Guardian episode 16
Apr. 28th, 2020 12:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
waterscrollI continue to not understand what is going on and have intense feelings anyway.
Zhao Yunlan goes on a tour and finds that Dixing is, well, a kind of shitty place to live. There are no schools (just like in terrible real life right now!) and also no hospitals. The government is nonfunctioning and there's random crime on the streets. (Although Haxing's government doesn't seem to be great either so maybe I shouldn't hold that against them.) People on the streets consider Lord Black Cloak a traitor.
Right now I'm having maybe a little too much sympathy for purple-haired villain who, as he says at the end of the episode, just wants Dixing people to be able to come up to Haxing. And while I do trust this show to resolve the central romance in a way that I'm more or less ok with, and fandom to fix anything I'm not ok with with, I am not sure if I can trust the show to resolve things for the Dixing people. This is making me nervous.
I do have some confidence in Zhao Yunlan personally, though, and in his ability to not let infatuation turn off his brain and moral compass. Here he expresses some confidence that his boyfriend is on the right side of this mess while still trying to figure out what is going on. It seems...odd...that Shen Wei would let him wander Dixing like that, no matter what the necessity, but I suppose this isn't a show that you watch for absence of plotholes. And Zhao Yunlan really is making the most of his time there. Watching him gather information in a freakishly competent way is quite satisfying, and shows that in his own way he's something of a match for his terrifyingly powerful boyfriend.
Meanwhile we get to know Zhao Yunlan's dad who is 1. awesome 2. weirdly hot and 3. a Dixing person? Something else? Which means that Yunlan is also part....? I am a little taken aback by this. And the bit about Zhao Yunlan and Zhu Hong having the same polarity... I am also not sure what to make of the talking pillar. Clearly there are some mysteries about Zhao Yunlan too, and right now I don't have any good guesses.
Zhao Yunlan goes on a tour and finds that Dixing is, well, a kind of shitty place to live. There are no schools (just like in terrible real life right now!) and also no hospitals. The government is nonfunctioning and there's random crime on the streets. (Although Haxing's government doesn't seem to be great either so maybe I shouldn't hold that against them.) People on the streets consider Lord Black Cloak a traitor.
Right now I'm having maybe a little too much sympathy for purple-haired villain who, as he says at the end of the episode, just wants Dixing people to be able to come up to Haxing. And while I do trust this show to resolve the central romance in a way that I'm more or less ok with, and fandom to fix anything I'm not ok with with, I am not sure if I can trust the show to resolve things for the Dixing people. This is making me nervous.
I do have some confidence in Zhao Yunlan personally, though, and in his ability to not let infatuation turn off his brain and moral compass. Here he expresses some confidence that his boyfriend is on the right side of this mess while still trying to figure out what is going on. It seems...odd...that Shen Wei would let him wander Dixing like that, no matter what the necessity, but I suppose this isn't a show that you watch for absence of plotholes. And Zhao Yunlan really is making the most of his time there. Watching him gather information in a freakishly competent way is quite satisfying, and shows that in his own way he's something of a match for his terrifyingly powerful boyfriend.
Meanwhile we get to know Zhao Yunlan's dad who is 1. awesome 2. weirdly hot and 3. a Dixing person? Something else? Which means that Yunlan is also part....? I am a little taken aback by this. And the bit about Zhao Yunlan and Zhu Hong having the same polarity... I am also not sure what to make of the talking pillar. Clearly there are some mysteries about Zhao Yunlan too, and right now I don't have any good guesses.
no subject
Date: 2020-04-28 07:04 pm (UTC)Dixing really is a hell hole (no pun intended). I blame the Regent for a lot.
If you want spoilers, I am your person.
He totally is and I love this so, so much. In the show, he's just an ordinary human but boy can he match the superpowered aliens!
Wait, Zhao Yunlan's dad is... awesome? Are we watching the same show? (I give you the 'hot' along with the 'weirdly'. The rest will become clear.)
The talking pillar is highly relevant.
no subject
Date: 2020-04-29 04:25 am (UTC)I'm sure you know but I think for the moment I'd like to flail around misunderstanding things and wildly speculating for a bit more. I may take you up on the offer of spoilers a bit later.
Also thinking about Shen Wei as a professor coming from a place where there are no schools, I mean he clearly values education, and it not happening in Dixing has to affect him somehow.
he's just an ordinary human but boy can he match the superpowered aliens!
Which is an interesting choice, to take a character who was a god in the novel and turn him into someone who doesn't *need* to be anything more than human because what he is as a human is enough.
(But if he's human, what is up with his dad? I guess I'll find out.)
no subject
Date: 2020-04-29 06:12 am (UTC)