Back again for more. (There are fifty episodes, after all! And I plan to be done with watching the show by August 20 at the latest.) Episode five starts out at the base of one of the gorgeous waterfalls around Cloud Recesses. The locations they filmed at for The Untamed include some truly breathtaking scenery. If I was capable of traveling and felt like it was actually a good idea to travel right now, I would love to go on a tour of China to visit some of the places where they filmed it. (I bet some of those places get a lot of tourists specifically because of dramas that have been filmed there. And among Western women, The Untamed probably draws more tourists than most other cdramas.)
Anyway, the episode starts with a recap of the mini-duel when Lan Wangji surprises Wei Wuxian soon after he's encountered the Wen siblings in the back hills. This is followed by Wei Wuxian attempting to hold a conversation, and Lan Wangji remaining utterly silent, eventually dragging him off by his arm to do the copying he's supposed to. This may be the first time that Lan Wangji voluntarily touches him in the show. (I mean, chronologically first time for the characters. Obviously, the opening showing Wei Wuxian's death doesn't count 'cause it's about two years after this.) In the novel, the first time I recall it specifically saying he touched Wei Wuxian was when they were both in the cold springs together. (And in the novel, they were actually both naked in there! 🤣)
I don't know if there's any significance to the fact that he actually touches him here, though. Pulling on his sleeve wouldn't be enough to force Wei Wuxian to follow him, after all. So it doesn't necessarily mean that Lan Wangji has already accepted his feelings at this point. (Though it doesn't necessarily mean he hasn't, either!)
Ah, I love the library scenes so much! Wei Wuxian is just too cute. 💕 (Though I can definitely understand why Lan Wangji was annoyed with him talking so much while he's trying to work...)
Hmm. I think I may have failed at the basic relationship between Wen Qing and Wen Ning. Or rather, at recreating the CQL version of their relationship. She seems very fixated on saving him from his unique condition that was created for the drama. I don't think I did much to show that. Although I did have her worried about it a lot at the start. (The problem with having spent nearly a year writing it is that the earlier partial rewatch wore off over time and I started lapsing back into thinking of everything more along novel canon lines...) Also, Wen Ning seems to prefer "jiejie" to "a-jie" for addressing her, perhaps as a way of representing the "mentally still a child" thing they tried to saddle him with. 😰 I think I mostly had him use "a-jie," same as Jiang Cheng with his sister, so I might want to change that.
😰 Why did they decide to call those shadow birds "owls" in the Netflix translation? They don't look like owls, they don't sound like owls...I don't get it.
Also, um...the subtitles say that Nie Huaisang said that Qinghe is "at the foot of Qishan" which...makes absolutely no sense to me. I mean, okay, yeah, I know that "shan" means mountain, so...is it supposed to mean that Qinghe is in the Qishan mountain range? I'm not sure if that accords with actual geography (since most of the places in MDZS are real places, albeit a fantastical version of same) but maybe that kind of makes sense? Except...mostly not? That would make a huge mountain range, and I feel like the actual mountain range doesn't go in that direction? I'll have to consult Google Earth again to get an idea of the actual layout of mountains and such. Though as long as it's a mistranslation and he was just saying that the Qinghe Nie's territory borders on the Qishan Wen's territory, that works. (And basically accords with how my own version of the map is laid out.)
Hmm, nope. I just checked Google Earth, and not only are they really far from each other, the land between them is mostly flat: the mountains at Qishan are to the south of the city. Assuming the various maps I found online connected the right modern city with Qishan. 😅 So I guess I'll have to assume that NHS meant that the two territories border each other closely, because nothing else makes sense.
Aaaaaand they just translated "xiongzhang" as "Zewu-jun." Because yeah, Lan Wangji is really going to address his brother that distantly. OMG. Ah, and Lan Xichen's patented "it's so adorable the way my brother has a crush" smile. 😊 I like that the eternally OP Lan Wangji is so distracted by Wei Wuxian's presence that he didn't figure out the one trying to get past the ancient wards was actually Wen Qing.
Ugh, Su Minshan just showed up. I notice his robes are much more plain, like the guy who got turned into a puppet earlier. If only the inner disciples have the robes with the protective charms, that shouldn't change much in the way my fic handled talking about those charms. (Pretty sure the Lan Clan is not so stingy regarding what protections it affords to its outer disciples in the novel, but...)
Wow. First time Jiang Cheng and Wen Qing interact, and his face just absolutely lights up at the sight of her. (Not that I blame him; she's gorgeous!) They definitely didn't want anyone making any mistakes about the tragic romance mini subplot they were adding there. I don't know if I should laugh or cry...
Ah, that was the reason why Wen Qing wanted to go along to deal with the water ghosts in Caiyi Town; she thought it might be related to the Yin Iron piece she was having trouble finding.
They...they're going out to deal with the water ghosts at night...? Uh. That. That does not seem wise. Was that really just so they could have a scene where Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji were alone in the guest room of an inn together? (I would like to see how that got arranged! You know Lan Wangji would expect that if they need to take rooms to wait, that he would be waiting with his brother. Though from what the innkeeper said, they were the only ones getting rooms, so where is everyone else? It's not like it was just the six primary characters going on the expedition: they were leaving with a whole crowd of other Lans!)
Yeah, this makes so little sense that it feels worthy of being added to a tally. Things they Added to Highlight the Romance they weren't allowed to Mention:
6) Spending the day in an inn at Caiyi Town prior to the Waterborne Abyss sequence, just to have Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji alone together in an intimate setting.
Wait, wait, wait.. I'm confused now. A random dude just died on the lake in the night. (Setting aside the obvious question of why he was out fishing in the dead of night...) Why did they go to Caiyi Town and then just sit on their hands all day and night instead of actually, you know, doing what they went there to do? It doesn't make sense! I mean, yeah, it's 20 li away from Cloud Recesses, which is I think about 20 km, which is about 10 miles to an ignorant American like me, but compared to how quickly they normally traverse distances in this canon, that's not even a morning's walk. I mean, technically, that's actually a morning's walk for a healthy individual, in reality. (I think. I dunno; I'm fat and out of shape and don't tend to walk anywhere further than the end of my driveway.) So why would they wait until the next day, letting someone else die? And where the heck are they walking to through the wilderness? They were already in the town, which is on the shores of the lake!
I'm so confused now.
Huh. I guess in CQL Caiyi Town is not on the shore of the lake, just on the river. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but...oh well.
Why do the water ghosts look like masses of kelp? In the novel, they're basically fierce corpses underwater. So why are they...oh. Right. They didn't want to use the undead. *sigh*
Ooh! This is important for the fic: in response to Jiang Cheng's injury, Wen Qing takes out a small, white bottle and pours a white powder onto the injury (without moving his trousers away from the wound) and says it will recover in a few days, since the injury was just to the "skin". (The phrasing felt weird. But that happens pretty often. I don't think it's machine TL, but it's not always naturalistic, either. Better than the subs on the Youtube version, though.) I need to remember using powder like that, though. I kept having her use potions and unguents and stuff, because I'm used to writing about Western medicine. That's exactly one of the things I most want to fix for the next draft. Getting a solution direction from the canon material is ultimate. 😁
Have they changed the subtitles since I first watched this in 2022? I could swear that they called it a Waterborne Abyss in the subtitles at that time (just like in the official translation of the novel), but now they're calling the "Aqua Demon." That...um...no. Just no. I'm stickin' with Waterborne Abyss. (Though I'm not sure if got mentioned in the fic outside of people having to be reminded who Su Minshan is...)
It's not entirely clear what happened there. I guess Wen Ning was reaching to grab Su Minshan's shoulder to save him when the Waterborne Abyss partially possessed him, so he ended up just standing there, holding his hand out? Kind of weird all around. (And given what they ended up making Su Minshan do to Wen Ning later on, it's especially infuriating! I may hate Su Minshan more than any other villain in MDZS. Except possibly Jin Zixun. I don't know, I may not hate Jin Zixun quite as much as I used to since I realized he's a less likeable version of Qi Rong. (Not that Qi Rong is likeable, per se, but he is at least entertaining.)) Seriously, though, no matter what version you're looking at, Su Minshan repays kindness with cruelty, turning against the people who saved his life. What a scum! They shoulda let the Waterborne Abyss swallow him up. 😠
*sigh* The whole "I don't touch people" line doesn't play very well when he's actively holding someone in his other hand. It's weird; my memory had changed this sequence slightly so that Wen Ning was already gripping Su Minshan when he was possessed, so that it was a chain: Lan Wangji holding Wei Wuxian by his collar, Wei Wuxian holding Wen Ning by his shoulder, and Wen Ning still gripping Su Minshan by his shoulder despite being unconscious and possessed. Since they had Lan Wangji directly rescuing Su Minshan in this version (since in the novel it was Su Minshan that Wei Wuxian had gone to save, so he was the one holding him) they should have had him grab the collar on both of them, not just the collar of the one he had actually wanted to rescue.
Anyway, I think this calls for another Cultivator Power tally mark:
9) A combination of playing his xiao and making an air seal let Lan Xichen completely defeat the Waterborne Abyss. (In the novel, we're told that the only sure way to deal with it quickly would be to drain the lake, and that since they can't do that it may take generations to get rid of.) You know, I may actually leave the bit in the fic where he and Lan Wangji are basically water-bending. I don't think that's actually too far out of their skill set from the show...
Why...why are there dreamcatchers on the stand selling the haircombs? I mean, is that a weird coincidence, and the Native American dreamcatchers just happen to look a lot like something traditional from China, or is that a really bizarre production error? (Given one of them had things dangling from it that had a very modern look to it, I suspect it may be the latter. But I suppose I can't be sure.)
"A comb is an emblem of lovesickness." That vendor knows exactly what to say to get to Jiang Cheng's wallet! 🤣 Scary thing is, I think I made him even more lovesick in my fic... 😅
The bottles for the Emperor's Smile wine are so pretty! I want a replica of the prop just to have it as a decoration in my house.
I bet there are actually places one could buy such replicas, but one probably needs to be able to speak Chinese to find them. 😅 I did see one vendor once on Ali Express that was selling 1/3 scale replicas to go with the 1/3 scale doll of Wei Wuxian (modeled on Xiao Zhan and almost certainly not paying him any likeness rights, and possibly not even paying any rights of any kind) but they were massively expensive. (Not as expensive as the doll itself, though. The full set version was like $3,000. Or was it $5,000? Insanely expensive. Gorgeous, but insanely expensive.)
The odd thing to me about the wine being called Emperor's Smile is that it's the only mention of the idea of an emperor in the entire story. Novel or drama alike, there's no indication that there even is a government beyond the cultivation clans. I don't know if that's intended to suggest that this is an alternate reality where the ordinary government collapsed and went away, replaced by the cultivation clans, or if it's just a particularly weakly governed era and so no imperial court cared that the cultivation clans spent two years waging such a fierce war that thousands of people were wiped out. It would be interesting to explore what it would be like living in the world of MDZS if that is indeed the case, and there is no government other than the cultivation clans.
Guess I should add that to my list of "fics I'd like to write someday"...
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