Lol, I had to scroll Netflix back to the start of the episode on this one, 'cause a while back I had watched just the rooftop fight, as I wanted to see if it could be considered what Jill Bearup calls a "flirty fight." (My conclusion at the time was that it really couldn't, though it absolutely fits the same purpose in the story as a flirty fight.)
So, just gotten to the conversations in the inn in Caiyi Town, when the Jiang party is sent away because the Jin Clan has reserved the entire tavern, then Wei Wuxian convinces Mianmian to let them stay. (And we're about the get to the part where they're sent away anyway, but I paused just as the innkeeper was coming in to make this note.) So, two things here, one for my own notes regarding the rewrite of my fic, and the other a general adaptation note.
The general one first, because it came first chronologically. In the process of--well, no, first and foremost, let's address Mianmian's very presence here. In The Untamed, she's part of the Jin Clan (well, until she leaves it post-Sunshot Campaign), whereas in the novel we're never told what clan/sect she's part of, except that our main characters didn't recognize its uniform, meaning it must have been quite minor. By adding her to the Cloud Recesses study arc and generally making her one of Jin Zixuan's attendants, they increased her presence in the series (an important thing, considering how few female characters there are, and how few of them survive) which would hopefully make the viewer slightly more invested in the peril she faces when Wang Lingjiao targets her in the cave under Mount Muxi. They also thereby increased the chances that the viewer will still remember her when she finally shows up in the show's present. Ordinarily, changing a character's clan might significantly impact their character or role, but in this case it seems like it doesn't change too much. In fact, it means she's giving up a lot more when she leaves her clan, since being even a low level Jin Clan cultivator carries with it a lot more privilege than even being moderately high level (which she definitely was not) in a very minor clan.
More interestingly, in chasing after Mianmian to get her to agree to let the Jiang party have a room to stay in while the Jin Clan is at the same tavern, they transplanted all of Wei Wuxian's dialog with her from the walk to Mount Muxi. So instead of flirting with Mianmian long after meeting Lan Wangji--and in his full sight!--they have Wei Wuxian flirting with Mianmian immediately before meeting Lan Wangji. It's almost worthy of being added to the Things they Added to Highlight the Romance tally, but not quite. Since it's not something they added, but merely something they changed the timing of.
And on to my actual note now that I've lost ten minutes due to a phone call about lunch plans with my family, ten minutes which might have allowed me to finish watching the episode before lunch instead of many, many hours later. 😭 So, about the whole Jin Clan issue. The innkeeper merely said that the whole tavern was rented out for a young master of the Jin Clan. From the look on Jiang Yanli's face, she clearly knows they must mean Jin Zixuan. But that doesn't seem to have even occurred to Wei Wuxian, as after they're settled in the room following the conversation with Mianmian, he asks who the young master could be, and it's Jiang Cheng who says that who else could it be but Jin Zixuan? Prompting Wei Wuxian to wonder if Jin Zixuan is still as "fancy" as he was as a child. He shows no rancor towards Jin Zixuan in saying so. Jin Zixuan is mentioned as being "about the same age as we are" by Jiang Cheng, but since there's three of them there, it's probably okay for me to have shifted Jin Zixuan's age up to be closer to Jiang Yanli's instead of the same age as Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng? Hmm. I hope I don't have to change that, but I'll keep it in mind...
Interesting. The first mention of the marriage arrangements is after they've left the tavern, and Wei Wuxian asks what Jiang-shushu was thinking to arrange a marriage between his daughter and Jin Zixuan, and Jiang Cheng's only answer is a shrug. So they don't even know it's because of how close Yu-furen and Jin-furen are? Crap, that may mean I need to rewrite some of the dialog between Jiang Cheng and Jin-furen. 😰 But maybe something will be said after the engagement is broken off...
Hmm. Lan Xichen and Jiang Yanli have met before, according to what Wei Wuxian says. Not sure if it's relevant to anything, but it's interesting. (Though it's also kinda contrary to the book, where it's established (when Qin Su is first mentioned, I believe) that the most important and high-level members of all the major clans all know each other (at least to the level of knowing what face goes with what name) from seeing each other at various symposia and other events. Although that was mostly after the Cloud Recesses study arc, since that was 100% the first time Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji met in the book.)
AH! That's the shot that Wei Wuxian flashed back to twice in the first episode! The one of Lan Wangji's torso walking towards him was from the (invented new) first time he laid eyes on him! OMG, that makes it even more romantic that that is the moment he flashed back to! 💕 I think that merits being added to the tally of Things They Added to Highlight the Romance They Weren't Allowed to Mention:
5) Wei Wuxian memorized the very first moment he ever saw Lan Wangji, and thinks back on it fondly! (Yes, I am completely swooning over here...)
Hmm, the guy on the stretcher, his bloody cracks are mostly coming from his neck. I had it in my notes that the bloody cracks were mostly on the cheeks, and maybe that's how it is later in the show (since that's easier to show in a wide shot or one with a lot of motion) but I need to remember to switch it up a bit.
I should remember the sliding the sword partway out of its sheath to block someone's path move. I might need to use it to replace a moment in the fic where I stupidly had Lan Wangji grab someone's arm. (Someone who isn't Wei Wuxian.) Though if I do that, it will be harder for him to draw his sword to threaten them, but...oh well. It's at least in character.
.....and I have to go to lunch now. 😭 But at least I got to see the duel first!
And I'm back. (Yes, I know I didn't have to mention any of that since I wasn't planning on publishing the post until I was done, but I felt like grousing about it anyway.)
Right in time for the scene where Lan Xichen and Lan Qiren are examining the body of the man who was just brought in when Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji first set eyes on each other. This scene is one of the ones I wanted to pay closest attention to, because this whole "Yin Iron puppet" thing plays a large role in my fic, because if I just ignore the massive plot thread added to the show, then have I really even used the show's canon at all? (Besides, the way the drama itself threw out about 90% of its own new subplot promptly with the end of the Sunshot Campaign bothers the heck outta me. It's like "Be consistent!", ya know?)
To get a better look at the body in the dark of night, Lan Xichen is holding a candle in one hand while examining with the other. That's the kind of detail I need to remember. (Curse my modern upbringing where I had electric lighting all the time! 🤣)
Okay, looking at the man's clothes now, and although he's dressed in white like the Lan Clan, his clothes lack any of the distinctive flourishes that even the lower level Lans have, so I think I'm safe there. (I may have included a plot point where the charms worked on the Lan Clan robes provided a certain amount of protection against the attacks that caused people to turn into puppets...) And the dialog talks about clans "around Gusu" sending reports of cultivators going missing, so it does sound like it was never the Lan Clan whose people went missing, so maybe the other clans in the area also dress in white in emulation of the Lans. (Ah, maybe I should make the He Clan also dress in white, since their home is pretty close to Gusu! Hmm, I should double-check "Villainous Friends" and see if any comment is made about how they dress there...also should see if anyone is ever identified in the show as being from the He Clan...)
Oh, no, okay, the "dead" guy, is from the Lan Clan? The exact line of the subtitle is "This man is one of our disciples from the branch families." (Which I think is similar language to what's used when Wen Qing is talking about her own family's line and that of Wen Ruohan?) Maybe as part of a "branch family" they don't have as many enchantments on their robes?
I have no idea what that was that just happened when Lan Qiren touched the dead(?) guy's neck. Was that smoke the spell trying to infect him, too? Hmm. I could work with that...
And we have Cultivator Powers again!
6) With just a gesture, Lan Xichen causes a cloth of some sort to fly off the thing it was draped over and completely cover the body. Not totally out of line with some of the object control in other places, and yet also kind of way out of line?
Ah, I kind of want to add some of that conversation to the Things Added to Highlight the Romance, but I'm not sure if it fully counts. It's so cute how Lan Wangji is actively trying not to look directly at Wei Wuxian's face because he's just too good-looking! (These two make me fangirl so hard I feel like I'm a teenager. It's honestly a little scary in a woman my age. 😅) I think it matches pretty well how they would behave if this scene had existed as such in the novel, though, so I won't.
I think I should also keep a running tally on how many ways they (mis)translate "shufu." So far we've had "Grand Master." Which is...not entirely a bad way to address Lan Qiren, but way wrong coming from one of his nephews. Particularly the one who is already head of the clan because for some reason they decided to bump off their father before the flashback started. (I have some theories, but I'll wait until the Mount Muxi sequence to talk about them.) The frustrating thing about the weird ways the subtitles handle "shufu" is that it means that they've left out the very key detail that Lan Qiren is the uncle of Lan Wangji and Lan Xichen. (They haven't exactly gone out of their way to make it clear that Lan Xichen is Lan Wangji's brother, either, though I think that did get at least implied by what the subtitles have said so far.) It's no wonder I was confused at first when I started watching this show the first time: the subtitles keep leaving out very crucial bits of information that were baked into the language of the original!
Also so far we've had "xiongzhang" replaced in the subtitles with "Xichen," which...I mean, from the point of view of an English-speaking audience who knows nothing of the cultural setting, does make sense? I don't think I even noticed when I watched the first time that he wasn't using the name. Other differences I noticed at that time--mostly to do with times when characters use full names instead of just the courtesy name, and that Wen Ning was most definitely not addressing his sister as Qing, but by a word that I correctly identified as meaning "big sister" (or rather I correctly identified that he was addressing her as "big sister," though I was not at that time able to figure out which word he said meant that)--but that one I hadn't picked up on in my first, entirely uneducated viewing. Of course, now that I know a bit more (thanks in large part to the notes on the official translation of the novel, and the reference fanworks I've read), I kind of cringe a little to see the subtitles having Lan Wangji addressing his elder brother by his courtesy name like that. Deeply wrong culturally, and even more deeply wrong for the character, who isn't just defined by his rigid following of the rules, but has purposefully defined himself that way. The subtitles have also replaced "jiejie" and "a-jie" from Jiang Cheng and "shijie" from Wei Wuxian with "Yanli," which...again, to the Anglophone audience is kind of what's expected?
And our first scene in the weirdly magma-filled Nightless City. Wen Ruohan mentions Wen Ning's "special constitution" and how it could help Wen Qing with her investigation. OMG, this guy: "Here's an idea, why don't you use your precious little brother as a magnet for the evil thing I'm sending you to find?" ARGH! I mean, yeah, I know, he's supposed to be evil. That's the whole point of him. But I wonder if this wasn't a little bit overkill even on that score? (Then again, look at where they have him living. It's the lair of the final boss of a JRPG. An old-school one, at that. I could see the final villain of an NES-era Dragon Quest feeling right at home in The Untamed's version of Wen Ruohan's audience hall.)
Huh. Someone--completely unclear who--snapped their fingers, and all the candles and lanterns blew out, a wind swept through the room at Cloud Recesses where they were all surrounding the guy on the table, and the cover blew off the body. Which then sat up.
Um.
But who snapped his fingers and why? It was clearly not Wen Ruohan: the background wasn't in the same colors and the lighting was different from the Nightless City scene. It was definitely at Cloud Recesses.
Hmm. Maybe it was Wei Wuxian? If so, that seems like it's a new crazy power for him, but...without being sure...
Well, anyway, some dialog I'll want. After examining the now sitting-up not-dead guy, Wei Wuxian says that he looks and feels dead, but is "still affected by the fluctuation of spiritual power." (Which is about as meaningless to me as "reverse the polarity of the neutron flow" but...) Then, after saying that the guy on the table can't truly be considered dead, he goes on to say that "he seems to have lost his spiritual cognition." Lan Wangji's reply is "Spirit snatch." Then it's Lan Qiren who says "puppet," and Wei Wuxian agrees that that's just what it's like. Only when Lan Qiren said it, it sounded like a condition he already knew about, but which Wei Wuxian did not.
But that's the end of the scene. I guess it only makes sense that they don't put too much of it all at once.
So far I think what I picked up on my earlier partial rewatch basically did the trick and that I didn't particularly go in opposition to canon in anything I did in the fic with the puppets. Except that I forgot the cracks were on the neck not the cheek, at least with this first guy. But that's easily fixed.
Anyway, great scene coming up. After that scene with the puppet is over, they lighten the mood by going to Lan Wangji standing alone in a courtyard, looking at the sky with an expression that seems to be pleading with the heavens to not make him fall in love with Wei Wuxian. (As if it wasn't already too late!) Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that he's asking for the strength to resist the walking temptation that is Wei Wuxian. 🤣 (Again, obviously already hopeless!)
I love the moment after Lan Wangji stalks off following the conversation turning to praise of Wei Wuxian, and Lan Xichen is just standing there smiling, not just seeing that his brother has a crush, but clearly pleased by it.
Okay, the scenes of puppets in Wen Ruohan's audience hall were also some of the ones I most wanted to pay attention to, particularly the number of puppets. This first one is not helping me on that score, but I counted at least 18 in that first shot, however there were more who were out of frame, so...another shot has 20. The first showed about half to two thirds of the circle around the Yin Iron piece, and this second shot has about the same amount, possibly the opposite end of the circle, or possibly the same one, but since one was from above and the other from a more typical angle, it's hard to be sure. Yeah, can't be sure of anything. (Though I notice there's one of the puppets whose clothes indicate them to be a member of the Wen Clan. Yikes. Puppetifying his own people!)
Anyway, from the dialog, it sounds like Xue Yang is the one who taught Wen Ruohan how to use the Yin Iron? So...was he just holding onto it pointlessly until he recruited Xue Yang? That...that makes no sense. Hmm....
Okay, so the bit where Wen Ruohan is Force-strangling Xue Yang from across the room (😰) is my best angle on the group of gathered puppets, and it looks like there probably aren't much more than twenty of them. Hard to be sure, because the light is pretty low and there's some ambient smoke, but calling it "about two dozen" would work.
Ooh, a bit about the locations of the Yin Iron pieces? "West of Dafan, East of Gusu, North of Yueyang," is given as the locations of the three known pieces. And Xue Yang promises to tell him where the last one is if he's permitted to go to the Chang Clan to get the Yueyang fragment.
Um. Slight problem with that. Like, the one Wen Ruohan is asking about, the one he doesn't know where it is, that's the one Wen Chao later gathers on his own. Unless we're to take it that town is now north of Yueyang? But no, that can't be it. Gnh.
The entire Yin Iron subplot is just generally internally inconsistent. That's pretty much the long and the short of it.
I can see I'm going to have to add even more material than I thought to try and wrangle this into some kind of coherent sense that doesn't contradict the show. (Thankfully, Xue Yang is a prolific liar, so anything he ever says can be taken to be half-truth or an outright lie to get what he wants, so there is at least that.) I already have a scene where my explanations fell apart into nonsense and my notes on the scene suggested I should introduce (the concept/existence of) a former master of Xue Yang's, someone who had taught him demonic cultivation based on secret ancient techniques, and now I'm thinking that really will be my best bet: Xue Yang had a master who had the Yin Iron piece, and once Xue Yang learned enough from him, he killed him and took the Yin Iron piece, hiding it away before going to offer his services to Wen Ruohan.
Except why would he need to work for Wen Ruohan to get his revenge on the Chang Clan if he was the one who knew how to use the Yin Iron in the first place? He specifically says that he came to Nightless City to see Wen Ruohan, so it's not like the Wen Clan came after his master and caught him in the act of killing him. [EDIT: maybe what happened was that he learned how to use the Yin Iron from this master I'll have to invent, but they only knew the theoretical techniques, because neither of them had access to a piece. And then there actually was a piece of the Yin Iron hidden near Yueyang, and so Xue Yang obtained it and then went to massacre the Chang Clan because of his grudge against Chang Ci'an. Something like that should work better, I think?]
Hmm, but maybe they came to find/hire his master just after he killed him, and Xue Yang avoided being seen by them but sensed that he could get what he wants from working with the Wen Clan. After all, he's still young. He knows how to use the Yin Iron, but maybe doesn't have the strength to do it himself yet, or wants to watch someone else do it first so he won't do it wrong and get himself killed without destroying the Chang Clan.
That's a very complicated backstory to introduce, considering that it's all long over with and thus mostly irrelevant. I guess the place to insert most of the story is when they're questioning Meng Yao about where Xue Yang is and where he might have hidden the Yin Iron. They can ask him what he knows of Xue Yang's past, and he can mention the former master that Wen Ruohan had planned to recruit, etc, etc. (Not that Meng Yao should have any way of knowing any of that, but why would that stand in the way? He's good at knowing things he really shouldn't...)
I can probably make that work. It'll make that scene even longer than it already is, but...actually, as it stands they don't really get much useful information out of him, so adding more about Xue Yang's past should make it feel more believable that Wei Wuxian and co are satisfied with the results.
So, current tallies:
Things Added to Highlight the Romance: 5
Crazy Wei Wuxian Powers: 6
Cultivator Powers: 6
Mistranslations of "shufu": "Grand Master"
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