There’s a few different ways you could read this scene. Filial piety taking priority over loyalty to the throne? Rejecting a life of wealth and status if it means compromising your true identity? Choosing loyalty to Han culture over participating in a possibly illegitimate non-Han government (even though, as someone pointed out to me recently, there’s a good chance Mulan herself would not be Han)? Or, perhaps, simply a woman who has worked hard for twelve years and misses the parents she hasn’t seen in all that time more than anything else. Decide for yourself!

The Kickstarter to print this book only has a few hours left! Ahhhhhhh!