Woxin rewatch 31-32

[flemmings]

Ah well. Some nice bits with Gou Jian in the carriage going home.

And then--

How did they manage to get the Ya Yu m-f so very right and all the other m-f plots so very very wrong? I don't mind Zheng Dan being so dweeby (and ultimately changeable) because she probably was, but the Xi Shi plot- not merely Xi Shi herself- is so- so- sap romance argh. Possibly it's just a case of Not For You, because didn't the Chinese fen think WZX's grandstand death scene (Now! with extra lightning bolts!) was the poodle's knickers?

Still. This is Not How You Do Romance, guy.

Erm well yes, Fan Li can be snotty about 'the old guard is forming factions behind your back and you didn't even notice!' to Wen Zhong, but the old guard itself is saying 'Ku Cheng can lead soldiers out to guard the king and you didn't even notice!' to Ye Yong, nominally in charge of the army, who feebly protests that Wen Zhong got in before him. Sounds to me like Wen Zhong's doing OK at his job. Of course it's not-so-perspicacious Fan Li who's up for the chop by the plainly Certifiably Dumb native Yueites. What on earth did they think they were doing? 'Fan Li, it's all your fault the king became a slave in Wu! He should have refused to surrender and been killed by Fu Chai and our country totally subsumed into Wu.' Really? Or are we only having this scene so we can parallel the previous Sitting On Our Butts Arc in Wu, and then do a further parallel between the captious courtiers who give the king a relapse and the simple-hearted common people who bring him out of hiding.

(30 eps later and I *still* have no notion what the hell Shimai thinks he's doing. How I do not like that man, either as a man or as a character.)

Actually I quite understand why Gou Jian moves into that stable. My own memories are location-specific: I have to be in the place to remember what happened there with any kind of vividness. So if he doesn't want to forget about Wu in the daily minute business of dealing with depleted Yue, he has to be in a place that feels like Wu. Also where else can he operate from? He won't go back to his own palace that reeks of defeat, and the queen's palace is where he went to hide and, I would think, suffer the psychological bends of returning to Yue. (He looks physically much older when he comes out of it than he was when he went in.) But it's not a place he can act from: in his mind I imagine it belongs to the stasis and paralysis of recuperation. Moving his space is like getting up and sitting in a chair when you've been sick in bed for a long time: the psychological assertion that you're recovering is necessary for the actual recovery. And he is recovering, because next thing you know, off he goes to deal with Zhu Ji Ying.

I think that scene is probably our tip-off that Gou Jian is not doing saint of any kind, he's just learned how reality works and has changed his tactics to meet the present situation. Cause this is a straight reprise of the seduction of Ling Gu Fu, done better because Gou Jian is now older and cannier. But oh, that's still the hand of the master at work.

There's some really interesting stuff going on under the surface in 32, and it's all Ya Yu and Gou Jian gone badly out of synch. She won't join him in the stable- she didn't even know he'd moved there (taking the flowers with him.) We know she knows that he intends to be revenged on Wu, but just at this moment she doesn't seem to be registering the steps needed to get there. Or maybe she can't, when one of the steps involves putting Xi Shi through what she herself experienced with the Jin ambassador. Didn't mind sending Zheng Dan off to a life of prostitution though. Is it the thought of separating her and Fan Li that hurts? at the same moment she separates herself from her husband, in what she does, for the first time ever? 'We can't be together but they can?' (And love again for chivalrous Wen Zhong ready to take all responsibility.) Or is it that she simply can't bear to be one of those who acts unrighteously when what she lives for is to see right triumph?

Ya Yu has had to bear the unbearable once too often and now we see it taking its toll. Which is why the fast death both Fu Chai and Wongsun get is not nearly fast enough for me.

(Yanno, I can see the changes in Gou Jian just from my icons. The guy in the cangue is not the guy who seduces Zhu Ji Ying. Damn but Uncle Ming is one fine actor.)

Comments

[rasetsunyo.livejournal.com]

Xi Shi plot

Not for me either. Fan Li: Wherever you are, there my Home is! Me: wtf Master Fan WHERE DID THAT COME FROM srsly. Argh.

Gou Jian is not doing saint of any kind

Hmm. But the whole Way Of Heaven thing? Probably part of the way reality works there though.

Didn't mind sending Zheng Dan off to a life of prostitution though.

Didn't mind sending any pretty girl off to a life of prostitution, as long as it's not Xi Shi. I dunno. Ya Yu seems to have a particular fondness for Xi Shi, and possibly she took the adoptive little sister thing to heart. Also she's the one who hooked up Fab Li and Xi Shi in the first place so she might feel some responsibility to them?

*Damn* but Uncle Ming is one fine actor.

In an interview: They (referring to co-stars) are better than I because they have new experiences. I'm serious. Actors my age, we tend to fossilise.

Hu Jun: Nah, you haven't fossilised.

Me: Fossilised HAH. I'm with Mr. Hu here, Uncle Ming.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

But the whole Way Of Heaven thing?

The main underpinning of Gou Jian's position, which gets stated most clearly and pivotally in the address to the ancestors, is and has always been that the strong shouldn't bully the weak. One can be forgiven for overlooking it earlier in his young king days, because it gets mixed up with ambition and conquest and the usual things one expects from young rulers. But I think 'Yue suffers from Wu's arrogance and this is *wrong*' was a prime motivator even then. His sister's death hit hard- or more likely was the icing on the cake of years of subordinate ill-feeling.

It's the same principle still, just that Gou Jian is now applying smarts to act on it. And one must note that Gou Jian actually practises it, in very stark contrast to Fu Chai who's presented, over and again, as wanting to be *seen* as a virtuous ruler even as he countenances the uncountenancible (the Jin ambassador) and happily slaughters anyone who annoys him. (Those soldiers he has beheaded still irk me.) Not a coincidence, I think, that it's Fan Li who orders the death of Fu Chai's son, not Gou Jian. Who might have anyway. He offs Bo Pi, but Bo Pi doesn't count as the weak after all their history.

she's the one who hooked up Fab Li and Xi Shi

(I shall assume a typo, but it will do as a sobriquet for our brilliant tactician.)

Yeah, I'd guess little sister + go-between = sense of responsibility. With a great boost from personal revulsion at the notion of being sent to a stranger. (She did ask if Zheng Dan was engaged, after all. Won't break up an already arranged marriage to a local stranger to push for an arranged liaison with a foreign king. Which feminist me finds odd- one kind of prostitution, another kind of prostitution, it's all prostitution- but I know historical thinking differs on the point.)

[incandescens]

Next DVD turned up over here, for which many thanks!

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Wait till you've seen it to thank me.

[feliciter.livejournal.com]

How did they manage to get the Ya Yu m-f so very right and all the other m-f plots so very very wrong?

I suspect that the character of Ya Yu as written (confidant/counsellor, as opposed to Cutesy Bimbo Of The Decade a cipher whose role was largely determined by the men in her life) and acted (by a more seasoned actress) was the main factor. It helps, of course, that the other party is a very complex main character brought to life by Uncle Ming.

The Yue court has not improved even after three years with Wen Zhong. (also, Shi Mai seems not to have changed physically or mentally from the first few episodes. why Gou Jian doesn't retire him is a mystery - loyalty? gratitude for sheltering his son, even though that was largely Hao Jin's idea and turned out about as well as most of Shi Mai's other plans.)

Gou Jian is not doing saint of any kind, he's just learned how reality works and has changed his tactics

He's a lot wiser and humbler, yes, but Uncle Ming also gives me the impression on rewatching that he has convinced himself, or at least can put conviction into his voice and expression, of his own Way of Heaven spiel/justification (e.g. lecturing Wen Zhong on the cooked grain).

she doesn't seem to be registering the steps needed to get there

Being fond of Xi Shi and feeling personally responsible for her since her rescue by Fan Li, Ya Yu subconsciously projects herself (despite knowing what needs to be done) on another who seems to be forced to sacrifice herself for the good of king and country.

Is it the thought of separating her and Fan Li that hurts? at the same moment she separates herself from her husband, in what she does, for the first time ever? 'We can't be together but they can?'

Right on the money.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

the character of Ya Yu as written (confidant/counsellor, as opposed to Cutesy Bimbo Of The Decade a cipher whose role was largely determined by the men in her life

Then I guess my question is, why write Ya Yu this way, and indicate depth even in the all but walk-on roles of Ji Wan and Yuan Luo, but make Xi Shi a Cutesy Bimbo? Hard for me to tell when I don't know the language- did her lines give scope for a more nuanced performance if played by a more nuanced actress? Subtitles would have her close to brain dead pre-Wu.

The Yue court has not improved even after three years with Wen Zhong

There's not much an interim and foreign minister can do to win over the smalltown souls of the Yue aristocracy, I'd guess. When even Gou Jian keeps the attitude of 'but of course he's an outsider,' the best Wen Zhong can do is his job. Oddly, this insular and suspicious attitude is the one thing that convinces me that Wu is actually more civilized au fond than the backwoods barbarians of Yue. Unless it's simply that Helu was weird for a southern ruler, putting all his trust in men from Chu.

Uncle Ming also gives me the impression on rewatching that he has convinced himself, or at least can put conviction into his voice and expression, of his own *Way of Heaven* spiel/justification

Is it in Fan Li's address to the courtiers that he says Gou Jian was doing the Will of Heaven? whatever Fan Li meant by that and supposing the translation is even approximately correct. Maybe Gou Jian has a spesshul relationship now.

I still think it's an expression of something intrinsic to him though. He didn't get religion in a total vacuum: maybe he just went from 'this is wrong because it does harm to me' to 'this is wrong because it's wrong.'

pwned by html

[feliciter.livejournal.com]

why write Ya Yu this way...but make Xi Shi a Cutesy Bimbo?

That is what bugs me almost every time she opens her mouth (especially in early scenes with Fab Li) and my own falls open at what just came out of hers: which conversations would you suggest I translate for an idea of the sheer WTFery?
She looks suitably doe-eyed and winsome. though. Acting passable in the quarry scene, with some improvement in the last scenes with Fu Chai and victorious!Fan Li. I hope the scriptwriters were going for the contrast between her and the other women of Yue (or perhaps between FL/FC and GJ, else can only say that they have a pretty screwed-up idea of ideal womanhood in those times.

Helu was weird for a southern ruler

I'd say it was more the personal charms abilities and similar nature of WZX, and his recommendation of Bo Pi (+ the latter's blandishments) to Helu. OTOH someone like Wen Zhong might just have been dismissed out of hand (or been executed for refusing to serve him, considering that almost the first thing Prince Guang historically wanted help with was offing his cousin the current Wu King), and Fan Li would have given up and gone home.

The translation of FL's speech is correct. Gou Jian is highly not amused with Wen Zhong's plan since it will bring suffering to the people which would be against the Way of Heaven, and later declares to Bo Pi that Wu fell because its king went against said Way of Heaven.

he just went from 'this is wrong because it does harm to me' to 'this is wrong because it's wrong.'

Gou Jian does undergo a moral progression, but sometimes I just can't tell with Uncle Ming.

Re: pwned by html

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

which conversations would you suggest I translate for an idea of the sheer WTFery?

They all seem so watercolour that I can't recall any. Except that the subs have her calling him Mister- just that, no name attached; do they mean the equivalent of 'sir', respectful address to superior individual? As it is, they make her sound like a kid- Mister, did you wnat something?

I do wonder if the Way of Heaven thing is Gou Jian- Uncle Ming's Gou Jian specifically- getting religion to explain the truly awful things that happened to him and his. In which case it's nicely done: the man who discovers the higher moral good but whose innate character makes him use it at least partly for his own ends, and all totally unconscious.

[feliciter.livejournal.com]

Mister

asdgdesfdg;jkj;;
先生 can be translated in many ways, but that word is highly WTF. It might have been the subtitler trying to show that she still thinks of herself in relation to him as the peasant waif he rescued, but just as likely to be sloppy translation. "Sir" is redolent of a Pygmalion-type relationship, which might be a tad better in the context.

Gou Jian- Uncle Ming's Gou Jian specifically- getting religion to explain the truly awful things that happened

I suppose so, though Gou Jian's new-found precepts of humanism as the Way of Heaven to guide a ruler appear rather similar to the principles of the Mandate of Heaven (天命) that Confucius (living in the northern state of Lu around the same time) taught, though a southern barbarian might not have heard of him or them.