Dang. Once again, yesterday I thought of stuff I wanted to say here that I forgot to say before. Stuff I should have taken notes on at the time and got too caught up in watching to note down. (Despite how much other stuff I stopped the video to note down...)
Oh well.
Hopefully next time I'll think of it when I can get at my phone to take notes. 😅
Anyway, randomness and incoherence, as well as spoilers, follow.
I forgot that this episode started with one of the fake Yiling Laozu disciples--who has now graduated to actually pretending to be the Yiling Laozu himself!--setting up to sell fake compasses right next to where Wei Wuxian and Wen Ning are trying to sell the turnips they've grown at the Burial Mounds. (Well, Wen Ning is trying to sell them and Wei Wuxian is being a lazy bum. Which does not actually fit his character very well, I feel? It's like...they saw how his character was at his lowest point at this point in the novel, and wanted to carry that over, but didn't want to show how he had become more violent and distrustful (because apparently Lan Wangji was right that he was damaging his personality, only it was actually the Yin Tiger Tally causing the problem, not the demonic cultivation itself), so they just decided to make him act like a spoiled brat instead. Which is sorta a strange choice, but it does at least convey the same thing to the viewer of wanting him to go back to how he used to be. It just feels less urgent. (Although actually by this point in the story he was actually getting a little better in the novel, because the Wen remnants had given him back the sense of family and belonging that he had lost since the attack on Lotus Pier.)
Anyway, my point was just that it was a funny scene with his reaction to the faker, and it's not clear how he managed to steal the fake compass, but it's pretty funny that he did so. I can't remember if they ever followed up on it further, but I hope they did, because it's nice to have a little added levity in the midst of this quite dark arc of the story.
Ugh, am I crying because it's so moving that Wei Wuxian finally gets to be with his siblings again, or am I crying because this is the last time the Lotus Pier trio will ever get to be happy together? 😭
As we go to Lanling in the midst of preparing for the wedding, getting exactly the same shot of the city as before except now there's decorations, I'm really starting to worry that the carriage ride that was specified so clearly in the novel is not really a thing for the show's version...and yet that lower platform we see--the one at the base of the stairs that Jin Guangyao kept getting kicked down--is clearly at the level of the roofs of the normal houses surrounding Golden Carp Tower, so...I guess it's okay that I included it? Maybe?
Anyway, the sign on the hall is labeled as "Fragrance Hall"...but inside it looks the same as "Pageant Hall" where the Flower Banquet was held. I wonder if it's plausible that they have numerous meeting halls that all look identical? I mean, I guess it doesn't matter since...
...wait. Isn't Fragrance Hall the house where the clan leader and his family live? That shouldn't have any public meeting spaces in it!
😖
I am so perplexed regarding how far it's okay to go in terms of inserting novel canon into a drama canon fanfic. I really need someone I can ask about all this.
Okay, well, as the camera goes inside, this Fragrance Hall public space looks nothing like the one from Pageant Hall after all. But it's still clearly a space for receptions or whatever, and the description in the book made it sound like Fragrance Hall was exclusively for the clan leader to sleep in, so purely private use only. 😰 But am I misremembering, or was it misleadingly translated, or is this just wrong? I don't even know how to find out. (Well, okay, I can find out if I'm misremembering by rereading the passage in question. But I seem to recall turning to that passage to get an idea how to handle Golden Carp Tower locations in the fic, so I don't think I could be misremembering that badly...)
I find it significant that Jin Guangyao's clothes do not match the clan uniform. Like, he's not being permitted to dress as a proper member of the clan, even though he's the son of the clan leader. 😰 Even though he's already committed to being evil at this point in the drama's version (the awful things he did to the Wen Clan prisoners are 100% evil), he's also being horribly mistreated by his father, too, which just....ugh, I don't know. Everything about him is such a problem. And in this case I don't mean the way the drama is handling him (though they do make him too flatly evil), I just mean that he was a character who was created to be problematic all around, because he's absolutely unforgivably evil by the end of his arc, but he starts out in such a disadvantaged, sympathy-inducing position, and he's so mistreated at every step of his journey until he accumulates enough evil to wipe out everyone who crosses him...
In talking to a guy reporting to him (no clue what the guy's level is, if he's servant or cultivator or what), Jin Guangyao refers to Jin Zixuan as just "Zixuan," but I'm not sure if that's actually correct (given that in the novel they're likely only hours apart in age, it's gotta be more complex than the normal brothers relationship) or if it's him being inappropriately familiar again.
Whoa. Jin Zixuan just referred to him as "a-Yao." In the novel, he's still calling him Jin Guangyao by the time of his death. This version of Jin Zixuan is just all around more accepting of others than the one in the novel, clearly.
I don't think this comes up in my fic anywhere, but Jin Zixuan is actually just slightly taller than his father. Like, only a couple of inches.
And after a brief scene of the lotus seeds sprouting at the Burial Mounds, we get a "One Year Later" title card. 😅 We see the wedding prep, but not the wedding. Which I guess makes sense since the show is about Wei Wuxian, not Jiang Yanli, but...oh well.
It is appalling to me that we're being presented to baby Jin Ling in the arms of Jin Guangshan, with Jin Guangyao trying to entertain the baby instead of, you know, seeing the poor child with his own parents! All the more so since both his parents will soon die because of Jin Guangyao's scheming. 😠 I mean, I'm sure that's purposeful, but...it's also frustrating.
Uh...am I reading these subtitles right? In this version, it's Lan Wangji's idea to invite Wei Wuxian to the full month banquet, not Jiang Yanli's? That is deeply wrong. (Why would he even have a say in the matter? Actually, what is he even doing there? As soon as the Jin Clan declared Wei Wuxian to be an enemy because of what happened in Qiongqi Path, he turned his back on them and barely ever showed his face in Lanling again.)
Wha? Jin Zixun just addressed Jin Guangshan as "shufu," which I thought was "younger brother of my father." Wait, let me check the charts...yup. That is the formal address for your father's younger brother. Father's elder brother would be "bofu." That is definitely not what he said, though. He definitely said "shufu." Um. How...if Jin Guangshan had an elder brother, wouldn't his elder brother be the clan leader, then? Unless his brother died before their father, I guess? (In which case, 95% chance Jin Guangshan murdered him.) I don't understand this. I mean, maybe that was actually the case in the novel and the translation didn't say so? There's really only the one time I can think of that would have specified what kind of uncle/nephew relationship they had--the time Jin Zixun refers to Jin-furen as his aunt at the Mount Baifeng Siege Hunt--and given that the term was only used once, obviously any translator is likely to just use "my aunt" and move on, because it's not especially relevant to most functions of the story just what the relationship between her husband and Jin Zixun's parents is/was. But...I don't know. I'm just confused by it, is the short version, I guess.
It's not terribly relevant for my fic since the a) the translation does not in any way reflect it so the majority of fanfic readers likely are unware of it and b) I don't think anything in my fic specifies whether Jin Zixun's father was younger or elder than Jin Guangshan, but...I don't know. I guess it doesn't matter at all, considering I'm already ignoring the untranslated alteration to the relative ages between Jin Zixuan and Jin Zixun, but...it frustrates me that I'm able to pick up on these little things without knowing enough to understand the rest of what the translation isn't telling me.
Anyway, back to this scene, it does seem that in this version, Jiang Yanli does not request her shidi be invited, but instead Jin Zixuan merely goes along with Lan Wangji's suggestion because he knows how much his wife misses Wei Wuxian. I mean, it's good points for Jin Zixuan, but honestly it feels out of character for Jiang Yanli not to ask that he be invited.
I loved the satisfied little smile on Lan Xichen's face when Jin Guangyao asked Lan Wangji to be the one to deliver the letter to Wei Wuxian inviting him to the banquet. The way he ships them is so cute. 😊
But of course instead of that letter leading to Lan Wangji staying by Wei Wuxian's side all the way until his arrival in Lanling, it leads to horrible tragedy instead. 😭 Looking at the episode summaries for the next three episodes...I kinda feel like it'd be best to block out a big enough chunk of time to watch all three of them in one go. I mean, I might be able to stop after the next episode, depending on exactly when the episode break is (probably immediately after the fatal blow to Jin Zixuan, if I have to guess), but I really don't want to have to stop between the two after that.
Hmm...
Tomorrow is going to be another horribly hot day, so maybe I should just pre-arrange that no one expect me to leave the house, and I'll just spend all day sobbing--I mean, just watch that big block all at once. Then I'll have a couple days' leeway as I'm watching the rest of the show.
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