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sleepymarmot · 4 years

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Re-liveblog: eps. 22-23

[ep 22]

Ooh, Meng Yao as a spy makes more sense. I was thinking about Qing or Ning and wondering since when either of them counted as Xichen’s “old friend”.

I, of course, immediately accepted he was a spy, even before he was textually declared as such and only just appeared as WRH’s right-hand man. It wasn’t until very recently that my eyes were opened to the fact he did lure the army into a trap, a trap that he personally designed, and the battle was only won thanks to WWX and his secret weapon, which MY couldn’t have predicted, in the show at least. So what was his plan? Was it different in the book? Why would he put LXC in harm’s way, when MY|JGY defined their entire relationship by the avoidance of that?

We’ll only see this in the flashback, but I find it very curious that he let NMJ see his true face and live. And in this episode, we see reaction shots of MY being concerned when NMJ is losing the fight -- and since nobody is looking at him, this reaction must be genuine. Which implies that he is not committed to the Wen cause, and is keeping in mind the consequences of their defeat. It would have been a very bad look for him if the allies won and discovered NMJ recently died in his custody. Too bad MY miscalculated how important the lives of those random Nie cultivators would be to NMJ. If only Meng Yao did anything but kill them, I suspect the course of his relationship with NMJ would run very different.

(It’s also funny that the battle plan includes Missiles That Make People Explode... That are used on a couple of redshirts and not, say, on anyone crucial to the allied war effort, and are never mentioned again. And then WWX stands around for about 10 more minutes before deciding to do something. The direction of this scene is... not the best.)

[ep 23]

It’s painful to watch the fear and reverence Meng Yao still holds for his father figure. The flinching, the hiding, the immediate supplication – when was the last time he felt safe and respected, before the bullying with the Nie and having to watch and even partake in atrocities with the Wen? I hope he can finally have some good things in his life now.

First of all, it’s very funny in retrospect to see myself constantly refer to NMJ as MY’s father figure. Well, it’s not my fault that I wasn’t shown the full scene where MY seductively strokes NMJ’s saber until much later! (Although to be completely fair, considering what JGY eventually did to his father, and what else he did in the tv show knowingly as opposed to accidentally in the novel, maybe these interpretations aren’t as incompatible.)

The interesting thing here is that I, once again, completely bought what MY was selling to NMJ with considerably less success... So my interpretation of this scene was completely off-base -- but on another level, I still agree with my initial assessment.

I pitied MY when I thought the immediate overperformance of submission was his natural unfiltered reaction. Now I find it notable that this is the behavior he intentionally chooses -- both as the default survival mechanism over the course of his life, and in this specific scene. And in this scene, this behavior is targeted at and fine-tuned for LXC -- but not NMJ.

The very first thing MY learned about LXC is his protective instinct over him. The best manipulation is not a lie but the truth with certain omissions; he is afraid for his life when a strong angry man he just wronged is brandishing a giant blade at him -- isn’t it nice to have another strong man whose protection you can guarantee by jumping behind his back and grasping at his clothes helplessly? I mean, it’s not much else he can do in this situation, and when I was watching for the first time, I of course didn’t know he had actually killed people in cold blood a few minutes ago, so in this context his apologetic attitude makes more sense, he should be acting like that. But LXC doesn’t know either, just like a first-time viewer! When MY triggers LXC’s protective instinct by crying for his help personally, presenting it as “us against them” (them as NMJ, in this case), LXC doesn’t see the manipulation. When MY shifts the blame on NMJ -- “It's as you can see. In the situation a moment ago, even if I explained, Clan Leader Nie wouldn’t believe me” -- NMJ sees through the bullshit and even laughs at it, but the spectacle isn’t for him, it's for LXC. And NMJ can see it -- he watches MY the damsel in distress tenderly touch the arm of his valiant defender, watches the tidy, polite, performative way MY kneels to apologize, and sighs -- he knows MY has won this round. At least over LXC.

But in addition to what NMJ already knows and what MY has not repaired, MY makes another important mistake. This part of the scene will only be shown in the ep. 41 flashback, but MY still doesn’t understand NMJ’s worldview and apologizes only for insulting him personally. He not only fails to apologize for taking innocent lives, but tries to defend his decision.

Does MY still care for NMJ? From his concern in the previous episode, it does seem so. Does MY still hope to regain NMJ’s favor? Maybe, but due to a combination of not understanding and not prioritizing NMJ, this is instead the scene where MY loses that favor forever.

The above only applies to The Untamed. In the book (chapter 49) the dynamic is very different. When NMJ awakes, MY is carrying him and Baxia to safety alone. In the show, LXC is present from the beginning of the scene, and MY feels safe enough to play them against each other. In the book, he has no means to protect himself and is absolutely terrified. A very interesting paragraph:

He suddenly shouted, “ChiFeng-Zun!!! Don’t you understand that if I didn’t kill them, you’d be the one who died then?!!”

This was actually the same as saying, ‘I’m the one who saved your life so you can’t kill me or else it’d be immoral.’ However, Jin GuangYao was indeed worthy of his reputation. The same meaning but a different wording, and he was able to create a contained sense of frustration and a reserved sense of sorrow. As he had expected, Nie MingJue’s movement halted. Veins stood out under his forehead.

Having paused for a while, he clenched the hilt of his saber and shouted, “Very well! I’ll kill myself after I kill you!”

In the show, NMJ is already selfless and offended only on behalf of his murdered subordinates -- but the book takes it further, and he’s ready to sacrifice his own life if it means avenging them. Then the entire next paragraph is an almost comical chase where “one striked with madness and the other fled with madness”. When LXC finally showed up, “Meng Yao looked as if he had just seen a god from Heaven. He quickly scrambled over and hid behind the person’s back”.

In other words, the full scene in the book reads almost exactly as the incomplete version of it in episode 23 looked to me on the first viewing. There’s no layer of manipulation -- Meng Yao simply is terrified of one man and seeks protection from another. And most of the dialogue is the same -- but just via the staging and acting choices, the scene gains a second, darker meaning. Which fits with the show’s tendency to villify Jin Guangyao. He can’t even beg for his life without it being a manipulation! What in the book was a wholly sympathetic moment of desperation for him, in the show is made calculated and two-faced.

Back to The Untamed!

LOVE how Xichen immediately calls him “A-Yao” while standing right between his shitty fathers

Lol, this was truly a moment for the ages! Too bad we only saw NMJ’s reaction (because he was in the frame with LXC) -- I really want a reaction shot from JGS to this!

The following private conversation between JGY and LXC caused me almost physical pain on rewatch... A note from this (third, I think?) viewing: the line “I’ve followed Clan Leader Nie for so long. I know his intentions. I have also never taken it to heart before” which is a perfect continuation of the previous scene: JGY paints NMJ as unreasonable, and himself as selfless and accommodating. Oh, and of course makes LXC say “No-no of course I didn’t mean you were evil!!” I also continue to feel like I’m the one stabbed in the heart by their sad smiles, when they both know something is ending but can’t or won’t talk about it -- but I’m preaching to the choir here.

What I do want to comment on is another thing missing from the written liveblog -- on my first viewing I apparently misunderstood the conclusion of the scene. What I thought was happening: JGY did proceed to enact the plan he described; the “old, weak, women, and children” he offers to send to Qiongqi Path were sent there, and were the same group of people later rescued by WWX and led to Burial Mounds; the small group of people JGY had with him under arrest are “those who really had a hand in the bloodshed” whom he openly proposes to execute, to which LXC agrees; and the twist at the end is that he relished in overseeing or even performing the execution himself, seemingly in a very brutal way.

But according to this analysis, which I trust, JGY immediately broke his word and executed the innocent prisoners that he promised to only imprison. This would definitely make more sense for the drama of the scene and the meaningful look JGS gives him... But there were only few people under arrest in this scene, and none seemed too old or too young, and where in this case did the Wen remnants of the Qiongqi Path who latter committed the Burial Mounds exodus come from?

[Episodes 4&10]

#the untamed #jin guangyao #nie mingjue #lan xichen #jgyreliveblog #this has been sitting in my drafts for like a month for no real reason #so some of these points may have been addressed by things i've written or reblogged since then #i had to take out the external link to the mdzs chapter so that the post could show up in the tag #sorry about that

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jokocraft · 7 years

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[long meta] the hidden depths of voltron S1 E6

part 1: lance’s literal awakening and keith’s metaphorical one

(if you already know where I’m going with this, you might find part 2: an entire subtextual plot in S1 E6? - in this same post - more interesting)

I’ve been rewatching season 1, and I got to episode 5 with the bonding moment and was like yeahh but then I got to the beginning of E6, with everyone waiting for lance to be released from the healing pod, and I was like wait. I never really thought twice about the scene before, but this time around I was like...hold the phone.

what is keith’s reasoning for being impatient in this scene, anyway? like, if everyone else can wait a few ticks for lance to wake up, why can’t you?

is this just your Personality, to be an impatient nuisance sometimes, haha queue comedic intro? well, while keith is often impatient, it’s usually during situations involving life or death decisions. and since lance isn’t about to die, and the timing of his release from the pod doesn’t put anyone else’s life at risk...

since i trust the vld writers enough at this point (at least with keith, i guess...?) to not make characters do shit for no good reason, i don’t think keith was being impatient for the hell of it, especially to do with someone he’s made a point of *Shrug* Not Really caring about -- that is, until shit went down in E5 and keith dropped that pretense like it was hot and didn’t hesitate to initiate the famed bonding moment.

my point here about this scene in E6, is that it’s directly linked to E5′s bonding moment, like 100%. maybe you’re like DUH OBVIOUSLY - and you’d be right, cause it’s obvious to me now and I was probably just being really slow on the uptake - but nevertheless, i don’t think we should hang up the the phone there...

i think that - well, with the “cradled you in my arms” line, we all kind of know - that keith took that bonding seriously to some extent. but to what extent? just seriously enough to be annoyed with lance’s response? personally, I think keith took it seriously enough that he truly believed a major shift had occurred between them - a shift, if my thoughts here are on the right track, he’d probably been hoping for (perhaps only subconsciously) since this scene:

it’s from the tail end of S1E2, after they successfully form voltron for the first time. i referred to this frame as “first time keith realizes that lance is actually kind of cool”. the way I interpreted this was that now, keith can no longer see lance as >insert stereotypes here< and predictable, but rather as someone interesting and possibly full of surprises and definitely worth paying attention to after all. but in this episode, keith’s still too closed off emotionally to acknowledge at maybe his new perspective of lance is making him wish things between them were different - not so they could be BFFs like lance and hunk are, but something else....something he can’t yet put into words (space ranger partners).

god they r all 3 uber-dorks okay

anyway

back to E6, I’m now imagining that keith has spent the last 24 hours secretly relishing the idea that he’s finally (for the first time in his life??) got himself a friend that is both a peer and someone that he feels instinctually closer to compared to other peers. (shiro is of course someone he feels instinctually closer to, but he is not quite a peer in age or maturity. the stuff can you do with a mentor/idol is definitely not the same stuff you can do with another shitting teenager like yourself).

buuuut we all know keith’s about to be disappointed when reality rears its ugly head and lance says some bullshit to allura again. “classic”. and so, from keith’s perspective, the reality is this: despite any shift between them that lance definitely felt (he saw it with his own eyes dammit), lance must have nevertheless interpreted it in a way did not put them the same page. fukin sux

poor keith. don’t we all hate when we hype something up in our minds and it turns out we were totally off the fucking mark all along? I imagine right now that he’s busy mentally burying his disappointment six feet deep. (note to remember for later: you can also see in the image above that shiro has the highest tolerance for lance’s shit.)

((((((( also eye-narrow worthy, but....perhaps...meaningless........hm:

when coran presents the ticker when the topic of ticks vs seconds comes up, hunk and pidge come over to look instantly. allura is shown walking over to the group moments later at 22:00 into the episode. shiro is shown watching from where he stands a few feet away. and keith is just ... ... ... absent from this exchange for 4 seconds before he’s briefly shown finally walking into the frame at 22:04. for four whole seconds he was just...what? staring, I guess? at lance, waiting, probably feeling determined to Be There when lance woke up. but not so determined that he’d risk someone calling him out for it. (but shiro is likely an exception for him: shiro doesn’t have his back turned, and so keith must trust him not to raise an eyebrow if keith kinda wanted to, you now, Be There.) )))))))

anywaaaaaay

we know that burying disappointment not so simple as pushing it away and never feeling it again. because like keith, when present reality doesn’t match our perceived reality, we’re like, “wtf? where did i go wrong? how did i misinterpret this? was I delusional?” and sometimes we’re like, “no, fuck you reality, I was not delusional, not this time, I was not wrong.” And voila, here you see keith in all that frustration: he’s planted himself as much in lance’s line of sight as he can without just straight up taking the yellow mouse’s seat right in front of the bowl of goo. keith clearly intends to be acknowledged. or at the very least, to glean some clue from lance’s behavior as to why he’s being Capital-I Ignored.

keith stays quiet during the conversation at the table until lance make a quip about the mice besting them all, and keith makes his salt known:

BITCH WHAT HTE FUCK? DID U NOT SEE HOW VALIANT I WAS PROTECTING YOUR ASS? I WAS THE SHIT! NOW STOP SPOONFEEDING THOSE FUCKING MICE I SWEAR TO

lance goes onto totally dismiss what keith did and this is....honestly not what keith expected

lance isn’t even making a dumb joke, he’s just being an asshole, plain and simple. keith now is like *softly* bitch what the fuck. “We had a bonding moment. I cradled you in my arms!” keith says, trying to look indignant, because alternative emotions are supposed be buried six feet deep.

but it’s no use, he’s stonewalled and subject-changed. and while we the audience know that the overly-defensive tone of lance’s stonewalling practically confirms that he remembers, we can only hope that lance realizes this too and is able to feel a pinch of salty relief.

it’s my conclusion that the whole point of these beginning scenes is not just to have some character interaction and a bit of thrown-in development, but to provide legit exposition and rising action to the fully-fledged subtextual plot of ep6. Read part 2 below, an elaboration of what I mean by this.

part 2: an entire subtextual plot in S1 E6?

(apologies to anyone else may have posted similar conclusions and I just totally missed them)

so here i get into are more circumstantial stuff. maybe my reasoning is clouded by ship-goggles, or maybe it’s the opposite, when armed with the interpretation lens that season 3 is all but dreamworks-signed confirmation that Keith and Lance’s relationship is intended to be something more than BFF friendship, and always has been, and everything about their relationship from S1E1 to S3E7 is very deliberate in order to make their future endgame as believable, nuanced, and in depth as is possible for a younger audience show.

assuming that this interpretation of S3 is not totally mistaken, then I contend that S1E6, in its entirety, is a far more momentous step in their relationship than all previous S1 episodes combined, including the bonding moment.

basically, hunk wants to fulfill his promise to save his girlfriend shay, but allura decides a new incoming distress beacon needs to be looked into first. they arrive, and very unlike shay’s introduction (S1E5), characterized by dull colors, distrust, and caution....

E6′s introduction to rolo and nyma is characterized by brightness colors, camaraderie, and repose. some quality irony here. tbh, It’s a fantastic way of fLipPing The ScrIPT if you ask me Hunk.

also I suppose it should be mentioned that shay is meant to be noted for her tattered clothes, androgyny, and lack of traditional beauty (but we aren’t fooled, shay is perfect) while rolo and nyma are clearly typed to be MUTHAFUCKIN SEX BEASTS. nyma is very overtly feminine and rolo is equally masculine.

as expected, lance swoons and does his gig. even says “Name’s Lance” which uh, de ja vu anyone ahem episode uno? as the episode progresses, it becomes clear that lance is going hella overboard, b/c even shiro (who, remember, has the highest tolerance for lance’s shit) is like for the love of fuck-

that night, there’s a bonfire, and rolo starts getting into his backstory. it’s worth noting that that besides space parents shiro and allura, keith is the only other paladin there listening. anyway rolo mentions sendak, immediately acknowledging him as a major threat. the point of that: considering just earlier in the episode, keith mentioned sendak’s threat to lance and lance promptly didn’t give a shit.....

even from profile view, keith’s expression in this frame ^ is distinctly similar to his expression from before (last frame from part 1), e.g. wide eyes revealing vulnerability, small frown, etc. i would take a gander that this is the moment that keith decides to...let things play out, rather than support hunk’s suspicions.

(why? maybe because he sees lance being a dipshit and if hunk’s right, and these people are liars and cheats, then lance is going to get what he deserves. but, i admit, such a theory has no basis in canon.)

meanwhile lance is being a dipshit and lets nyma inside the castle while the others aren’t looking. she plays him like a fiddle to get to the lions specifically, and at this point, the keen viewer is really starting to wonder why he’s being so dumb.

and this is important: I do not believe the writers were making him dumb because that’s his Personality. Just like keith’s impatience with the healing pod, there’s gotta be a reason behind his behavior beyond “that’s just how he is, that’s just what’s happening right now, don’t look into it too hard”.

I believe - going off of lance’s highly defensive refusal to acknowledge the bonding moment with keith earlier - he’s in a rather delicate emotional state right now, whether he consciously realizes it or not.

regardless of what keith might believe at this point, I think the reality is that lance sure as hell did remember. and although lance’s interpretation was probably different, it was different in the opposite way keith probably imagined (i.e. an even more dramatic and sentimental interpretation than keith’s). but the real divide between them at the beginning of E6 is their reactions to their own interpretations of the bonding moment:

keith reaction: omg a real friend?? for me?? maybe jesus does love me

lance reaction: lies jesus lies i have never had a gay thot in my entire life nope

one of the big reasons I’m fairly confident I’m not just making lance’s reaction up totally with ship-goggles is because of this slap-in-the-face parallel:

of ALL the things that could have been done, nyma is cradling lance in her arms, the very thing lance wants to deny even to himself ever happened with a certain someone else.

if you’re followin my theory, i think it could go like this:

because of the bonding moment, keith’s mind promoted his relationship with lance from we’re-both-in-voltron to F IS FOR FRIENDS, but i think from what can be seen of lance’s vastly exaggerated womanizing behaivor all E6, lance’s mind promoted his relationship with keith from grumpy-voltron-frenemy to ...

...

... something he can’t yet bring himself to put into words (space ranger partners, italicized coughcough)

honestly, the frame of lance in nyma’s arms is a little depressing when put in context with the beginning of the episode. what is lance thinking, in this moment? or trying not to think about? is he telling himself on repeat: this is what I want, this is what I wanted, this is how it’s supposed to go, this is who it’s supposed to be -- he’s 100% blushing when she asks him to take her on a ride around moon, holding him like this.

this post is cancelled if keith’s explicitly mentioned cradling is somehow not intended to be totally parallel to this scene right here with lance blushing.

(sorry little baby cuban, but it is not mindless bromance that is in your future.)

immediately after this, lance seems to check back into reality, and shows some resistance to nyma’s request. but then:

TRIGGERED

chances are, nyma made an educated guess that lance - like any hopeless romantic douche (psa i still love lance with my whole soul) - would react stupidly and competitively when threatened to be bested by another suitor. but there is a smidgen of possibility that she’s smart as FUCK (which there’s plenty of evidence of) and she knew that there could be only ONE1 reason lance could be overcompensating so obsessively. and out of other TeenPaladins, keith’s the hottest. i wouldn’t put it past this chick to put 2 and 2 and 5 together to get 69 and be correct.

bonus: she mentions how the minerals of the kinetic spring “reflect off the water, making a rainbow”. Also, I’m almost certain someone has pointed this out before, but I guess I’ll do it again - the bisexual flag colors are pink, lavender, and blue, and this background..!.............but that’s just whiteboard conspiracy silliness, surely. surely.

necessary? i think not

((((((( also on a related note, i’ve watched this clip below like eight times because I have a feeling that this sequence is some kind of subtle parallel or reference to something as well. on the surface, lance appears to be surprised and blush when nyma rests her head against his armpit side and starts laughing.

it just caught me off guard like, why would this bit be included? we already know that lance is infatuated with her, so what’s the point? why waste time and frames to keep making the same point? ... oR is there some other point that’s trying to be made and I am blind to see it? right now I can’t come up with anything, but if you have any ideas, definitely let me know. )))))))

meanwhile...

keith stap.

and so lance’s massive fuck up comes to a peak, and he’s so desperate for this thing with nyma to work (so desperate to prove to himself that nothing’s changed, he’s still the same, a beautiful girl is still what he wants, what he needs) that for one sad moment he’s actually willing to believe nyma’s a dominatrix before he’s willing to believe that she’d been playing him all along...

(how can I be mad at this boy?)

the others start the pursuit to save lance, and i think that it’s clever how keith was given the spotlight in the blue lion’s recovery via navigating the asteroid belt. that pursuit scene was very flexible in its requirements for how it needed to go, technically keith’s role doing that was interchangeable, and so the whole sequence could have been designed in a way to cater to another lion’s strengths. but.

“This kid can flat-out fly,” says rolo. the title of this episode is “Taking Flight”. why would the title of this episode, in which, tbh, keith hardly does anything for a majority of it, be dedicated to this relatively predictable space car chase?

A: because it enables keith to say that he got is lion back. I saved your ass AGAIN and this time you can’t deny it!

and because of this experience, lance now has come to understand (to at least some extent) that there’s no point in wishing that he’d had his Magical Moment of Connection™ with some cool and pretty girl like he’d always imagined.

maybe, very very deep down, he’s begun to realize that the moment was only magical in the first place because it was with keith.

keith, who keeps coming through for him when it matters most.

the episode comes full circle, and - going along with my theory so far - the real conflict has been resolved. One might argue all that this “subtext” was just a subplot to the main plot of learning their lesson with the bounty hunters and always listening to hunk because he’s right and shay is 1000% more pure than rolo and nyma combined, tattered clothes be damned.

Or like me, one could argue that all that non-subtextual stuff (not counting the interspersed, juxtaposed scenes of Overarching Plot, Starring Your Hosts Haggar and Zarkon) was just an external plot chalk full of thematic parallels tailor-made to accommodate the true purpose of the episode: for lance and keith to come to terms with each other in the aftermath of the subtle but major shift that’s occurred between them.

lance took a big step in this one episode by going from total denial to verbal acceptance (for everyone to hear) of a bonding moment, in fact, existing.

and keith did good by accepting lance as he is and choosing not to continue resenting him for how he first reacted. its safe to say that keith progressed in character even more than lance, which I think is why he wins the focus of the episode title, because what he learned was that if he wants a deeper friendship with lance, fate’s not going to hand it to him in a healing pod. he has to do his part developing it. he has to work for it.

knowing keith, that’s a pretty tall order. but at least this time, keith got to Be There for lance after all.

Here is a follow up post: link

#klance #vld #voltron meta #meta #keith kogane

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