#i put mxy! wwx as separation of 13-16 years

[starsxinxthexbluexsky]

Wei Wuxian + When Lan Wangji is not looking at him

[fytheuntamed]

so i’ve been thinking about sizhui and his family.....

(just a heads up, this post will have some spoilers. i’m writing this post using the drama as my source of information, so there may be details that are different in the novel or questions i pose that are answered in the novel. i used this post for information on forms of address)

we know very little about sizhui’s immediate biological family. the only mention of them is in episode 30:

so we know he had an older sister (he refers to her as “jiejie”) and presumably a mother and father before the war started (i say presumably because it’s possible that something may have happened to one of them prior to the war, such as an illness or an accident). we don’t know how they came to be separated - perhaps they were sent to different internment camps, or perhaps they never made it to the camps and were killed earlier on. regardless, sizhui is an orphan being raised by his extended family.

after reading this article to get a basic idea of how children process death at different ages, combined with the fact that sizhui has been surrounded by far more death than your average child, my guess is that sizhui knows his sister and parents aren’t coming back, but may not fully comprehend what death is. i’m curious to know what you guys think about this, if chinese culture approaches talk of death a specific way, how you think the topic of his family’s death was broached, and to what extent you think he is aware of what is going on around him in regards to the war.

moving on to sizhui’s adopted family, aka wei wuxian and lan wangji (i believe in the novel they officially adopt him?), i’ve been thinking about how he views them at different points in his development. in the burial mound days we see sizhui refer to both of them as “gege,” which translates to “older brother” and is used to communicate familiarity and closeness. this form of address makes sense given that sizhui is a little kid and both lwj and wwx are older than him, but still fairly young. in some of the fanfics i’ve read that take place during the wen remnants’ stay in the burial mounds, the author will either explicitly or implicitly say that sizhui sees wwx (and sometimes also lwj) as his father figure. i love the wangxian family unit with all my heart, but i can’t help but feel this is a bit dismissive of sizhui’s biological parents. regardless of sizhui’s depth of understanding of his parents’ death, he was old enough at the time of their death to have already built a strong bond with them and i don’t think this sense of, “you are my parents” would be so quickly transferred onto someone else. I absolutely think sizhui adores wwx - it’s all right there in the way they interact - but i don’t think he sees him as a father figure at this point. i think he sees him as a reliable older brother, just as the term “gege” implies.

after wwx’s death and lwj’s rescue of sizhui from the burial mounds, there is a big chunk of time that the drama doesn’t cover (please let me know if the novel does cover it!). during this time lwj is punished and serves his time in solitary confinement, meaning that sizhui is being looked after by someone else. i can only imagine how frightened he must have been during this time - he’s surrounded by strangers, some of whom may not necessarily look kindly upon him given his background. once lwj comes out of solitary confinement, i think it’s safe to say that he makes a point of being a constant, reliable presence in sizhui’s life. he gives him his courtesy name, “sizhui,” and we can see in their interactions after the time skip that lwj is, as sizhui himself puts it (ep 45), “like a brother and father” to him. it’s obvious that sizhui respects and loves lwj and we see in little moments (like in episode 33) that lwj shows special care for sizhui:

sizhui protests, but lwj is having none of it.

immediately before this, lwj dismisses all the disciples, yet he takes the time (and words) to specifically address sizhui, telling only him to “have a rest” despite the fact that another disciple was also battered around by the sword ghost from the Mo Manor (earlier in ep 33).

returning to forms of address, sizhui most commonly (or perhaps solely - i can’t remember if there are instances where he refers to him as something else) refers to lwj as “hanguang jun,” as do the rest of the disciples. regardless of how sizhui views lwj, i think this makes sense. if you were to have a parent as one of your teachers, you probably wouldn’t go around calling them “mom” or “dad” in front of the whole class. lwj tries to be a fair teacher and not show any favoritism, though it inevitably appears at times. i’m curious what you guys think sizhui might call lwj when it’s just the two of them in a more casual, intimate setting. perhaps he still refers to him as “hanguang jun,” perhaps something else?

sizhui has excellent manners, so of course when addressing others, particularly those he doesn’t know well, he resorts to the most appropriate title for them. “mo gongzi” when he speaks with mxy!wwx and then later he refers to him as “wei qianbei” aka “wei senior,” as a show of respect.

in episode 50 sizhui puts all the pieces together and realizes that wwx is his precious gege from his childhood. unfortunately we don’t get to see them interact much after this revelation, as sizhui leaves with wen ning and that’s the last episode of the show. i believe in the novel, instead of sizhui hugging just wwx, lwj also joins in. (idk if wen ning joins the hug, but i like to think he does as well).

this post got kind of long, so i’ll summarize my questions:

how do you guys think sizhui refers to wwx and lwj, both publicly and privately, and around what time do you think he began to see each of them as parental figures rather than older brother figures? also, do you think wwx ever has doubts about his status as one of sizhui’s parental figures, given he wasn’t around for 13/16 of sizhui’s formative years? i really want to know your thoughts and if i said something that was false, let me know and i’ll fix it!

[farmerlan]

Farmer Lan’s Rewatch Guide to The Untamed - Episode 2

SPOILER CAUTION APPLIES.

Alright buds we are going to get right into it - no time to waste!

[WWX hangs out by a river/well with XPG (Little Apple aka Xiao Ping Guo aka XPG from now on), cultivator scene with the demon compass argument happens (cute), A-Yan gives WWX an apple and she’s clearly not mentally all there, mountain top A-Yan dance scene with her mom disclosing her tragic story and father’s death to WWX.]

Differences from the novel:

There’s some minor choronological and setting differences between here and Chapter 6. A-Yan was not the person who gave WWX the apple, it was a random girl. There were two separate scenes with cultivators trying to use the compass in the novel, but it was condensed into one in the drama.

WWX bumps into A-Yan in the town at the foot of DFS and hears of her story from townspeople. A-Yan’s story is essentially the same in both versions, but the novel also includes an additional story about how a slovenly/good-for-nothing oaf became seemingly wealthy and suddenly wanted to get married and settle down, except he died on the night of the wedding. This would later be used by WWX to further support his narrative of what’s behind the ‘soulless people’ cases when he explains it to the Gusu disciples.

[Cut to WWX in a forest, A WILD JIN LING APPEARS! Man, I forgot what a little shit he was when he first arrived <3. WWX and JL runs into each other, except JL thinks he is MXY, banter ensues, WWX traps JL with his paper man and drops that awful YOUR MOM line to JL.

Banter continues until JC brings his posse and incredibly sharp jawline to the scene. Seriously, damn. Things are about to get physical before LWJ arrives. Shade is thrown between JC and Gusu & Co., JC literally looks like he is in pain and why oh why does nothing ever work out for him as his subordinate reports that all the spirit nets have been destroyed. JC decides against picking a fight and tells JL he better BRING HIS A GAME TO THE HUNT before dismissing him. LWJ dismisses the rest of the disciples and walks away, leaving WWX alone. Cut to WWX remembering JC + JYL by the river and then he overhears JL’s true parentage and feels baaaaaaad man.]

In the novel, there is further discussion of the LLJ sect and especially JGS in Chapter 7. Seeing JL’s reaction to him as MXY, WWX then correctly deduces that MXY is actually the illegitimate son of none other than JGS, who was known for his philandering ways.

It was also clarified in the novel that locked within the ‘paper man’ WWX sic-ed on JL was the ghost of a man who had died from gluttony, hence why JL could not get up. He was basically being sat on by a really fat man.

A bigger deal is made in the novel of how LWJ is someone who “appears where there is trouble” – JL says this to him in a sarcastic way, but it’s a common theme that runs throughout the novel, that although he can be considered an extremely prominent figure, he takes the time to help or show up no matter how ‘low level’ the situation is. It’s a sign of his strong moral character that nothing is too beneath his attention.

The situation of the night hunt itself is also explained a little bit more in detail – JL is turning sixteen this year, and this night hunt at DFS is basically a debutante ball for him as you have to be past a certain age to participate in hunts. So, in order to make sure he claims the top prize, JC made sure to come with him and also set up the spirit nets. Aww, they ruined his present!

Fun fact: JC very nearly came to blows with LWJ in the novel but chose not to do so because a) he had to consider sect relations between Gusu and Yunmeng and b) he wasn’t sure he would win since they’ve never fought before. HA.

[Gusu disciples run into old man grave caretaker, these are Wen graves! He asks them to go visit the Tiannu Temple and they move on before he can tell them that the goddess statue moooves. Spoopy. WWX also happens upon the Wen graves. Scene between him and WQ and he realizes it’s the statue stirring shit and JL is about to step in the shit that has been stirred.

Scene in the temple with Gusu disciples and JL, shit starts going down, WWX and Gusu disciples gather outside. Gusu disciples realize they ran out of flares and WWX is all like haha prepare to be punished! WWX clarifies the difference between soul-eaters and the goddess status, links it to the ongoing issues with A-Yan. LJY calls him out – he’s only pretending to be CRAZY! ]

There’s no old grave caretaker in the novel and there’s no Wen graves scene. There are ancient tombs around the area that the Gusu disciples explored, but it was only mentioned in passing as part of the larger conversation around what exactly was plaguing the mountain. What happens in the novel is – WWX encounters a spirit dressed in fancy burial clothes, realizes something is wrong because that kind of spirit (the spirit of a corpse) should not be on DFS, puts two and two together and goes off to find JL.

The scenario of WWX explaining what exactly ‘it’ is to the Gusu disciples closely follows that of the novel, except he also adds the explanation around the slovenly oaf’s story. Basically, oaf prays to the goddess statue to be wealthy, the goddess granted him his wish but took away his soul on the night of the marriage. Hence why WWX encountered the wealthy corpse spirit - essentially the goddess split open his grave and gave the oaf the funeral/afterlife offerings that were buried within it, displacing the spirit in the process.

 Also the goddess statue ate some humans in the novel but this was probably too graphic for the drama lol.

[JL shows up with the statue hot on his heels, WWX is like but wait we sealed the statue off before! WWX then builds and plays a makeshift bamboo flute. LJY changes his mind – MXY is still crazy after all, and on top of that he’s also a garbage flute player, ha. WN shows up and WWX is all ???, illusion is revealed, WWX posits whoever did this wanted lure out WN, a mysterious man in black scuttles off in the background.

Men rush WN, WN is like, uhm, y’all ain’t shit. WWX then plays WangXian to suppress WN’s rage, draws him towards himself and then we have THE REUNION – eyes meet, lovey-dovey wrist-gripping scene ensues.]

Interestingly, the drama shows JL being thrown to the ground and trying to scurry away/flinching as the statue advanced on him. In the novel, he actually stood right within reach and thought, “If I can’t kill her right here and now, I’ll die – but so what?!” Basically, he was 100% ready to kill the statue or die trying before WN showed up.

In the drama, we weren’t specifically clued in to the fact that WN is currently unconscious due to the nails in his head. In the novel, WWX realizes this instantly because Wen Ning was not capable of sentient thought and had to rely on WWX’s orders.

The drama hints that the whole thing was staged by the mysterious man in black caught scampering away – in the novel, this is not the case. There was no other person ‘operating behind the scenes’, this whole incident with the statue was not an illusion.

The reunion scene is as it happens in the novel, gripping of wrists and all. Ha. I love you directors.

[WWX is outed as the person who summoned WN and JC is like well well well, Shady’s back. LWJ tries to protect WWX, WWX tries to run away but gets whipped and decides to play crazy as JC wonders why Zidian didn’t work.

WWX appears to faint and wishes to go back to the time to 16 years ago, when he was at Lotus Pier and we start our flashback arc. Cute scene where he gets a sugar rabbit (HA I see you) for JYL. They decide to rest in a tavern. JC bickers with WWX and grouses that JYL and JFM always defends him and is reminded that being free-spirited is considered a virtue by the YMJ sect.]

The confrontation between JC, WWX and LWJ follows the novel partly (the whipping, the face-off between JC and LWJ), but the novel goes into more detail.

For one, LJY is like, ‘wait didn’t YOU kill WWX? Why are you saying he’s back?’ to JC in the drama. In the novel, no one claims that JC was the one who killed WWX in the novel – only that he was present at the battle at Nightless City along with the Yunmeng Jiang sect.

Also, in the novel, someone in JC’s sect basically tells says that there’s no way MXY is WWX because WWX would have chosen someone cooler. WWX was flirtatious with girls and a good-looking dude and MXY is a gay lunatic riding a donkey. And also, his flute skills are so, so subpar compared to WWX. Ha. WWX secretly grouses that he would kneel to anyone who’s able to play a nice melody on a dollar-store flute after not having practiced for 13 years. Touché.

In an attempt to get both JC and LWJ off his case, WWX tries to disgust the both of them by going, “JC is NOT my type but you know who is my type? LWJ uwu he’s so attractive” but it totally fails because LWJ does not take the bait. Instead, he says “Well then, I’m taking this man back to the Lan sect with me.” And that’s the end of Chapter 10. See comments on the flashback/timeskip in the summary section below.

The last conversation JC and JYL shares is very interesting. It’s not in the novel, but it really plays into the narrative that “WWX embodies more of Yunmeng Jiang’s values than JC even though he is not a Jiang”, which is also a theme in the novel and kind of a sticking point for JC obviously. One can say that JC takes after his mom, and WWX takes more after JFM.

Overall Thoughts

This is where the divergence from the novel plot line begins to get a little more serious. The novel employs a series of flashbacks scattered throughout the book whereas the drama is essentially one long flashback from Episode 2 through Episode 33. It obviously makes more narrative sense to arrange it that way in a drama series in order to make it less confusing, especially since they’re using the same actors for past and present WWX/LWJ, but just keep that in mind.

With that said, I will stop at Chapter 10 for the purpose of comparing it to Episode 2. Chapter 11 and 12 have essentially both been removed from the drama besides for the cold springs scene, which was also modified. I will discuss these two chapters when we get to Episode 33 (wow, will we ever get there??). Episode 3 picks up at Chapter 13, which is the beginning of the Gusu arc. Chapters will start jumping around (in the novel, the Gusu arc is only Chapters 13-18, and then the Wen Sect/Tortoise of Slaughter is a separate flashback from Chapters 51-59)  so I am going to try my best to match them up lol.

Ending the summary on another cute note, in the novel LWJ’s presence is often described as being accompanied by the light scent of sandalwood, which is what WWX smelled before bumping into him in the novel.