Woxin fic: Flow Charts

[flemmings]

Title: Flow Charts
Day/Theme: Weds Feb. 27 - "What shall I do to shun the snares of death?"
Series: Woxin changdan/The Great Revival
Character/Pairing: Fan Li
Spoilers: ep 30 on

Fan Li had too much imagination to be a king's advisor. He became one because it was his dear mother's dearest wish and because it was the only respectable occupation available to a minor aristocrat like himself. But what made him good at it made the work itself exquisitely painful.

Fan Li's superhuman insight, his prescient sense of future events, was simply his ability to see all available possibilities whole and entire, the way Mozart saw his symphonies. Fan Li realized, at once and intuitively, what individual motive would give rise to what action, what actions would have what consequences, and how each person involved in a situation was likely to feel and thus behave and thus affect all the others.

Fan Li should have been a systems engineer or computer programmer, working with impersonal data bits. Born a few millennia too soon, he found himself instead involved with the fates of kings and queens and warriors and councillors. All of whom- rather to his surprise, actually- mattered to him immensely.

Gou Jian, that charismatic falling star, the foreign king whom Fan Li had confidently expected to dazzle with his own talents, had instead stolen Fan Li's heart from him without his ever knowing quite how it happened. Ya Yu, the beautiful queen to be venerated from a distance, one unlikely to cross the path of the king's advisors, was revealed in the event to be Gou Jian's closest confidante, and quite rightly so: wise and practical and clear-sighted, she could have run the kingdom herself. And there was Wen Zhong, his fellow-countryman from Chu. Disdained by the king of Chu as much as he'd been himself, mulish, sniffy, exasperating and (either in spite or because of those qualities) Fan Li's own very dear friend, Wen Zhong had aligned his fate completely with that of the king and queen of Yue.

And all of them, Fan Li saw, were involved in a process that led inevitably to death. It was as clear as if it were written in a book. Fan Li was a single man facing the ocean's mighty currents and trying to make the waves turn back.

"All I want is for you to stay alive!" Fan Li said to his friends. But his friends seemed determined on running after their deaths.

In the end it was too much for him. The King needed him, the Queen needed him, Wen Zhong needed him, but Fan Li couldn't stay. He took his one chance at happiness- the chance he'd nearly lost in the imperial games of Wu and Yue- and fled.

In later years he was immensely happy, because wine and grain and commodities aren't people. Watching the ups and downs of supply and stock was no different than tracking data bits, that have no hearts to beat and be broken and that have no blood to flow. And what a relief that was.

Comments

[i-am-zan.livejournal.com]

Insightful, and a little dark, but good.

Ooh And I hope to start watching it soon! I have missed a few eps but I'm not too worried about it!

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Early eps is all politics and yawn-worthy.

[incandescens]

Painful, but very good.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I wanted to liken him to a novelist to start with, who sees the story's whole course at a glance, but novelists are in control of the action (NB: theoretically) and Fan Li seems to feel he's not. Which is an oddity for a Chinese military genius, because the breed usually overflows with self-confidence.

[paleaswater.livejournal.com]

Hmm, the breed also never seem quite attached to the ruler they serve either except in theory, unlike Fan Li. But if they're any good they all to a man live until a ripe old age in a mountain somewhere. But eventually Fan Li learned to extract himself as well. It's a very nice balance you achieved in the story.

[feliciter.livejournal.com]

Very innovative use of the prompt, pragmatic Fan Li doing the right and honourable thing almost in spite of himself.

Watching the ups and downs of supply and stock was no different than tracking data bits, that have no heart to beat and be broken and that have no blood to flow. And what a relief that was.

Precisely, and hence ;_;

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Rewatch let me see the salient detail of Fan Li's character that struck you so much the first time. Both occur when he's talking to Wen Zhong, is probably why they slipped by me first time: him saying he's afraid of death before he takes off the first time and him telling Wen Zhong that he just wants him to stay alive (?)when he comes to talk him out of his white lanterns.

(Need he have worried so much? Unless the generals go in for lynching, because Gou Jian sounded more amused by Wen Zhong's gesture than anything. 'Wonder what he'll get up to next? Well, speak of the devil- hanging out lanterns now, is he?')

[feliciter.livejournal.com]

Immediately following on that translated bit (i.e. Wen Zhong intending to hang the lanterns on the city gates:

FL (exasperated): Do you have a death wish or something?
WZ: They can execute me if they like!
FL: If you are unafraid to die why did you run back from Wu (when I warned you about impending war)?
WZ: I returned immediately to persuade the king not to fight!
FL: But did you know that the king is set on war and has made thorough preparations? War is inevitable as soon as the Wu navy is battle-ready, so the king is forced to pre-empt it; why are you so obstinate?
WZ: *rolls eyes during foregoing* Now I understand; you are wavering because the king has decided on war, so instead of dissuading him you have come to chastise me.
FL:Lord Wen Zhong, Fan Li had no such intent; I just want to preserve your life. You and I are guest officials, after all.
WZ *bounces up angrily*: What about it? Surely even guest officials should not disregard the welfare of the country just to save their skins!
FL: *lowers eyes, nods and leave without a word*

I see Fan Li progressing from employee (who wants to impress the boss but has no deeper tie) -> boss' right-hand man but still not completely trustful of him (understandable, with that kind of unpredictability) -> able to disregard his own safety (river castigation) to set him right and follow him (to Wu)-> ready to die for an ideal even if his master seems to have fallen from that lofty standard (about to be hanged if not for Ya Yu).

(I think Fan Li couldn't have been completely sure then that Gou Jian would just have laughed it off.)

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

You're a life-saver, really. These conversations lose all nuance in the subtitles.

Funny, though- I never thought Wen Zhong left Wu to save his skin and wonder why Fan Li did. First time watching, I thought he was thinking 'Oh no he's done it again!' -> undercut Wen Zhong's position and made him look a liar. Not exactly loss of face, but impugning his integrity. Then I saw him talking to Gou Jian, just back from reviewing his troops, and it's clear that none of this is about Wen Zhong himself, and never has been. 'The King's about to make a fatal mistake, I must rush back and stop him!'

At which point I decided Wen Zhong just isn't human. Has the man no ego *at all*?

(Hrmph, I thought Fan Li was Gou Jian's 知己 and knew these things by instinct.）

[feliciter.livejournal.com]

*shudders to think what subtitles might have said*

why Fan Li did

perhaps he was projecting XD but really, he should have known of Wen Zhong's reputation in Chu for rushing into the political maelstrom where everyone fears to dip a toe.

Has the man no ego *at all*?

I was half-expecting him to sit down in front of the troops to stop them, but apparently that is Wu Zi Xu's modus operandi :p

(maybe Fan Li is much more sensitive to Gou Jian's moods when they apply to himself ^_~)

[paleaswater.livejournal.com]

Well, Gou Jian was nothing if not irratic. And what Wen Zhong did would have gotten his head chopped off by even enlightened rulers. That Chinese phrase -- keeping the company of a ruler is like keep the tiger's company.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

And what Wen Zhong did would have gotten his head chopped off by even enlightened rulers.

One's not allowed to make a civil point in ancient China? Tigers indeed (and great bears seen in dreams.) Is this why strategists keep a prudent distance from the kings they serve?

[paleaswater.livejournal.com]

Yes to all three. That's why China got soundly thrashed in the 19th century, and still hasn't learned its lesson by all account. But that's veering away to a different topic.

Back to Weng Zhong -- I would think putting up mourning for one's host country can definitely be taken the wrong way, so it was quite reasonable for Fan Li to be genuinely worried for his friend's life.

[rasetsunyo.livejournal.com]

Exactly! Thank you!

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Welcome, as always.