#i've also seen many people going so strong against this ep and idk if it's really deserved?

[ladybender]

Yo if that episode was just Fry’s dream, it seems like he’s having some repressed concerns about aging. Leela leaving him for a guy who called him elderly. The windos story of him literally winding down to death.

I like the theory that it was Fry's dream the best, and yeah it makes it interesting if fry is having some repressed fears and insecurities.

would have been nice if the episode had just ended with him waking up in bed next Leela, but without that confirmation i just don't really know what to make of this episode tbh, except it's an anthology with a different format that feels a bit like a soap opera with commercial breaks. the through line of the segments seems to be about death and reincarnation, but the main prince story just ended abruptly with nothing to tie it together and a quick explanation. idk. i didn't hate it but it could have been stronger

[hunxi-guilai]

Hello! Firstly, like many others who pop in here I just wanna say I love all your meta on the untamed and how you actually break down the scenes and translations. I was hoping I could get your opinion on the scene in episode 15 (and I apologize if someone’s asked this already) where Madam Yu turns on Wang Lingjiao and reprimands her for “daring to tell her how to penalize her family before her” (these are youtube/Netflix subs so idk how accurate).I’m really curious who- 1/? (Sorry this got long)

man oh man, I’ve been sitting on this ask for a long time, trying to figure out how to answer it because it’s... a difficult subject, for sure

because on one hand, I’m like “strong female cultivator who kicks ass and takes no shit with a sparkly whip? hell yeah” but on the other hand, the fact that Madam Yu is also an pretty yikes mother who gave Jiang Cheng all sorts of self-esteem issues and laid into Wei Wuxian both verbally and physically at the drop of a hat

It’s worth taking a closer look at what Madam Yu says in that scene, after she backhands Wang Lingjiao so hard that Wang Lingjiao hits the ground:

Madam Yu: 打狗要看主人。你闯进我家里面，当我的面要惩���我家里的人 --  你是什么东西，也敢如此放肆？/ When beating a dog, look at its owner.* You barge into my house, and in front of my face, want to mete out punishment to the people in my household? What kind of thing are you, that you dare to be so outrageous?

The idiom Madam Yu uses here, 打狗要看主人, highlights the fact that Madam Yu is the matriarch of Lotus Pier. Literally, it translates to “when beating a dog, you must look at its owner” -- the idea here being that if the owner looks on approvingly, by all means, keep beating the poor dog for biting you or stealing food or whatever. But if the owner looks disapproving, then you’d best not raise your hand. Gauge how the higher-up of the person you’re laying into is reacting; it might behoove you to be merciful to the dog. Or, if the higher-up couldn’t care less, then by all means, fire the dog. You get the idea.

So what Madam Yu is emphasizing here isn’t necessarily a protectiveness of the people in Lotus Pier; she’s hammering home the point that this is her jurisdiction, her territory, her household. Her word here is law, not Wang Lingjiao’s. Madam Yu will deal out punishment as she sees fit; Madam Yu will show mercy as she sees fit. She is the owner of any dogs in Lotus Pier, and Wang Lingjiao has made a grave, grave mistake in mistaking her for a hound that will come to heel.

I have been... hedging, quite a bit, when it comes to discussing Madam Yu in my posts. We see her for all of...three? episodes in the show, and that’s not really enough to draw any definitive conclusions about her relationship with Wei Wuxian. I've seen varying levels of interpretation of exactly how abusive Madam Yu is, and I don’t think I personally know enough to make a nuanced judgment or interpretation of this issue myself.

The first time we meet Madam Yu in episode 11, she’s absolutely incensed by the Wen edict demanding representatives/hostages from the major cultivation sects. She takes her anger out first on Jiang Fengmian -- how can you be so calm in the face of such outrageous demands? -- then Jiang Cheng, when he tries to interrupt -- of course you’re going, we can’t send your sister -- then Jiang Yanli -- who are you even peeling lotus seeds for? you’re no servant -- but strangely, not Wei Wuxian. She wields Wei Wuxian as a weapon against Jiang Fengmian -- oh, so our son has to go, but this one can go or not go if he wants? -- and Jiang Cheng -- you’ve never been able to surpass this one. She bandies about the ugly phrase son of a servant, storms out with all the pleasant temper of an ocean tempest, the kind that wrecks ships.

Startled meerkat look aside, there’s something about this moment (10:02, ep 15) that won’t leave me alone -- the moment Madam Yu rounds the corner, comes down the steps, it’s Wei Wuxian who shoots to his feet first, Wei Wuxian who looks utterly petrified, Wei Wuxian who doesn’t have a hint of a smile on his face.

Cocksure, arrogant, untamed boy -- the number of things Wei Wuxian is afraid of in the world is vanishingly few, and Madam Yu is one of them.

In episode 14, she strolls up to Wei Wuxian’s sickbed just after the Xuanwu Cave Arc, so, as a recap -- Wei Wuxian is starved, exhausted, wounded, possibly delirious with infection, collapsed within minutes of coming back to Lotus Pier. And Madam Yu rolls up and proceeds to spit venom at everyone in sight -- at Jiang Cheng, at Jiang Fengmian, and especially at Wei Wuxian.

He literally just woke up, folks.

Wei Wuxian is ready to defy heaven, defy earth, defy the Wen Sect, defy cultivation norms, defy medical probability, defy existential impossibility, defy the assembled clans rallying against him, but he never talks back to Madam Yu. Whether this is a function of his awkward role in this incredibly dysfunctional family (simultaneously blamed as the harbinger of chaos while held up as the example of what Jiang Cheng should strive towards; his lack of blood relation to the Jiang Clan; his mother’s relationship to Jiang Fengmian, whatever that might have been), or if it’s born out of an ingrained, learned fear is... open for interpretation.

There’s an expression on Wei Wuxian’s face in episode 15 that haunts me -- right after Madam Yu hits him the first time with Zidian (which, strangely enough, happens when Wei Wuxian tries to talk back to Wang Lingjiao about the ugly rumors that have been tearing this family apart), but before she starts laying into him in earnest. He falls to his knees and shoves Jiang Cheng away from where Jiang Cheng had bodily inserted himself between Wei Wuxian and Madam Yu.

And that look -- it’s there for a split second. Blink and you’ll miss it. It’s terror, it’s resignation, it’s bracing for pain. He takes a deep, shuddering breath, and does nothing to protect himself.

People more knowledgable than me will have to make judgments about pain, or trauma, or learned helplessness, but somehow, I don’t think this is the first time this has happened.

And yet, when Lotus Pier falls around them, Madam Yu grabs Wei Wuxian without hesitation. She hoists him up by an arm, drags him out the door where she picks up Jiang Cheng as well and flies the two of them out to the docks. Is this purely driven by pragmatism, the coldly calculating knowledge that, if Jiang Cheng is to survive, then Wei Wuxian is his best chance? She knows exactly how talented Wei Wuxian is at cultivation, even if it galls her; she knows that Wei Wuxian will protect Jiang Cheng, no matter the cost.

She can’t go with Jiang Cheng herself -- she is, after all, the master of Lotus Pier. This is her place to die, but Wei Wuxian can go in her stead. Wei Wuxian will kill himself for Jiang Cheng, and to be sure of that, she shouts it at him, her last words to him ringing in his ears. Years later, Wei Wuxian says it’s what I owed to the Jiang Sect. Who was it who first taught him how destructive debt could be? Who was it who first told a young Wei Wuxian how much he owed?

There is a difference between hating everything that someone stands for and wishing that they would die; there is an understanding, however small and contradictory, that the son is not to blame for the sins of any father, blood or adopted. Do I think that Madam Yu and her actions are the product of years of venom, hate, and vitriol turned inwards until it has no choice but to explode outwards in every sentence, every word? Yes. Does that absolve her? No. Does that help us understand her, a little more? Perhaps.