Guardian (镇魂): Thoughts
22 Nov 2018 20:30![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
extrapenguinSo, a few weeks after finishing the series, and watching another friend watch it via PMs, it's time for some general thoughts. I have matcha and free time, so here goes.
I've seen a lot of people rag on the series as being terrible quality, terrible writing, terrible CGI, etc, "I'm glad we can all agree this show is shit" – and I disagree. Given their budget issues and censorship, I don't think it could have been better. I understand people who are meh that the book they're a fan of didn't get a faithful adaptation, but in mainland China, supernatural stuff doesn't fly, so the production team would've had to make it a period drama or redo the worldbuilding into science fiction. The route they chose – science fiction – made for a drama where compared to most televised sci-fi, the science makes just as much sense (i.e. none), the acting is actually mostly okay, and the effects are low-budget but you can get what they're going for. Now, I'm not claiming it's prestige television, but that doesn't mean it's shit. They had limited resources, and used it on the important things (main leads who can act very well) instead of hiring super involved extras or whatever. In short, I disagree. I've watched shows with worse acting, coherence, and plotlines, and fandom has latched onto cheesier shows.
On to the actual content! I took notes while I was watching, like the dork I am, so I'll return to some of them, as well as continued shower thoughts. Perhaps some of this is a fic prompt?
Shen Wei slept for 10k years, and then went to the surface – and given Professor Ouyang's remarks, I think he enrolled in university as a regular student. A quick Wikipedia dive reveals Chinese start university at 18, and Shen Wei is now officially 32, so that's 14 years of living on the surface, searching for Zhao Yunlan. I'm also interested in Shen Wei's decision to go to university: obviously he wanted to learn something about the present, but what drew him to genetics? Did he wish to understand himself? His brother? Given the care he shows Li Qian, I think he discovered he could express his protective instincts with his students, but did he know that before he applied? I very much like the idea of wide-eyed Shen Wei, newly discovering the glories of Haixing, wanting schools and hospitals in Dixing as well, trying to share this wonder.
As for Shen Wei's academic career ... does he get actual print copies of journals delivered to his desk? Does he ask Li Qian to print out any interesting articles for him? Does he write all his articles with a brush??? How does he use sci-hub if he cannot use a computer?! (Also, how's his English? To advance to senior positions, one must publish in English-language journals, but perhaps someone else did the translation + digitization of his brush calligraphy? Or did he send the editorial board of Nature Genetics a physical piece of paper that he wrote by himself with a brush??)
Professors are allowed to live in cloudcuckooland, but generally then have a spouse and a secretary managing the mortal realm of eating and e-mails, and we don't see that for Shen Wei, and how on Earth did he survive as a student? How does he function in society? I don't think he can even drive a car; he just Dixing-teleports everywhere. Oh, and where did Bear Facts Shen Wei of episode 7 get those bear facts – does he just randomly store bear pictures in his desk, or did he draw them from memory?
From the above, it's probably pretty obvious that my favorite is Shen Wei! He presses all of my buttons: in the present, he's a teacher-cum-father figure who dresses very snazzily, and in the past, he is a naïf whom I really really really want to see corrupted with sex and mortal pleasures. It's as if the scriptwriters had a direct line to my id and tailored Shen Wei off that.
However, while I do like Zhao Yunlan, my second fave is Ye Zun, who is also very appealing: a villain with a tragic backstory, with some of the antagonism based on a misunderstanding, very redeemable! Make him realize the error of his ways and restitute his victims as best he can!
I remain convinced that a large reason why Shen Wei convinced the Chancellor to spare Chu Shuzhi's life was brotherly feelings: Chu Shuzhi was imprisoned due to avenging his little brother, while Shen Wei could neither save nor avenge his little brother, but saved Chu Shuzhi's life due to understanding very well that urge to protect. After all, Shen Wei went on and held on to his brother's hand to try and keep him from falling into the ground, back in the past – even after Ye Zun had tried to kill him. And after Ye Zun was taken away and "Kunlun" sucked off to the wormhole, Shen Wei tried to kill himself/accepted what he thought was death. Combined with the ending of Shen Wei's self-sacrifice and going "back home" with Ye Zun, I honestly think that Shen Wei and Ye Zun's brotherly feeling was also really important to Shen Wei, even if he didn't make it his focal point of everything and lingering obsession, like Ye Zun did. And that's another reason I want to redeem Ye Zun: I want Shen Wei to be happy!
Zhao Yunlan is also a type of protagonist I see less often: he's detached and calculating, but he truly is a good person, both in caring about Shen Wei and the rest of the team. His people are his people, and he also cares about the citizens at large! Such an excellent public servant. (Also, tragically, the first person to ask Ye Zun what he wanted to do, and doing it far too late.) He's significantly less burning with inner fire of caring too much than Shen Wei is, and very good at wearing masks. I love everything about his and Shen Wei's relationship.
On the topic of the novel: I'm not really interested. Based on the first chapter I haven't finished and spoilers, I am uninterested in super edgy stuff, and apparently Shen Wei was completely different and less RTMI, and Ye Zun didn't exist/was a different character concept entirely, so I'm not reading it. However, I don't mind spoilers, and there are some questions I have based on it: What was up with Sang Zang's personality transplant after the 100+ years in a rock crystal? What novel thing was Professor Ouyang's subplot based on?
I also have some fic ideas of my own, but not talking about them in public yet. ;)
I've seen a lot of people rag on the series as being terrible quality, terrible writing, terrible CGI, etc, "I'm glad we can all agree this show is shit" – and I disagree. Given their budget issues and censorship, I don't think it could have been better. I understand people who are meh that the book they're a fan of didn't get a faithful adaptation, but in mainland China, supernatural stuff doesn't fly, so the production team would've had to make it a period drama or redo the worldbuilding into science fiction. The route they chose – science fiction – made for a drama where compared to most televised sci-fi, the science makes just as much sense (i.e. none), the acting is actually mostly okay, and the effects are low-budget but you can get what they're going for. Now, I'm not claiming it's prestige television, but that doesn't mean it's shit. They had limited resources, and used it on the important things (main leads who can act very well) instead of hiring super involved extras or whatever. In short, I disagree. I've watched shows with worse acting, coherence, and plotlines, and fandom has latched onto cheesier shows.
On to the actual content! I took notes while I was watching, like the dork I am, so I'll return to some of them, as well as continued shower thoughts. Perhaps some of this is a fic prompt?
Shen Wei slept for 10k years, and then went to the surface – and given Professor Ouyang's remarks, I think he enrolled in university as a regular student. A quick Wikipedia dive reveals Chinese start university at 18, and Shen Wei is now officially 32, so that's 14 years of living on the surface, searching for Zhao Yunlan. I'm also interested in Shen Wei's decision to go to university: obviously he wanted to learn something about the present, but what drew him to genetics? Did he wish to understand himself? His brother? Given the care he shows Li Qian, I think he discovered he could express his protective instincts with his students, but did he know that before he applied? I very much like the idea of wide-eyed Shen Wei, newly discovering the glories of Haixing, wanting schools and hospitals in Dixing as well, trying to share this wonder.
As for Shen Wei's academic career ... does he get actual print copies of journals delivered to his desk? Does he ask Li Qian to print out any interesting articles for him? Does he write all his articles with a brush??? How does he use sci-hub if he cannot use a computer?! (Also, how's his English? To advance to senior positions, one must publish in English-language journals, but perhaps someone else did the translation + digitization of his brush calligraphy? Or did he send the editorial board of Nature Genetics a physical piece of paper that he wrote by himself with a brush??)
Professors are allowed to live in cloudcuckooland, but generally then have a spouse and a secretary managing the mortal realm of eating and e-mails, and we don't see that for Shen Wei, and how on Earth did he survive as a student? How does he function in society? I don't think he can even drive a car; he just Dixing-teleports everywhere. Oh, and where did Bear Facts Shen Wei of episode 7 get those bear facts – does he just randomly store bear pictures in his desk, or did he draw them from memory?
From the above, it's probably pretty obvious that my favorite is Shen Wei! He presses all of my buttons: in the present, he's a teacher-cum-father figure who dresses very snazzily, and in the past, he is a naïf whom I really really really want to see corrupted with sex and mortal pleasures. It's as if the scriptwriters had a direct line to my id and tailored Shen Wei off that.
However, while I do like Zhao Yunlan, my second fave is Ye Zun, who is also very appealing: a villain with a tragic backstory, with some of the antagonism based on a misunderstanding, very redeemable! Make him realize the error of his ways and restitute his victims as best he can!
I remain convinced that a large reason why Shen Wei convinced the Chancellor to spare Chu Shuzhi's life was brotherly feelings: Chu Shuzhi was imprisoned due to avenging his little brother, while Shen Wei could neither save nor avenge his little brother, but saved Chu Shuzhi's life due to understanding very well that urge to protect. After all, Shen Wei went on and held on to his brother's hand to try and keep him from falling into the ground, back in the past – even after Ye Zun had tried to kill him. And after Ye Zun was taken away and "Kunlun" sucked off to the wormhole, Shen Wei tried to kill himself/accepted what he thought was death. Combined with the ending of Shen Wei's self-sacrifice and going "back home" with Ye Zun, I honestly think that Shen Wei and Ye Zun's brotherly feeling was also really important to Shen Wei, even if he didn't make it his focal point of everything and lingering obsession, like Ye Zun did. And that's another reason I want to redeem Ye Zun: I want Shen Wei to be happy!
Zhao Yunlan is also a type of protagonist I see less often: he's detached and calculating, but he truly is a good person, both in caring about Shen Wei and the rest of the team. His people are his people, and he also cares about the citizens at large! Such an excellent public servant. (Also, tragically, the first person to ask Ye Zun what he wanted to do, and doing it far too late.) He's significantly less burning with inner fire of caring too much than Shen Wei is, and very good at wearing masks. I love everything about his and Shen Wei's relationship.
On the topic of the novel: I'm not really interested. Based on the first chapter I haven't finished and spoilers, I am uninterested in super edgy stuff, and apparently Shen Wei was completely different and less RTMI, and Ye Zun didn't exist/was a different character concept entirely, so I'm not reading it. However, I don't mind spoilers, and there are some questions I have based on it: What was up with Sang Zang's personality transplant after the 100+ years in a rock crystal? What novel thing was Professor Ouyang's subplot based on?
I also have some fic ideas of my own, but not talking about them in public yet. ;)
no subject
Date: 2018-11-23 10:36 (UTC)And since it would have been very unlikely that Shen Wei could just have shown up one day and ordered people on secret missions, he's definitely been back in Dixing for more than just 20 years.
I'm not quite sure what the writers intended, there, but it seems like the earlier parts of the show indicate Shen Wei has been an active participant in Dixing politics for a long, long time - and then the last couple of episodes want to contract that time frame so that he isn't coming across as an immortal (since that would be bad because of supernatural reasons).
As for how Shen Wei learns things: that's his power! He can pick up other Dixing (and Yashou) powers after seeing them (or having them done to him?), and then use them himself. So quite possibly this works with knowledge in general - definitely with book learning. Computers and other technology... maybe they change so quickly whatever he picks up that way doesn't stick, and then he just stops bothering?
And I thought he could drive, but now I'm not so sure. We don't actually see him behind the wheel, do we?
no subject
Date: 2018-11-23 16:12 (UTC)I'm not quite sure what the writers intended, there, but it seems like the earlier parts of the show indicate Shen Wei has been an active participant in Dixing politics for a long, long time - and then the last couple of episodes want to contract that time frame so that he isn't coming across as an immortal (since that would be bad because of supernatural reasons).
Yeah, this is probably what happened, though I do sigh at the inconsistent worldbuilding caused by the ramped-up censorship dodging at the end. Mostly I wish they'd made it more consistent, even if with more steps away from the original and towards "yeah Shen Wei woke up a few years ago and went to university".
We know learning works for powers, but can he pick up random information as soon as he reads it/sees someone else use it? IDK. I'm perfectly happy to accept "Shen Wei is an extremely quick study", but electronics ... idk. Perhaps he went "omg this is too difficult" and has a mental block on electronics usage? Or copper interferes with his powers somehow. We don't see him drive, and we don't hear anyone comment on his driving skills, so I'd assume he can't/perhaps got a licence a decade+ ago but hasn't used it.