Okay, so this post is going to contain a lot of spoilers for Mo Dao Zu Shi (aka The Untamed), so please don't read further if you haven't finished reading/watching it. (I mean, I'm assuming no one would even want to read further if they're not the least bit interested in MDZS...) This is relating to a background element of the Yi City arc, in the context of the revelations made at the end of the novel.
So...a week ago Monday, I started rereading MDZS.
Like, I actually did nothing else on that Monday except read MDZS; no internet, no TV, no games, nothing but reading. I thought reading a gay romance novel from China in which two tyrannical dictators and a couple more would-be tyrants were thoroughly defeated was a good way to show my spite and disgust at something else that was happening in the real world that day.
I ended up getting partway into volume three of the official translation in that first day. (They had just defeated the Xuanwu of Slaughter when I finally stopped reading and went to bed.) So, in one day I got through about 2 and 1/3 volumes. The remaining 2 and 2/3 volumes took me six more days to get through. 😅 (I.E., I finished on the following Monday. Well, except some of the bonus chapters. Those were still pending and didn't end up finished until yesterday.) Admittedly, I barely even opened the book at all on Saturday because I ended up having to spend most of the day out of the house actually doing things.
Anyway.
Rereading the novel really jammed my face down into the reality that I have been doing a very bad job in trying to recreate the characters in my fanfiction. (It also really forced me to notice how sloppy my memory was of various things about the novel, including that I had been convinced the Yi City arc ended in volume one when it was actually entirely in volume two.)
Okay, so back in April, I mentioned the fact that it had long been my assumption about/reaction to Xue Yang and Xiao Xingchen that they were supposed to be a reflection of Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, or more specifically that they actually are what most everyone else in the story sees when they look at Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji together: an evil demonic cultivator harassing a pure and proper cultivator. And that meanwhile Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen are also a reflection of the true relationship between Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, only one where the tragic ending remains in place, with no revival stepping in to reunite them. (Okay, actually, looking at that post again, I didn't so much mention that as tangentially imply it. But that was what I thought on reaching the later portions of the Yueyang sequence in The Untamed when I first watched it, that the three of them provided a double mirror of Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji. Um, except at that time I didn't know that Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen's story would end in tragedy. ðŸ˜)
And I still do think that's the case, no question. Those parallels are absolutely there.
But in thinking about the chapter of my fanfic that went up yesterday, I realized that Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan serve as mirrors to another situation within the main plot of MDZS: that of Wei Wuxian with Jiang Cheng. (I mean, the clue's right there in their names, even! Jiang Cheng and Song Lan are the only adult characters in the novel (as far as I can recall, anyway) who are consistently referred to by their birth names by the narrator. Oh, uh, no, duh, there's also Wen Ning. Okay, so that breaks the birth name part of the comparison a bit. (And then there's Wen Xu and Wen Chao, whose only known names sure sound like birth names, but that makes zero sense all around unless the Wen Clan uses courtesy names differently from the other clans.))
Let me sum up my thinking on this thusly. Um, after a "read more" tag just in case somehow someone stumbles on this post who hasn't read (or watched) the whole story. (Unlikely, I know, but...)
Last night, I logged into Netflix and saw a red "Leaving Soon" banner on the thumbnail for The Untamed.
I...
How can they do this to us?
First they took down Season One of Heaven Official's Blessing, leaving us with no option but to either never revisit it or to suffer through the unwatchable Crunchyroll/Funimation subtitles. (This was likely forced on them by Crunchyroll/Funimation, of course, but still felt like a stab in the back anyway.)
And now they're going to take away The Untamed, too.
I know it's not the greatest adaptation around, and because of its runtime reading the novel is significantly faster than watching the whole show, but...I still love it anyway!
But they're taking it down.
Leaving us with only the ghastly Youtube subtitles. The ones that use "childe" for "gongzi." Despite that no one's used "childe" seriously since Lord Byron, and he was being purposefully archaic!
I kept saying it all through my rewatch, that we need a good and proper domestic Blu-ray release.
That has become even more important now.
If anyone happens to read this who has any social media accounts, please start sending social media messages to any company that seems likely to be willing to do a domestic Blu-ray release of The Untamed. (My money, personally, would be on Shout Factory, as they do a lot of sentai, kaiju and I think also martial arts stuff, so they're used to working with subtitles on long projects. Also to more niche releases. (Someone also needs to get on them to convince Disney to let them do a Blu-ray release of The Owl House, too...) But approaching Seven Seas (who handle the novel and the comic adaptation) and getting them to partner with a Blu-ray publisher of their choice would also work.) Unfortunately, I don't have any social media accounts, and my heart problems (which coincidentally have been going nuts today) forbid me from even thinking of getting any.
I feel like I could moan about this for days, but I need to turn in and get a good night's sleep, since lack of sleep is one of the factors making my heart act so crazy.
Last episode!
Rambling and incoherent spoilers follow the read more tag.
"Soul-Chaos Script."
Uh...
WTF is that supposed to be?
😅
Oh well.
Spoilers and incoherent nonsense notes follow the read more tag.
Rambling and incoherent spoilers follow the read more tag.
Very confused and astonished and possibly slightly panicked notes follow. Spoilers abound,
As always, random and incoherent spoilers follow the read more tag.
Wow, getting close to the end, now!
Anyway, spoilers and incoherent rambling follow.
Mmm, more incoherent rambling and spoilers follow the read more tag.
One thought before I start today's episode. Regarding my confusion about Jin Zixun addressing Jin Guangshan as "shufu," which would mean his father was older than Jin Guangshan, perhaps it actually means that he's not Jin Zixuan's first cousin, but a second cousin. I think I read that uncle/nephew style-terms are used in place of things like cousins once removed. So if Jin Zixun's father is Jin Guangshan's first cousin, then Jin Zixun would still call him some variation on "uncle" rather than some form of cousin. So that may be what was going on there. In which case I might want to change the line I had about Jin Zixun's father being Jin Guangshan's younger brother. Given that Jin Zixun is kind of the less-entertaining prototype for Qi Rong, it feels sort of wrong for him to be a more distant cousin, but....well, I guess I can add that to my list of things I need to ask an expert about. 😅
Anyway. Random incoherent spoilers follow.
(Oh, and if you're looking for my IWSG post, it's here.)
It's kind of funny that I'm finishing up the final volume of Thousand Autumns (which I mistakenly took to be "Xue Yang/Xiao Xingchen: the novel" and thus had resisted reading for quite a while) right as I'm watching the Yi City arc of The Untamed. At least, that's funny to me, anyhow.
Rambling incoherence and spoilers follow.
Okay, so this is interesting. I just read one of the side stories in the final volume of Thousand Autmuns, and in that story, Yan Wushi paid for their tab at an inn by tossing the concierge a bag full of silver nuggets. So obviously the thing I've commented on and been perplexed by several times throughout this rewatch is an established thing. Now, whether it's actually the case that people sometimes paid for things with silver nuggets instead of coins or whether it's a genre convention, that I have no idea of. But at least I have now learned for certain that it isn't intended to mean that The Untamed is set in an alternate history where the empire just crumbled and went away. (Though I still think that would make for an interesting fanfic.) I suppose paying with silver nuggets was because with so many small kingdoms rising and falling, coinage was somewhat less than solid in value. Especially since ancient Chinese coinage (according to Wikipedia, anyway) was not usually made from precious metals, but instead things like bronze, so the coins don't have any inherent value for the metals they're made of. (Not that all coins in European countries did, either, but gold and silver were often used as well as more base metals.)
Nothing to say before notes today. Rambling and incoherent spoilers follow.
Before I get to today's episode notes...I am by now in the many Epilogue chapters of the final volume of Thousand Autumns. In the particular chapter I just read this morning, Shen Qiao is summoned to visit the Emperor of Chen, and the meeting is being held in Wangxian Hall. Given that this is in a concrete historical setting and according to the "about the author" blurb, the author is known for her meticulous research, I'm assuming that's genuinely the name of a particular hall at that palace, but... 🤣 My mind obviously went to a particular fictional duo who I happen to be quite obsessed with! 🤣 (That being said, "Forgetting Envies" does seem like a fitting name for such a space. Though I'm sure there are also a lot of other things that could mean, come to think of it.)
Anyway. Back to my notes about the journey of that particular fictional couple, as told in live-action. Rambling, incoherence and spoilers follow.
Gnh. I thought of something I wanted to say before the spoiler tag, and forgot it again. ðŸ˜
Maybe it was to note down that yes, although I didn't comment on it in the notes at the time, Lan Wangji did indeed shed a tear during the Nightless City Massacre. Well, duh.
Anyway.
Rambling and incoherent spoilers follow.
