Took a day off because yesterday I was just not feeling it. (Also, it's only been a few days since I finally got my PS5 home, so I wanted to spend more time gaming. 😅) And partially that was because a lot of unfun things happen in this episode (not as bad as some later ones, though!) and yet I also knew I was going to need to take a lot of notes, because this is stuff that has a heavy impact on my fic.
Anyway, as usual with these posts, everything past the read more tag is incoherent rambling reactions filled with spoilers, which I've put in a blog post mostly because that's going to make it easier for me to find it again. If you actually want to proceed in reading further, then do so with caution.
So, the episode starts with the reactions to Meng Yao being sent away from the Unclean Realm. Nie Huaisang is deeply upset by it, which is I think a conscious choice on the part of the adaptation team in order to highlight the, uh, very different relationship between the two of them in the present portion of the story. 😅 But as my fic diverges wildly long before that point, I need to keep that in mind. I didn't have Nie Huaisang particularly concerned about where Meng Yao was or how he was doing, and that's actually probably a bit out of keeping with how they've been portrayed in the pre-divergence portion of the show. (In the novel, I don't think we have any information about how (or indeed if) they interacted with each other during Meng Yao's time with the Nie Clan.) One of the things Meng Yao says to Nie Huaisang as he's leaving is that he won't be able to take care of him anymore. That's one of the reasons I wanted to push Jin Zixuan's (and thus Meng Yao's) age up a few years, to make Nie Huaisang actually younger than Meng Yao, so the dynamic between them in this period won't be quite so weird. Honestly, despite the one line that was translated as describing Jin Zixuan as a teenager, I may still shift him up to being 20 or 21, and just hope that it was a translation goof. (That or just make it part of the AU. After all, I'm already changing the way they carry their swords, because I was just plain not writing something where they're literally carrying them in their hands 24/7.) The interaction between Nie Mingjue and Nie Huaisang in this scene is almost more like between father and son than between brothers. I guess that's about what their relationship was like in the novel, too, though. Not that we get to see very much of it, since we're pretty much glued to Wei Wuxian in the novel. (Not that I object to that!)
As to the others, Wei Wuxian seems disappointed/disturbed by it, but there's also a pained, knowing look on his face that suggests he has a better idea of what happened than the other two do, or at the very least he understands all too well that Meng Yao's low birth probably played a part in whatever happened, and as someone whose own birth was low (differently than Meng Yao's, but still) he can understand the situation in a way that the spoiled young clan heirs never can. Jiang Cheng also seems upset by it, and asks why Nie Mingjue would send away an injured man like that, but he doesn't actively ask him to change his mind--he's just asking for the full story. (Though the way he asked suggests that he might have begged lenience if the full story made that possible.) I think I need to retool a few of the scenes in my fic; I had Jiang Cheng all but forget Meng Yao even existed. That's not really...on top of the fact that a young person is not going to forget about a scene like that in such a short span of time (middle aged people like me is another question entirely), there's also the humiliation he must feel at knowing that it was some of the other disciples from his own clan who were loudly "whispering" about Meng Yao being Jin Guangshan's illegitimate son while they were at Cloud Recesses, and the one respect in which Jiang Cheng is like me is that he's the sort whose mind will keep any painful or humiliating memories freshly alive no matter how many years pass. He won't have forgotten that moment. So I can't have him forget about Meng Yao. It's okay that when he next sees him again--at the end of the war--he can't quite remember who he is, because it's in a very stressful situation, and Jiang Cheng is wounded and groggy at the time.
I do like that when Nie Mingjue asks Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian what they plan to do now, Wei Wuxian's answer implies that he's about to say "I'm going to go running after Lan Zhan to keep him safe!" (Not that he would sound that blithe about it in the current circumstances, given that the Unclean Realm was just attacked by the Wen Clan and suffered what was unrealistically like a defeat. (I guess the Wen Clan troops rushed inside before the gates could close...?)) Nie Mingjue suddenly wishing for Lan Xichen's safety does seem to support those who ship the two of them. (I'm trying to get a better read on the sexuality and/or relationships of some of the other characters in the drama's version. I mean, some of them are pretty clear: Lan Xichen is gay (though whether he's as strongly allosexual as his brother or closer to the ace spectrum is something I'm trying to figure out), Meng Yao/Jin Guangyao is bi, and Jiang Cheng is exceedingly straight. Others are less clear-cut, and Nie Mingjue is one of them. Though I guess in the context of my fic it doesn't enormously matter what his sexuality is, but...I guess that's more curiosity than anything else.)
I love the scene of Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng returning to Lotus Pier and we see all the people on the docks being so glad to see them, and greeting them so affectionately. It really paints a very strong picture of how the Jiang Clan is different from the other Great Clans, in that they're right there surrounded by the normal folks, warmly interacting with them on a daily basis. There are a few passages in the novel that suggest the same thing, but getting to see it on the screen brings it out more richly. This kind of small supplemental scene is one of the things I really love about the adaptation process in general, and it's something that The Untamed does really well.
Note to self: the audience hall at Lotus Pier is called Sword's Hall. Or that's what the subtitles say, anyway. 😅 It's directly on the other side of the main courtyard right inside the front gates. (Which are suggested to face the docks, but it's enough of a different shot that I can't be sure about that.)
Ah. Jiang Yanli did call out to Wei Wuxian first as she was running in to greet them on her return. Ouch. Poor Jiang Cheng. 😅 The two of them vying to get more of her attention in this scene is slightly painful to witness. Their sister complexes are strong. 😰
Part of me wants to take extensive notes on the layout of Lotus Pier and what the various locations look like, but...I'm so bad at descriptions that there just aren't any in my fic anyway, so there's probably no point to it. The sets are all really gorgeous, though. I mean, really, pretty much all the sets in the show are gorgeous, but I think Lotus Pier is probably my favorite location. The atmosphere is so warm and friendly, unlike the more austere and cool (almost cold) Cloud Recesses.
Yu Ziyuan. In some ways the most problematic character in MDZS. I hate the whole idea of the "evil stepmother" trope, but it does seem to be the larger part of her role. Like with a lot of the major cast, they sanded off a few of her metaphorical warts for The Untamed, but she's still viciously cruel to Wei Wuxian. However, they made her less critical of Jiang Cheng, and the first time she's shown on screen with anyone other than her maids, she's smiling at him as she gently brushes the dust off his clothes. In the novel, he's almost as scared of her as Wei Wuxian is, but here he seems not to feel that same fear, at least not in everyday interactions. He does still feel deep pain when she starts criticizing him as the scene progresses, though. That scene is one of the few places in the show where you really do get the feeling that they're still only teenagers. A young man in his twenties would be less likely to quietly accept all her venomous words with only a hurt expression like he's fighting not to cry, whereas a teenager's brain chemistry is still such that a parent yelling at them will often just make them upset, not necessarily fight back. (Or in some cases it makes them fight back more. Depends on the teenager and how their relationship with their parents has tended to go in the past.)
According to the subtitles, the indoctrination camp was to last for seven days. But I wonder if that's actually "for" or if it's supposed to be "in." As in, they managed to get back only a week before they would need to be at their destination. Short of asking around online for someone who speaks Chinese and can double-check that line, I don't think there's any way for me to find out. 😰 Fortunately, that doesn't much matter. The only way that really impacts my fic is in regards to the general chronology of events. I'd like to have a good idea of how long has passed since various events. Unfortunately, it's been very vague about how long they spent on the road already...and my attempt just now to match up the rivers on the map from the art book with the actual river system map (y'know, the one from Wikipedia) was not very successful, so I can't even quite figure out how far apart their version of the places are. 😰 That may just have to be part of the AU of the fic, that the places are located according to the map from the Wiki, not where the drama's team would place them.
Huh. I'd totally forgotten this scene. Lan Wangji is attacked by Wen Chao and his men--including Wen Zhuliu!--on his way back to Cloud Recesses. (Starting with a literal pit trap, omg. Wen Chao is making a foray into Wile E. Coyote territory...only without the charm.)
Uh...where do I count this? Lan Wangji escapes from Wen Chao's ambush by using a talisman that bursts into a large number of flames that all fly towards the enemy force, giving him time to get away while they're swatting the flames aside. Wen Chao knows the talisman's name--Devil Scatter Spell--and that it was invented by Wei Wuxian.
Um.
A) How does he know its name?
B) How does he know Wei Wuxian invented it? As far as the show indicated, he had no idea Wei Wuxian even existed until he was the only one to stand up to him when Wen Chao arrived with Wen Qing at the salute ceremony at Cloud Recesses.
C) When did Wei Wuxian invent it?
D) Why in the world does Lan Wangji have one on him?
E) Would Lan Wangji really run away from that ambush? There's only about half a dozen troops to back up Wen Zhuliu. The troops and Wen Chao are a joke to someone as OP as Lan Wangji, so there's really only Wen Zhuliu to worry about. Well, but he probably does already know about the attack on Cloud Recesses? I dunno, he left the Unclean Realm before Wen Chao got there to...wait!
F) How did Wen Chao get ahead of Lan Wangji to dig that pit and lay in wait?
*sigh*
Yet again, a perfectly acceptable scene is being crumbled by me actually stopping to think about some of the inner workings behind the actions on screen. This is why I normally don't apply this kind of attention to detail to stuff I'm watching.
Though I think what most bothers me about this "Devil Scatter Spell" is that it sounds like something Wei Wuxian would have come up with during or after the Sunshot Campaign, not something he would have already come up with at this point. Actually, maybe it really is something from the book; it sounds a bit familiar. (Then again, I've watched this part of the show twice before, so maybe that's the only reason it sounds familiar?)
I guess I need to add it to one or the other of the tallies, though, since the point of those tallies is not just to be funny but to give myself a checklist of things that could and possibly should be used during my fic. (Which means I really should have made both lists before spending a year writing it, but oh well.) So...since it's being used by Lan Wangji, I guess I'll add it to the Cultivator Powers tally:
13) "Devil Scatter Spell" in which a talisman is thrown towards a group of enemies, and it splits into dozens of tiny flames that spread out and launch themselves at the enemies, giving the one who threw the talisman time to escape (or do something else). We're told it was invented by Wei Wuxian, but we see Lan Wangji use it.
I understand the reasoning behind changing the burning of Cloud Recesses to a brutal act of violence by the Wen Clan instead of what was in the novel. I understand it, and yet I feel like it really makes a lot of the rest of the story suffer. Firstly, if the Wen Clan already attacked the flawlessly upright and principled Lan Clan and butchered large numbers of its disciples, then why did the Sunshot Campaign not start until after the fall of Lotus Pier? Secondly, it makes a mockery of the skills of the Lan Clan if their disciples are so easily slaughtered. (Admittedly, the same might be said for the fall of Lotus Pier, but the Jiang Clan is much smaller than the Lan Clan, and the attack on Lotus Pier was being spearheaded by Wen Zhuliu, who is an army unto himself.) Thirdly, the version in the book, where the Lan Clan cooperated with the Wen Clan's orders and burned their own home in penance for a crime they accused the clan leader of (which had to be 100% false, considering the man had been cultivating in seclusion for about twenty years), highlighted both the Lan Clan's virtue and steadfast obedience to order as well as the Wen Clan's heartless cruelty. And then there's the problem that Lan Xichen escaping alone with the most precious books out of the library made a lot more sense when he was the heir rather than the clan leader. I get that they don't want Lan Wangji weighed down in the indoctrination camp sequence by his father's impending death on top of everything else, but...it's the sort of story detail that's only problematic when you've read the book; it didn't bother me at all when I watched the show the first time.
Hmm. In a scene intercut with the attack on Cloud Recesses, Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng are talking to Jiang Fengmian about their own role in the Wen Clan's current behavior. Wei Wuxian says that on their way back from Qinghe, "I kept sending messages to Lan Zhan but I never got his response." So they evidently have some method of sending messages back and forth faster than by human messengers. Hmm. There's nothing like that in my fic, but it explains a few places earlier that I was like "wait, how do they know that?" Well, if the show never explains, maybe I can say there's some kind of spell or talisman that makes the messages fly off in search of their recipient. In Sword and Fairy 7 the heroine has a way of making paper cranes fly to deliver messages, and I've already leaned on Sword and Fairy 6 to help me explain something from the Sunshot Campaign section of The Untamed. Obviously, it would have to be for matters that weren't sensitive, since such paper messengers could be intercepted, but...hmm. I'll have to think about this. (But it might explain why some letters I had Nie Huaisang send his brother never made it. If they were being sent by flying paper instead of by a person...)
Jiang Fengmian states the full motto of the clan in this scene: "To attempt the impossible, do nothing until you achieve something." I...I'm not sure what that second part means.
And we're back at Cloud Recesses for Lan Wangji to make his over-the-top appearance to save his uncle...and that leads directly into another Mistranslation of "Shufu" for the tally:
2) Clan Leader.
Which on top of being a mistranslation, isn't even accurate, because Lan Xichen is the clan leader. 😰 This is exactly the sort of thing that's why I would love a better translation for the subtitles on this show.
And now this part. This part is very...very not Lan Clan. In any way. There's about two dozen (give or take) disciples in the cave along with Lan Wangji and Lan Qiren, and they're all just...hiding in there from the Wen Clan forces. (Who also don't number all that high in any given shot, 'cause let's be real, they had better things to spend their budget on than hiring even more extras. Though they do at least outnumber the Lan Clan extras.) Wen Xu has about a dozen or so Lan Clan disciples hostage, and his men are killing them to get Lan Wangji to come out and hand over the Yin Iron piece. When Su Minshan finally cracks and tells them how to get inside the Cold Pond Cave (which somehow everyone now knows about, despite that Lan Wangji had no idea it existed before he and Wei Wuxian were dragged in there), he says the headband is needed, and that "only inner disciples who can make a mudra can get in." I had to look up what a "mudra" is, and it's obviously not the right term, because the definition specifies that it's from India, not China. I suspect what he really means is that only with the headband and a particular gesture/hand seal/whatever can anyone pass through the barrier; it's not whether or not they can make it, it's a matter of making it at the time they want to enter that matters. (Though again, this doesn't entirely matter for my fic. Because while this scene is directly brought up in conversation in the fic, the exact details of how to get through that barrier are not what anyone is concerned with. I'm just annoyed because the subtitles are awkward and unnatural enough to make the intended meaning hard to get at.) Good grief, Su Minshan even tattled on Lan Xichen escaping with the books. And Su Minshan is the only remaining hostage when Lan Wangji leaves the cave to keep his conscience clear. Yeah, if I was him, my conscience would not be clear: around a dozen hostages were killed before he went outside to save them. Admittedly, there are hopefully a lot more Lan Clan disciples who haven't been killed elsewhere in Cloud Recesses, but...
This is immediately followed up by a distance shot of Cloud Recesses. Which is very much not burnt down, nor currently on fire. 😖 Did I get things wrong by assuming that the damage was as bad as in the novel?
Hmm.
So...I'm not sure that's a vent to lava after all. But it doesn't really look like a firepit, either. 🤔 Not sure what it is.
As to the three pieces of Yin Iron...
As to the number of puppets in this scene, I counted 38 on the screen I paused it on, of whom at least six are the, uh, enhanced version. (These numbers actually came up in my fic, specifically in reference to this scene, so it's important that I have a decent idea of the numbers.) At the end of the scene, Wen Ruohan orders Wen Qing to help him as he experiments with the Yin Iron, so she should probably have a better idea of what it can do than she does in the current draft of the fic. 😰 So much rewriting ahead! 😭
Okay, so it's confirmed that CQL's Lotus Pier is on a small lake. Despite all the outward signs of favor towards Wei Wuxian, whenever Jiang Fengmian addresses both of them by name, he addresses Jiang Cheng first. I feel like that's the sort of detail that should be brought up in the fic at some point, that little proof that Jiang Cheng's father really did love him in his own way.
*sigh*
If the indoctrination camp actually looked like that, everyone would be constantly suffering from burns from the heat of so much lava so close by. I covered for that in my fic by saying the lava was actually an illusion spell, but I shouldn't have had to do that!
Even better angle:
It's just....nutty. And not really in a good way.
Anyway, they only arrive there in the final minutes of the episode, so most of the indoctrination camp events are in the next episode. Which I'm actually looking forward to, because I thought that (aside from a certain addition *cough*cough*giant dog*cough*cough*) the way they expanded on the indoctrination camp sequence was really good.
Except for the fact that they decided to move it from some central location to literally sitting at the base of the same mountain that Nightless City rests on. I get that they did that so Wen Qing and Wen Ning could be there, but...it makes them retrieving their swords highly implausible later on. 😰
Anyway, tallies didn't change too much for this episode.
Things Added to Highlight the Romance: 10
Crazy Wei Wuxian Powers: 8
Cultivator Powers: 13
Mistranslations of "shufu": "Grand Master" "Clan Leader"
Cast Members with Obviously Pierced Ears: Meng Yao, Lan Wangji
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