#but Gan Ning is grown up man

[nei-ning]

Throwing some Gan Ning & Lu Xun videos here too so that I won't drown you all with Blue Lock posts :'D Again same scene with same characters, just changing their places (this in second video).

I can't how Gan Ning goes all "Hoo?" while looking from them corner of his eye, tilting his head a bit! WHY YOU HAVE TO LOOK, SOUND AND MOVE LIKE THAT!? That just is so... so... AAAAHH! My heart! And Lu Xun, he just keeps reminding me of Kuroko! <3 Such a sweet boy!

[fineillsignup]

Ling Tong and emotions

a meta trade for @purple-fury

“You’ve always been skilled at hiding your emotions.” - Lu Xun to Ling Tong, Dynasty Warriors 6

The teenager ran as fast as he could, but the boats were too far from shore by the time he got there. Tears were blurring his vision as he watched his father’s murderer sail away. The bastard wasn’t even looking back at him. It didn’t matter. Ling Tong was memorizing every detail. Tattoos and bells… he would find out who he was, and nothing would stop him from killing him. - from ch. 4 of my fanfic “Covering Your Ears to Steal a Bell”

[When his father died in battle] Ling Tong was 14 years old [by modern reckoning, 15 by traditional East Asian reckoning], and was widely praised and talked about. Sun Quan... gave him his father’s troops. [In his first assignment] Ling Tong drank wine with the Commander Chen Qin... Ling Tong despised the Commander’s entitled and bullying behaviour, and confronted him but it was no use. Chen Qin was furious, and insulted not only Ling Tong but his father Ling Cao. Ling Tong cried but did not talk back... On the road Chen Qin continued to hurl abuse at Ling Tong, until Ling Tong could not bear it. He drew his blade and attacked Chen Qin, who died several days later. Then it was time for the attack, and Ling Tong said: “Only by dying can I apologize for my crime.” - from the biography of Ling Tong in Record of the Three Kingdoms 三國志, ~280AD, my translation

Gan Ning, the guy who killed my father, has joined Wu as well. I hope they don’t expect me to get along with this guy! No one cares how I feel and now we’re getting ready for the next battle. ˆ— Ling Tong’s Musou Mode intro to the Battle of Chibi, Dynasty Warriors 5

“You sure talk a big game.” - Ling Tong, to Gan Ning, Dynasty Warriors 7

Ling Tong looked back at his lord, and tears were streaming from his face as well. “I’m the only one. I lost them all… I couldn’t save even one of them… They trusted me and now…”

Lord Sun Quan cradled Ling Tong as his officer sobbed. Their lord closed his eyes. “I know… I know exactly…” - from ch. 5 of “Covering Your Ears to Steal a Bell”

[In response to the news that Cao Cao was coming with 400,000 troops] Sun Quan said to those in the tent, "Cao Cao is coming from far away. Who dares to be the first to destroy the enemy?" Ling Tong said respectfully, "I would like to." Sun Quan said, "With how many troops?" Ling Tong said, "Three thousand should be ample." Gan Ning said, "A hundred cavalry would be enough to destroy the enemy. Who needs three thousand?" Ling Tong was very angry. The two of them began to fight right there in front of Sun Quan... [When Ling Tong was duelling Yue Jin on horseback] Cao Xiu ducked out from behind Zhang Liao's back and let fly an arrow, that hit Ling Tong's horse dead centre. The horse reared up and threw Ling Tong to the ground. Yue Jin came with a death-grip upon his spear to kill him. When the spear's blow had not yet landed, there came the snap of a bowstring. An arrow hit Yue Jin in the face. He recoiled and fell from his horse. The two armies came out to save their generals and take them back to camp, sounding the gong to end the battle. Back in camp, Ling Tong went to pay respects and apologize to Sun Quan. Sun Quan said, "The one who shot the arrow that saved you, was Gan Ning." Ling Tong therefore kowtowed to Gan Ning, saying, "Sir, I did not think I could receive such grace." After that he became life-and-death friends with Gan Ning, and never again hated him. - from ch. 68 of Romance of the Three Kingdoms 三國演義, ~1350AD, my translation

“It’s not…” Xiahou Ba ran his hand through his messy hair. “Things in Wei have been pretty bad lately, I’m not going to lie. But how can I work with the people who killed my father?”

Ling Tong laughed quietly, and when Xiahou Ba looked up with anger, he raised his hands. “Sorry, it’s just… I may understand where you’re coming from. Can I tell you about it?” - from ch. 30 of my alternative universe fanfic, Clouds and Rain

“I suppose I’d better give it my all.” - Ling Tong, when he enters rage mode, Dynasty Warriors 8

As a Naruto fan and writer of Naruto meta, I’m well familiar with skepticism at the idea that even young teenagers on the battlefield could ever be a thing, but Ling Tong was the real deal. Imagine that you’re a soldier, your commander dies, the king says “Here’s your new boss,” and in walks a high school freshman. Then imagine that the high school freshman is actually good at his job. That’s Ling Tong.

Given that Ling Tong spends most of his page time in both Record of the Three Kingdoms and Romance of the Three Kingdoms either angry as fuck, crying, or both, it may seem like a puzzling choice of dialogue for Koei to have Lu Xun tell him he’s good at hiding his emotions.

I am very fond of how Koei chose to characterize him and I don’t think it contradicts the very, very limited historical and legendary information that we have. For one thing, historical records of this kind by their very nature limit themselves to exceptional incidents.

The best early record of the era that has survived, the Record of the Three Kingdoms (SGZ), is still at least fifty years past Ling Tong’s death, and it is a history that had multiple agendas and moralizing points to make. It also makes a puzzling error about how old Ling Tong was when he died, an age that could not possibly be true.

Later, the novel Romance of the Three Kingdom further expanded Ling Tong’s story. It’s unclear to what extent the ROTK is the work of a single person, and even less clear how much he was relying on (lost) written source, oral traditions, etc. People get bizarrely huffy and act like if it’s in the ROTK but not the SGZ it’s not merely not proven, but proven false. I think they miss the point about what the stories were trying to do, which is take the historical and legendary basics and tell a story chiefly for the entertainment of their own contemporary era about them, making contemporary moral points. I feel more than free, justified, doing the same thing in my contemporary era.

So how does giving Ling Tong the mask of a carefree, withdrawn, cool, unmotivated, apathetic person work for a contemporary version of the story? Well, when you have a clash between characters, and one side (Gan Ning) is characterized with “hot” tropes, it is a long storytelling tradition to balance that with “cold” tropes. What’s more, acting cool, superior, and unaffected is culturally encouraged in the modern era as a response to negative emotions and trauma, especially among young men. To pretend not to care about something is a defence against failure and guilt. But it is definitely just pretending. “I don’t care,” I say, caringly, as I care deeply could be tattooed across Koei Ling Tong’s back.

In the Japanese dialogue, while Ling Tong uses the “ore” pronoun for I associated with young men, he unusually pairs this with “anta” as his choice for “you”, even when he’s arguing with Gan Ning, who is using “ore” and “omee”. While any form of the you pronoun is not exactly polite in Japanese, “anta” comes across as more petulant, when compared to the roughness of “omae” or even more so “omee”. When speaking to superiors, Ling Tong isn’t rude at all in his speech.

Ling Tong is attempting to control himself, in other words. And he’s ordered to do so. In an era where one’s father is practically one’s god—literally so, once he dies—and where blood vengeance is not only permitted but idolized, he is not only ordered not to kill his father’s killer, but to work with him as a comrade. He is no more than eighteen at this point and has already killed a grown man, his own superior officer, just for insulting his father. (Although it’s worth noting that he did not immediately attack the man, but only did so after a continual period where the older man would not stop.)

Yet Ling Tong, in every version of his story, never makes a serious attempt on Gan Ning, even with provocation. Cutting remarks and even fisticuffs are mild restraint by this standard. To a certain extent, even, Ling Tong’s every day kind of insults of “idiot” and “you sure talk a big game” to Gan Ning can be seen as hiding of just how deeply and profoundly Ling Tong loathes him.

Because the Dynasty Warriors have such huge casts, they usually only focus on one aspect or relationship of the more minor characters, and for Ling Tong, that usually means his role in the game revolves entirely around his relationship with Gan Ning. That’s unfortunate, because his historical rescue of Sun Quan is an amazing story, fully worthy of being told in itself without diluting it by sharing the achievement with other officers. (Gan Ning suffers from this as well, having to share the glory of his 100-man raid on Ruxukou with Lü Meng and Ling Tong.)

Ling Tong took 300 men to perform more or less a suicide mission to break open an escape route for Sun Quan, and indeed, all 300 men died, with Ling Tong alone surviving only barely, having to swim or wade through the water to reach Sun Quan’s boat, which was already leaving without him. Rather than relief at having escaped such incredible odds, he was overcome with grief and guilt at those who had died. Sun Quan tenderly comforted him, and even cared for his wounds personally.

I see this as a huge missed opportunity for Ling Tong and Sun Quan’s relationship to be explored in Koei’s canon. It’s a missed opportunity for Sun Quan too, because as his story already makes clear, he’s also struggling with his sense of unworthiness for those who died.

Again, I don’t see this as contradicting Koei Ling Tong’s conceited relaxation. The impact of seeing him actually crying, when he’s been trying to act so cool, is all the bigger for that.

Speaking of conceited, Ling Tong’s clan pride, his coming from a distinguished family, is also perhaps underrated. A lot of what enables Ling Tong to come across as so cool is that he does have confidence, in both his own competence and his belonging wherever he is. He is firmly in the “former rich kid” camp of the Wu army officer corps’ “former rich kid or former pirate?” divide.

Because of this, he also had the benefit of being educated right from the beginning. Well, it’s obvious that it had to have been so, or he would never have made it at all as an officer in his early teens, much less have had major successes. So he’s got military and also the general classical training of men of his era. But he is still so young and he feels all the more intensely for that.

He’s younger than Gan Ning—actually quite significantly younger, historically; their age gap is narrowed in the Koei games. Basically in every category—age, background, education, personality, etc—they naturally clash, and then they have this dire trauma between them.

Do they make it up or don’t they? Should they? SGZ actually doesn’t say either way but implies not, and in any case, in the moral atmosphere of that era, I would say they would actually find it immoral for Ling Tong to even think of forgiving his father’s killer. The ROTK novel has advanced quite some way (imho) and clearly intends for Ling Tong and Gan Ning’s friendship to be inspiring. I’m with ROTK on this one. I live for reconciliation, even when it’s hard and serious, especially when it’s hard and serious.

I’m running out of time for this topic, but I hope you’ve enjoyed reading some of my thoughts on the complicated matter of Ling Tong’s emotions and how he is portrayed expressing and acting on them. Please enjoy this gif of him wiggling his butt.

[nevertame]

“xingba! you plan on lying around all day, or are you actually gonna contribute for once?” ling tong stands impatiently over gan ning, nudges the pirate’s leg with his foot. he sighs, mock exasperation, and extends a hand. “i don’t need to tell you to be at your best — but it bears repeating this time. can’t have you slip up and get yourself killed out there today, okay?” he hates how soft he has grown for the man who killed his father; tries to ignore the way his heart beats so loudly for him.

❝   ———   fuck  off.   ❞

Gān  Níng  yawns  wide,   half-heartedly  nudges  Gōngjī  right  back.   (   He  hadn’t  really  been  asleep,   but  he’d  been  damned  close   —   and,   maybe  he  wouldn’t  really  have  dreamt  of  Gōngjī,   but  maybe  he  would’ve  come  close.   )   His  arms  and  legs  are  spread-eagled,   bare  chest  warmed  by  the  sun,   skin  tickled  by  the  tall  grass.   He  looks  every  bit  as  though  he  has  nothing  better  to  be  doing   ———   which  is  unfortunate,   considering  that  they’re  currently  camped  just  outside  the  enemy  base,   and  the  rapidly  organizing  soldiers  seem  to  suggest  that  Lord  Sun  Quan  plans  to  move  soon.

I  don’t  need  to  tell  you  to  be  at  your  best,   but  it  bears  repeating  this  time. 

❝   Finally  admitting  I’m  the  best,   Gōngjī?   It’s  about  damned  time!   ❞

He  doesn’t  really  need  Gōngjī’s  help  to  rise  to  his  feet,   but  he  accepts  the  proffered  hand,   anyway;   couldn’t  bear  to  watch  the  man  start  crying  because  he’s  been  spurned.   The  bells  around  his  waist  jingle  jangle  jingle  as  he  hops  up!   and,   as  he  finds  himself  looking  up  up  up  into  Gōngjī’s  eyes,   he’s  struck  by  just  how  much  the  man  resembles  his  father   /   how  easy  it  is  to  remember  what  these  eyes  look  like  when  they’re  afraid.

If  you  hear  the  sound  of  bells,   you  should  run.

The  thing  is,   he  doesn’t  really  regret  killing  Ling  Cāo.   Loyalties  move  like  water,   flow  like  currents;   he  killed  Ling  Cāo  because  he  was  in  Huang  Zu’s  way   ———   and  then  Huang  Zu  turned  out  to  be  a  prick,   so  he  joined  Sun  Quan   ———   and,   now,   he’d  kill  absolutely  anyone  who  threatened  Ling  Gōngjī   (   and  he’ll  try  to  say  that  it  isn’t  just  because  the  man  makes  him  feel  as  warm  as  the  sun.   He  doesn��t  really  regret  killing  Ling  Cāo,   but  he  does  regret  that  look  in  Gōngjī’s  eyes  whenever  the  man  remembers  him.   )

Can’t  have  you  slip  up  and  get  yourself  killed  out  there  today,   okay?

❝   ———   huh?   Yeah,   right!   I’m  Gan  Xīngbà  of  the  bells!   Nobody  kills  me!   You  ought’a  be  more  worried  about  yourself,   Gōngjī.   I  don’t  know  how  you  see  anything  out  there  with  those  puppy  dog  eyes.   ❞

Big  words,   coming  from  the  man  still  holding  Gōngjī’s  hand.