complex, with surprisingly good qualities like loyalty, whereas the Nhaga are completely evil with only evil motivations and wholly obsessed with pregnancy. I think it speaks to a larger intellectual laziness (or bias) that he is willing to explore this nuance with racism but not “misandry.” (Essentially, I think there’s a difference between having to write an empathetic bigoted character and writing a flat caricature with close resemblance to that used by a [here, male] supremacy group. If you selectively choose to make bigots understandable—which is different than empathetic—or empathetic (which is the case here), I think which bigots you choose to make empathetic says something about your personal politics.)