Guardian and me, May 2020

[waterscroll]

Now up to episode 23 and I had to completely give up on every hope of remaining unspoiled for anything and go binge on every spoiler I could find. Shen Wei's sketchiness and secret-keeping was starting to get to me. Not because I was worried he was Really Bad, more the opposite - there is nothing that I love in a narrative more than a good villain redemption arc, really nothing, and I felt like canon was horribly teasing me to give me the possibility of one with a character so delicious. But I wasn't seeing any villain redemption discourse about him in fandom, so I needed to read spoilers. And ok, I guess not.

But as a consolation prize, I got to meet Ye Zun, who is apparently the go-to in the fandom for people who like to write redemption arcs for villains. Or draw them, like this. I look forward to getting to know him better. And you couldn't give him an angstier backstory, all the Pain and Awful that is life in Dixing with the Extra of being trapped in a pillar for thousands of years. When he said that line about sunflowers inevitably reaching towards the sun I couldn't help but feel his pain, no matter how murdery he was being.

It seems like the character of Ye Zun was designed to meet my particular desire to see Shen Wei be more awful than he is going to be in this canon. Rather than having him be awful, they put the awful on his twin brother who looks just like him. I'm okay with that, and thank you show for working so hard to meet the emotional needs that I am bringing to it.


Guardian (at least the TV show) does seem to be a canon in which people mostly stay in their alignment, people get introduced as good or bad or morally ambiguous and then mostly stay that way. Am I right about this? Feel free to spoil me if you have relevant spoilers.

I've been moving slowly through the TV show because it is hitting me *so* hard right now, it went from feeling very emotionally safe to hurting a lot to watch...just as soon as I got invested in the plight of the Dixing people stuck underground with no light and no schools. Right now I care about that even more than the central romance, which sort of feels like engaging with the canon wrong. (I mean, guys, be happy together or not but fix Dixing already I'm crying here.) I feel like when a canon hurts this much the only way out is through, see what gets resolved in canon and find fixit fic for the rest. So I'm definitely going to keep watching, but I'm moving slowly.

*

In novelverse things I'm reading and enjoying:

This meta about how Shen Wei's novelverse arc works in Buddhist terms.
This meta about the god Kunlun in the novel.
This genderswapped Kunlun/Ghost King art.
This lovely AU in which Shen Wei reincarnates rather than Kunlun.

Comments

[china_shop]

Shen Wei's sketchiness and secret-keeping was starting to get to me.

Oh, that's interesting. I definitely see the secret-keeping, but I don't see the sketchiness at all. Maybe because I'm not hoping for it. *g* Glad you found something to scratch that itch, anyway. :-)

Right now I care about that even more than the central romance, which sort of feels like engaging with the canon wrong. (I mean, guys, be happy together or not but fix Dixing already I'm crying here.)

*much hugs*

[waterscroll]

Maybe sketchiness is the wrong word. But this is why I had to go look for spoilers, because I was seeing that people who actually know Shen Wei better than I do were reading him as entirely lawful good from the beginning of his character arc to the end. And something about the combination of secretiveness and the odd sort of guilt or self-hate or something that he seems to carry, and the rumors about him, plus Da Qing being suspicious of him based on barely-remembered old memories, all made me think that maybe he was carrying around something to feel actually guilty about. Maybe something from the war between Haxing and Dixing. It looks like that was a very wrong guess though.

But I spend a lot of time with fictional semi-repentant war criminals, so it is something that I look for.

I wouldn't have suspected him of planning anything that could harm ZYL, even though in the novelverse he does, this version just seems like he wouldn't and couldn't.

I'm still not sure how to feel about the spoiler that what is *actually* going on is that he is planning a long game of murder-suicide with his brother. I expect that this is an arc that I will have very intense feelings about, but I won't know what they are until I see it.

I'll probably have intense feelings about how things get resolved in the end for Dixing too. The spoilers that I am osmosing tell me that they do get light and schools (as a result of our beloved main characters' self-sacrifice) but that they are permanently severed from Haxing, and that people have mixed feelings about this. Is that more or less right? So I expect to have intense feelings about that too.

[china_shop]

people who actually know Shen Wei better than I do were reading him as entirely lawful good from the beginning of his character arc to the end.

Heh. I think sometimes he's chaotic good. But definitely good. Duty first!

and the odd sort of guilt or self-hate or something that he seems to carry

Hm, I don't really see this. Do you have any examples? Maybe I'm forgetting.

I'm still not sure how to feel about the spoiler that what is *actually* going on is that he is planning a long game of murder-suicide with his brother.

I'd say it's more like a contingency plan? If they can't find another way to stop him.

The spoilers that I am osmosing tell me that they do get light and schools (as a result of our beloved main characters' self-sacrifice) but that they are permanently severed from Haxing, and that people have mixed feelings about this. Is that more or less right?

Light but no schools -- but with light, in theory, there come resources and potential easing of hardship, though we don't see that. And yes, they're permanently severed (according to one character's assessment -- he might be wrong!). People aboveground are briefly sombre about the portal being closed, but they're mostly distracted by other grieving.

[waterscroll]

I'd say it's more like a contingency plan? If they can't find another way to stop him.

Ah, thank you for the clarification. It was unbearably sad to think that even early on he was planning on dying. Of course what happens still sounds incredibly sad, it looks like this is an outchies-all-around canon. I've been devouring fixit fic to make myself better before I continue, so that at least I'll know that whatever bad things I see on screen can be fixed.

It sounds like the ending leaves a great deal to play with in terms of what happens in Dixing, so I'm grateful that fandom is taking up the challenge.