Sea of Poppies

Deeti has two kinds of shrines in the novel: her family shrine back home, and the small shrine she carves into the bows of the Ibis during their journey. The former appears to be an important one, and it is suggested early on that the shrine she meticulously kept at home becomes known after the events of the trilogy are complete. However, as this is only the first novel, this does not come to fruition. Still, the eventual shrine is used as foreshadowing throughout the book, and characters are often marked as important by the promise that they will eventually become part of Deeti’s shrine. This has a practical effect in the novel, too, due to the complexity of the different storylines through the first two parts, both helping the reader track who is most important and promising that these disparate threads will eventually come together. 

Several characters are either assaulted sexually or sexual assault is attempted on them. Deeti is drugged on her wedding night and raped by her brother-in-law in order to procure a child, as her husband’s opium addiction prevented him from being able to complete the task on his own, and her mother-in-law hints that she intends to continue the practice repeatedly. Kalua is first made to mate with a sex worker, but the sex worker refuses; later, he is stripped and forced up against a horse, which defecates on him, leading to his first encounter with Deeti, during which she, too, touches him inappropriately while he is unconscious. A ship’s quartermaster appears to have attempted to sexually molest Burnham when he was a child serving as an indentured servant, which leads to his employment with a prison chaplain and the chaplain’s rough reform techniques. Much later, Paulette is forced to act as his dominatrix under the guise of Bible study, which is an act of violence against her but also points to the possibility that Burnham was potentially molested by the prison chaplain, as well.

These acts are presented as offensive and harmful toward the recipients, but otherwise ordinary abuses of power: Deeti is a woman in a patriarchal society; Kalua is of extremely low caste; Burnham, at the time, was an indentured servant and a child, and when the script is flipped later, he is an extremely wealthy and powerful man taking advantage of an orphan.