no time to write a post, got to get back to Guardian

[waterscroll]

...so I can try to finish in time to participate in the Zhao Xinci conversation over at sid_guardian. I'm only at episode 33, I need to hurry. And damn that man guts me whenever I see him onscreen. We see him lose everything: his wife, his relationship with his son, the division that he ran at great personal cost, even his own bodily integrity (I mean his *entire life* for the past 20 years has been one long noncon fic) and sense of self. And he's willing to give all of it up if he has to, because the safety of Haxing is his responsibility and what matters to him and worth whatever he has to give up for it. Worse, I can't find any fluffy happy-ending fixit fic for him in which he gets love and cuddles. Well, that may be my True Destiny in the fandom. But first I need to finish the rest of the series, because there seems to be lots of character arc left for him.

Speaking of Guardian characters who need fixits, fandom is *definitely* meeting my Ye Zun fixit needs. (Thank you extrapenguin!) I'm watching the show with fixit fics open so I can flip over to them when canon feels like it hurts too much. And then I accidentally wrote 4 pages of Ye Zun meta the other day to make myself feel better, I think I'm going to hold on to it until I finish canon and then maybe use it as the basis for fic.

I'm hoping I can produce some actual fic out of all these intense feelings I'm having, that would really be great. In the meantime, back to episodes.

Comments

[extrapenguin]

I think we are intended to read canon from their perspective and that doing so is rewarding. But I think they're still lovely when seen from other perspectives, just maybe less perfect.
I agree with this. It's the protagonists doing their best to fix things and do good, and the show doesn't fall into protagonist-centered morality or some of the other pitfalls good vs evil fall to. We see Zhao Yunlan and the SID improve in their treatment of Dixingians, even if true reform is ignored due to the Ye Zun situation. (Had the plot happened with e.g. Zhao Xinci as the protagonist/SID Chief, it'd have looked very different from an audience's POV.)

he's good at self-sacrifice and not so good at politics.
Yep. This is also why Dixing is as bad as it is - he's been up and awake for over a decade and doesn't like the Regent or the stuff with the Lord, but he doesn't replace the system because his childhood was derailed by the system of society collapsing due to the meteor impact, and he doesn't reform the system because he's shit at politics. His YOHE self has the excuse of being young, but ... yeah. He's good at fighting because he has to be, good at teaching and science because he enjoys it, and the only reason he has decisionmaking or political power is because he became a legend while he slept. Then the legend woke and turned out to be just a mortal after all.

I wonder if - and this might be a reach - Shen Wei describes himself as a general of a defeated army because on some level he wishes he was, that a part of him wishes he had fought harder for Dixing. Or that he sees himself as defeated because he was so outclassed politically.
My favorite Watsonian explanation is that he's a drama llama and indulging his penchant for maximally melodramatic speeches. *g* But yeah, his sources of guilt would be interesting to contemplate.