fandomy

[issenllo]

Still on Hospital Playlist. Ep 6: How do they make the sad moments so bleak yet the joyful moments so sparkling?

Brain still eaten by Thousand Autumns. Btw, in the animated version Shen Qiao had regained his eyesight earlier (though it isn't as perfect as before), then almost-bluescreen dies (manipulated by Yan Wushu) and as de rigueur for wuxia, this means his skills level up, just in time (with a side plot at Bixia Sect, also killing Kunye) to go rescue his man YWS who is attacked on all sides, dashingly getting in just before the death strike, and gets to cradle WYS in his arms. Ah, I like that they take turns.

*Awaits season 2 with badly concealed impatience*

Thinking of some comparisons between the novel and the adaptation (novel!YWS is a lot less caring at first, doesn't even remember SQ much, unlike his donghua version), as well as the comparisons between Tian Ya Ke the novel and Word of Honor the TV adaptation, where WKX is someone who doesn't have a shixiong connection with ZZS but just crazily stalks him until he gets ZZS to pay attention to him. Wonder if the episodic format tends towards this type of characterisation, i.e. the 'crazy' character really is crazy...

I adore the opening of Thousand Autumns right now. here

Also, how much I melted for Thousand Autumns when I saw those scenes of SQ and YWS playing Go? I don't even play Go but I loved those scenes.

Still on the novel version, chapter 80.
To date:

1. SQ has fed YWS soup using mouth-to-mouth;
2. SQ has dressed YWS in women's clothing;
3. YWS has developed split personalities due to a head injury (how? I don't know) and one of them demanded candy;
4. YWS has forcibly kissed SQ;
5. YWS has used SQ's sword to: (a) clean the bodies of sparrows for food; and (b) descale fish and clean them, to SQ's extreme displeasure; and
6. SQ has just undergone a serious crisis of faith regarding self and YWS, partly due to more practice of Zhuyangce and partly due to YWS uncharacteristically being (stupidly) protective.

It's pretty exciting. I really like SQ a lot: the way he is still hopeful regarding the world and still retaining his kindness towards others, while not being at all naive about those who have wronged him and being appropriately vengeful when needed (this does not include towards YWS, heh). I love that part when he says that he isn't being kind out of hope of reward: it's the way he is, and he will not let others affect his decision. Of course, in one sense you could say that SQ has the luxury of still clinging on to his sense of morality and decency - even after being betrayed by those he trusted, e.g. being poisoned, being handed over to Huo Xijing - he still has not become truly without options, e.g. if things became truly desperate he could die rather than betray himself.

(I'm mainly thinking of that sequence in Are You Human Too? when Nam Shin III realises that he can't even kill himself because he's being controlled. That scene hit me like a bullet. Or all those instances that you can't really die, e.g. Wen Kexing in TYK when his parents die, because you've got to live even if it's in hell.)

I'm starting to think that the way 'enlightenment' is portrayed in wuxia - i.e. if you have a breakthrough it means your skills level up - is that all these secret manuals are a bunch of philosophical trick questions that you have to solve before you clear your chi points and become more powerful.

Comments

[larryhammer]

I still have Thousand Autumns in my TBR list of wuxia/xianxia. I keep meaning to get to it sometime soon.

That's pretty much how enlightenment works in practice, yeah. Novels by authors who clearly have a more direct contact with historical Daoism are ... interesting. (Not always better, but definitely interesting.)

[issenllo]

Ikr. I think that's why most wuxia series don't describe it in detail; there's a risk of making it sound superficial, like some kind of game.

[larryhammer]

Which makes it feel even more superficial ...