Why Are You Always Taking Their Side? Why Can't I?

Fu Ling and Chong Zhao: all in one. Part 2 of 2

But all good things come to an end, and the evil demon master (who tried to kill Chong Zhao off so many times, LOL) finds out that Chong Zhao is the shell of the Devil deity he wanted to resurrect all this time, so he accomplishes his mission, and resurrected Devil deity occupies Chong Zhao's body.

"The Deity is back, bitches!" I don't like that the former dweller of deity's shell in this drama is another person, not a part of deity's soul, because I'm against reproducing by budding while having genitals it cuts off deity's potential of broadening their mental horizons: while fusing their main soul with the "mortal" part of it, they could learn something that can be experienced only by mortals/humans. Although I find this plot decision strange, both in the main heroes' as well as in Mo Li's cases, I understand that otherwise it would be probably impossible to kill Mo Li the way he was killed: it would requite to study Mo Li's character and to remove focus from the main heroes to Mo Li's inner processes, and the luxury of it is affordable only for the main characters. The mechanics of interactions between Chong Zhao and Mo Li looks like the one of the different parts of the same consciousness, though. So, Mo Li is back. He regains control over his shell, and the first thing he sees when he wakes up is a lover of his "mortal" consciousness, lying unconscious on the floor. If I would be a deity, who absolutely doesn't care about the previous life of his "mortal" part of the soul, I would overstep her unconscious body and go further, but look what did this deity do:

Bridal carry [3], as a deity. He says that he didn't kill her because it would upset his future wife Bai Shuo (the main heroine, Fu Ling's mortal sister), but the truth is, he doesn't give a damn about Bai Shuo's unhappiness, Fu Ling doesn't matter in their "let's marry or I'll destroy the whole planet" thing. So, there is something else.

"He is still here, in the furthest corner of my mind. I know everything he knows". Btw, the Devil deity Mo Li is absolutely adorable (in a devilish way). He has nothing in common with Chong Zhao: he is charismatic in a way, infinitely bored with his unlimited power and full of crazy thoughts: for example, to kill everyone (but dude, why? you are the most powerful creature in the world anyways, no one is a threat to you!) or to have a forced wedding with a girl who doesn't like him (and, moreover, he doesn't like her either! What a crazy man!).

"You? Will kill me?"

The situation is desperate: Fu Ling is imprisoned in Mo Li's palace, her lover is a tiny part of Mo Li's consciousness now, and Mo Li himself is invincible to the killing attempts of mere humans/demons/whoever. Yet Fu Ling stupidly proceeds attacking him:

"Keep trying to kill me, I like it".

"Why wouldn't you kill immortals and humans for me, as you did it previously, when you were Fu Ling?"

It feels so painfully delicious: she knows her lover is gone, but, at the same time, he is somewhere there, inside of this ethereal, inhuman being. And the deity, in his turn, is slightly interested in her, not romantically, but still. If Mo Li and Chong Zhao were two parts of one consciousness, I would say it is the echoing of Mo Li's other self who loved her. Their feelings could be fused. A deity is too ethereal to fall in love with someone (Xing Yue laughs hysterically at this statement), but his mortal part isn't, so, when Chong Zhao would mingle into Mo Li's soul, he would bring this shade of unfamiliar for deities feelings with him, and it would look like this slightly different attitude towards her.

They look at the starry sky [2], Mo Li x Bai Xi version. "This purple moon won't protect any of them".

"Tomorrow it all will be over".

And now it's time for their story to be over. She was attracted to him since they had met each other for the first time as children, and he was touched by her attitude towards him, too. She wanted to keep him safe when they met each other anew, and he wanted to keep her safe, too. And later, as he became the Devil deity, he didn't plan to kill her either (can't say the same about her, but her attempts were hopeless and her goal was to free her lover's body from being possessed by the deity). But it happened that he did kill her. Unintentionally. She has shielded her sister from his spear with her own body and died.

The next scene is the most powerful moment of this drama for me. A heartless deity doesn't even understand at first what happened to him: a little piece of his consciousness takes over the body for a moment, fueled by the power of his grief over his deceased lover, and the deity starts crying:

And it is here where the destiny plays out: if Fu Ling would stay alive, no one could ever defeat Mo Li, because the only weapon that can kill him is the long lost Divine Bow of Xing Yue deity. And this bow is Fu Ling's soul.

This plot twist was so beautiful! It broke my heart, but, at the same time, left me highly in awe. I like it, when the only reason for a villain to get defeated is his own decisions. The unintentional killing of his lover that allowed his enemies to get the only effective weapon against him is truly marvelous plot decision. She could be the person, who would care about him the most, but became his death. Their fates were intertwined long ago, but it was still up to him: was it "destined to love" or "destined to kill" fate, - and he chose the latter.

The Divine Bow in use. To summarize: this story deserved to be the main plot line of some drama, and I see the potential of another ending for it if it would be the main plot line with more screen time for the last character arch. But alas, every main character in China should be bleached till they lose all their moral greyness and complexity, so I should accept my fate and proceed enjoying secondary characters, outliving their deaths, fixing their stories in my Mind Palace and not giving up on hope to see someday a good, heart-wrenching story again. Here is Part 1

Some characters portraited by Adam Driver

How to be a more interesting character than the Main Hero (Pt.4)

Shangjue and his fiancée

Shangjue has an interesting yet complicated relationship not only with his didi, but also with his fiancée, who happens to be an assassin. The girl aims him from the beginning and plays a cruel game to win his attention, because her mission is to get the secret weapon of Gong clan (the Sutra), to which Shangjue has an access. She is a liar and he knows it, so he decides to choose her as his bride in order to keep his enemy even closer than his friend. So, in the beginning they both play their roles. But Shangjue has a critical vulnerability: he looks like Mr. Danger, but inside of him is a heart of silk. It`s not that hard to tear it apart if you can sneak beneath his ribs.

Their relationship unfolds in an interesting way: an assassin tries hard to find a tiny crack in Shangjue’s nutshell and to guess his thoughts by doing some stuff (cooking meal he doesn`t like, planting flowers he doesn`t want to be planted and bringing havoc into his well-ordered world), and he ends up kinda liking it. He badly needs someone who will dig into his inner core and find there what he truly wants, because he thinks of himself just as of a function and barely knows his own desires. The blankness of his residence is like one of a service apartment – everything is only for work, nothing is for soul.

But bit by bit she learns more about him and finds out that he is not that person she thought he is. At the beginning of the story she says to the female lead that Shangjue likes no one but himself. But in reality, he hardly likes himself either. There is no «himself» at all. There is a sharp saber against clan`s enemies, a legendary martial artist who brings wealth and prosperity to his clan, a wise father figure for didi but there isn`t a man who is called Gong Shangjue. Her thought of Shangjue as of someone who doesn`t love anyone beautifully echoes with herself. Her tutor said that she loves only herself, but at the end of the story she ends up feeling something (not love, but not nothing at least) towards said tutor and Shangjue as well.

Bay flowers are Shangjue's favorite. Btw, their conversation about these flowers is very eloquent, too. An assassin says that Shangjue's favorite bay flowers mean something dangerous yet beautiful and bewitching. Just like her by his side. And he says that they represent victory and prosperity, which are his goals as a Gong clan member (but maybe not what his heart truly wants).

Paying the last respect for the tutor. While an assassin is toying with Shangjue, he is toying with her. He always pulls her closer and immediately pushes her away, gives her approval of her actions and the next moment punishes her for the same actions. He knows that she is dangerous and got closer to him on purpose, but he ends up liking her anyway.

Along his toying with her, nevertheless, he treats her as his real future wife and indulges her to change something chaotically in his realm of order in front of his servants and, I suppose, starts believing himself that she will be his wife.

Meanwhile, an assassin uses the knowledge she received very skillfully: she learns about death of Shangjue’s mother and talks about her mom in order to worm her path out into his shell, later she uses the information given her by Yuanzhi (about Gong clan above everything for Shangjue) to make Shangjue believe she knows his heart.

It looked like he would kiss her. But he didn't.

Their conversation in this scene is heartbreaking: she tells him, that the Main Hero puts Gong clan in danger because he knows there is an assassin in the residence and does nothing about it, and Shangjue has got no evidence that could help to catch her red handed. And by the time she is speaking Shangjue already knows - it is HIM who knows that an assassin is by his side and voluntary puts his clan in danger (and, as we know, will proceed to do it till the end of the story). When Shangjue catches his fiancée as a suspect, his moral trial begins.

Watching the drama for the first time, I was very surprised that he did almost nothing to interrogate her (pushing at the wound can't be considered as a torture). His duty is to expose and to kill a Wufeng assassin, but he ends up eagerly believing any lie his fiancée tells him because he likes her and WANTS to believe her. Then he is about to touch her but doesn't dare to do so, and it's a significant sign, too. He hadn't problems with touching Yuanzhi (at least, when they were younger), so, I suppose, this lack of touching between Shangjue and his fiancée represents his inner struggle. He wants to be tender with her because he likes her, but tenderness is a weakness and shouldn`t be shown to an enemy.

Speaking of intimacy and touching, a lack of it between them is so palpable that I felt very uncomfortable when, a few episodes later, that pool sex scene happened. Many people didn`t understand either, have they banged or not, because even them touching each other is already something unbelievable in this drama. I spent a lot of time thinking about how they banged considering Shangjue’s problems with touching her and allowing her to touch him 😁😁😁.

Btw, this scene is definitely a sex scene. In China there is a very strict censorship in terms of a lot of things, including queere-relationship and sex, but there is also a lot of ways to show it without actually showing something (but even the fact that they were NAKED together in one pool told me everything, as long as in other dramas people had to have sex being dressed in three layers of hanfu). I`m not that deep into Chinese culture, but I have read in comments that the strange phrase of Shangjue «These buds will bloom soon, then you will know if I like you like this (her less obedient and more ambitious self)» refers to a Chinese idiom about a loss of virginity (so if it’s true, Shangjue deliberately invited her to have sex with him if she wanted to know if he liked her and that’s why she came to him without undergarments in the dead of night). The lanterns in the water of a pool refer to the unity of male Yang and female Yin energies (and we could see them in the scene of their first «date», btw). He loosened her hair in the pool: manipulations with girl’s hair it`s something that only husband is allowed do (that’s why you often can see in dramas that a male lead gifts his lover a hairpin or a comb). After everything’s happened, he hovers his cup above a saucer, which means «want to repeat». However, I couldn`t find any proof of these meanings because it seems like Chinese internet doesn`t cross English-speaking one at all and I respectively don`t understand Mandarin. So, if you know something else about it, feel free to correct me in comments. Btw, I`m sure, Yuanzhi's constant speaking about tea in front of Shangguan Qian refers to some kind of idiom, too, but I couldn`t find any information about it. UPD: my fellow @randomingoftherandomness says that it has something to do with a Chinese slang phrase 綠茶婊 (green tea bitch) - "a person who tries to look innocent being in fact calculating".

During the «torture» scene an assassin asks if Shangjue can spare her life and he says «no», because his duty is not to show mercy to Gong clan enemies. This scene echoes with the end of the story, when she asks him again to spare her life and he says he will if she gives him back the Sutra. And he really lets her go, which is strictly opposite to his mission of protecting Gong clan, because she knows everything about their inner residences and Gong clan members, and, what is the most important, the secret of the Sutra. But Shangjue wants to let her leave because she is the first thing he wants for himself, the first longing of a person, not of a function. Only by opposition between his duty and his heart he could find out who the real he is. Letting her go is very VERY irrational decision, but, unlike for the Main Hero, who stole his assassin‘s heart by his incompatible with life naivety, for Shangjue it is a natural point of his character development: being restricted from all his human wishes for a decade, when he gets the opportunity to fulfil them, he gets off his leash and does it fully. Very human behavior, btw.

I was very surprised seeing that Shangjue’s fiancée had time during this mess to change her clothes. Later I understood that she did it on purpose: she had more chances to survive if Shangjue would recall his feelings for her because this pink dress was a gift from him. In their final scene together he says that he would let her go if she gives him the Sutra back, it means she doesn't need to pretend to be pregnant in order to save her life, as soon as Shangjue always keeps his promises. But he lets her know that he doesn't count her as someone from Gong clan (and as his fiancée as well) anymore, and maybe that’s why she says that she bears a child and formulates it's so as if it's a new member of Gong clan, not just a fruit of their passion, because Gong clan does matter for him and his own personality doesn`t (and, btw, remembering the fertility problems, children are very valued in the clan). But I don't understand why preserving of her bond to Gong clan is so important to her. Yes, she couldn't go back to Wufeng because her information caused its collapse but she couldn't stay with the man she just tried to wipe out as well. Maybe her only hope was that she could keep the Sutra as a clan member (a mother of a Gong child), but Shangjue snatched it back. Her story have had some curtain development but kinda not till the final point so I would like to see how their relationship would move further. It is crystal clear by this last scene of them together that Shangjue catastrophically and fully lost to his assassin. When I have watched the drama for the first time I was sure she would use his soft spot on her to kill him, especially when she put his sword down and came to him very closely. At the very end of the story it seems that Shangjue believed everything she said to him in this last conversation, because her information about Wufeng’s boss is spreaded across the Martial World by the Main Hero, which means Shangjue shared it with him.

Azaleas mean "I belong to you forever".

Back in the story, when didi takes the assassin to Shangjue`s residence, he says that the most vulnerable and unpredictable thing is a human heart and that people often don`t want to know the truth. The story itself proves him right: it’s true in terms of Yuanzhi self, whose heart can be and is hurt only by Shangjue, even if his sworn brother doesn`t have a clue about the inner processes that are going on inside didi’s head; it`s also true in terms of an assassin, so far as she starts seeing a handsome man instead of her victim; and, of course, it’s true for Shangjue as well: he deliberately deceives himself believing the assassin isn`t assassin just to have an opportunity to be with her.

It was a pure pleasure to feel for these characters and to watch their stories unfold and I definitely would recommend this drama for watching.

Shangjue. Introduction Shangjue and his didi, Pt. 1 Shangjue and his didi, Pt. 2

Li Xiang Yi and Di Fei Sheng being each other's nemesis: a brief summary.

Thoughts on TtEotM

Well... I didn't like it. LYX was marvelous, CGI, too, plot elements were pretty good changed to tie the story up (and the part with Ming Ye was better tied to the main plot than in the book), but still... I didn't like it. In the book it was the story about man without abilities to feel something, his "love" in the first part of the story was wicked and twisted, so the contrast with the second part was huge and palpable. TTJ was a monster and became a man, he turned from egoist who only wanted to survive no matter what to person who was ready to give away the most precious thing for him (his life) to make his beloved happy (it happened that saving the world was the thing that could make his beloved happy, so he sacrificed himself to do it). And his heroic deed was rewarded with resurrection and a normal life with his family and new-found home. The story in the drama has nothing to do with that. There is a poor boy (no monster at all!!!) who constantly suffers and wants to die, falls in love with the first person who treated him well and sacrifices himself for the world that was so unkind to him. It`s awful! I know that Chinese people love the idea that you should die for the greater good, but this philosophy is as far from my heart as Jupiter from the Earth. Maybe DFQC will remain the only one drama "villain" who's got the happy end. And that drama will stay my favorite.

A (scary) fairytale about love for adults  —  "The Mistress of the Copper Mountain" musical

It's a relatively new Russian musical by Gleb Matveychuk (premiered in 2024), I watched it in flesh this week and felt the urge to tell someone about it. The Mistress of the Copper Mountain (Хозяйка медной горы) is a character of Ural folklore (made up by a writer Pavel Bazhov, though). She is a spirit of Ural Mountains, and, as any other spirit, a trickster rather than a main character of the stories, who is kind to some people and cruel to the other. The base of the musical are three stories of Pavel Bazhov: "The Mistress of the Copper Mountain", "The Malachite Casket" and "The Stone Flower", but the stories are fused and rewritten in a more suitable for a musical way: The Mistress is not a trickster anymore but a tragic character of a story, two other main heroes are a jewelry mason Danila and a daughter of the Mistress, Tanya. The plot of the Bazhov's stories exists only as some homages in the musical's plot, so I'll recap only musical's story:

Stone masons' dance The 19th century, Ural, Russian Empire. The peasants (read: slaves) have to work at copper mines that belong to a cruel and ruthless feudalist. But there appears a problem: an evil spirit that guards the mountains has killed almost all of young mine workers.

The Mistress of the Copper Mountain kills unlucky peasants because they have come to rob her mines. There is an insanely beautiful aria of the Mistress but for some reasons unknown the director of this musical doesn't want to record audio versions of songs, so I've found her aria sung by some other artist (not the one from this musical). I don't like it, but it's better than nothing: Youtube till 3:05.

To help people, a jewelry mason Danila volunteers to go to the mines and to meet an evil spirit. When they meet, Danila asks her to stop massacring peasants because they are slaves and can't do as they please. She asks him in return to spread her warnings to feudalists: they have to leave the mountain be or they will be killed.

Danila keeps his word and gets punishment for his audacity. While getting healed by a forest witch, he learns a story of the Mistress: she was born as a result of non-consensual sex of Slavic Hades and Persephone, unloved and cursed to be unloved till the end of her days. Besides, she has got the Stone Flower, an artefact, one glance on which can reveal all the secrets of the mason craft.

Danila feels pity for the Mistress but also wants to know the secrets of the mason craft. He tries to create his best work but feels that he lacks this sacred knowledge that only the Mistress has:

Danila laments on his lack of knowledge while making a sculpture of the Mistress.

There is a beautiful aria sung by Kirill Gordeev, but I have only a pirate audio: Bilibili, timecode 48:30

As soon as Danila fulfills his promise, the Mistress allows him to ask for reward. Danila asks her to show him the Stone Flower - the secret of the mason craft:

Unexpectant, the mysteries of the Universe reveal to him the perfectness of the Mistress and he falls in love with her:

She isn't happy about it because after one night of love he will turn into stone, but he is eager to sacrifice himself in order to give the unloved semi-goddess a spark of love, so they spend night together:

The Mistress gives birth to a girl and gives her away to people because she thinks her stone heart can't give her daughter enough love. One peasant woman becomes girl's stepmother, names her Tanya and gives her all her love:

Meanwhile, the Mistress lives all alone in her mountains and suffers from lovesickness to her deceased lover:

The aria of the Mistress in this part is here, in amateur version on YouTube, timecode 3:06. It's melodically the same as the duet of Danila and the Mistress before they spend night together, you can hear it in the pirate version on Bilibili, timecode 56:15. Although Tanya is loved by her stepmother, peasants find her strange and avoid her, and even want to hurt her, thinking she is an evil spirit herself. So her mother gives her magical dowry that wakes up her semi-goddess powers:

Then the Mistress punishes feudalists and their servants who tortured slaves, partly herself, partly with her daughter's hands.

This guy was eager to kill and torture peasants by feudalist's orders, so it was a pure pleasure to see this maniac get killed.

Tanya is extremely not happy about being used for the bloodshed, so she blames her mum for being a monster and herself for being a monster's daughter. I like this song a lot. And again, only pirate version: bilibili, timecodes 1:14:55 and 1:44:15. But the Mistress explains her about the curse and her stepmother says she has got a kind human heart of her father, so Tanya decides to take mother's curse to herself. Her kind heart will allow her to be benevolent and generous mistress of Ural mountains.

Tanya puts mother's cursed crown on. The dissipated curse releases the Mistress of the Copper Mountain and brings Danila to life. Now they can finally be together. The only one official audio from this musical is the final duet of the Mistress and Danila (Vera Sveshnikova and Kirill Gordeev are singers from the musical):

I liked that it was a pretty feministic story: "the lady in the fridge" is a man, the one who finds something beautiful in the monster and sacrifices himself in the name of love is man as well. It's pretty fresh. The main idea "love defeats everything" is not from Bazhov's stories but it's an immortal idea. And the plot of returning an evil creature to the light side by the power of love is typical Russian and sometimes Asian, so it can be something unusual for a Western viewer (for the sake of variety). At last, let me show you some pirate medley of video scenes from the musical:

bilibili.com

【Kirill Gordeev】铜山女王03.05.2024_哔哩哔哩_bilibili

vk, 视频播放量 147、弹幕量 0、点赞数 8、投硬币枚数 0、收藏人数 0、转发人数 2, 视频作者 怎样逃离平地摔的阴影, 作者简介 872561660 牙粉丝群 投稿很杂 什么都有 俄音乐剧相关基本都是在ins/tg/vk/yt捡的 侵删 音乐剧和手语相关整理在置顶，相

bilibili.com

【Kirill Gordeev】铜山女王03.05.2024_哔哩哔哩_bilibili

https://www.instagram.com/stories/spowaste/3360011542841583730?utm_source=ig_story_item_share&igsh=MXV5dHppOW5vcWpmdQ==, 视频播放量 86、弹幕量 0、

bilibili.com

【Kirill Gordeev】铜山女王2024.11.14_哔哩哔哩_bilibili

怎么又被绑被揍了这人果然是m吧如果你好奇的话，此人在基督山伯爵 铜山女王 弗兰肯斯坦 龙枪 船长的女儿 康康舞等剧里，通通被绑, 视频播放量 103、弹幕量 0、点赞数 7、投硬币枚数 0、收藏人数 2、转发人数 1, 视频作者 怎样逃离平地摔的阴影, 作者简介 87256166

P.S.: I also like the aria of the feudalist "Equality is a myth", but even pirate version is of almost unbearable quality. But it's here, Bilibili, timecode 31:00.

Some 27-36 episodes critique

Although I ADORE this drama and absolutely IN LOVE with it, I have some critique to say (because this beautiful thing could be more beautiful).

First 26 episodes of drama are perfect, I can`t say anything against. But then the tempo of storytelling rushes forward and the timing of scenes goes wibbly-wobbly. And it causes some problems:

💔 After a huge catharsis in ep. 26, instead of solving the main problem that disturbs heroes from being together, the plot revolves around Girl being future Moon Queen. But the conflict is still running and Girl didn't take Devil's side in it! There should be more political things in order to solve the main problem. Girl could try to convince Changheng in nessesarity to stop the war (since he became friends with Devil and knows that demons didn't kill 3000 immortal soldiers. The friendship with Devil is a Chekhov gun that unfortunately didn't fire). Maybe there could be somehow solved the problem of Changheng mother's crime or even of the betrayal of the First Moon Supreme. Instead of it there was a bunch of unnessesary masochistic acts and sufferings (and screenwriters even forgot about bone-piercing spikes immediately after showing us their effect). Not to mention the fact that receiving of these spikes and spitting out the antidote against Heart Curse is the biggest act of stupidity of a man who knows that everyone in Demon Realm wants to kill him if he is weak and that the war against his people can start at any moment. So, 12 hours per day he was being unable to lead his troops and at the time of Fuju Cave he is 24 out of 24 hours was unable to do something and even to defend himself.

💔 The Battle in ep. 31 is not epic enough and ends up in a strange way. They all were dead and then they are resurrected. They respect Goddes of Xishan but will it stop them from proceeding? Devil is in coma, Heavenly Emperor is still prejudiced and would take an opportunity to wipe demons away for good. So why did this truce start? I need more screen time for explanation.

💔 If there is a truce, show us widows who get their husbands back from the battlefield! It`s quite more interesting than half-of-episode-Jieli's-family-problems. 💔 Speaking of Jieli, the plot line about her being daughter of a fairy and a demon leads to nowhere. It didn't help to get peace between tribes, her father didn't persuade Heavenly Emperor not to kill demon people out of love for his daughter and lover, demon sister didn't force Danyin to do something to prevent war. This plotline is useless and takes too much time out of the main story in the final series. Jieli's story is fine, but everything in the scenario should work for the main story and this plotline doesn't. I would explain about Jieli`s fate much shorter.

💔 Demons are nice. Even little jerk Xunfeng is very loyal. Their Lord is not almighty anymore and tries to commit suicide because his heart is broken and they all respect him anyway and are not trying to kill him and take his place now, when the situation is not fatal anymore. Why then it was stated at the beginning of the story that demons adore only power and will kill everyone for it? I saw many viewers were nice surprised that Xunfeng was not hypocrite but this sudden loyalty of all demons feels unrealistic according to the rules of this certain universe. 💔 I don't think that «Oh, Chidi was right, it's Melkor!» and «Oh, Dongfang Qingcang is demon but can drive compassionate fire, not all demons are scum» was enough for Heavenly Emperor to change his mind. I understand that it`s uncommon for Chinese dramas to punish Emperor for his mistakes, but I definitely needed more intrigues at the Heavenly Court. Maybe Changheng should have stood up for his friend Devil (because in this drama is was stated that they are friends but no one did anything friend-like for another). Maybe Changheng should have found out the truth about his mother's crime or betrayal of the first Moon Supreme that could solve some misunderstanding between tribes. (It was hinted that there was something interesting behind GoW's mother's and Demon Tribe founder's stories but it never played out.) Or even more, Changheng could show to everyone that his brother is hypocrite who wants to achieve his goals even if it means to kill those who are not guilty and Jieli`s father and Danyin could support GoW to overthrown his brother. 💔 I think it should be known by viewers pretty earlier that Melkor wants to posess an immortal body and there are only two of them – Chidi's and Qingcang's. It would make suspense thicker and a tragedy of Rong Hao deeper. And I would give them more screen time to show that Chidi is strongly against her reviving at such cost. 💔 The moment when demons come to save Three realms by Devil`s order (to kill him) is nice but looks not so epic as it could. I would like to see that before demon reinforcement came fairies were exhausted and half dead, they were near to failure. So it would cause more feelings in viewers. 💔 Returning of Qingcang's powers was not epic enough. Only by rewatching it for the fourth time I understood that Girl wakes his consciousness up and he drives his new Fire to take Melkor aback for some moments. I would give this fight more time. (Here is a pretty complicated situation – this fire should be activated because of great love and to be seen by Heavenly Emperor in order to stop him being such a jerk, but in the moment when it appears, the main hero is Girl, so Devil can't rise and shine. So maybe it should be just an extended scene of Devil resisting Melkor.) 💔 In this drama there were a lot of hints (Chekhov guns) that didn't play out. The most memorable for me – the pill against every type of poision that Devil gives to Girl as betrothal gift. I waited for Jieli to steal it to cure herself. Why didn't she? And another thing: that was stated that only one who can defeat Melkor (when there is no Goddess) is Devil and, besides, his Fire can cleanse everything evil. But when his Fire came back even more powerful than before, he couldn`t fight Melkor, he only won a few moments of consciousness for himself. Why?

💔 It stated that Goddess' powers should be activated after her marriage (OK, let's leave the mechanics of it aside). It was activated in the final battle while she was kissing possessed Devil, but we couldn`t see it in a full glory. The same green light was in mortal realm when she protected Devil from evil spirits, nothing special. Why?

💔 Devil's Blood of Heart coming to Girls hand is a nice visual parallel with Xishan grass seed coming right into Devil's (not Changheng's!) hand, but I didn't understand why. It would be more logical (and more soul-tearing), if Girl would fight for it in that Galactic Mind Palace or would go to mourn her beloved into Demon Realm and would find there in some of Devil's caskets Bone Orchid bracelet. At last it would be better than this straightforward cheating with «Look! Everyone's primordial spirit vanishes without trace and only Devil left a huge piece of his! How mysterious!». 💔 I would like to watch Girl raising his soul, talking to it, making magic/healing manipulations just as we saw him doing it for her (and it was nice). 💔 I would like to see a normal epilogue. These 42 seconds of reunion feel like a fever dream of a poor Girl. (The same feeling I have got when I watched «Blue Whisper». I absolutely sure that merman made his girlfriend up inside his mind at the very end while waiting for her to come back out of volcano and no one can make me change my mind). This type of endings is very typical for Chinese xianxia dramas (It is some kind of curse indeed, only «Love and Redemption» ended in satisfying way). Maybe it`s the attempt to sit on two chairs: HE-lovers could see here HE and BE-lovers could see here BE, but I would like to see 20 minutes more of what happened after their reunion.

💔 Because of what I said above the ending of the story doesn`t bring the cathartic feelings. I think that the end of the mortal story arch was more satisfying and the battle in ep. 31 was more epic (still not enough, but though) than the very end of the story. These beautiful characters and the whole awesome story deserved better! I had higher expectations from the ending of this drama because first 26 episodes were P.E.R.F.E.C.T. so I was a little bit upset. But even if I have some critique to voice, the scenario was adorable, so many things were tied up together and mirrored each other! I don`t know if I ever can write something so well played out! These are not screenwriter problems. These are scene timing problems.

I LOVE to chat, so feel free to write your opinion to me.

My favorite character from Solo: A Star Wars story

Li Lun, a villain I feel for (Pt. 3/4)

While no one remembers of Li Lun anymore, he is still here. His body is destroyed but he can possess other people, so he secretly possesses a little traitor from the main heroes’ camp. Little Traitor is ½ wood, so his body suits LL well (LL is a sophora, after all).

He dramatically reveals himself as Li Lun to the main heroes and says that he can destroy Little Traitor’s soul wholly and make this body his forever, but he doesn’t do it. If we think of it not as of another script flaw, he needs this body not to live happily ever after in his new healthy shell far far away from any dull exes, but to talk to ZYZ!

Poor Ao Ying, I like her, too! She is LL's mirror: death is the price of loyalty and not having your own private life.

He is hurt and angry, so he vents his anger on ZYZ’s new boyfriend (His behavior here is realistic!). The fight looks very raw and feral, and you can see LL’s feelings seeping through it.

He doesn’t really need to keep ZYZ’s boyfriend alive. You may say that ZYZ’s boyfriend is the only one who can kill ZYZ with his magical sword, and LL wants ZYZ dead, but he obviously doesn’t: he breaks the magical sword of ZYZ’s boyfriend by himself and doesn’t want it to be restored, in order to not to be expelled from Little Traitor’s body. What is the best way to leave that sword not restored ever again? Yeah, right, to kill its owner! LL has an opportunity, a lot of them, during this fight, but he wants to humiliate ZYZ’s boyfriend, not to kill him.

It’s very important for LL that other people can see his true self, so he lends Truth Eye to almost everyone except for ZYZ. Because ZYZ promised LL to see his heart with his own heart.

But the triumph of LL’s pettiness is short: the main heroes gather together to tell LL that he is stupid because he helped the killer of those dungeon demons with his own hands.

LL goes to dungeons to kill Big Bad in Mask, but the guy says that LL’s current body is poisoned and he will die if Big Bad in Mask dies. How Little Traitor’s body’s death relates to Big Bad in Mask’s death I don’t understand even now. But LL leaves his attempts to kill Big Bad in Mask, which is strange, and focuses fully on attempts to leave Little Traitor’s body for himself, although it’s dying from poison and of no much use anymore. OK, the main heroes don’t give a flying heck about Big Bad in Mask, his zombies and demon tortures, but LL? (But at least he tried to kill him, unlike ZYZ, who wholeheartedly didn’t give a damn).

Why wouldn’t he possess any other healthy body that could contain his fierce spirit? Maybe possessing this very boy is his twisted attempt to be a part of ZYZ’s life as far as he doesn’t understand what’s the difference between him and new ZYZ’s friends and why can’t he be a part of ZYZ’s life anymore. It’s pathetic, yet still understandable.

He tries to put the crimp into the main heroes’ attempts to restore the sword because he doesn’t want to lose Little Traitor’s body and die, but, at the same time, he actually helps ZYZ’s boyfriend to stay alive without the sword (there was so many variants whose inner core could be given to ZYZ's boyfriend for that...).

And then this dialog happens:

I was in such a GREAT PAIN. The worse of their conversations ever. ZYZ tells the person who was his boyfriend and was killed by him twice that he will kill him for the third time to save people he knows a couple of millenias less than him. And when LL brings on for the last time the topic of what’s the difference between him and them, ZYZ says that he is the only reason of everything what happened to him. It’s such a hypocrisy! Yes, LL should leave the body that isn’t his, it’s right thing to do, but ZYZ knows the way how to keep him alive if he does it! Yet he doesn’t say a word about it. Moreover, he is the main reason why LL doesn’t have his own body anymore. Yet he prefers to say something like “only your voluntary death can atone your sins, anyone’s life is more precious that yours”, which hurts af considering their previous relationship and the way ZYZ cut LL out of his life.

Meanwhile, the current ZYZ’s boyfriend, who used to be a demon hunter and killed demons, turns himself into one.

His ancestor was an ancient water dragon demon, so when his demon blood takes over him, he goes to sleep onto the bottom of the pool in his residence.

Now, as ZYZ's boyfriend became a demon, people who praised him when he was a demon hunter start hating him for his new race. LL comes to him after him being humiliated by humans he used to protect and asks him his question for the last time.

And this conversation is strange af. LL asks if ZYZ’s boyfriend feels anger because he was unfairly accused of crimes and beaten just because he is of other species now (read as: does he feel like LL felt when that dungeon situation happened), and ZYZ’s boyfriend answers that he chooses not to hold a grudge against humans, and his superior attitude will destroy such an evil and hopeless thing as LL is. And throws humiliated LL into the puddle of mud.

It supposes to be a turning point after which LL understands all his wrongs and moves towards his redemption-through-death arch, but in fact it doesn’t work! When I saw it for the first time, I had a gut feeling that something is wrong here, somethings doesn’t work for me. Then I rewatched it to write this post and finally found out what is exactly wrong.

Originally, I thought that it doesn’t work because GJM takes two topics for redemption development and fails to work with them as far as they are intertwined and interfere with each other, but now I see that there is no redemption development topics at all! Let me explain.

Redemption should be driven not by external circumstances, but by inner processes inside a character with the help of external circumstances. For example, if the main problem of LL’s character were his prejudice against humans, his redemption arch could start like this: LL meets a human who is honest and treats demons nice, maybe does something selfless for LL (does all this stuff that LL thought impossible for humans); LL sees it, proceeds it inside himself and changes his mind. Or, if the main problem of LL were his obsession with ZYZ… Oh, it’s harder than the previous one. LL could release his obsession with ZYZ if ZYZ had an understandable reason why he ghosted LL (he, obviously, hasn’t) and they would talk about this reason in a proper way. Or if there were a reason why he is so obsessed with ZYZ, and some another person would show him that it’s possible to cover his needs without ZYZ (but it’s not a topic of a villain character development in a xianxia drama at all, as far as it’s used for the most part in modern romantic stories).

But here LL looks like an abuser’s wife: he literally asks new ZYZ’s boyfriend why ZYZ dumped him, and ZYZ’s boyfriend answers that LL was a bad wife and didn’t behave as ZYZ pleased. Does LL understand what exactly was wrong with his attitude towards humans? No, not at all. The only thing he understands now is that he needs to behave as ZYZ pleases if he wants his boyfriend back. He didn’t change his believes after this conversation. He didn’t overcome his obsession neither (otherwise, why would this absolutely stupid conversation work on him?). Because you can’t bring someone towards redemption by constantly humiliating him and gaslighting him into believing that he is all alone. He isn’t! He has got all the demons of Great Wilderness, he has got Ao Ying, he has got plenty of demons who share his believes. It’s just that he unhealthy obsessed with a guy who doesn’t care about him and can’t see any other good things around him.

Throughout all this scene I expected there to be some gesture of empathy from ZYZ’s boyfriend (because see the first redemption scheme I described), but it never happened. Li Lun also waits for something like that, as we can see in this scene with Ao Ying and an umbrella. The main heroes constantly talk about importance of patience and kindness towards those who don’t deserve it but never show it to LL with their own example.

LL is upset that this gesture of kindness (an umbrella) isn't from any of ZYZ’s squad, and here I feel sad for Ao Ying, too, because she is obsessed with serving LL the same way LL is obsessed with ZYZ, and an obsessed person has no value in the eyes of the object of their obsession. Just like in real life. Sad but true.

The only thing that changes in LL’s character during the story is his stage of acceptance.

Here is Part 1 Here is Part 2 Here is Part 4

How to be a more interesting character than the Main Hero (Pt.1)

Introduction

I think the best cdrama of 2023 for me is MJTY. It has got a perfect picture, a very unusual and catching atmosphere and a plenty of handsome men and beautiful women. And some problems with the male lead. Although the main hero of MJTY is formally Gong Ziyu, his character falls apart if you look at him a little bit closer: he is extremely naïve but at the end is unbelievable sly, he needs to grow up but everyone around indulges him his childish behavior and helps him like deus ex machina, so he is some kind of Marty Stu and his story is quite boring. But MJTY contains the secondary male lead, Gong Shangjue, and I have watched MJTY only because of him.

First of all, his entering the story looks like one of someone important: a viewer can`t see him firstly, but through some dialogues we already know that: • he is a great warrior who is in charge of Gong clan affairs outside the mansion;

• his arrogant didi admires him (unlike he is towards their other cousin, the Main Hero);

• and a higher rank assassin aims him as her target.

When he arrives, his appearance is arrogant and cold, and a viewer understands: there is a Main Hero`s rival.

But the second impression of him is totally different: he is obedient to the elders, values his didi as much as didi values him and is hard-working.

And at this moment I felt strongly related to him. Everyone fools around instead of work and the only one character who cares for clan affairs is shown to the viewers as some kind of villain! WTF?

Just look at his reaction to Clan Leader`s praise: he is obviously pleased, but the next moment he says that praise is not deserved. During my first watch of the drama I doubted that he is honest in his denying of (even verbal) rewards, but it appeared to be true – he is selfless and does everything to bring wealth and glory to his clan, not to himself. An ideal Chinese drama main hero (even for Chinese censorship), isn`t he?

After a sudden Clan Leader’s death the Main Hero becomes a new Clan Leader which makes Shangjue get frustrated (because MH is really unqualified for this position) and, as a true rival should do in the plot, Shangjue tries to overthrow him. Being a rival, he could use some dirty tricks to achieve his goal, but he does it strictly according to the rules. He searches for evidence, not falsifies it. I paid attention to this fact almost immediately as Shangjue took action and because of that liked him even more.

As a secondary male lead he has got very interesting relationships with his didi (sworn brother/cousin Gong Yuanzhi) and his assassin fiancée (Shangguan Qian), which I would like to analyze in following parts. Shangjue and his didi, Pt. 1 Shangjue and his didi, Pt. 2 Shangjue and his fiancee