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extrapenguin(Fopinions February starts in a few days!)
Since I talked about Ye Zun, I will briefly talk about Shen Wei. Today's post inspired bynaye's With a Twist of the Kaleidoscope, more specifically this bit: chromemuffin. Please excuse any incoherence, I am running on way too little sleep today.
One interestingly canon-compliant reading of Shen Wei is that from a young age, he didn't build his identity so much as being an individual, but as being one half of a whole. First with Ye Zun, and then I suspect this is part of why he fell so hard for Kunlun: someone who's engaging with him in much the same fashion his brother did, plonking into Shen Wei's life like he's meant to be there and knowing way too much about Shen Wei and his preferences already. (What Zhao Yunlan did would likely inspire paranoia under other circumstances.)
So. We have Shen Wei, who has a binary division of people: there is the singular other locus of his universe, his other half, the one without whom he isn't – and then there's other people. His parents died when he was young, so it was just him and Ye Zun, and he didn't get any healthy models for being anything but one half of a whole, and so a lot of his ... tolerance of Zhao Yunlan's WTF behavior (like the cake stealing) is more explicable: Zhao Yunlan is the other half of his universe, so of course he wouldn't just draw boundaries with Zhao Yunlan unless it's absolutely necessary for the continuity of the timeline.
Of course, the interesting thing would be to get Ye Zun and Zhao Yunlan into Shen Wei's life simultaneously, whether via Ye Zun redemption arc or otherwise, so he has to figure out how to deal with the Shen Wei-Ye Zun creepy twins universe and the Shen Wei-Zhao Yunlan romantic ecosystem both being valid at the same time, and actually figure out how to untangle himself from this all-subsuming "one half of a whole" worldview and figure out what sort of relationship he wants Zhao Yunlan and Ye Zun to have. (Even if it's "We are twins and share everything, if I am your wife then please take Ye Zun as your concubine." Perhaps especially in that case.)
There's more to Shen Wei's character (the reason he's so much into his job and requires the "you're a man, not a knife" speeches is likely because his sense of self-worth went down the drain after he couldn't protect his brother and he went to protect the entire world and take down the rebels in his brother's memory, for one), but given that Ye Zun has a "you are the only one in my heart, gege" thing going on, Shen Wei likely has something equivalent from their childhood.
Since I talked about Ye Zun, I will briefly talk about Shen Wei. Today's post inspired by
naye's With a Twist of the Kaleidoscope, more specifically this bit: “Didn’t my dear brother tell you? We’re twins. There’s only our face,” Ye Zun says.Later hashed out with
chromemuffin. Please excuse any incoherence, I am running on way too little sleep today.One interestingly canon-compliant reading of Shen Wei is that from a young age, he didn't build his identity so much as being an individual, but as being one half of a whole. First with Ye Zun, and then I suspect this is part of why he fell so hard for Kunlun: someone who's engaging with him in much the same fashion his brother did, plonking into Shen Wei's life like he's meant to be there and knowing way too much about Shen Wei and his preferences already. (What Zhao Yunlan did would likely inspire paranoia under other circumstances.)
So. We have Shen Wei, who has a binary division of people: there is the singular other locus of his universe, his other half, the one without whom he isn't – and then there's other people. His parents died when he was young, so it was just him and Ye Zun, and he didn't get any healthy models for being anything but one half of a whole, and so a lot of his ... tolerance of Zhao Yunlan's WTF behavior (like the cake stealing) is more explicable: Zhao Yunlan is the other half of his universe, so of course he wouldn't just draw boundaries with Zhao Yunlan unless it's absolutely necessary for the continuity of the timeline.
Of course, the interesting thing would be to get Ye Zun and Zhao Yunlan into Shen Wei's life simultaneously, whether via Ye Zun redemption arc or otherwise, so he has to figure out how to deal with the Shen Wei-Ye Zun creepy twins universe and the Shen Wei-Zhao Yunlan romantic ecosystem both being valid at the same time, and actually figure out how to untangle himself from this all-subsuming "one half of a whole" worldview and figure out what sort of relationship he wants Zhao Yunlan and Ye Zun to have. (Even if it's "We are twins and share everything, if I am your wife then please take Ye Zun as your concubine." Perhaps especially in that case.)
There's more to Shen Wei's character (the reason he's so much into his job and requires the "you're a man, not a knife" speeches is likely because his sense of self-worth went down the drain after he couldn't protect his brother and he went to protect the entire world and take down the rebels in his brother's memory, for one), but given that Ye Zun has a "you are the only one in my heart, gege" thing going on, Shen Wei likely has something equivalent from their childhood.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-29 20:56 (UTC)I do think that Shen Wei has a guilt complex (even if it's very buried) over failing at protecting his brother, and that informs a lot of the decisions he makes
Oh yes, I completely agree with that! I think that's always true, regardless of how you otherwise interpret him. I'm pretty sure a version of Shen Wei who doesn't feel guilty about that is not a version I'd recognise.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-30 16:22 (UTC)Shen Wei is such a fascinating character. I should make a more all-encompassing meta post on him, but I'd have to rewatch the entire show, and he's very ... opaque in some regards. Though the guilt and lack of self-esteem shine through.