curious whether rf kuang intentionally set up parallels between chaghan and genghis khan or if she was actually trying to avoid it, because on one hand she says that chaghan is from the naimad tribe which are clearly inspired by the naiman at least in terms of naming, and they were notoriously some of genghis khan’s number one ops along with the merkits who they even tried to team up with against him, but on the other hand there are a lot of similarities in their stories
both are from an outcast tribe who are looked down upon by the other tribes and yet surprisingly rise to power and unite all the tribes under one ruler (themselves) for the first time, chaghan’s name means white in mongolian and temujin (genghis khan’s birth name) means iron so similar connotations of a pale color, there is also emphasis put on their ancestral lineage and their eventual rise to power being prophesied
young temujin kills his older half brother bekter and chaghan kills his older cousin bekter (though chaghan’s revenge has a little more weight with him both avenging his sister and protecting his people from slaughter compared to temujin killing his brother over a fish 😭), both are shown sympathy to certain degrees by a man or woman called the sorqan sira (temujin more so than chaghan, but still tpw!bekter states his mother had shown the ‘naimad scum’ mercy for too long)
definitely some interesting parallels though chaghan is fated to die young so i doubt he manages to do the fantasy equivalent of building the mongol empire
