Incomprehensible rambling and spoilers follow.
Poor Jin Ling. He suffers so much through these last few episodes. And his breakdown on hearing that the little uncle who raised him was actually responsible for his father's death... 😭
Anyway, slight detail shift on the first time Jin Guangyao (or Meng Yao, rather) was kicked down the stairs at Golden Carp Tower. In the novel, his father never even laid eyes on him at this time, being busy with the banquet for Jin Zixuan's birthday. In this, Jin Guangshan is standing right there watching and had personally ordered him to be kicked down the stairs. I'm pretty sure I got that detail wrong in my fic, having followed the novel's version of events.
...the sequence of events that follow Wen Ning's entry into the temple are convoluted and make no sense. It looks like Lan Wangji cut off Jin Guangyao's arm for no apparent reason. Wouldn't it make more sense for Wen Ning to have cut it off with Baxia? In the novel, cutting his arm off made sense, because it was to save Jin Ling. Here, he's already released Jin Ling, so...why dismember him? Also Wen Ning just sort of stopped there for like five minutes without moving so other stuff could happen?
It kinda feels like they shot several widely disparate variants on this sequence and then just edited them together willy-nilly. 😰
Okay, so earlier I felt like "why the heck would he leave the other half of the Yin Tiger Tally in the coffin with Nie Mingjue" but this time I get it: it's to be the evil that Baxia is countering so that the saber's spirit won't grow restless and cause trouble. Points for that, then. That works.
The timing of the ending of the episode is bizarre. It's in between Nie Huaisang explaining that he's sure he saw Jin Guangyao preparing to attack and Jin Guangyao's line to Lan Xichen. Wouldn't it have made more sense to end the episode about a minute earlier so it would have ended with Nie Huaisang's line warning Lan Xichen to look out behind him? So, you know, there would have been some suspense for those who hadn't already read the novel?
Admittedly, the final two episodes both went up on the same day, so most people would likely have watched them back to back, but...oh well.
Anyway, just one episode left! Which I will watch tomorrow, on the fifth anniversary of the last two episodes going online. 😁
But one last reflection on this episode: the understated moment when Jiang Cheng returns Chenqing to Wei Wuxian! I love the unspoken reality underpinning that moment, the fact that all the rage he was showing when he arrived was merely a surface layer, because deep down he had already made up his mind and forgiven him (at least partially) in his heart, and that's why he brought Chenqing with him. That is, of course, entirely unconnected to my fic, but...hey, at least I got some fic-related notes with the flashback to Meng Yao being kicked down the stairs. 😅
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