Woxin WTFery

[flemmings]

Watching last DVD. Could never remember what happens to Agent Of Wu! Jie Zi Bao. Discover that his end is shrouded in similar mystery to Brute 2's. I'd suppressed the fact that what we actually see happen is this:

Wen Zhong, all repentant: I deserve to die!
Gou Jian: You don't deserve to die but someone here does.
(Generals including Zhu Ji Ying look nervous, and with this Gou Jian, who can blame them?)
Gou Jian: Jie Zi Bao, you are a traitor! You have sold yourself to Wu!
Gou Jian: (as per subtitles) I should send you home right now.
(Cut to something utterly unrelated in Wu.)

I figure Zhu Ji Ying then runs him through or something, but sheesh. The cutting on this disk is so ham-handed it's treyf.

(Yes I'll go look at the Chinese subtitles some day-- I assume 'send you home' is the same 'send him on his way' euphemism as he used later with Bo Pi?-- but for now I just want to howl my annoyance to a sympathetic audience.)

Also Gou Jian and Yan Ying is beyond creepy. It's wrong. How could Gou Jian be so sure Yan Ying wouldn't run him through? Yeah, he keeps backing away as Gou Jian advances. But turning his back on him-- that was a risk. It was a risk he really shouldn't have taken, given Yan Ying's desperate state. This isn't Wen Zhong prepared to die for a good cause: it's Gou Jian prepared to die for nothing. He's either borderline mad in his self-assurance or-- an idea I'm starting to play with-- just a touch suicidal. In a 13 Clocks way-- 'he kept tinkering with the clocks to see if they would go, praying that they wouldn't.'

Comments

[feliciter.livejournal.com]

From what I remember of same on my version (which is currently on loan to colleague)...I don't have any recollection whatsoever of Jie Zi Bao's end either - which probably means some off-screen business and/or wilful splicing at source.

(Does Gou Jian say something including 回 hui2 老 lao3 家 jia1? Which is a common euphemism for someone's demise i.e. returning to their ancestral home, by natural causes or otherwise.)

The New&Improved!Gou Jian appears to have great conviction in his protection by a Heaven Whose Will he (thought he) was obeying 24/7, so I tend to agree with mad in his self-assurance - and perhaps a heads-up to the powers-that-be to defend him if what he did was indeed pleasing in their sight.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

You got the DVDs? Thank god. I thought you'd been going from Tudou eps all this time.

Yes, 回老家 was in there, accompanied by dramatic drum beat, followed by cut to Wu. But Zhu Ji Ying was looking pretty antsy there, so...

Gou Jian has found religion? The last refuge of the powerless, I guess. But he seems to have found it in a deep and almost reckless way. 'If I'm in tune with The Way of Heaven's, Heaven will protect me. If I'm not, Heaven will strike me down. The Way of Heaven be done.'

[feliciter.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, I succumbed and bought them in China :p

Zhu Ji Ying would have been the one to send Jie Zi Bao home to see his ancestors, then.

deep and almost reckless way.

Mm - the encounter with Yan Ying made me wonder if Gou Jian had shed some of his sanity, together with the other aspects of his personality that he was forced to jettison in Wu.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

But what's the force of 該 in 該送你回家了? English 'should' is usually 'something I ought to do but am not, or not going to, or am hesitating about.' It almost invariably implies that it's not going to happen.

I think there's no doubt that Gou Jian's shed some of his sanity. As for the other aspects of his personality, see answer to rasetsunyo below. He was sane and himself-- sounded so, certainly, talking to Ya Yu-- up to the moment that Zhu Ji Ying ran him through.

[feliciter.livejournal.com]

該 in "I *should* do this because it's right/my duty/inevitable and thus I will" (as in 該做的事就要做 = will do the things I should do), as opposed to the English "I should do this...but I won't because___"

I wonder what Zhu Ji Ying thinks of the whole business. Or for that matter if Gou Jian really, truly, trusts *any* of the Yue-ites now after the stabbing.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Or for that matter if Gou Jian really, truly, trusts *any* of the Yue-ites now after the stabbing.

My money is on no. Doesn't trust the Yue generals because he was *so* wrong about them, doesn't trust the Yue old guard because they were his enemies once, doesn't trust the Chu advisors because they're from Chu. (Does he make an exception for Fan Li? But Fan Li let him down too.) Is turning into the guy who executed Wen Zhong. Argh.

[rasetsunyo.livejournal.com]

Yeah "It's time I sent you home" would be a better translation I suppose.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Grim. But Jie Zi Bao would expect no less.

And I'd still like to know *why* Jie Zi Bao turned. You may think your king's a disaster but tht's no reason to side with your ancient enemy.

[rasetsunyo.livejournal.com]

The scene with Hei Yi felt inadequate to me too. Maybe partly it was Hei Yi the turncoat who apporached him; "I too was ill-used by Yue but am doing fine in Wu." Maybe he was tired of being the one who fades in the background. All those years, what with Mo Bu Ye Shi Mai's favourite and Ling Gu Fu the son-in-law, maybe he felt unrecognised. (not that sibling rivalry is a reason to side with your ancient enemy either.)

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

I'd figured the fact that it *was* Hei Yi the turncoat would have put him off. However ill-used you're feeling, here's the Hideous Example of what the alternative is, the traitor par excellence. But it's distinctly possible that dissatisfaction with the king's current behaviour towards Wu ('we are shamed') could mask dissatisfaction with your king's past behaviour towards you, and Wu starts looking like the better bet.

Which sounds to me like yeah, Gou Jian's right not to trust any of his generals. Even back in Wu they showed a distinct inability to understand or even trust *him*.

I still want to see the whole of this series and weep that I never can. But someone must have edited it as a finished product before the TV station edited it for time slot, surely?

[rasetsunyo.livejournal.com]

I always wonder a little about the military men, unlike the civil officials they seem pretty young (most military men didn't make it to Shi Mai's age I suppose), late thirties early fourties maybe, though for some reason I don't get the middle-aged vibe that I do from Fu Tong or even Hao Jing. Maybe they're ambitious. I dunno. Not a lot of imagination at any rate, and it takes a lot of imagination to understand and/or trust Gou Jian.

But someone must have edited it as a finished product before the TV station edited it for time slot, surely?

Sure. Maybe undubbed, even. And maybe one day it'll be leaked, or re-released, and then we'll sit through the whole nail-pulling thing again and again. One can hope.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Odd, I didn't get the middle-aged vibe from Fu Tong or Hao Jin, unless mid-30s counts as middle-aged back then; but I'm also missing a major clue in their speech level. I thought the Yue ladies were young, and they aren't.

I am always willing to suffer for my fandom though not if it's Tudou **will not load** suffering, which is merely pointless agony.

[rasetsunyo.livejournal.com]

It's anything specific in their speech or actions or anything, more a sort of... feeling. I dunno. Hao Jin definitely seems a little younger, but eh not like the series is terribly consistent with the age/ageing thing.

[paleaswater.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I think he doesn't even bother pray that they wouldn't. I think there is a part of him that wouldn't have cared if Yan Ying did run him though. Also Yan Ying is a simple soul. It wasn't a huge gamble to bet that he wouldn't run through his lord with his back turn.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly. It really does look like a part of him doesn't care. Which freaks me. A Gou Jian nursing a molten desire for revenge deep within, or a Gou Jian coldly and unceasingly plotting the course he must take to bring about Wu's downfall, that's normal. An extreme state, but normal. A Gou Jian who's gone past all that to--- this odd kind of detachment, this almost-indifference: that's scary. 'If I live then I live for revenge, but not living is just as easy.' What you expect in someone who's lived with the possibility of death for years and lost almost everything he had; or else, as feliciter said up there, someone who really buys this Way of Heaven thing as the force that decides all things in the end, rough hew them how he will.

[rasetsunyo.livejournal.com]

Okay looked it up, gou Jian says 寡人該送你回家了 literally I should send you home. I assume he dies.

R.e. Gou Jian and Yan Ying, I was always a bit weirded out by that scene. Could be the staging/setting, but it felt a little... otherworldly. Like of course Yan Ying can't hurt Gou Jian because Gou Jian's not really here. That's one way to see his mental/emotional state of course but to have it translated into physical terms, that was just weird.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

it felt a little... otherworldly. Like of course Yan Ying can't hurt Gou Jian because Gou Jian's not really here.

Yes! Yes, exactly! Night, all blue, Gou Jian in white *appearing* at the top of the stairs where he shouldn't be and freaking the bejeezus out of Yan Ying.

And *that's* what's with this new Gou Jian even in daylight. He's not properly there, even when bellowing in anger at his courtiers or yelling at his wife and favourite (or making it up with them.) It's hollow. Even in Wu, sitting in the rain after his son's death or waiting for Ya Yu to come back, he was *there*. And now he's somewhere else.

It wasn't just Wu that did that, unless it was coming back from the extremes that he'd forced himself to in Wu. I think this is where we need the original scenario in which Gou Jian has a mental breakdown after his return and doesn't want to do anything about Wu until persuaded to it by Fan Li and Wen Zhong. I'm inclined to think his near-death experience may have had something to do with it. It came just after he'd said he could trust his men and proved he couldn't.