Continuing Woxin rewatch notes (up to ep4)

[flemmings]

1. Can't see why Gou Jian blames Ye Yong as well as Shi Mai for his deposition?

2. Shi Mai. *And* his king Yun Chang. But mostly, Shi Mai. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. There's a level of incompetence and closing eyes to facts beyond which, as the Japanese say, the strings of my patience bag are cut, and I think Shi Mai reached that level in ep.1.

3. While I have no use for classic notions that women should stay out of politics, I do think government generally should be carried on by the people appointed to carry on the government. Wives and concubines aren't. Granted, when women are barred from government the talents of someone like Ya Yu can only be employed indirectly and doubtless that's why the old king employs them that way. Equally, people properly appointed to govern can be howling incompetents (see 2.) But still- there's a hell of a lot of petticoat influence happening at Yun Chang's court.

4. I remember with satisfaction what happens to Brute 1. I've somehow excised from memory what happens to Brute 2, but it can't happen soon enough.

Comments

[paleaswater.livejournal.com]

Hmm, somehow Shi Mai didn't come across as so dumb. Overly cautious and limited in imagination, yes, in the manner of old soldiers softened by peace. But still an extremely skilled courtier, look at how he defused Gou Jian's attempt to figure out his position. Yun Chang is also not quite the doddering old fool he appears to be. In some ways he was right about Gou Jian -- Gou Jian was hot-headed and prepared to go to way with no chance of victory. He would have led Yue to ruin overnight, versus the slow decline into a vessel state it would have experience. So it might not be completely petticoat influence at play. Gou Jian later got lucky because he got Fan Li to plan out that one battle for him and took him to a fluke victory, one which Fan Li himself knows can not be duplicated, but still he managed to wasted that one opportunity and practically led Yue to ruins anyways. So Yun Chang might be forgiven for what he did to Gou Jian. But that one section that makes him truly despicable is when he told Gou Jian to send Ji Wan back, and then told Gou Jian to tell her himself. When Gou Jian told him to tell him himself, he replied, completely without shame or irony, "I'm old and soft, I can not bear tears".

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

What gets me is the king and Shi Mai both thinking they can buy peace with Wu by sending Ji Wan back and by taking Gou Jian's position away from him, when we know that Wu and Brute 2 are intent on steam-rollering over Yue and nothing Yue can do will stop them from, as Brute 2 says, marching their armies in and taking over the capital. I think it would have been a lot faster than a slow decline into dependency: slow decline is what would happen if they'd accepted Fu Chai's treaty. It's lose-lose all the way. Fighting has one advantage over temporizing: you get a shot at the man in charge. Brute 2's death would change everything. (*Why* don't I remember what happened to him?)

look at how he defused Gou Jian's attempt to figure out his position.

I'm not sure what scene you're referring to here. All I could make out is that Shi Mai lies so much you never know where you are with him. 'I intend to fight' 'I don't intend to fight' 'I will fight' blah blah blah. If anyone else tried that he'd be suspected of having sold out to Wu, or of complete untrustworthiness. The subtitles obscured that lovely scene in ep 5 (?), where straightforward Wen Zhong cuts through Shi Mai and Ye Yong's weaselling like *that*, thus showing it up for the moral shabbiness it is.

What gets me about Yun Chang is him sending his daughter back while weeping to anyone who'll listen about how he misses her, and then collapsing when he hears she's dead. He reads as a man who, at his basic level, doesn't want to be inconvenienced by anything like responsibility.

[rasetsunyo.livejournal.com]

Cos Brute 2 didn't die on-screen. Last we saw him he was in shackles brought before Fu Chai's first audience predicting the downfall of Wu at the hands of the usrper.

Agree about Yun Chang's evasion of responsibility, but the old man struck me as very shrewd and, on some level, right. He said something like, Wu's only strong this generation because of He Lu, and He Lu is old; give it another couple of generations and it will decline. So what if we have to pay tribute to them now, their time will come to an end eventually. Gou Jian fought like hell and still ended up turning Yue into Wu's tributary.

Can't see why Gou Jian blames Ye Yong as well as Shi Mai for his deposition

Because Ye Yong = Shi Mai Ye Yong supported Shi Mai. In those scenes where the courtiers would go off according to factions, like when Yun Chang dismisses the court but Hao Jin and Fu Tong remained, or vice versa, Ye Yong was always with Shi Mai, it's pretty obvious they're co-conspirators.

[paleaswater.livejournal.com]

Yes, this combination of cunning and evasion of responsibility is what strikes me about Yun Chang. He probably understood the situation more clearly than anyone, and I think he was quite right about paying tribute to Wu-- Wu wanted to be seen as part of the civilized kingdoms. It cared about legitimacy, and WZX at least said that if he can get Yue's submission without wasting soldiers and fighting a war, he'd rather do that, and Brute 2 would probably not have had his chance. But to me it didn't feel like Yun Chang weighted his choices, choose the lesser evil and was willing to take responsibility for his decision. It felt to me like he was so sapped of energy and will, he just wanted the business done and over with the so he can return to the easy pleasures of his concubine and younger son.

[mvrdrk.livejournal.com]

I haven't gotten that far, but I don't think Yun Chang sounds implausible at all. As Dad's gotten older, he's gotten very sentimental and easily distressed, while retaining his ability to be cunning and ruthless, it's a weird combination of inate personality and realization of mortality.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

I don't find him implausible, just unlikable. He gets to be weepy and sentimental about his poor dear daughter, someone else gets to take responsibility for sending her back to an impossible situation. He's the king. Where'd *his* sense of responsibility go?