#jgy in particular is a very different type of liar

[morethanwonderful]

Thinking a lot about how, in a series filled with liars and deceivers, when it comes to keeping big secrets, Wei Wuxian and Nie Huaisang lie in the exact same way.

In terms of truly big secrets that they have to keep for a long time, Nie Huaisang has one and Wei Wuxian has two. Huaisang's is the collective secret of his grand plot to destroy Jin Guangyao and avenge his brother, and Wwx's are the loss of his golden core and his post-resurrection true identity. And how do both of them go about covering the parts of themselves that they most want to hide? They play up their own existing traits and lean as hard as they can into their more negative public perceptions.

When Wei Wuxian wants to hide the fact that he's lost his golden core, he does it by putting on a show of arrogance, and this can only work as long as it does because ego is already such a big part of his personality. Young Wwx was already known as a willful, trouble-making rule breaker, so nobody's going to question it when he starts showing up to events without his sword. They might ask "what the hell is that kid doing?" but they can always answer their own question with, "Well he's Wei Wuxian. He's always been a disrespectful and done as he pleased."

Wwx never pretends to be anyone or anything but himself in his first life, but he dials up certain facets of "himself" to make the public think what he wants them to. Pretending to be the person that the outside world expects him to be makes a very good disguise, because it's against others' nature to question it.

And we can argue about how effective it is, but Wei Wuxian tries to do a version of the exact same thing when he gets brought back as Mo Xuanyu. He hears that Mxy was gay and a "lunatic" and says "well if you want insane, then you'll get insane." He leans as hard as he can into that public expectation, because if Mo Xuanyu is behaving like exactly the annoying, openly queer freak that everyone expects him to be, no one's going to wonder who else he might be.

Meanwhile, Huaisang uses more or less the exact same defense mechanism when he starts racking up things to hide. Based on his repeating school as a teen and late formation of his golden core, he presumably has a reputation from a young age as not the sharpest tool in the shed. People know him as the Nie brother who cares little for cultivation and developed far too slow to make use of his saber. To be unkind about it, he's a useless little dandy unfit to ever inherit his clan.

So when Huaisang wants to be sure that no one will suspect he's making moves behind the scenes, he leans into that and leans into it hard. He makes everyone think they're right—he is an idiot unfit to run his clan. But nobody's going to look twice at a fool, and nobody will suspect subterfuge of the head shaker.

Once again, though, Huaisang's act only works because people expect him to turn into a leader like the head shaker. The same act wouldn't have worked so well for someone like Wei Wuxian, because even though they disliked him, people knew he was talented and dangerous. Only Nie Huaisang can get away with playing useless for a decade, because he's playing as hard as he can into the worst of his established public persona. Others mistaking him for a fool lets him trick them into thinking that he is one.

Nobody wants to question you when you're confirming their expectations, and Wei Wuxian and Nie Huaisang both know how to use that to their advantage. It's easy to keep a secret when your cover story is something the public is already primed to hear.

[butterflydm]

The Untamed Rewatch (ep 4)

Previous Episode | Index | Next Episode

aka Rules, Rules, Rules

things that stood out this rewatch under the read more (spoilers for entire series; mostly drama only as I haven't read the novel translation yet and only know what I've seen bouncing around online):

We start off with Wei Wuxian running off so as not to miss the greeting ceremony (the 'salute' I think it was called in the tencent translation). We get a lot of sort of subtle (well, until we get to the Wens) introductions to character and relationship interactions and also to the general atmosphere of Gusu. They have… a lot of rules. Some people really thrive on rules and structure and some people, well, don't. The trouble with WWX and the The Rules is that he already has his own moral center in place that conflicts with the rules. He grew up under a very different set of rules and — from what some of the characters says — he was in a complicated situation of being both privileged and favored while at the same time reminded that he was considered not on the same level as Jiang Cheng. Regardless, very different type of rules than the ones in place at Gusu.

Our introduction to Nie Huaisang and Meng Yao is actually fairly sad in retrospect, in that it contains some narrative irony — first of all, that they came together (because Meng Yao is working as the 'vice envoy' for the Nie clan, I believe it says?). And they're just both so young here and things could have gone so differently. Nie Huaisang is also introduced breaking the rules by bringing in his little bird. 

I absolutely did NOT figure out that Nie Huaisang was the fan guy from episode one in my first viewing, btw. I think I didn't realize it until we were way back into the present timeline. I have a ton of love for him, though, which I touched on in my very first post — he's smart and a good liar who knows his own strengths and weaknesses. He had an incredibly weak hand of cards at the start of his revenge play and so it took him time but he figured out how to get justice for his brother even against the person who was, literally, in the strongest position in the cultivation world. Five stars, very impressed. 

As much as I love Nie Huiasang, I also genuinely love Meng Yao/Jin Guangyao. He's interesting and complicated and we see enough of what hurt him that I do understand why he behaves the way he does (as I understand it, it's even more morally grey in the novel, which I'm looking forward to seeing when I read the translation). I certainly don't blame any of his victims for taking revenge against him, but wow, what a fascinating person. 

I think it's the last flashback we get of him, after Jin Guangshan had him thrown off the tower steps, where we see him in obvious pain but still forcing himself to stand up, smile, and bow towards the person who just had him hurt… I think of that moment every time I see him now, honestly. And he is just such a person of extremes and powerful emotions and yet his mask is always on so tightly that we only ever get glimpses of what he's really feeling underneath it. While WWX can appear lawless to people like Lan Qiren but actually does have a strong sense of right and wrong (whether or not he always lives up to it, he tries), JGY genuinely is willing to throw any and all moral rules away in an attempt to protect and advance himself. So he mirrors and contrasts against both of the leading men.

Of course, this is also the beginning of something I found myself tragically shipping over the course of The Untamed. Ah, XiYao. Meng Yao does some terrible things over the course of the story. For someone who comes across as self-effacing, he actually has a fierce ability to hold grudges and extract revenge for slights against him. 

But his introduction here is very sympathetic, as we hear some students gossiping about him (quieted by Lan Qiren) and then see Lan Xichen step forward to publicly praise him in an attempt to lessen the impact of the gossip. There's some significant eye contact and subtle touching and I am weak. And we know that Meng Yao does latch onto Lan Xichen here in a way that he does with literally no other character, in that this is the one person he isn't willing to sacrifice for his own reputation and life. It's not a hugely healthy relationship, on both sides, but it is very interesting.

The whole Wen incursion here is, I believe, a drama-only thing? As I understand it, a large part of what the drama does is try to set things up early to give the central characters more time to know each other (and, also, More Romance with literally everyone which, as a romance fan, I do not object to). So, we're introduced to the Wens bullying their way into the lessons (though I'm not sure we see Wen Qing actually attend a single lesson? I will keep an eye out; I actually don't remember how many lessons we end up seeing) in the middle of the ceremony. They use this scene both to show Wen Chao's behavior but also to set up his dislike of Wei Wuxian early because WWX is, of course, the person who stands against Wen Chao directly and challenges him. This is the first chance that Jin Zixuan would have to notice that WWX is Just Like That in general, rather than being like that specifically with him, but it's a distracting enough moment that I will not blame him for probably not noticing.

Things during the face-off that stood out to me in particular:

    I think they do a good job characterizing Wen Chao as a realistic bully — when he has power, he abuses it, but when he's powerless later on, we see him being petulant and pitiful (and still demanding). He's a bully in part because he knows he can get away with it because of his father's power.

    Lan Wangji wants to Fight but looks to his brother and listens when his brother indicates that he should refrain. Young Lan Wangji is just Ready To Fight at all times, but he's also very obedient to his elder brother.

    In contrast to this and not for the last time, Wei Wuxian jumps in to verbally spar against someone without ever looking at Jiang Wanyin to get permission. Though WWX's relationship with Jiang Wanyin is complicated in ways that Lan Wangji's isn't with his own brother. Lan Xichen is both sect leader and the eldest, while WWX is, I think, older than Jiang Wanyin (he's definitely the 'elder disciple'). But it does hint that their plan for the future, where WWX was Jiang Cheng's second in command, was never going to work long-term. Their personalities and their established relationship both work against that plan. WWX is a natural leader; we see him take point and take command over and over in the course of the series. When he believes he sees the right thing to do, he just does it. He doesn't ask permission first. When the Wens draw swords, WWX is the first one to draw in return and the others who do follow his lead, including Jiang Wanyin. And WWX does, I think, instinctively think of Jiang Cheng as his 'little brother' that ultimately he needs to protect for that reason, which is a different kind of protection that you would do for your leader.

One of the Jiang disciples who draws a sword is a woman. We don't get as many female disciples/cultivators as we do men but they are there and there are some important ones. Though none that I can think of in the present timeline, as opposed to the past one, apart from briefly seeing MianMian again. I will keep a look out when we get back to the present.

    Meng Yao shields Nie Huaisang similarly to how Jiang Cheng shields Jiang Yanli (though Meng Yao doesn't have a sword). It really must have been devastating for Nie Huaisang to realize that Jin Guangyao killed his brother, because Nie Huaisang did have reasons to trust him and believe he was 'like family' in a similar way to how Wei Wuxian was family to the Jiang clan.

    Wen Qing seems more like she's holding Wen Ning back than she's shielding him. It's interesting. It might be part of her playing cool in front of Wen Chao. Not certain. We haven't gotten to see Wen Ning's personality much so far, except that he's relatively timid.

    They make a point of showing us how impressed Meng Yao is with Lan Xichen playing to diffuse the situation and disarm everyone.

I love this dynamic. We only really get it for a short time, considering, but Nie Huaisang's open admiration of WWX does set up some positive ulterior motives for him wanting to bring back WWX specifically to help him get revenge on his brother. Not just that he believes WWX to be the most capable but also that, though he might never have said it openly, but perhaps he believes that WWX deserved a second chance at life. And poor long-suffering Jiang Wanyin, who knows — just knows! — that having an admirer probably means WWX will get into even more trouble than he would have otherwise.

And, you know, that's probably true.

Meng Yao is literally just waiting around for Lan Xichen to get out of his meeting with Lan Qiren so that he can say goodbye to him specifically (the meeting had a lot of plot stuff, but some good characterization in showing that Lan Xichen and Lan Qiren are wary about Wen clan's intentions but determined to hold to their own standards and ideals anyway).  

So, this tiny tiny smile of Meng Yao's that we see him have right before he heads over to say goodbye to Lan Xichen is probably about a thousand times more sincere than all the big dimpled smiles we get later. No one is looking at him yet, he's just smiling because he's glad he has a chance to say goodbye to this one specific person who publicly singled him out as worthy despite what the gossiping people were saying. I think that it happened in public actually meant a great deal to Meng Yao? WWX is kind to him later on, in the Unclean Realm, but that's in private and it doesn't seem to have the same kind of emotional impact. Meng Yao's reputation means so much to him, so LXC openly stating Meng Yao's worth in front of the entire group of students and Lan Qiren is something that not only affects him personally but something that can positively affect his reputation as well, which means it affects him personally even more than it would otherwise.

At the end of this conversation, Meng Yao bows deeply to Lan Xichen and Lan Xichen doesn't only stop him from doing it, but directly calls them peers. And it's hard for Meng Yao to leave! Once he turns away from Lan Xichen, we can see in his face that it's difficult. And, of course, there's the lingering touch that comes for my life. The Lan brothers and their silent heartbreaks, I swear.

(why am I like this, honestly? This is like me getting into Steven Universe because I saw Garnet's "Stronger Than You" and then ending up having my heart repeatedly ripped in two by the tragedy of Pearl and Rose; and, like, I adore Rupphire. But sometimes my heart just wants a tragedy between two people who just didn't quite know the right ways to love each other, I guess!)

So! (and this is just rampant speculation that I will never get answers on because, again, I believe none of this is in the novel but) I wonder how long Meng Yao was originally planning on staying? Because Lan Xichen is surprised he's leaving so soon, and he'd had a seat right behind Nie Huaisang at the greeting ceremeny, so it seems like him leaving immediately was more prompted by his realization that even in the Cloud Recesses, he wasn't going to be able to escape the whispers about his parentage. In the drama, they mostly likely just wanted to introduce him to the audience and to Lan Xichen, but he didn't fit into the other plans they had for this section of the story, so they had him head off, but internal to the character and not taking the behind the scenes stuff into account, it seems like he was planning on staying longer, initially.

WWX and Nie Huaisang's scene together is adorable, and it's super-cute to see them having such innocent fun times. It does contrast strongly against WWX's scene right after with Wen Qing. He plays the fool with her, but it is obvious play-acting and not true light-heartedness the way it was with Nie Huaisang moments earlier. So we get to see two sides of WWX there, the genuine playfulness and the pretend playfulness as he tries to figure out what Wen Qing is doing. There's a lot of subtle things going on with the facial acting that makes it clear when he's being genuine and when he's playing pretend that I enjoy.

Now it's the night of that same day, and Jiang Yanli has made soup for her brothers. I'm trying to remember if we ever actually see Jiang Yanli eat, because I know she doesn't eat anything here (theory: she eats while she's cooking and thus is full when it comes time to actually sit down for the meal? my mom does that sometimes when she's done a lot of cooking). I'm going to keep an eye on that because I'm genuinely curious. Jiang Cheng is stressing out over WWX, again, because it's pretty much his self-appointed job tbh. Jiang Yanli just wants him to chill and accept that WWX is WWX. 

Another thing Jiang Cheng says here is something that resonates through his storyline with WWX: when will WWX take Yunmeng's Jiang clan into consideration? That's the tension line between WWX and Jiang Cheng for large parts of their flashback plotline together — Jiang Cheng wants WWX to be devoted to Jiang clan, but WWX keeps considering other things to be just as important. Because WWX doesn't ever treat Jiang clan as unimportant but he doesn't always treat it as the most important. And, to Jiang Cheng, it is absolutely the most important thing. Which makes perfect sense for him to feel, as he's the heir, so he has to consider the future of the clan and weigh it against the risks of acting. We see Lan Xichen do the same — he has to think about the politics, the optics of the situation. And that's something that WWX rarely thinks about ahead of time or, if he does, it's to scorn the idea that the optics should matter.

When Jiang Yanli points out that WWX's behavior actually fits their clan history and motto, this takes us to another puzzle piece of that tension — Jiang Cheng's jealousy. Here, it's not so bad. It comes and goes, depending on the situation. But WWX is naturally talented and also lives up to the clan's motto effortlessly, so again it's very understandable that Jiang Cheng feel jealous, honestly. Not always pretty, but understandable.

We do some time skipping, as everyone attends class (I do not see Wen Qing anywhere in the class when I look, so she's not trying all that hard at the 'undercover' part of her undercover spying — or maybe she changed into white robes too and that's why I can't spot her) and WWX is a brat and the class clown. Almost everyone but Lan Wangji and Jin Zixuan seem amused by him. Lan Wangji is definitely way more annoyed by WWX at this point than anything else, because it looks to him like WWX isn't willing to take things seriously. And I'm pretty sure Jin Zixuan thinks that WWX as just as arrogant as WWX thinks that JZX is, which is kinda funny.

We also get the first appearance of one of WWX's cute lil papermen. They're so adorable, as is the little 'nodding off to sleep' thing he does with them. Luckily, Lan Qiren snaps him out of it before Lan Wangji crumples the paperman, because I think from what they say later on, that was actually kinda dangerous if he'd still been inside it.

Lan Qiren, after catching WWX out on not paying attention in class, quizzes him. WWX is able to answer all his straight-forward questions easily and is obviously proud of himself, so Lan Qiren gives him a more challenging one, a question that deals with the practicalities of actually being a cultivator and making the choices that they need to make in these cases of literal life and death. And so we get our first mentions in the flashback of using resentful energy/demonic cultivation. Again, laying the groundwork for later, but doing it while also showing us character and relationship dynamics, which I like. Lan Qiren is really pissed off at WWX's suggestion to use resentful energy, to the point of throwing something at him (there's probably a rule against that) and kicking him out of class for the day.

Lan Wangji, of course, is the student who provides the model-perfect answer of what is correct according to 'proper' cultivation. What I really like about this section is that when Wei Wuxian challenges the idea of the proper method of cultivation, Lan Wangji actually interrupts his uncle so that he can answer Wei Wuxian back (I don't think he noticed that he was interrupting his uncle; he just really really had to correct Wei Wuxian; it was Vitally Important). Wei Wuxian, though, directs his response back to Lan Qiren. I do feel for Lan Qiren here. You get the impression that a student has never kept arguing back to him for so long and he gets so flustered over it (and over what Wei Wuxian is actually saying too, of course).

One of the things that does make WWX's behavior different than, say, Jin Guangyao is that WWX doesn't keep his methods a secret. He doesn't try to hide the 'how' of what he's doing, even when he knows everyone will disdain him for it. He owns it, essentially, which he what he says to Lan Wangji way in the future during the episode where Lan Wangji is drunk — he made his choices and he will live with the consequences and it's no one else's responsibility.

I do understand, from what I've read, that WWX is softened a bit in the drama — some things that are his responsibility in the novel aren't his fault here — but we see here that he was already aware of and willing to go down this road of cultivating resentful energy so in that, at least, the intention is there from the start. And Lan Qiren points out that there's the essential problem that Wei Wuxian doesn't know how to actually keep the resentful energies from causing collateral damage, and WWX doesn't have an answer for that.

And then, of course, WWX does not actually go to the library to copy the rules, as Lan Qiren ordered, but goes off to the forbidden back area with the lakes and waterfalls instead. So, you know, good call on sending Wangji to go babysit him tbh.

But it means that WWX gets to meet Wen Ning!

It's a super-cute meeting where WWX sees Wen Ning's great archery skills and compliments him, and then tells Wen Ning to think of them as equals. Wen Ning is apparently younger than everyone else, because he's too young to be a student at the lessons. I think the rest of them are supposed to be fifteen? That's what I've seen floating around online, but I'm not sure they ever say it on-screen. And WWX is a little embarrassed to say he was kicked out by the teacher, which is interesting.

And I guess we do get evidence here that Wen Qing is not attending class, because WWX is only not in class right now because he was kicked out.

The next scene is a 'cliffhanger' that gets reprised in the opening of episode 5, so I'll talk about then. This one is already really long (I say, as if it's likely they'll get shorter, lol).

Next time: Lan Zhan and Wei Ying get some private time in the library together!

Previous Episode | Index | Next Episode