Prolix, prolix, prolix!

[flemmings]

(Is how the HK subbers translate Urusai!)

Can't help it: it's a daily prompt. Which I wasn't going to write for today's, actually. Or was, rather, but was going to take my time about it; because what needs to be 'purified' are various crucial moments in the series that I feel should be brought into a closer reflection of the Platonic Form of Woxin. Ya Yu speaks court lady keigo to the ambassador of Jin, say. (Cf James Thurber, The Thirteen Clocks, Platonic Form of: 'One last word and warning, said the Duke. I would not trust the fangirls overfar. They seldom know what can be from what can't. They rarely know what should be from what is.')

But then I woke from a dream of reading an entry in feliciter's lj talking about a scene I couldn't remember seeing ('Must have missed it') and this ficlet was there in my head. References shinto, of course, but the same idea exists in the west.

Title: A little seasoning
Day/Theme: Tue Feb. 19 - "And every creature shall be purified"
Series: Woxin changdan/The Great Revival
Character/Pairing: Fu Chai, Bo Pi
Spoilers: ep 18ish specifically, but general commentary

"Bo Pi, how do you do it? We're on the march, we've seen nothing but wasteland for three days, and here's a feast fit for a palace."

"Your majesty works so hard for us, it hurts my old heart to see it. Up before dawn, and night before you come to table. Your poor minister does what little he can to ease my Sovereign's lot. But come- come- please taste the fish. I prepared it with my own hands."

Fu Chai sits and picks up his chopsticks. Bo Pi is nattering on about the king's virtues and glory. Fu Chai takes a bite of grilled fish, listening to his minister's panegyric with only one ear, and thinks abstractedly, 'Needs salt.'

Comments

[rasetsunyo.livejournal.com]

Is how the HK subbers translate Urusai!

OMFG yes. And tsumaranai/variants thereof = "vapid".

Ahahaha nice one! "Needs salt" indeed.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Vapid? You jest. No, I know you don't. Someone over there has a 10 volume 1890 edition of the OED from which they learned their English. Occasionally they come up with words *I* don't know.

[feliciter.livejournal.com]

hee. Perfect miniature of Bo Pi ^_^

(salt of the earth he is not, indeed.)

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Observe that when the salt does come in, dragged between guards, Fu Chai sends it away.

[feliciter.livejournal.com]

While poking around came across this aside in a very short wiki article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_%28state%29):Ambassadoral visits to Japan by the later Northern Chinese dynasties Wei and Jin Dynasty (265-420) recorded that the Wō people of Japan claimed to be descendants of the Grand Count (Tàibó) of the Kingdom of Wu. Historical records also show that the ancient Japanese had similar lifestyles and customs as pre-Sinicized inhabitants of the Wu Kingdom...The Japanese tradition of eating raw fish is common in the Wu area of Jiangsu.

(yes I know some of this stuff might best be taken with a pinch of -um-, but the Wei Chronicles IIRC are fairly reliable and I think may have read of the Wu-Wa connection before.)

I agree that Fu Chai keeps Bo Pi as Prime Minister to check WZX (though IMHO he must have been able to produce some results else Helu who seems to have eyes only for listen only to WZX would have kicked him out ages ago), and also from personal affection/debt. To me it looks *very* difficult to keep someone as ruthless and senior as WZX from doing precisely as he pleases, since he was acknowledged even by other states (especially Chu) to be the force behind Wu's present power: even Fu Chai in the early years of his career (and especially after WZX took an arrow for him and saved his impetuous ass) took care that nothing said in favour of him would seem to be a criticism of WZX.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Ahhh, eeenteresting.

"In 584 BC, Wu rebelled against the State of Chu; the action occurred after being persuaded by Wuchen, a minister of the State of Jin who defected from Chu."

Never mind foreign relations. Chu's problem is and has always been personnel.

The telescoping of time in Woxin is stunning. Ten years between taking the capital and taking over Wu is collapsed into 18 months, wasn't it? Always wondered how the ten years of the ending song became the twenty everyone quoted historically.

And so the Wu-ites are Japanese, huh? (Feels bad for the Japanese.) Even if their ancestor seems a totally virtuous sort.

To me it looks *very* difficult to keep someone as ruthless and senior as WZX from doing precisely as he pleases

Yes indeed. The Great Minister can do no wrong. One begins to like Sun Tzu all the better for taking off- except that makes him parallel Fan Li, and WZX parallel to Wen Zhong. Leaving aside the possibility that the Gou Jian who traditionally offed Wen Zhong, Xi Shi, and anyone else whose face he didn't like, was a raving paranoiac, maybe he was just profiting by the hideous example of what happens when able ministers hang around. (Pity Fu Chai didn't get paranoid a lot earlier on. The basic question of 'Who's king here?' was one that should have occupied him more.)

[incandescens]

Mmm, tasty.

(If I can hear a flattery without knowing it, then I can know a flattery without hearing it. That's logic as I read and understand it!)

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

If I can hear a flattery without knowing it, then I can know a flattery without hearing it.


Yes I know it worked in the book but---

What drives me BONKERS SCREAMING MAD in this series is that Bo Pi might as well have a sign saying 'I am a sycophant *and* I have an agenda' hung about his neck, in large vermilion hanzi, with a 'PS- I can be bought' underneath it and a 'PPS- You're crazy if you trust me an inch' under *that*: and Fu Chai *knows* it- Fu Chai couldn't not know it because dear God WZX points it out often enough- and Fu Chai not only keeps him around, he keeps him around in a high position.

I figure it's because only someone as utterly crooked as Bo Pi can serve as a check to WZX's influence.

[rasetsunyo.livejournal.com]

I seriously think Fu Chai keeps Bo Pi around out of personal affection. Fu Chai likes Bo Pi because Bo Pi cooks and gives him nice things and was nice to a poor ickle prince out if favour. And Fu Chai was always susceptible to egoboos, he keeps cutting off Bo Pi's flattery but I can't see that he minds terribly.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Liking must surely enter in to it. What bugs me a bit is that Fu Chai seems to want the same liking and approval from WZX, when to my tastes WZX is begging for the chop. First thing Gou Jian does on being enthroned is bring Shi Mai to heel; you'd think 'I da man!' Fu Chai could at least try to keep WZX in line.

[i-am-zan.livejournal.com]

^__^ hmm bite size and tasty ... salt indeed!

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Also references a heart-breaking moment much later on when Gou Jian says 'The King needs salt.'

[paleaswater.livejournal.com]

Very nice. I think Fu Chai keeps Bo Pi partly because of affection and egoboo, but also because he can play him against WZX. WZX does come across quite frequently as wanting to run the country with Fu Chai as a puppet, especially from the viewpoint of Fu Chai, and he probably thought that Bo Pi is the one person who could counterbalance him.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

I'm rewatching 18 just now, and it kind of bugs me that Fu Chai is such a doormat with WZX. I understand all the reasons why one must respect the great statesman of the previous age blah blah blah, but when Bo Pi says almost exactly what you say- 'you wanted to keep the king shut up in the palace studying and you wouldn't admit his military talent for a minute'- surely Fu Chai didn't need to contradict him quite as strongly as he did- 'Pay no attention to his blathering, he's drunk, which is why I won't take his head off.'

Maybe the question is why he keeps WZX around. Wanting to be his father, was he? It takes him far too long to become distrustful of him for my patience.

[paleaswater.livejournal.com]

I suppose it's because he knew the outcry if he offed WZX, given the old man's reputation. One just didn't kill retainers whose name are synonymous with loyalty and faithful service. That just did't tally with the Way of Heaven etc etc. Even if you think their devotion is suspect, you let them rant and bide your time. But in any case, I don't know if thing would have worked out better for Fu Chai if he killed WZX earlier.