#and when you learn to see them it also causes a rift in your worldview and that of most other people from your country because you stop

[fitzrove]

studying for an exam and haunted by this.....

[kafkaoftherubble]

MAURICE TEACHER LORE

Also Maurice has two younger sisters

Felipe

History

Foreign language/linguistics

Foreign cultures

Jasmin

Math

Science

Nadine

Biology

Natural history

Lysander

Art

Music

Felipe

He's from a nomadic culture so he's spent most of his life on the road, only recently deciding to settle down in Odeda. Because he's traveled a lot, he knows several languages and a lot about many different cultures, including the damages caused by Odeda when they colonized them.

Jasmin

Half Odedan and half former colony. She grew up in Odeda but was taught of her father's home country and can speak the language. She excelled in school from a young age and was accepted in a prestigious college. Has taught in private schools for most of her career, jumping at the change to teach the young prince and princesses.

Nadine

An immigrant who studied the dragons of the north western islands and the people living there in her early adulthood. After writing a well received paper on them, she moved to Odeda to continue her study on lizards and lizard-like animals. She worked at a college and received funding from them for her research prior to becoming a tutor for the royal family.

Lysander

Well respected artist in Odeda who painted several public buildings. Caught the eye of the royal family and was offered a position as a tutor. He's not an immigrant or mixed race, but has spoken a lot with immigrants and their beliefs have rubbed off on him.

Story

Felipe was the first to suggest teaching the prince and princesses about foreign cultures and politics. Nadine and Lysander jumped at the change to teach someone of such high status their beliefs and opinions, but Jasmin was more hesitant. She didn't want to jeopardize this amazing job opportunity but agreed to say nothing when the others went ahead with it.

After some years, Maurice started talking about "foreigner political ideas". Priscilla didn't say anything because she wasn't really against suggesting new ideas, but when she passed away Volker soon had the teachers fired for spreading their "harmful" ideas. They all died under mysterious circumstances over the next few years and were replaced by teachers handpicked by Volker. Jasmin was spared because she only taught math.

This caused a rift in Maurice's and Volker's relationship, but Maurice was old enough to understand that he shouldn't speak against Volker.

Oohhhh, hmm hmm!

So is the timeline thus?

Priscilla is the empress. Maurice gets his education.

Teachers were sought after to teach Maurice.

Teachers had leeways during Priscilla's rule.

Volker is ready to snatch that throne. Murders Priscilla and her husband (L-Lucario? Wait that can't be right).

Volker jails teachers and subsequently assassinate/execute them. Maurice is now old enough to know he should shut up to not provoke Volker too much.

Extra questions that pop up in my head!

How old was Maurice when Priscilla died?

What did Maurice learn from his teachers right before his teachers' deaths?

Is he old enough to really understand the thoughts and opinions of his teachers, or is he really just being a willing recipient? Is he being indoctrinated—even if it's "good" indoctrination? When he talks about his opinions back then, is he really just parroting what his teachers think?

What I like about this angle ^ is that you can then explore a bit about the role and philosophy of education.

Even if you're teaching good things, isn't it still indoctrination if you're trying to make a kid see things in your specific, opinionated way? Kids do take after the thoughts of the adults/society around them for a long time because... that's kinda what children (and even some adults) do. Social creatures and all. Usually we argue that it's not a problem if the worldview we are trying to impart on a kid is a beneficent one (like how some would argue that it's fine to teach children religion at a young age, because religion advocates for goodness), but it doesn't actually answer the question about the nature of education itself.

What form of education is not indoctrination?

And, given that we deliver knowledge through specific narratives (for example, the narrative of evolution; the narrative of string theory; the narrative of physicalism in neuroscience etc.), then education itself is basically a mass narrative-spreading system. Hence Volker's use of propaganda and indoctrination in Odedan universal education syllabus... and ironically, Maurice's private education via his tutors. The machinery is the same: shape the child(ren) into a specific way. The difference is: "what specific way?"

I think these two examples of education (Volker-led education vs. Maurice's private education) could make for a very good contrast! It could also eventually lead to the "education status quo" stance espoused by Ira vs. "education reform" advocacy espoused by Edith.

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Apropos to this "education and tutor" lore,

Has Edith considered the logistics of training teachers under the new, reformed syllabus + system while she advocated for her reform?

What I mean is this: no matter how great your education ideal is, you need qualified people to carry them out, yea? I know this all too well because Malaysian Education Department loves revamping our education policies in quick successions (it's beyond rewriting/updating textbooks) that neither the teachers nor the students ever reaped whatever "benefits" these dumbasses tout. Hence, you need to train the educators before the students get to enjoy this reform. But how long will you allocate that time of training? How much resources? What new qualifications will you be seeking in your new teachers?

And the more sweeping your reform (I assume Edith's idea is very sweeping and revolutionary!), the thornier the logistics!

I think this could become one of Ira's arguments! I basically imagine Ira's reform is just textbook rewrites and stripping away "overt" monarchist overtone at most. There is very little re-training of educators under this sort of change.

Edith's though would need a lot more work. Resources. Time.

We need Ira to have more supporters, right? Hahhaha dude is so isolated at the moment 😝 Well, maybe this could earn Ira some points and allies!

----

So after we talked about Volker needing a Benedict (but before she ended up being Lyndis 😏), I was wondering what sort of person would become Volker's advisor. Why would someone stand behind a shithead like that? Why offer their intellect to someone like that?

Love for the royal family?

Love for the ideal of the country/love for Odeda?

Love for a specific political ideal?

Love for Volker? (this is probably the most cliche reason, haha!)

Love for power and further ambitions?

Love for social experiments? (This one seems kinda chaotic. It's basically a Mad Scientist in a position of power.)

Or no love—pragmatic alliance because of how much this person's fortunes is tied to Volker?

I thought the last possibility is pretty intriguing to imagine, so I tried to come up with plausible backstory for this. And since we were also talking about Maurice's backstory including his tutor way back at Monday...

The scenario was this: Lyndis (in my head at the time the name was "Blanknedict" 😂) joined the royal family first as a governess/tutor. She was to teach either Maurice or his siblings (you filled in the blank for me in this ask, hehe! So it's "Maurice's sisters.") on magic??? Or science ???

But Lyndis wasn't being a teacher for teaching's sake, per se. Before becoming a governess/tutor, she had been engaging in Machiavellian proclivities back in her town. They range from good things all the way to assholery. Maybe it was to manipulate the town folk to treat a solitary old woman more nicely just because the granny was nice to her that one time. Maybe it was to screw with the local pastor because he criticized her harshly that one time. Or to cause an expulsion of a neighbor because she hated how inefficient they were at providing the village some produce. Maybe it was to cause another person to lose their livelihood because this person offended Lyn before.

The corrupt town mayor had a habit of employing urchins to do some of his petty crimes, which he then "solved," to bolster his reputation among them townfolks. Lyndis was one of his employees, which gave her the first environment to exercise her schemes and be praised + rewarded for it.

The idea isn't that she's a manipulative monster from the get-go. It's that she lacked people who could help her channel these gifts for good. And the environment she was raised in had limited her into becoming something better.

Anyway, as she grew up, the sort of things she found objectionable became less and less. She found people too easy to fool and manipulate—at this point, the mayor had become so reliant on her, she was the real mayor this whole time—that she became deeply suspicious of collective intellect. This, I thought, would explain why she was against the sort of ideals Brandi and the rest advocated, for democracy rests on one's faith in the people's collective ability to rule.

She was really a shadow dictator, and under her rule, the town did prosper. This, I thought, would help her develop this idea that the best way of governance is one very wise, very powerful person ruling them all.

Her ambitions grew. Seeing the failures of Odeda (the same ones that tormented Volker, for that matter) pissed her off, and soon she decided to aim for the royal court where she believed her talent could be exercised. She would remake Odeda in her vision from the shadow. To do that, she decided to join in through the cover of an employment. She chose teaching, but originally, she wasn't even the governess going for the royal family's interview. She killed the real one, assumed her identity, and steadily sabotaged other people's chances so she could get there.

Then once she became a tutor, she began to look for the medium she could latch on—the same way the old mayor was her medium for power. She found Volker's ideals and character to be the best for her after they met each other in some... event, whatever. I don't know what aristocrats and royals do. She bribed servants and children into becoming her spies, collect secrets to blackmail those she could not bribe, and basically tried to construct her own spy network. She even dabbled in some murder if she needed to advance her schemes.

On the outside, though, she played the role of an affable, intelligence, reasonable woman who was simply a bit pragmatic in her decisions. Cosmetics may be most people's way of dressing up, but Lyndis' cosmetics are her reputation and impression.

Volker got wind of it all, though! He had evidence of her schemes and shits—which could get her executed. Lyndis, not content to die before her ambitions came to fruition + not disliking Volker's own appetite for power, agreed to formally work for him. From then on, she amassed even more power and control over the country through her alliance with Volker, and she provided counsel and schemes for him. It was a win-win partnership of equal footing, and they looked out for each other. Lyndis supported Volker's megalomaniacal quest to become god because she found immortality a useful asset. But she was smart enough not to be the guinea pig of her own experiment, and so Volker was her "test trial." Ultimately, she wanted an eternal dictator of whom she could support from the shadow.

I thought it was pretty interesting a dynamic, so here you go! Something my daydream made up because Dear Emperor is just that fun.

----

What did you come up for Lyndis, though?

[basic-otaku]

My thoughts on Xue Yang's character (based on the drama and novel)

Xue Yang is a character I didn’t fully understand until I finished The Untamed. I looked back on him with a bit of pity but little understanding. It wasn’t until I listened to his character song that I truly began to dissect his character. Reading those lyrics completely flipped my perspective on him, and I went back to watch the Yi City arc again. I was shocked by how much I had missed. Xue Yang has since become one of my favorite characters of the series. I’ve spent so much time thinking about him and his motives that I finally decided to write down my thoughts. This analysis comes mostly from what I perceived, so it may differ from other people’s opinions. You are free to disagree with me.

Let’s start with what we know: Xue Yang was a street kid with a hard childhood. We know he was abandoned at a young age, but we don’t know how young. However, he must have been old enough to survive, so he couldn’t have been younger than four when he started fending for himself. We don’t know who his parents are because he doesn’t remember them, nor does he remember anyone else who had potentially taken care of him. His parents could be dead for all we know, or they could have dumped him somewhere when they no longer wanted to take care of him. It’s all up to speculation. He also has a very high pain tolerance, probably due to constant beatings as a child.

When you’re all alone in the world, you have to learn to put yourself first. There’s no one to care for you, so only you can care for yourself. I believe that Xue Yang wasn’t always a bad person because no one is inherently evil. However, because he was alone, there was no one to nurture him and teach him right from wrong. When all you experience is violence and hatred, that becomes your response to similar situations; you don’t expect kindness or want to give it in return.

One of Xue Yang’s flaws as a child was his naivety — he was much too quick to trust. That’s how he got himself into such a bad situation. He was eager to have something he was never able to have (candy), so he immediately trusted that shopkeeper when he said he could have some as a reward for running an errand. What he got in return wasn’t candy, but a brutal beating and a severed pinky. If Xue Yang had still had any faith left in humanity, this is the point where it would have left him. The remaining childhood innocence in him was gone. This brings me to an interesting piece of dialogue. In Yi City, when Xue Yang confronts Song Lan and tells him what he’s been up to, Song Lan curses at him, calling him an animal. Xue Yang laughs at him and says, “I quit using those words when I was seven.” And what happened to Xue Yang’s finger? “One finger was ground into battered flesh on the spot. The child was seven.” Even Xue Yang himself knows that moment was when everything changed, and he still carries the resentment with him now.

Back to the cart incident. This event scarred him for life and was the primary reason he became a sociopath. Now he’s bent on revenge. He was powerless as a child; just another street rat who shouldn’t be treated like a human being nor spared any pity. So, when he realizes he can do the same to those that hurt him, he takes it much further. When he was old enough and strong enough, he exacts his revenge. He wanted to make the Chang Clan feel his pain — not only for the finger he had lost but for his whole miserable life up to that point. If no one deigned to understand him, then he’d make them understand in the only way he knew how. With violence.

Xue Yang was only fifteen or sixteen when he slaughtered the Chang Clan, killing more than fifty people. This is where he meets Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan. From the first moment, Xue Yang hates Xiao Xingchen. He’s so righteous, so full of light. He thinks he makes the world better just by doing a little good. What a hypocrite. Where was he when he was needed? Where was he when Xue Yang was a seven-year-old boy left crying in the streets after having his finger ground to a pulp? No, nobody can be that good.

When Xue Yang is captured by Wei Wuxian and the others, Xiao Xingchen takes him back to Qinghe to be apprehended, and Xue Yang vows to get his revenge on Xiao Xingchen for it. It isn’t long after he escapes from Qinghe that Xue Yang slaughters Baixue Temple, blinding Song Lan in the process. According to Xue Yang’s logic, hurting Xiao Xingchen’s friend is just as bad as hurting Xiao Xingchen himself. This is what causes the rift between Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan. Without this incident, Xue Yang and Xiao Xingchen may never have met again.

A few years have likely passed while Xue Yang was working for Jin Guangyao. He is probably closer to eighteen or nineteen when Jin Guangyao injures him and throws him out, which is how Xiao Xingchen and A-Qing find him. Xiao Xingchen doesn’t hesitate in bringing Xue Yang back to Yi City with him and A-Qing and caring for his wounds. Xue Yang wakes up pained and disoriented, but he immediately tries to back away when he realizes who is tending to him. He doesn’t know Xiao Xingchen is unaware of his identity, and probably thinks that Xiao Xingchen is getting ready to take him to face justice or something. But Xiao Xingchen insists that he doesn’t need to know who Xue Yang is and that he’s only doing what’s right. Xue Yang is clearly shocked by this admission. He truly cannot comprehend kindness, and this is the first time he’s ever experienced it.

This is also the first time we get to see his genuine smile. It’s shocked and incredulous, like he can’t believe this is happening, but it’s there. Throughout the series, Xue Yang’s snarky words and sly smirk are a token of his character, but now we know they are just a mask he uses to hide the small, broken child inside of him. If no one can see the hurt he hides, then no one can hurt him further. But with just one kind gesture, Xiao Xingchen was able to bring out the young boy who just wanted love and comfort.

This kindness is such a foreign concept to Xue Yang that he doesn’t think it’s genuine for a long time. But as the years pass, Xue Yang comes to realize that Xiao Xingchen isn’t a threat. This is something he scoffs at. Xiao Xingchen is ridiculously naïve; so stupid. If he knew who he was living with, who he was eating with, he wouldn’t act like this. He would treat Xue Yang the same way everyone else had. So, Xue Yang decides to trick Xiao Xingchen into murdering innocent people for revenge. Xue Yang can’t wait for Xiao Xingchen to find out what Xue Yang has made him do because it’ll break him. What this revenge is for is up to interpretation. Maybe he’s still angry about being captured and sent to Qinghe. Maybe he’s angry at the world for treating him so badly. Maybe Xue Yang wants to show Xiao Xingchen that his worldview is stupid and that there are no good or pure people in the world. I choose to believe that it’s the last one.

At least, this is his motivation at first — he slowly loses the will to harm Xiao Xingchen. This brings me to another interesting point. In episode three, Xue Yang says he doesn’t fear death, he fears boredom. But isn’t this domestic life he’s living with Xiao Xingchen and A-Qing considered boring by his standards? I think the boredom he speaks of is really the fear of being alone and having nothing at all. Now he’s happy, however reluctantly he’s willing to admit it. He wouldn’t have put up with A-Qing’s petulant behavior if he didn’t enjoy the time they spent together. Although they didn’t get along at first, Xue Yang protects A-Qing and takes care of her like an annoying older brother. He teases her, sure, but he also cuts her apple slices in the shape of rabbits and gives her advice on how to scare away the people who bully her (even though killing them isn’t great advice). Xiao Xingchen and A-Qing were the family he never had. Now he would do anything to preserve the life he is living.

After about a year, Xue Yang’s plan stopped being about revenge. I’m not completely sure how he justified this change of heart, but I like to think he told himself he was still biding his time and that he’d get back to it eventually (even if he had stopped thinking about hurting Xiao Xingchen). Based on what A-Qing told Song Lan when he arrived at Yi City, Xue Yang hadn’t taken Xiao Xingchen out on one of those night hunts in a long time. And most of the people that Xue Yang made Xiao Xingchen kill were the merchants that made fun of his blindness and cheated him with bad vegetables and high prices. It was a messed-up way to get revenge for Xiao Xingchen. Xue Yang hates being looked down on, so shouldn’t Xiao Xingchen feel the same way?

Nevertheless, the time they spent in Yi City was probably the only time Xue Yang had been happy in his entire life. Xiao Xingchen was so in tune with what Xue Yang needed that Xue Yang came to care for him deeply. Whether those feelings were romantic or platonic in nature is up to the viewer, but I believe Xue Yang had fallen in love with Xiao Xingchen in the only sick and twisted way he could. Xiao Xingchen understood him more than anyone ever had, going so far as to listen to his idle ramblings and bring him a piece of candy every day after hearing that he had loved sweets as a child but could never have any. He managed to tame the savage beast in Xue Yang’s heart with only his presence and basic human decency. Xue Yang’s bloodlust was satiated as long as he had Xiao Xingchen to take care of him. At this point, I don’t think he would ever actually kill Xiao Xingchen. He had stopped wanting to hurt him a long time ago. A-Qing? Sure. She’s expendable, but Xiao Xingchen is irreplaceable. Even if Xue Yang reluctantly came to care about her, it wasn’t the same kind of bond. She had never shown him the same kindness that Xiao Xingchen had. He wouldn’t hesitate to hurt her if she betrayed him, but she was important to Xiao Xingchen, which meant he couldn’t do her any harm if he didn’t want to disrupt their happy life.

If Song Lan hadn’t found them, how long would Xue Yang have stayed? I don’t even think he knew. He just knew that he didn’t want to leave anymore. Xiao Xingchen gave him too much for him to want that. The viewer can easily see the happiness in his eyes when he looks at Xiao Xingchen. Xue Yang acts like a kid around him — playing games, joking around, making him laugh with childish remarks. Even in the quiet moments, he’s happy. This was especially noticeable in the campfire scene. It wasn’t shown in the original drama, but in the special edition, Xue Yang smiled at Xiao Xingchen from across the fire, and the look in his eyes as he gazed at his daozhang was so tender that it honestly caught me off guard. It seemed to catch Xue Yang off guard too because he caught himself, and the smile slowly fell. It’s like he realized what he’s doing and remembered that this should be about revenge.

Where in the past, Xue Yang hated Xiao Xingchen for his righteousness, he now loves him for his naivety. Without it, Xue Yang knows that Xiao Xingchen would be disgusted with himself. There would be no more laughs, no more games, and no more smiles. Then Xue Yang would lose the one person who didn’t treat him like dirt. So, when Song Lan finds them, Xue Yang immediately perceives it as a threat to their domestic life. He knows how important Song Lan is to Xiao Xingchen, and there’s no doubt in his mind that Xiao Xingchen won’t hesitate to leave with Song Lan when he discovers Xue Yang’s identity.

Furthermore, Xue Yang resents Song Lan for taking Xiao Xingchen’s eyes (even though it was voluntary on Xiao Xingchen’s part and was essentially Xue Yang’s fault). His logic tells him that having Xiao Xingchen kill Song Lan would be the perfect way for Xiao Xingchen to get his revenge. What Xue Yang doesn’t understand is that not everyone thinks about things in the context of revenge. I don’t believe Xiao Xingchen ever truly regretted giving up his sight. But Xue Yang can’t comprehend how someone could be that selfless.

This is where it all falls apart. A-Qing sees what happened to Song Lan, and she runs to Xiao Xingchen and tells him everything. When Xiao Xingchen comes back to confront him, Xue Yang spills it all. There’s nothing left for him to lose. His mask falls again, and he basically bares his soul to Xiao Xingchen. This is probably the first time he’s told the story about his finger, and I think he genuinely thought Xiao Xingchen was going to understand him; that if he knew what Xue Yang went through, he’d sympathize with him and justify his action (thereby justifying his feelings). Instead of that, however, Xiao Xingchen calls him disgusting, and it flips a switch inside of Xue Yang. How can Xiao Xingchen call him disgusting when he’s killed people too?

I think one of the reasons Xue Yang led Xiao Xingchen to kill those people was to bring Xiao Xingchen down to his level. Xue Yang doesn’t think that anyone can be as good as Xiao Xingchen claimed to be, so he had to taint his perfect record. Maybe if he killed people, Xiao Xingchen would understand him. Xue Yang thought that when Xiao Xingchen found out, he’d stay with him. Now he’s not the same righteous person he used to be, so how could he be good enough to travel the world with Song Lan? No, he should stay with Xue Yang instead and live a happy life together.

So, when Xiao Xingchen calls him disgusting, Xue Yang was probably confused and upset, which made him instinctively put his mask back up. Being vulnerable only hurt him again, so he’s back to harsh words and smirks, telling Xiao Xingchen that this is why he’s always hated him and that all of this was fun. Fun in every sense of the word: the killing and the happiness.

Xiao Xingchen finding out that he killed Song Lan was the last straw. Xue Yang is still laughing as Xiao Xingchen slits his own throat. It takes a moment for the realization to set in, but as it does, the smile falls from Xue Yang’s lips, and his hands begin to shake. This is the third time his mask has fallen. His eyes begin to well with tears, but he tries to keep up his act, saying that dead ones are easier to control, but the only one he’s acting for is himself.

The next scene is the one that really solidified Xue Yang’s feelings for me. He cleans the blood from Xiao Xingchen’s skin with the same care that Xiao Xingchen had shown him when he first found Xue Yang in that ditch. Xue Yang clearly thinks that Xiao Xingchen is going to come back and that the ritual will work, that he staves off his tears and sets out food for both of them. He considers eating his candy but then decides he should wait until Xiao Xingchen comes back. If he’s back, then Xue Yang is sure to get another piece.

When he realizes that the ritual isn’t working and Xiao Xingchen isn’t coming back, he breaks down. The tantrum he throws is so full of rage and anguish that it really shows the depth of his feelings for Xiao Xingchen. Again, he goes back to acting, trying to guilt Xiao Xingchen’s dead body into coming back to life by telling him all the terrible things he’ll do to Song Lan and A-Qing if he doesn’t reawaken. Obviously, Xiao Xingchen can’t hear him, and Xue Yang knows this, even if he doesn’t want to admit it. He finally dissolves into tears, screaming and crying over Xiao Xingchen’s corpse. This may have been the first time he’s cried since he lost his finger. Crying is for innocent, naïve children, and it doesn’t help anybody. But now Xue Yang has had a taste of pure sweetness and doesn’t want to go back to the bitter life he has known, so he finally lets himself weep for all the things he could have had.

Xue Yang spent the next seven years trying to bring Xiao Xingchen back to life with no success. We don’t know much about his activities after Yi City, but we have gotten information through rumors that Shuanghua was being used to kill innocents. It seems like Xue Yang wanted to keep a part of Xiao Xingchen with him. He even continued his sick revenge plot after Xiao Xingchen’s death by gouging out the eyes of and killing the remains of the Chang Clan, including their leader, Chang Ping, by lingchi. Xue Yang doesn’t blame himself in the slightest; he just thinks that Xiao Xingchen’s death was an unfortunate consequence of the situation. He will put the blame on anyone and everyone other than himself. Thus, instead of performing lingchi on himself like Wei Wuxian suggested, he takes out his anger on the remains of the Chang Clan.

Everything Xue Yang does in the present is tied to Xiao Xingchen, yet he still can’t bring him back. So, when he heard that the Yiling Patriarch had suddenly come back to life, Xue Yang knew it was his last chance. The sword ghost/ghost arm is what led Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji to Yi City. It was pointing to its murderer. I’m sure Xue Yang could have avoided a confrontation if he wanted, but this was intentional. As for the juniors, I have a feeling that Xue Yang was behind the cat corpses that led them to meet up with Wei Wuxian. This is still unclear though because Xue Yang doesn’t have a real reason to get them involved. The only person he needs is Wei Wuxian.

Xue Yang has tried everything at this point. So, when Wei Wuxian finds him in Yi City, pretending to be Xiao Xingchen, he is completely desperate. I do wonder if that is something he has done more than once. Did he often go around dressed as Xiao Xingchen? Was he playing with the life they had in Yi City? Pretending he was still there? Or was it a one-time thing to trick Wei Wuxian into dropping his guard? I also wonder how often he used his own sword because only after Lan Zhan took Shuanghua from him did he pull out Jiangzai. That could be because he was acting as Xiao Xingchen, but we can’t be sure. However, that isn’t the point. Right now, Wei Wuxian was Xue Yang’s only option because the Yiling Patriarch surely knew things he didn’t. Xue Yang had lived with Xiao Xingchen’s corpse for those seven years, keeping him in pristine condition. I’m pretty sure the only way Xue Yang could have done this was by giving him spiritual energy every day, which would be incredibly draining. I don’t think Xue Yang had an exceptionally strong golden core to begin with either. He is primarily a demonic cultivator, which means he doesn’t use his golden core often. It must have taken most of his strength to keep Xiao Xingchen’s body in such good condition. But anything for daozhang, right? Xue Yang needed Xiao Xingchen’s body to be perfect when he returned. He also put aside his pride and used Song Lan for protection all those years. He kept the one person he continued to hate with a burning passion around him for so long.

When Wei Wuxian tells Xue Yang he can’t bring Xiao Xingchen back to life because his soul is too broken, Xue Yang refuses to believe it. It’s been seven years already; he can’t give up now. Deep down, I believe Xue Yang knows Xiao Xingchen wouldn’t want anything to do with him even if he did come back, but he can’t figure out why. Because nothing was his fault, of course.

Something Wei Wuxian said really struck me as I went back to rewatch episode 39. Before the fight, Wei Wuxian turns to Xue Yang and says, “you disgust him to the core, yet you still want to pull him back to play this stupid game.” Xue Yang responds with “I want nothing of the kind.” And he’s being honest. He doesn’t want a stupid game — he wants something real. He wants a life where Xiao Xingchen knows his identity and stays with him in spite of it. He just wants one person to accept him as he is, but that will never, nor could ever, happen —not with all the crimes he has committed.

When Lan Wangji cut off his arm, leaving Xue Yang bleeding on the ground, I think he knew it was over. There was nothing left for him now. He was never getting Xiao Xingchen back. He never had him in the first place, not in any way that counted. So he laughs, blood spilling from his lips, to cover up the tears he wishes he could cry.

He’s ready when Song Lan stabs him, dying with a smile on his face as he gazes at the last piece of candy Xiao Xingchen had ever given him. It’s blackened and inedible, yet Xue Yang held on to it for so long; it was a reminder of his daozhang and of why he was fighting so hard. Like his character song said, he was “too determined to let go.”

It’s kind of sad that even in death, he was never respected by anyone other than Xiao Xingchen, and all of that was built on a lie. He didn’t even get a proper burial, although I suppose he kind of deserved it. Xue Yang is the character I pity the most in this series. He isn’t a good person, nowhere near it, and he deserved the end he got, but I wish things could have been different. What hurts is that it just as easily could have been Wei Wuxian. If Xue Yang had been taken in as a child; if he’d had his own Jiang Fengmian, his own Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli, he could have been happier. Maybe none of this would have happened. Maybe he would have met Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan and started a sect with them. Realistically, he and Xiao Xingchen would never be lovers because Xiao Xingchen was so strongly connected to Song Lan, but I think they could have been friends.

However, one question I still have is did Xue Yang fall in love with Xiao Xingchen because of how he treated him or because of the person Xiao Xingchen really was? If they had met under different circumstances (and if Xue Yang had had a support system when he was young), would Xue Yang have still fallen in love with him? I guess that’s up to the viewer to decide.

Ultimately, Xue Yang is still a sociopath who can’t understand empathy or feel remorse, so I don’t think he regretted any of his crimes. However, I do believe that Xue Yang regretted the consequences of his actions in Yi City. He didn’t want Xiao Xingchen to die, but his actions were what caused his death. It’s more of a dissatisfaction with where things ended up than feeling guilty for his death. Although I don’t think Xue Yang felt remorseful, that doesn’t mean he wasn’t grieving, nor does it mean his feelings for Xiao Xingchen weren’t as genuine as they could have been.

I don’t know where Xue Yang or Xiao Xingchen will end up now, but I hope they’ll both be happy in their next lives. The same goes for A-Qing and Song Lan (when he finally meets his true end). There are so many things that contributed to Xue Yang’s unstable mind, but I think the moral of the story is that it pays to be kind. If just one person had taken pity on him as a child — had shown him that there was good in the world — I wonder what kind of person he would have become.

I already know how cruel fate is

Not looking, not asking, not grieving, not hating

Waiting to relive my life just for a single person

Ups and downs in life

I would leave no regrets

I tried searching in the darkness of night

When I am trapped in the past

I still hope that a flicker of light will appear in my heart

The legend of this lonely city

Who came here before?

And gifted to me my karma

I am waiting for this karma to liberate spirits, liberate souls, and liberate me

Even though I am already too determined to let go

If I get rid of these inner demons

Would you forgive me?

Gaining freedom from destiny, starting all over again

[dragonofyang]

Hi! Does Lotor also go through heroine's journey, or hero's, or is he just Allura's shadow/animus?

Hello!! The short answer to your question is no, Lotor does not undergo either a Hero’s or Heroine’s Journey, but he is Allura’s Animus and Shadow Figure. (He’s also a Shadow Figure to Keith as Keith undergoes a less conventional Hero’s Journey.)

However, as with all things pertaining to Lotor, it’s a bit reductive to call him “just” that. And frankly, I love rambling about Heroine’s Journeys and all its nuts and bolts, so you’re getting the long answer, too. :D

The Animus figure is the masculine counterpart to the Anima, and in a patriarchal society, male-coded urges and desires are discouraged in girls, but rewarded nonetheless (i.e. “don’t romp in the mud” and “be a lady” versus “being one of the boys”). As a result, a lot of girls are socialized to have a very unhealthy relationship with their self-worth because they’ll be punished for displaying the same desires as their male counterparts. You see a similar thing with men in adages like “boys don’t cry” and “don’t be a pussy”. So in a Heroine’s Journey, the Animus is a character who externally represents the Heroine’s masculine energy, and rather than demanding the Heroine engage in the same patriarchal structure that punishes her for being emotional, the Animus will foster that emotional side and treat it with the same respect that the logical side receives from the patriarchal society, only the Animus does so without punishing the Heroine for being a complex and nuanced individual.

So yes, Lotor is the Animus to Allura’s Anima, and he is absolutely necessary to her development as a Heroine, because he provides her the freedom to cultivate her own desires without imposing his structure upon her.

Lotor is also her Shadow, by the same measure. The Shadow figure in a Heroine’s Journey is a character who represents something or somethings that the Heroine is afraid of, disgusted by, or otherwise has negative feelings towards. In Allura’s case, she’s reeling from the grief of losing her entire planet, her people, her father, and the Galra are easy to paint as a mindless horde with the face of Zarkon. However, Lotor is not just his father. He’s his father’s son, yes, but Lotor is also the son of an Altean: Honerva. He’s cunning, efficient, ruthless in battle, and until he opts to parlay with Team Voltron, he’s an enemy. Not just any enemy, either. He’s the Emperor Pro Tem of the Galra Empire. To Allura, Lotor represents everything she feared and hated, and suddenly she has to reassess her entire worldview because here is this man who does not fit in the neat little box she has assigned the Galra, because he himself is not all Galra. So if this man who is not all Galra and does not fit in the mental image she has of Galra (which… really… that’s just Zarkon), but he is Galra all the same, then what does that mean for her worldview? Lotor puts Allura in the position of questioning the righteousness of her quest (bestowed by her father, Alfor), by virtue and circumstance of his birth. Here is the son of her nemesis, offering her intel to further her cause and eventually forming a true alliance with her, so if he himself is not the mindless drone of Zarkon, then she must reexamine what she thinks she knows to accommodate the data she has.

So Lotor is devil and angel, he’s the character that Allura thinks she should fear the most, but he’s also the character that guides her to greater self-acceptance than she ever could have achieved if she wasn’t confronted with her own internalized bias against the Galra. He is the sword to her neck and the hand helping her up, she forges her inner fire across the battlefield from him, and he stokes that same fire into a creative force when they stand side by side under the banner of their late fathers.

By the same vein, Lotor is Keith’s Shadow, though he forces Keith to confront his mistakes, rather than a bias he holds. Keith’s Journey is about leadership and bringing outsiders into the fold. Lotor wasn’t meant to be left in the Rift, and he’s a character who has been pushed to the fringes of the Empire, as well as an outcast for his heritage. He’s the perfect character for this aspect of Keith’s arc. Lotor is a literary foil to Keith, since their life experiences are almost exact opposites, but two facts join them together: they are leaders and they are half-Galra. So Keith has to come into his leadership role in Black Lion, but he must learn to temper his impulsiveness, and that includes owning up to leaving Lotor in the rift, just like how he had to give up on chasing Lotor on Thayserix and come back for his team when they got lost. Lotor pushes Keith away from impulsive decisions, albeit indirectly (like when he tries to destroy the shielding in the Battle of Naxzella), and frankly there are places where their roles could have been reversed if they made different choices. If Keith hadn’t learned to rely on and communicate with the team, then they could have turned on him the way Acxa, Ezor, and Zethrid turned on Lotor. Conversely, if Lotor had been honest from the start about his motivations to Allura and told her about the colony, it’s possible she would have been even more motivated to help him save the survivors of Altea.

All in all, Lotor is a complex character in a complex role, so while he isn’t inherently a Hero or Heroine, without him, Keith and Allura’s arcs would be less powerful. He reflects their fears and mistakes, but he also highlights their virtues, and through them his own become apparent.

Thanks for asking!!

[mrmichaelchadler]

A Life-Changing Adventure: On the Finale of FX's The Americans

Let’s say you had to leave home.

You have to leave for a great job, one that would ostensibly bring pride to your family and fellow countrymen. You might not see them for a long time. You might not see them ever again. Before you leave, you get married to someone you barely know. It’s a marriage of convenience, but nevertheless, it’s a partner, someone with whom to share your professional and personal anxieties. Much later, long after you’ve traveled halfway across the world and entered an unfamiliar society, the convenience falls away and something resembling love takes over. After all, they stood by your side, and they know where you came from.

You establish roots, maybe in a suburb surrounded by strange people who you hardly trust. You have two kids who never knew the struggles you faced way back when in a far-away country. You love them, but you worry that they’ll grow up with values you don’t share, let alone recognize. Meanwhile, the job that you once loved has slowly become a grind, and has turned you into someone you don’t even know. The kids grow up. Parental concerns enter the foreground. You grow distant from your partner, as you quarrel over how best to instill the children with the beliefs and principles you ostensibly hold dear, many of which go against the established cultural fabric of this new land. You privately worry that they’ll never understand you.

You reminisce about home, but you realize that you don’t really remember it. After all, you were young when you left and most of the ties have been cut. You accept that this is your new home. Maybe you make some friends and take up a hobby. Maybe you settle into a comfortable rhythm. On the other hand, your partner harbors doubts, and secretly longs for a time when the kids are grown and you both can return to the land of your people. Maybe you don’t want to go back. Maybe you like it here.

But as much as you like it, and as hard as you try, you know that you’ll never be one of them. As long as you can’t reconcile the culture you were born into with the culture you adopted, your identity will forever be adrift, and you’ll always wonder who you really are.

This is a classic immigrant story. This is a classic American story. This is "The Americans'" story.

"The Americans," Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields’ Reagan-era spy drama that completed its six-season run last week, will likely go down in television history as one of the definitive shows about marriage. Weisberg and Fields effectively used espionage as a metaphor for casual deception in relationships, leveraging the series’ depiction of tradecraft to examine how people frequently lie and betray those they love, often without realizing it. It’s a potent idea with far-reaching implications, which Weisberg and Fields extended to parenthood, institutional bureaucracy (the FBI, the KGB, the Russian embassy, etc.), and, befitting the series’ premise, international relations.

However, Weisberg and Fields wove another thread into "The Americans'" narrative, one that flew under the radar but nevertheless permeated almost every aspect of the series: the story of first-generation immigrants navigating American waters while struggling to maintain their connection to their original culture. The series used Philip and Elizabeth Jennings (Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell), KGB officers posing as a traditional American couple, as vessels to explore issues of acculturation, specifically how different worldviews can foment through shared experiences living under a dominant culture.

Elizabeth functions as a reluctant integrator, someone who adopts American cultural norms but only because she’s required in order to maintain her cover. She resents American life, not only because of her political obligations, but also because her communist upbringing stands in sharp opposition to the United States’ materialistic, staunchly capitalist society. Elizabeth grew up in poverty in the aftermath of the Second World War; she never knew her father, who fought in the War and was shot for trying to desert his post, and was raised by her strict mother, who longed for her daughter to serve her motherland. Recruited by the KGB as a teenager in the midst of the Cold War, Elizabeth was taught to infiltrate America to aid her home country, superficially accepting their values, but never allowing them to enter her heart.

Before their daughter Paige (Holly Taylor) learns the truth about her parents, Elizabeth would subtly undercut American teachings so as to guide her children to her way of life. As early as the pilot, she mocked Paige’s social studies’ professor’s cleft lip after her daughter explains she’s writing a paper about how the Russian government cheats on arms control. When their son Henry (Keidrich Sellati) learns about the Americans’ space program, Elizabeth insists that, “the moon isn’t everything” and that “just getting into space is a remarkable achievement,” alluding to Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin’s achievement of being the first human being to travel into space. When Philip insists that she can’t stand watching their kids become American, she snarls at him, “I’m not finished with them yet.”

Her mission was always a lost cause for Henry, a child neglected by his parents and raised by pop culture and, ironically, FBI agent Stan Beeman (Noah Emmerich), a surrogate father figure who largely failed his biological son, Matthew (Daniel Flaherty). But Elizabeth ultimately made inroads with Paige by capitalizing on, and eventually manipulating, her activist heart, which, ironically once again, blossomed during her time in the church. Paige’s initially distressed attitude towards her parents’ occupation eventually morphed into a genuine interest in becoming a Soviet sleeper agent, a baldly obvious attempt to become closer to her family. Yet, in the final season, when Paige officially becomes a spy-in-training, she eventually clashes with her mother over her continued deception and, especially, her emotional manipulation of innocent lives. She might understand and agree with the ideological underpinnings of her mother’s work, but she can’t stomach the ends-justify-the-means behavior it demands. A true believer, Elizabeth swallows almost everything the KGB tells her because she lives for a purpose greater than herself. Paige wants to live like that, but she still retains an individualist mindset typical of second-generation Americans.

Meanwhile, Philip is a not-so-reluctant assimilator, someone who gladly assumes American cultural norms despite his treasonous profession. In the pilot, after he and Elizabeth learn that Stan Beeman has moved across the street, he quickly suggests defection as a possible option for their family. When Elizabeth balks, he finally comes out and says what he’s clearly believed for a long time: “America is not so bad. We've been here a long time. What’s so bad about it?” It neatly encapsulates Philip’s internal conflict as well as a classic immigrant dilemma: Will you lose your original culture by embracing the adopted culture? For Elizabeth, this is unthinkable, but for Philip, whose doubts about their mission and his distaste for KGB tactics grows over the course of the series, it might save his life.

Philip’s reliance on uniquely American ventures to help him with daily life cleanly separates him from Elizabeth. He regularly attends EST meetings, a self-help group seminar that teaches him how to face his repressed memories and to openly discuss his emotions. Though Elizabeth objects to EST, especially after she finally attends a meeting and sees it as a profit-hungry trap, Philip uses the cheesy, confrontational therapy sessions as a way to cope with, and later reject, the emotional, physical, and sexual violence inherent in his job. Elizabeth relies on her idealism and Soviet principles to help with the nasty sides of the job, but Philip isn’t able to put his faith in the USSR quite so easily.

Still, Philip expresses skepticism and distrust towards certain aspects of America, many of which are holdover attitudes from his Russian upbringing. He blows a gasket when Paige donates the $600 she was saving to go to Europe to missionary work, and while he was set off by Paige’s disrespect, he takes it out on her religion by literally ripping pages from her Bible and throwing it across the room. When Henry asks his parents to allow him to attend an elite boarding school, Philip expresses a level of disdain towards his yuppie aspirations (“It's like an Ivy League college. It's like a country club. It's like a fancy orphanage.”), especially when Henry explains how his rich friend’s father wrote a recommendation letter for him. In the final season, after Philip has quit the service and become a full-time travel agent, he struggles to maintain his business after taking out an expansion loan. Over drinks with Stan, he indirectly expresses dissatisfaction with the capitalist pressure for growth. “When you think about it, what is so bad about staying the same?” he asks. “Not taking on more responsibilities, more headaches, more time. Bills keep coming either way.”

Philip’s ability to fit into American life causes numerous rifts in his marriage. Elizabeth initially claims he’s not committed to their cause and reports her suspicions to the KGB, but her love for Philip eventually pushes her to later denounce them. While the emotional distance between them fluctuates over the course of the series, their contrasting worldviews remains stark until the bitter end.  

Elizabeth views America as an unwelcome place where they must reside to do their work. It’s the home of the enemy, and everyone there is a product of a belief system that runs counter to her way of life. For Philip, America represents a possible chance at a new beginning, a potential home that can contain his family and his aspirations, and an escape from an old life he’s not sure he still understands.

In the end, Philip and Elizabeth are both made to flee back to their homeland. They abandon Henry, who’s now forced to emotionally fend for himself in a country that will be hostile towards him because of his parents’ actions. Paige abandons her parents on their way out of the United States after realizing that a spy’s life is comprised of moral compromises she’s unwilling to make. She returns to a familiar location, but unsure of how or where to proceed. The couple barely escapes with their lives, and it’s only with the assistance of former KGB Rezident Arkady Ivanovich (Lev Gorn) that they can sneak their way back into Moscow.

Yet, when they finally arrive, and they look out at the marvelous city lights from a bridge, they can barely recognize their country. After all, they left Russia when it was still ravaged by the War. Now, over twenty years later, some modernization has slowly crept into the country. The youth clamor for Western culture. A Pizza Hut and a McDonalds are on their way. The Soviet Union will soon dissolve and the war they fought will be over. In perfectly ironic fashion, Philip and Elizabeth are now effectively immigrants in their own land. The place they once called home has now become unfamiliar. It doesn’t represent a fresh start, but it’s the closest thing to a new beginning.

“Feels strange,” Philip tells Elizabeth.

“We’ll get used to it,” she responds in Russian.

Is there a better exchange that captures the mixture of trepidation and courage one feels when about to embark on a life-changing adventure? The answer is nyet.

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