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Jun. 25th, 2015 04:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
issenlloROCH (2014 TV version) thoughts.
This is probably heresy (it IS heresy, if you're in my family) but I've always not liked Huang Rong all that much. I know she's the darling of many readers - and TV viewers - because she was so badass smart and sneaky in LCH, an excellent foil to the often blockheaded Guo Jing, and in ROCH, she was even more badass as the leader of the Beggar Sect, co-leader of the resistance in XiangYang, etc, etc. But.
Mrs Guo, we need to discuss your eldest child, Guo Fu.
Not that I'm blaming you for how she actually turned out, because I'm pretty sure Guo Fu came up with her habits of acting like a three-year-old, her fits of petty, malicious jealousy and lack of anger management, not to mention her self-entitled, self-centered and selfish personality all by herself and these were not in any way affected by the way she'd been petted and spoilt and cossetted by every adult in her life. Oh wait.
Well, at least it's not all Huang Rong's fault. If there was a nature/nurture debate on Guo Fu, one can only say that she inherited Huang Rong's brains without her intelligence to see beyond the surface and inherited Guo Jing's blockheadedness without the magnanimity of spirit and ability to listen to others. And Huang Rong herself was a bit of a spoilt brat when she was younger, in LCH, only she fell in love with Guo Jing and realised she'd catch more flies with honey than vinegar AND was able to manage her temper. Whereas Guo Fu was collectively spoilt by every single person in her family.
The thing is, at least in this particular interpretation, I was really struck by how blind Huang Rong seemed to be to her daughter's defects of character. (Previous interpretations had Guo Fu almost running wild, but in this 2014 version she seems to be quite attached to her mother.) Thus. Even when Huang Rong rebuked Guo Fu, it was most often "You should not have been so impetuous, and now your father is angry at you", never with a realisation that she had done something repulsive and criminal. (I refer primarily to her cutting off Yang Guo's arm, but there are many other instances.) She is never punished for her actions by Huang Rong, nor is Huang Rong able to get her to think about the enormity of her actions. Guo Fu, meanwhile, has a persecution-complex-tinged defence and retorts to anyone who'd listen that she'd acted with good intentions. Well, her version of good intentions, at least. She cannot even accept that she ought to apologise to her victims, or to feel the slightest bit of disquiet about her wrongdoing.
All which adds up to an awful character that most other characters do not seem to be aware of. But one might expect Huang Rong, who is canonically the smartest character - other than her father, but he's a minor character in ROCH - to see through her daughter. But she does not, except to observe that Guo Fu is rather stupid. I think it goes beyond that, and I'm perplexed that Huang Rong does not appear to indicate in any way that she understands that her daughter is dreadful: to defend, however erroneously, to continue to coddle and overprotect, yes, I understand that, because she is your daughter blah blah blah. But to blithely bring about your daughter around jianghu and letting her wreck havoc without thinking that perhaps your very very stupid daughter is really best put out out of harm's way (harm to other people, that is) and where she can commit no further danger is really something that is unworthy of her. I can see her reasoning thus: yes, Fu-er did a bad thing, but it's really not so bad! No one died!
I'm all grrr. And thus I do not like Huang Rong. There is a meanness of spirit about her that was tempered with her steadiness of character, and yes, her intelligence (in knowing when she's behaving unfairly) and her obvious soft spot for Guo Jing in LCH, but when it comes to the partiality for her daughter in ROCH, I'm all thumbs down. She's fantastic at seeing people's motivations and flaws, and I admire that about her. But she often uses these skills in ways to assess how she can get the better of other people (or, to be fair, to stop them harming her). She could try for a little sensitivity.
This is probably heresy (it IS heresy, if you're in my family) but I've always not liked Huang Rong all that much. I know she's the darling of many readers - and TV viewers - because she was so badass smart and sneaky in LCH, an excellent foil to the often blockheaded Guo Jing, and in ROCH, she was even more badass as the leader of the Beggar Sect, co-leader of the resistance in XiangYang, etc, etc. But.
Mrs Guo, we need to discuss your eldest child, Guo Fu.
Not that I'm blaming you for how she actually turned out, because I'm pretty sure Guo Fu came up with her habits of acting like a three-year-old, her fits of petty, malicious jealousy and lack of anger management, not to mention her self-entitled, self-centered and selfish personality all by herself and these were not in any way affected by the way she'd been petted and spoilt and cossetted by every adult in her life. Oh wait.
Well, at least it's not all Huang Rong's fault. If there was a nature/nurture debate on Guo Fu, one can only say that she inherited Huang Rong's brains without her intelligence to see beyond the surface and inherited Guo Jing's blockheadedness without the magnanimity of spirit and ability to listen to others. And Huang Rong herself was a bit of a spoilt brat when she was younger, in LCH, only she fell in love with Guo Jing and realised she'd catch more flies with honey than vinegar AND was able to manage her temper. Whereas Guo Fu was collectively spoilt by every single person in her family.
The thing is, at least in this particular interpretation, I was really struck by how blind Huang Rong seemed to be to her daughter's defects of character. (Previous interpretations had Guo Fu almost running wild, but in this 2014 version she seems to be quite attached to her mother.) Thus. Even when Huang Rong rebuked Guo Fu, it was most often "You should not have been so impetuous, and now your father is angry at you", never with a realisation that she had done something repulsive and criminal. (I refer primarily to her cutting off Yang Guo's arm, but there are many other instances.) She is never punished for her actions by Huang Rong, nor is Huang Rong able to get her to think about the enormity of her actions. Guo Fu, meanwhile, has a persecution-complex-tinged defence and retorts to anyone who'd listen that she'd acted with good intentions. Well, her version of good intentions, at least. She cannot even accept that she ought to apologise to her victims, or to feel the slightest bit of disquiet about her wrongdoing.
All which adds up to an awful character that most other characters do not seem to be aware of. But one might expect Huang Rong, who is canonically the smartest character - other than her father, but he's a minor character in ROCH - to see through her daughter. But she does not, except to observe that Guo Fu is rather stupid. I think it goes beyond that, and I'm perplexed that Huang Rong does not appear to indicate in any way that she understands that her daughter is dreadful: to defend, however erroneously, to continue to coddle and overprotect, yes, I understand that, because she is your daughter blah blah blah. But to blithely bring about your daughter around jianghu and letting her wreck havoc without thinking that perhaps your very very stupid daughter is really best put out out of harm's way (harm to other people, that is) and where she can commit no further danger is really something that is unworthy of her. I can see her reasoning thus: yes, Fu-er did a bad thing, but it's really not so bad! No one died!
I'm all grrr. And thus I do not like Huang Rong. There is a meanness of spirit about her that was tempered with her steadiness of character, and yes, her intelligence (in knowing when she's behaving unfairly) and her obvious soft spot for Guo Jing in LCH, but when it comes to the partiality for her daughter in ROCH, I'm all thumbs down. She's fantastic at seeing people's motivations and flaws, and I admire that about her. But she often uses these skills in ways to assess how she can get the better of other people (or, to be fair, to stop them harming her). She could try for a little sensitivity.
no subject
Date: 2015-06-27 03:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-06-28 05:34 am (UTC)Heh, I can see the parallel between her younger self with Yang Guo. But I think he's still not as smart as Huang Rong. Not too impressed with him. Perhaps because I simply find it hard to take Yang Guo all that seriously (due perhaps, unfairly to his condor bro). ^_^
no subject
Date: 2015-06-30 03:15 pm (UTC)I've never actually considered the parallel between Huang Rong's younger self with Yang Guo; I've always contrasted Yang Guo with Guo Fu instead in a twist of nature vs. nuture comparison. Both of them were pretty much raised together, and you'd expect any child of a pair of people like Huang Rong and Guo Jing to be less awful in general. In the meantime, Yang Guo is the son of a talented villain, raised by a pair of righteous heroes, starts off in life with a giant chip on his shoulders but eventually does get his head out of his ass.
no subject
Date: 2015-07-19 10:10 am (UTC)You're sort of right about the big blind spot of mothers in wuxia and historical dramas - it's kind of incongruous because historically, mothers tended to be harder on their children (tho' more often sons) because of heightened expectations and worry about bad upbringing reflecting on them. Like Yue Fei's mother!
I think the parallel beteen Huang Rong and Yang Guo is how 'eccentric' they were both considered to be: only I think Yang Guo tends to have, as you say, a chip on his shoulder, issues about older women, and a huge emo complex, while Huang Rong's eccentricity, if we can call it that, is the sheer novelty of being an intelligent woman.