#did I take that prompt from the title of a story arc in Cable v1? Absolutely.

[momijizukamori]

Gu Yun Week Day 3 - Fathers & Sons

As much as I would like to write some real fucked up changgu fic based on the idea of filial cannibalism, I have already written more this week than I think I did like, all of last year, so instead I'm just gonna thought-dump about Gu Yun and Gu Shen. Not really meta, as I don't think this is anything the text doesn't already cover, but just. Thoughts. Mostly that it's interesting that through most of the novel we only see Gu Shen through the distortion of the public's perception of him, or Gu Yun's memories, which are distorted in other ways. And neither of these are particularly kind to Gu Shen. In public opinion, he's a skilled military leader, but also absolutely heartless. To Gu Yun, he is the memory of childhood trauma, of one of the hardest periods in his life.

And then we get to the 'Gu Shen' extra. This is the first time we actually see Gu Shen first-hand, rather than filtered through another person. While the narrative presents the possibility that what we're seeing is a dream Gu Yun is having, I'd argue that the long sections without Gu Yun present and the 'present day' evidence of the box of toys means that Gu Yun's dream is just a transition device - we as readers are getting the full view of a memory that Gu Yun remembers just the tail end of as part of his dream. The first-hand view we get of Gu Shen is far more nuanced - he's still imposing in command, but also seems to love his wife deeply, and flirts with her with the same sort of charm Gu Yun later uses on Changgeng. And with Gu Yun, we see a man who has had access to zero parenting books and who is perhaps out of his depth with his troublemaker son, but who still cares and wants him to prosper.

And that view makes me think that the Black Iron camp incident was a trauma that affected more than just Gu Yun, even though he's the focal character. To Gu Shen and the First Princess, their hopes of their son having an easier, brighter life them are shattered. And I think that's what we see in the secondhand story in the Qingming extra - Gu Shen seems to be angry with Gu Yun, but it's an anger born of fear, that if he can't make Gu Yun stronger, the world would destroy him. And this is something that even Gu Yun acknowledges to himself in the 'Gu Shen' extra - that looking back on it from an adult's perspective, less clouded by his own feelings, he can understand why his father acted the way he did. And understanding isn't forgiveness, but it definitely gives their relationship more depth.