#yes yes I know people don't like bringing xiyouji up when talking about monkie kid

[sketching-shark]

I was hoping in the S4 Special, we would see Wukong at least try to reconcile with the Brotherhood. We know Wukong and Azure were close, and we spent a lot of time talking about Azure's trauma and feelings of betrayal from Wukong. But we never got to see them at least try to talk it out. The first part of the Special focuses on Wukong's mistakes, and it's all centered around Macaque. I know Mac was his BFF, but Azure was also hurting a lot, too, and that was a big focus this season. The second Wukong gets out, he wants to shove them all back into the scroll. We get a little sad face when Azure dies, but that's really it. Kinda makes me question what the point of Azure's monkey trauma alongside Wukong's regrets were if they weren't gonna even have Wukong attempt to fix things. Also, the Pilgrims sealing the Brotherhood in the scroll. Wukong looking menacing in the flashback. That's never touched on either. All those theories on Wukong possibly striking a deal with the Jade Emperor to protect the Brotherhood or being forced to imprison them. Wukong will fish with DBK and eat popsicles with Macaque, but wont try making peace with his other brothers? IDK, it just feels like there was a lot of wasted potential with this Special, which honestly is nothing new for the series.

Hahahahaha sigh. Flying Bark really said "We are never going to let this monkey live down the stupid friend-betraying a-hole allegations <3" huh.

[sketching-shark]

I really don't feel like the show did much to redeem Wukong in Macaque's eyes. Up to the S4 Special, Macaque has now risked his life twice to save Wukong. But we don't really see Wukong do much of anything for Macaque. Which is so weird because the show confirmed that Wukong is basically the sole reason for their friendship crumbling in the first place. Yet Macaque is doing all the work to repair it? I wanted to see Wukong take that first step towards reconciliation, but instead, it's Macaque. Overall, I think this relationship is just so poorly executed.

Monkie Kid spoilers & mini-rant below, so skip if you don't want to read:

SIGH yeah anon I did see someone else comment that they thought forcing this relationship between the two was a major detriment to both Sun Wukong and the Six-Eared Macaque and well I fully agree. Because at this stage not only has the Monkey King been revealed to have been and in many ways still be just as stupid and selfish and thoughtless as Macaque repeatedly said he was, not only did it turn out that he was never a king either loving or otherwise in the first place because the monkey yaoguai of Mt. Huaguoshan seem to have never existed (major L to Azure Lion for pinning all his hopes and dreams on an eccentric park ranger), not only did he either kill or trap each and every one of his sworn brothers and then apparently did literally nothing about that for centuries if not millennia afterwards, but this revelation completely re-contextualizes all of the previous interactions between LEMH and SWK into making the Monkey King quite frankly extremely cruel.

While I know people often balk at the mention of Xiyouji itself when talking about Monkie Kid, I still think it worth bringing up that all of SWK's dismissive jabs against LEMH, along with him clearly not caring about the shadow simian like at all up until the very end of season 3 when the plot suddenly decided he did, made a lot of sense because in the og classic LEMH is the guy who literally hurt both SWK's monkey family and pilgrim family and tried to murder-replace him. But now that it turns out LEMH never did anything wrong ever (well he did but good luck getting the plot to acknowledge that now lmao), we're now dealing with a SWK who's major response to seeing his apparent bestest of besties has been to insult him, go for the throat almost immediately, and oh yeah not give af that said bestie literally exploded right in front of him. And yes yes I know that a lot of season 4 was about SWK regretting basically his entire past but ultimately going forward with hope and something of the reality that he can be better (at least in terms of working as a team), but all of this is intermingled with the sense that he's already done this whole song and dance before on account of the pilgrimage and still ended up causing so much destruction and pain to so many people during the show's timeline, even if he is trying to do the right thing. So here's our Monkey King as he was and still in many ways is everyone! A genuinely terrible leader, a genuinely terrible teacher, and a genuinely terrible friend. And for what.

Honestly, it is kind of morbidly funny at this stage to think that even at his very worst the murder monkey himself Xiyouji SWK never did anything as bad, either deliberately or inadvertently, as play a big part in the near-destruction of all reality :[

So all of that does leave Macaque in this position that frankly sucks because from what's been shown his entire first life was hinted to in large part be him just going along with SWK's selfish and dangerous whims, and then his second chance at life was defined by nothing but his violent obsession with getting revenge against SWK to the point where he has no friends, family, or even hobbies that aren't in some way or another tied to the Monkey King, i.e. the guy he hates so much that he thrashed and threatened MK repeatedly for the crime of being associated with SWK (another thing that makes his whole "yeah I thought SWK was pure evil but then on the journey west he got better ahaha" kind of hilarious in its hypocrisy). I've said before that fully and explicitly leaning into a plot about just how much Macaque defines himself through someone he hates could be a very interesting story line, whether he eventually becomes completely lost to his obsession like potentially with Xiyouji LEMH or learns to stand as his own person, but as it is as you said anon it just feels like he's been left not forging his own path but only offering the umpteenth chance to a guy who literally killed him, or at least who he fully believes killed him. Because yeah, speaking of other morbidly funny things it's still wild that even in a cursed hell scroll that constantly replays your worst memories AND even when Qi Xiaotian explicitly asks LEMH what the hell even happened between him and SWK, his only response was "..." and looking sad before that subject got completely dropped. idk if that was Flying Bark being like "we need more time to figure out how to make the murder-replace plot of the True and False Monkey King arc all SWK's fault!" or if they're saving that bit of story to spend even MORE screen time dragging out this ever-more tedious drama between SWK and LEMH, but you would think that this "I hate the Monkey King because he murked me" plot would at least be mentioned as one of the things that either SWK or LEMH would feel needed to be addressed??? Instead of just going right to "it's okay if you killed me I'll trust you again because reasons :)"???

So yes as always need to note that I'm likely being to harsh on a silly lego show and/or letting my typical negative nancying detract for more positive points, but if I had any advice for Macaque and his evil twin as it currently stands, for Sun Wukong it would be "atonement is an active process" & for LEMH it would be "if it sucks hit da bricks."