where her enlightened-but-not-implausibly-so-for-his-era* hero Lawrence ends up entangled in diplomatic battles with the Chinese government in her AU early 19th c., and treads the delicate line of having him be clueless about why there are anti-British factions there and feeling aggrieved that they don't think his country's just WONDERFUL, and making it clear to the reader *by* Lawrence's very John-Bullish indignation that it's more than he realizes, and that while the methods of his nemesis in the story are to be deplored (not least because they involve a bloody coup at home) the Chinese prince is justified in his objections to the British para-governmental aggression via corporations, that the Opium Wars didn't come out of nowhere all the sudden.

I can't go into more details w/o getting spoilery, but I thought it was well done and historically plausible *and* in chara the way she has Lawrence realizing that by comparison the UK isn't all perfect and superior in every way to China, and being generally peeved and resentful by this realization, and never (yet) fully realizing how, ahem, insular he is for all his education and travel, and how much Temeraire is the foil for this.

_{*His family are strong supporters of Wilberforce in Parliament.}