#narrative parallels

[whetstonefires]

Thinking about the parallels set up between Wei Wuxian and Mo Xuanyu, and how actually most of them are oddly specious.

The sketch of the backstory lines up, but on close examination they're mirror images.

Wei Wuxian wasn't kicked out of his sect, he left it. Wei Wuxian didn't hate the house he grew up in, he loved it, and getting the people there killed was the absolute last purpose for which his dark powers were ever intended.

Jiang Cheng was no Mo Ziyuan--his jealousy was a complicated thing all twisted up with love, and while he would lash out at Wei Wuxian both as a casual means of shit communication and more damagingly in moments of high tension, he had neither the desire nor the ability to bully him, and in general respected his boundaries almost too well.

When Wei Wuxian destroyed himself about Jiang Cheng, it was to give him cultivation, and protect his life and happiness. He would never have killed him.

Madam Yu was a domineering aunt-like figure, who hated Wei Wuxian for reasons of reputation, and because she had resented his dead mother, but she crucially did not have the power to actually disrupt his lifestyle to any significant extent.

Mo Xuanyu was shut up in a small room to rot; Wei Wuxian didn't even attend classes unless he wanted to. Mo Xuanyu was weak and disliked; Wei Wuxian was brilliant and popular.

Mo Xuanyu's uncle is a cipher of a figure, without character or agency, a nonentity who is resented to death apparently mostly for what he didn't do; in theory he is the master of the house, but he certainly never protected his wife and son's punching bag from them.

And this is what got me thinking along this track: because people keep interpreting Jiang Fengmian as this, as exactly like Mo Xuanyu's nameless uncle, a nonentity who lets his wife make all the decisions, and is contemptible therefore.

He shows up in fic characterized this way all the time, handled narratively as a gap rather than a person, an absence where there should have been a parent, and it's...totally inaccurate? The man only has a few scenes but the things that are most firmly established about him are:

he regularly goes out of his way to protect Wei Wuxian

he's extremely fond of Wei Wuxian

he cares a lot about ethical behavior

he's conflict-avoidant and gentle

he can and will overrule Yu Ziyuan when he's made up his mind, and there's nothing she can do about it

his communication skills are mediocre at best

he doesn't understand jiang cheng

he has a dumb sense of humor

Now almost none of this made it into cql besides point 4 and maybe 6, 5 is technically there but buried by the cinematic framing, so I totally get why the fandom on the whole struggles to characterize him well, and it's easier to write him off.

But it keeps bugging me to see him and Yu Ziyuan squashed into the mold of the Mo, because not only is that boring and reductive and kind-of-missing-the-point, it's like. Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng's characterization suffers a lot when you alter the environment and take away the influence exerted by their shared father figure.

Jiang Fengmian was Wei Wuxian's primary adult role model and it shows.

Jiang Cheng's relationship to his own sense of ethics is fraught because 'teaching him good ethics' was his dad's number one parenting goal, but they misunderstood each other so badly (partly because Yu Ziyuan kept loudly misinterpreting them to each other, which is so realistic I can't get over it, that's exactly how it works good lord) that Jiang Cheng has a direct association between the concept of 'doing the right thing even when it's hard' and a feeling of personal inadequacy.

The fact that Wei Wuxian got their dad-person's approval for being exactly himself and Jiang Cheng not only couldn't do that, he couldn't even get that same level of approval when he really pushed himself to rise to expectations, because Jiang Fengmian did not intend that warmth as a 'reward,' and so never realized he was withholding it, and therefore misunderstood Jiang Cheng's visible jealousy as a dangerous sense of personal entitlement that had to be carefully restrained, which reinforced his distrust of Jiang-Cheng-the-person and fed into a shitty loop where they were less and less able to relate to one another--that's fantastic. That's so human! I love it so much.

Both their failures are their own but at the same time it would never have gotten so bad if Yu Ziyuan hadn't been interjecting herself in there, in the middle of their relationship, fucking it up. That's family, baby.

I would ofc like if there was more fic engaging with the subtleties of all this because it's so good, mxtx did such elegant work here and it is not sufficiently appreciated. But it's the kind of thing that's hard to write good fic about; I am struggling with it myself.

So mostly I wish there was just more fic that didn't impose Mo Xuanyu's cliche angst backstory on Wei Wuxian, who has a whole different thing going on.

[zaffiri-saffici]

Two generations of queers in an apocalyptic world.

First love:

We can just be all poetic and shit and lose our minds together. - Riley

Last love:

I do not support this. I should be furious. But from an objective point of view… it’s incredibly romantic. - Frank

Love all the same.

[heretherebedork]

Hope and Jack are the most fascinating parallels that the show did because the real parallel about them isn't about their willingness to hurt people for their job or their want to be an enforcer.

It's about how they love the person they chose.

Because Hope would let the world burn if it was to protect Save. He'd light the fire. He'd take anyone down if it meant his boyfriend was safe for another day, another moment.

But Jack will threaten to kill Joke over a crime he only might have committed and turn his back on his friends even when they're in the hospital for his adopted daughter. Jack cannot simply forgive Joke because he does not have that in him, he cannot simply turn his back on his beliefs.

And that is the ultimate parallel. The one you love versus the world.

It's also there for Joke and Save, Joke would do anything to help Jack but he would never deliberately hurt the people around them while there was no one off limits for Save if it meant Hope was safe... intent matters but not to Hope or Jack because their morality is so, so different.

(That's why Jack saying he would kill Joke in front of Hope and Save meant so much, because it is unimaginable to either of them that you would hurt the person you love for hurting someone else for your sake, that you would not accept a sacrifice done for you by the person who loves you because isn't that what love is, in the end? At least to them.)

[moonpie2405]

Thinking about arkco and orufrey parallels... The way both pairs are made of people whose pains, while not identical, pretty much run adjacent to each other.

For orufrey, nearly drowning (among other things) traumatized Qifrey while for Olruggio it was the blizzard that he witnessed kill many. Rain and snow are both water in the end, and while the cause was two drastically different events, the water's bite was ice cold all the same. Do you think they met in the Assembly and just clicked?

For arkco, it's their mothers. One is warm and loving, the other is not. And yet the silence, whether of stone or of rejection, is deafening all the same. The absence, whether brought by immense tragedy or by abandonment, during lonely nights, it stings just as sharply in the end.

[anthurak]

So I think we all understand at this point that much of the Fairy Tales of Remnant and various other in-universe folktales and legends that have been told or otherwise mentioned up to now are IMPORTANT. That these stories, particularly the ones that are given some kind of focus, are meant to relate to specific events or characters and generally foreshadow things that will happen or be revealed in the show. Whether in the direct sense of ‘this story is actually relating real events that are significant to characters’ like The Story of the Seasons to the Maidens and Oz, or in more indirect, symbolic fashion like Oscar and Ozpin idly discussing The Girl Who Fell Through the World in Volume 8.

Suffice to say, fairy tales in RWBY clearly MEAN something. Especially if a fairy tale is clearly being connected to a character or characters.

To that end, going forward I think we should really be looking at The Warrior in the Woods, and in-particular the animated short, as being narratively tied to Summer, Raven and Taiyang. And specifically meant to foreshadow what Taiyang’s relationship with Summer and Raven was REALLY like.

For one, the connection the animated short draws is not exactly subtle. The short is flat out framed as Tai reading the story to Ruby and Yang for bedtime, with the boy in the story looking like a young version of Tai while the titular Warrior looks literally like a combination of Summer and Raven. And to top it all off, the story even broadly reflects what we already know about the relationships of the three; with the young man losing the woman he so admired and loved just like Tai lost Summer and Raven. Again, the connections are not in ANY way subtle here.

So with that base established, what more can we potentially glean as foreshadowing here?

Well, as I’ve stated in previous posts, I think it is telling that while the Boy in the story did love the Warrior, it is ultimately a tragic, doomed love that was never meant to be.

And more than that, the story notably only gives us the perspective of the boy, and never the Warrior. And likewise, we never learn how the Warrior truly felt about the boy. She clearly cared about him, enough to consider him something of a friend, but did she feel about him like he felt about her? The story never makes this clear, and I think that in and of itself is rather telling: Despite the boy’s attempts to reach out to her, the Warrior maintains her distance. Whatever growing care or affection she might have felt for the boy, it clearly wasn’t nearly enough to get her to break her isolation or duty to safeguard the village in secret. While the boy may have loved the Warrior, it was a love that in all likelihood, could not and was not returned.

So when we apply this to Taiyang, Summer and Raven, a rather bleak picture emerges: That Tai’s relationships with Raven or Summer were NEVER going to work out. Or that neither Summer NOR Raven actually loved Tai in the same way he loved either of them.

And the thing is, this IS supported even by what little we have seen of Tai, Summer and Raven. Just like in the story, we have been told of Tai’s love for Summer and Raven, yet told precious little of how either of THEM felt about Tai. And what little we HAVE been told or shown has left it rather questionable how either of them cared for Tai.

Raven has made it clear that she cares little for Taiyang in the present, which really raises the question of how or if the two were ever in a relationship in the past. And while the existence of Yang might imply some kind of relationship, let’s also consider the possibility that Yang was actually an unplanned pregnancy. The result of a possible drunken, one-night-stand between Raven and Tai. Which would certainly put Raven’s reluctance to be a mother in a VERY different context.

Then we have Summer, and thanks to Ruby’s tree-vision, I think we can count her feelings for Taiyang as being at best ‘ambiguous’.

For one, as I’ve stated elsewhere, Summer’s scene with Taiyang is curiously lacking in especially overt romantic gestures. A lack of noticeable flirting or particularly romantic physical acts like a kiss. They do hug, but as I’ve said before, RWBY has used these close, intimate hugs just as much if not more often to convey platonic or familial affection. Note also that Taiyang is the one to clearly initiate the hug, not Summer

More than any of that, it’s clear that Summer is putting on an act for Tai in this scene. In the scene she is clearly pensive and uncertain and maybe even afraid, but the moment Tai walks in, Summer immediately adopts a mask of ‘everything is normal, don’t worry about anything’. Which calls into question how much of anything Summer does/says in this exchange is truly genuine, and how much is simply an act for Tai’s benefit.

Summer clearly does not trust Taiyang with the truth of what she is ACTUALLY doing. And the clear ease with which Summer assumes this mask implies that this is likely far from the first time Summer has done this.

Just compare Summer’s scene with Tai to both her previous scene with the sleeping Ruby and Yang, and her following scene with Raven; both showing Summer not putting on any kind of act for anyone else.

Most notably, despite whatever resentment she might feel towards Raven for leaving them (or perhaps just leaving her), Summer clearly trusts Raven, more than ANYONE, with helping her on this mission she considered so vitally important.

Summer certainly cared for Taiyang, that much is clear. Otherwise she wouldn’t put so much effort into reassuring him that everything was fine.

But did she love Tai in way that he loved her? Or was it simply a role she went along with for his, and possibly more-so Ruby’s and Yang’s benefit? Given the clear emotional mask and barrier we see her put up when around Tai, I would call the answer, at BEST, ambiguous.

Which all ties perfectly into what we see in The Warrior in the Woods.

The boy in the story, who is presented as looking just like Tai, loved a mysterious but noble warrior, who is presented as looking like Raven AND Summer. But the love the boy felt could not or was not returned and the warrior would instead vanish into the night. Just like Summer and Raven did.

Oh, and the ending of the story match-cutting a shot of the ‘cross between Summer and Raven’ Warrior to a shot of Ruby who likewise has a lot of visual similarities to Raven as well as Summer MIGHT be hinting at something too…

[eat-a-handful-of-bees]

On the one hand I’m a sucker for narrative parallels, but on the other I have to face the idea of Gaius and Uther kissing.

[killugon-truther]

okay but i’ve had this incredibly vivid image of killua on his knees in front of/at the feet of a glowing and pristine alter/statue of gon for a while now.

i can imagine that killua is dripping with this overwhelming darkness that threatens to take him under & drown him at any and every moment, with one trembling hand reaching up towards the beauty & brightness that is his romanticized version of gon in front of & above him.

only gon’s light can truly stave away the darkness within him, even for just a little while.

heavily inspired by this:

(i fucking love madoka magica lmao)

[catwyk]

the silt verses chapter 12 // the silt verses 43

[minecraftbookshelf]

Does anyone else ever think about how Scott Smajor’s Third Life series ended being hunted through the woods by Ren and Martyn…and then his Last Life series ended hunting Martyn and Ren through the woods?

[the-mechanica]

Cracking the World's Shell Much???

It's not the biggest connection, but seeing as how in ISTG this a scene about how rebirth can break you out of a false reality by accepting who you truly are and not what society tells you to be.... *gestures between the two narratives*

[secretly-a-catamount]

Narratively, Malcolm Fade’s life began when he met Annabel Blackthorn, and it ended when she put a knife in his heart.

[dent-de-leon]

oh my god I just remembered that Lucien playfully asked Frumpkin what his dreams for the future are. He’s so cute, I love those little moments when he indulges in that same love of ridiculous whimsy as Mollymauk—

Also I was going to say it makes me feel some kinda way that Lucien gives Caleb a little nickname too, how something as small and teasing as, “Broody one,” betrays just how much of Caleb Lucien can truly see, how the depths of this wizard’s heartache and pain isn’t lost on him.

But, even more heartbreaking… “Perhaps we’re more alike than you think.” Lucien saying that, even though he can’t possibly know how terribly true it is. Lucien who doesn’t know that Caleb is the only person who would understand how he woke screaming and crying as a child from nightmares of setting his childhood home on fire. Lucien who watched his parents burn, lost his whole family—and spent years blaming himself for it, desperately trying to bend reality to his will just to bring them back.

Never mind that he did it to save himself and his little sister, that he did it to stop them from using his brother’s corpse as an undead puppet—saved countless others from being sacrificed to the same fate. He still hated himself for it, still let the gutting guilt and grief eat him alive. Lucien who is a victim of the Cerberus Assembly and several other very powerful, manipulative mages—just as much as Caleb is.

We’re more alike than you think. Lucien who resents his blood hunter scars and all the Eyes and his own infernal blood—every time he tried to close off his own heart to keep from losing anyone else. It could have saved him, I think. If he knew just how much Caleb would understand. And I think, for his Magician, that shared connection would be a comfort too—

[shyjusticewarrior]

"Nothing you can take was ever worth keeping." - Lucy Gray Baird

"I just don't want them to change me." - Peeta Mellark

[heretherebedork]

I'm glad we only have one evil former love interest in Wandee Goodday. Ter's already doing enough, I couldn't handle it if Taemrak was doing stuff too.

No, no, Taemrak is an angel who deserves lots of love and to be able to see Yak happy with Dee again. Thank goodness!

It's actually really nice to have the contrast between Taemrak and Ter, to have the possessive person who cannot give up on the attention he was getting and to see a true friend who cares for Yak as a person first and foremost and wants to be sure he's okay.

Ter's first concern has always been the scholarship but Taemrak is there to offer support to Yak when he's struggling.

Dee was trapped in an absolutely one sided relationship with Ter while Yak has an equal friendship with Taemrak that absolutely would have survive him confessing even if she doesn't feel the same way.

And it's beautiful to see.

[tae-rambles]

The parallels in the narrative arcs of Helmeppo and Donquixote Mjosgard (and the reasons for their inclusion in the story) should be appreciated more me thinks

[aj-lenoire]

i know a lot of these are zuko/katara but like, they have so many good parallels!!!