After I complained last time about the way Blogger assigns URLs to the posts...it assigned the URL "episode 51" to that very post. 😭 So now I'm using "part" instead of "episode" in the hopes that it will stop doing that.
Anyway.
Rambling, incoherence and spoilers follow
The argument between Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng at the start of this episode is another of those scenes where I wish they had deviated a little more from the source material. Or rather, I wish they had actually had the dialog reflect the added material from earlier in the show. Because at no time does Wei Wuxian remind Jiang Cheng of the crush he had on Wen Qing prior to the attack on Lotus Pier, nor doe he even reference the time they spent with the Wen siblings at Cloud Recesses or the incident on Dafan mountain. Jiang Cheng's dialog actually seems even angrier than it was in the novel (or maybe my memory of this scene in the novel has grown fuzzy (I really do need to reread it!)) but the expression on his face as he's delivering so much of it, like he's fighting not to cry this whole time! It's extremely moving, but that also makes it painful to watch, because both characters are so torn up by everything that's going on, and especially by the rift that this has caused between them. I think Jiang Cheng may actually be more hurt by the separation than Wei Wuxian is, in fact.
Pfft!
Dramatic tone ruined by absurd mistranslation.
I have no idea what word they wanted, but "geek" was not it.
😅
The flashback to Wen Qing returning the comb is...I don't even know. I don't know if it's just the right level or if it should have gone harder. The fact that Jiang Cheng was then sleeping with that comb under his pillow is just perfect, though. Will he build a hidden little shrine for that comb after everything, or... 😭
(I'm astonished and appalled that he even wears Zidian when he goes to sleep, though.)
The duel feels weird to watch. Like...the point was to have a duel to prove to the world that Wei Wuxian had actually "defected" and that it wasn't just Jiang Cheng saying he had defected to protect the clan's standing. (Even though that's more or less exactly what it is.) That being the case, what we see looks way too much like Jiang Cheng is actually trying to kill him, which he is not. Also, there's no witnesses, which there should be, as it's not very useful to prove anything if no one sees it.
Even stranger to me is that Wei Wuxian's injury is less grievous than in the novel, but he takes it much worse. In the novel, it literally talks about him having to put some of his intestines back in his body, and yet clearly being unconcerned by that fact. (Which I suppose is a point in favor of the fanon theory that his body was only being held together by resentful energy, and that without it he would die. I don't agree with that theory, but I can see how the results of the duel could be interpreted that way.)
Okay, so there were a bunch of others from the Jiang Clan nearby, so I suppose they would have seen or heard some of it.
Awwww! I'd forgotten that Jin Zixuan was personally planting the lotus pond for Jiang Yanli. He's not only standing in muddy water, he's even got some dirt smeared on his face. It's adorable. 😊 I'd be bored and frustrated if they were the main romance, but as a side romance, they're super-sweet once he wises up and falls for her.
OMG. So, Lan Wangji is in a teahouse or whatever in Yiling, being (unintentionally) verbally assaulted by a bunch of assholes who are accusing Wei Wuxian of all sorts of insane things that he never did in any version of canon, let alone in this one where his hands are almost squeaky clean. (In the novel, he did dig up graves, but only during the war, and even then only Wen Clan graves, not random normal peoples'.) Once he leaves in a fury--one that no one can understand, because he doesn't say anything to tell them that they're falsely accusing the man he loves (or even just that their words are wrong and Wei Wuxian is innocent of the random charges they're laying at his feet)--we see him walking down the street, still annoyed...and everyone in the crowd is turning to watch him. One woman in particular very much has this look on her face of "did you see how insanely gorgeous he is?" 🤣
Ahh, little a-Yuan is so adorable! 😊
The scene where the crowd is berating Lan Wangji for "being a bad father" is a great moment, because it really shows that he's not just quiet because that's what he was taught he was supposed to be, due to the Lan Clan rules, but also that he's got some genuine inabilities where speaking to others is concerned. Not quite a social phobia, as such, but definitely related to it. I can definitely relate to him in that scene; if I were in a similar position, I wouldn't have any idea how to defend myself from the crowd, either. (Nor would I know quite what to do about it if a small child was hugging my calf and wailing...)
So, not really anything in this episode to help with my fanfic rewrite...though the street scene in Yiling definitely does look like it's in the same city as the scene when Wei Wuxian was waiting for Jiang Cheng after the golden core transfer, so I'm definitely assuming that the lines specifying it was Yiling were translated correctly and the ones saying it was a small town somewhere were just too faithfully borrowed from the novel. (The fact that I need to make that judgement call in the first place is sorta problematic, though... 😅)
Anyway, looking at the episode summaries of the next few episodes, it seems like the tragic stuff doesn't start again until episode 30, so I'm safe for a little while longer...
No comments:
Post a Comment