Part two of my public notes to myself about every random thing I'm noticing as I rewatch The Untamed. Because.
Hmm, so they changed who gave him the apple that he ended up naming his donkey after. Now instead of being a female cultivator from the group who have the Compass of Ill Winds, it's the half-soul-sucked victim, a-Yan. I suppose part of that was to make it more meaningful when we get the flashback to what happened to her, and part of that was because what little meaning there was to the original gesture is already lost due to other changes: Wei Wuxian no longer looks crazy, as his face isn't covered in thick white make-up, but merely hidden by a mask, and of course her final appearance (which was in one of the bonus stories) when she's been accepted into the Lan Clan as a new disciple, is entirely removed from the story. (I wish they would do a follow-up for Western streaming services to adapt the clean bits of the bonus stories, so we could see them in their happy romantic ending together! I know they won't, but I still wish they would.)
Oh, also, another Crazy Wei Wuxian Power!
4) He flicked a bit of red energy at the unfortunate girl's head and when it hit her forehead it formed a character (or multiple characters?) and caused her to fall unconscious.
And just as I was contemplating how weird it is that Jin Ling could recognize Mo Xuanyu (who was sent away from Lanling when he was like four or five years old at most) we get another one:
5) I'm not even sure how to describe it, though. It's kind of martial arts wirework thing? He sort of lies back at an angle, his foot still on the ground but his head about a foot or so off it, so that Jin Ling's attacks go over his head? On top of the not great angle, for some reason the picture quality on Netflix turned to garbage right then. Hmm...and this is not saving, oh, no, wait, now it is again. Ugh, internet troubles. Let's go back to Netflix and see if the picture quality on that bit will go back up. Well, it waited a little longer to go screwy? But I can't watch the episode if it stays all blotchy like that!
Look! Look! This is what it looks like right now when I'm trying to watch it!
Don't do this to me, internet! Don't do that to Wei Wuxian! He's too pretty to be all blocky-looking! 😭
Crud.
Maybe if I back out of the video and then go back in...
Ah, that got it! Thank goodness!
And we're already at another Crazy Wei Wuxian Power? Wow, that was fast!
6) He just swung his hand in the direction of Jin Ling's retainers, and a wave of red energy flew out and knocked them over. I think it was basically the same as sword glare but without the sword? That is super not something he should be able to do. Especially not at this point in the story.
Also, one that could be another of his powers, but I think falls more squarely in the realm of Cultivator Powers:
4) Wei Wuxian picked up Jin Ling's sword (somehow without noticing that it's Jin Zixuan's sword) and hurled it through the air, making it curve around to cut down the nets that were holding the cultivators from the minor clan(s). I feel like this is tangential to some of the things cultivators can do in the novel, and certainly like the things they're described as being able to do in other novels.
More importantly, I'm relieved to see him able to do that, because actually that's very like something I had Jiang Cheng do with his own sword in my fic. 😅 Always nice to know I'm not just out here making up garbage that goes radically against canon in places it's not supposed to. (There are, obviously, other places where it's totally supposed to go against canon...)
Hrm. So, one of the things I wanted to look for was the use of Twin Prides of Yunmeng, and that just came up in a string of memories that Wei Wuxian is visualizing playing out on the surface of a river. (Though it said Twin Heroes instead of Twin Prides. I thought the Netflix subs used Prides? I know the official translation of the novel used Heroes, but...hrrrrmrmmmmrmmm. Well, I'll just have to see what it says later on.) Of course, since it's a sorrowful memory born of Wei Wuxian's pain on having encountered the bitter and angry present day Jiang Cheng, it's hard to even guess what the context was, so I guess that doesn't help me much for my fic.
Ah, but it's so hard watching this episode prior to the flashback starting! Jiang Cheng is at his worst in this episode, and it's painful to watch. He's gotten so twisted up inside because of the final tragedies of the past. 😭
Ooookay, so the Lan juniors meet the caretaker of the graveyard. Who keeps on not entirely remembering what "Wen-laoye" told him. This is translated as "Master Wen" in the subtitles, which seems in keeping with what I was told about the term by one of the experts on AO3 when I was asking how a household servant would address the son of the master of the house. I was told that "shaoye" was for the son of the master of the house, and "laoye" was for the actual master of the house.
So, keeping in mind everything that happens on Dafan Mountain in the flashback portion of the show--in the part that was invented out of whole cloth for the drama and has little to no connection to the novel beyond involving the characters--I'm wondering two things. First, when he says "Wen-laoye" does he mean Wen Ruohan, or does he mean Wen Qing's father? Second, is this dude actually alive, or is he a ghost? Since ghosts in (novel) canon can look convincingly like those who are alive, and the juniors are definitely not advanced enough to be able to tell the difference for one who's behaving like a normal (if slightly senile) person. Either way, he's obviously left over from Fojiao Town as it was when they encounter it during the hunt for the Yin Iron.
Which means...huh.
I need to keep an eye out for anyone in the Fojiao sequence of the flashback who might be this guy sixteen years earlier.
Well.
Okay, maybe need is a strong term. It's not as though it's going to change anything; I barely provide any kind of identity for any of the people of Fojiao, certainly nothing beyond the names provided in the novel for the Wen remnants.
So I guess I should instead say that I want to keep an eye out because I'm deeply curious as to who he is, exactly, and how he's still there when the other residents of the town ended up in the Qiongqi Path work camp!
Oop. He just answered part of my question by finally remembering that what he'd been told was that the stone (ie the Dancing Fairy) can move. Thus it's out of the question that he means Wen Qing's father, on account of him having been killed when they found that out in the first place. So that means this old man is still there obeying Wen Ruohan's orders to watch over that graveyard almost twenty years after Wen Ruohan's death.
That.
That is.
Not normal.
Like, at all.
No one could have been paying this old man, what with the Wen Clan having been dead for almost twenty years, and the former residents of the nearby town having been slain sixteen years ago. I'm not sure the show actually sets up that there's a new town in its place, either, now that I've gone past the tale of a-Yan; I think in this that unfortunate girl was from a nearby town that wasn't Fojiao.
So where does this old man live?
What does he live on? How does he eat? How does he survive?
Guy's gotta be a ghost. Surely.
...and yet, I'm pretty sure Wei Wuxian's reaction to him will not contain any hint of "this man is dead and therefore should obey me." Or even just of "this man is dead."
Welp, let's find out!
Hm, okay. Wei Wuxian didn't recognize the graveyard at first, but then after the old man tells him that the people buried there were in the long-gone Wen Clan, he has a flashback to Wen Qing standing in that graveyard telling him that her people are buried there. Leading into a flashback showing the (motionless) Dancing Fairy.
And when he turns to look again, the old man is gone.
So, yeah, the show acknowledges that he's a ghost, without outright saying that he's a ghost.
Okay. That works. (I wonder if he was Wen-popo's husband? If so, he must have died shortly before they arrive there in the flashback, because he looks about the same age she was. He certainly makes me think of her, not just in terms of age, but in terms of the way he dresses and behaves.)
OMG, even Lan Jingyi has a Compass of Ill Winds? That is so not right. Lan Qiren would never allow a Lan Clan disciple to have something Wei Wuxian invented! (Well, aside from the Spirit-Attraction Flags, anyway...)
LOL! Even though the signal flare to call Lan Wangji they used in the previous episode was not a physical flare, they just said they can't signal him for help against the Dancing Fairy because they have no more signal flares. 😅 That's clumsy on the part of the adaptation. (Even more so since the first two episodes went up on the same day, so many people would have watched them back to back, so they'd be even more likely to notice the messed up continuity!)
Hmm. There's a food stall of sorts, but it looks like it's literally just standing by the side of the road in what is otherwise the middle of nowhere. Not in a town, like in the novel. (Again, presumably because they went and exterminated the town in the flashback...)
Ah, and the awkwardness of trying to adapt something that has extensive explanations and flashbacks in narration. Now the Lan juniors are asking Wei Wuxian what happened to a-Yan, etc, and he's walking them through the explanation...only problem with that?
The Lan juniors didn't meet a-Yan.
Only Wei Wuxian did.
sigh
I sort of feel like these first couple of episodes didn't get quite as much effort put into the script as they needed. And yet in other places they really did, so...🤷🏻♀️
Hmm. Wei Wuxian just concluded that the Dancing Fairy was an illusion to get him to lure out Wen Ning.
I'm...not sure if that makes sense...?
I mean, only one person was expecting Wei Wuxian to be revived, and...I don't think he expected Wei Wuxian to need Wen Ning's help, even if he guessed [or knew] that Wen Ning hadn't been destroyed after all. I mean, he already went to all that trouble to ensure that Wei Wuxian would be revived right in the path not just of Lan Clan juniors, but specifically the one who is Lan Wangji's protégé and possibly adopted son. (I know it's standard fanon that he adopted Lan Sizhui officially, but I don't know if it's strongly enough implied to be properly considered canon.) More importantly, said person must know where Lan Sizhui came from, between his close connection to Lan Xichen and general Holmesian intellect, plus he knows how Lan Wangji feels about Wei Wuxian, so...would he really think Wei Wuxian needed any more help than what he'd get from Lan Wangji, who would do literally anything in his power for Wei Wuxian's sake? (And given that Lan Wangji is insanely OP, that's saying a lot.)
I guess I'll have to wait and see what it says later on when--if--that particular point is addressed in the denouement in the final episodes... (assuming I remember that I was confused by this by mid-August...)
Hmm, there was a person in dark clothes leaping away in the background. Much like there was someone like that in the distance when the Lan juniors were approaching the graveyard. Only two possibilities for who that could be, really, and it can't be Su Minshan. If he had any idea Wei Wuxian was alive and Wen Ning was unleashed, he'd be attacking. Plus then his master wouldn't be surprised later.
I guess it means it is our adorable little mastermind?
That...feels kind of like overkill, actually.
Also I don't think his physical skills would be up to the task of avoiding the notice of so many skilled cultivators. 😅
Ah, but I guess that could explain the old man. He could be another illusion, conjured up to ensure that the juniors would go to the right place. Though why he would want the juniors to encounter the illusion of the Dancing Fairy does not make a lot of sense. Including him in the first episode to have that story-teller going on and on about Wei Wuxian to increase the chances of Mo Xuanyu's summoning spell working, that's brilliant. Having him on Dafan Mountain to make sure Wei Wuxian calls out Wen Ning? That feels like overkill. On the show's part even more than on the part of the kitten who hides his claws.
Since the show doesn't seem to want to have the undead, I suppose him being an illusion would make more sense? (Sort of?)
EDIT: WAIT. I just now thought of something on this score. If the Dancing Fairy was just an illusion, then what sucked the souls out of all those people? There is no way the kitten who hides his claws did that. I don't think it's even possible for him to have done so, just from the perspective of what cultivators are capable of in canon. Unless we're supposed to take it that he already defeated whatever was doing the soul-sucking, and left behind an illusion like that, but since the actual Dancing Fairy was evidently no longer there after the illusion started moving, that would mean he was able to destroy it? That makes no sense! He's a mastermind, but not a warrior! 😖 I get that they wanted to explain that yes, they knew that they had Wen Ning destroy the Dancing Fairy way too easily, but honestly it would have made more sense to leave it at "wow, Wen Ning is OP!" I presume the reason he destroyed it so easily was because it was much harder (and thus more expensive) to depict a long, drawn-out battle between a ten-fifteen foot tall CG statue and a person, but... 😖 (I didn't remember to mention it yesterday afternoon, but the Dancing Fairy works pretty well as an effect. She has a bit of a Ray Harryhausen feel to the way she moves, which is a good thing. 😁) End EDIT
Anyway, moving on to Cultivator Powers I guess?
5) Ability to just summon up weapons--well, instruments--out of nowhere. In the novel, if Lan Wangji is going to have his guqin, he has to carry it on his back. In the drama, he just sort of gestures and it's in front of him, floating in midair. (I think he is capable of making it levitate in front of him in the novel, but not of just summoning it out of nowhere.) This feels very video game in its logic to me. 😅 (This would, btw, make an epic RPG.)
Gnh. The times in this show are messy. Which is a problem for me trying to unravel them for my fic! It seems like every time given in the present is 16 years. It's 16 years from Wei Wuxian's death to his revival, but when he's passing out in order to start the flashback-longer-than-the-present-portion-of-the-show, he says he wants to go back 16 years to Lotus Pier...and at the time of his death he hadn't been at Lotus Pier for like a year. Maybe only 10 months. But...no, more like a full year. Unless the drama wants to say that Jiang Yanli was massively pregnant at the time of her wedding. 😰 (Which she certainly doesn't appear to be!) Plus there's the time at Cloud Recesses (which the show specifically describes as six months, I remember making a note of that during my partial rewatch before writing my fic) and the Sunshot Campaign (which the show kinda makes out to only be about four months long) which is confirmed at least ten months, plus the hunt for the Yin Iron pieces, the time spent at the Indoctrination Camp, and any time spent between the close of the Sunshot Campaign up to the time of the wedding...
Well.
Like I said, one of the things I wanted to get out of this full rewatch is a tighter grip on the show's unique chronology. (Wait, did I say that? It's true, but maybe I never actually said it on the blog...?)
Okay, may not need to know this, but just in case, it looks like they brought three male disciples and two female disciples along with them. The disciples are all in the clan's uniform, but the Lotus Pier trio are wearing whatever they feel like. 😅 That seems both fitting to the characters and also kind of wrong at the same time.
They're specifically in Caiyi Town, when you would expect the closest place to Cloud Recesses to be, you know, Gusu. That's kind of odd to me. Unless Gusu is the province/region/what-have-you and not a city? I thought it was a city, but...gnh. Not sure how to look that up. But I feel like I did reference it as a city at some point in the fic. Seeing as that seems not to be the case in the drama, regardless of what the case is in the novel (not sure off hand which it is there, either), I'll want to fix that.
And that's episode 2 finished. Somehow I forgot just how much of episode 2 was still in the present; I felt like the flashback started halfway in, not right at the end.
Anyway, nothing got added for the sake of the hidden romance this time, so the tallies are at:
Things Added to Highlight the Romance: 4
Crazy Wei Wuxian Powers: 6
Cultivator Powers: 5
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