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canary3d-obsessed · 3 days ago

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Restless Rewatch: The Untamed, Episode 42 part one

(Masterpost) (Pinboard) (whole thing on AO3)

Warning! Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Welcome to the Storeroom

We are all so justifiably fond of this episode for its wonderful staircase scene and undershirt scene that it's easy to forget that it mostly consists of an endless scene of dudes standing around talking and making faces while a woman kills herself for the sake of the plot. So, I'm here to go over it in excruciating detail! Let's go!

We pick up where the last episode left off, with Lan Xichen demanding access to Jin Guangyao's bedroom because he wants head. A head. Nie Mingjue's head. Jin Guangyao isn't as compliant as usual, with all these extra people coming to join the party, and Su She runs up and says that Gusu Lan is rude.

Lan Wangji and Lan Xichen react to him like he's a gross bug, and Wei Wuxian roasts him for copying Lan Wangji all the time.

Jin Guangyao tells him to chill and then, having failed to charm his way out of the situation in the previous episode, says that he'll let everyone in as a favor to Lan Xichen.

Lan Xichen is still not charmed.

Everybody walks through the cool magic mirror into a giant storeroom where his wife is standing with her eyes closed, doing absolutely nothing. Lan Xichen asks what's up with that and Jin Guangyao says she likes to come into the treasure room to look at all their stuff. Which might be convincing if she wasn't obviously magically enthralled.

(More after the cut!)

Everyone casts their eyes around awkwardly because they don't want to know about whatever freaky shit JGY and Qin Su get up to in private. Except Wei Wuxian, who always wants to know about everyone's freaky shit. He goes and takes a long look at her and walks around her in a circle wondering (on voiceover) why JGY didn't kill her or move her somewhere else.

He tries to talk to her, since she seems pretty much dead, which makes her his idea of a fun hang. Su She says that he must have come in here to talk to her. Remember, WWX is pretending to be Mo Xuanyu, and the show is pretending that Mo Xuanyu was heterosexual, and JGY is pretending that MXY got kicked out for sexually harassing Qin Su.

Nobody says "hey dude, what the fuck is wrong with your wife, why is she frozen" which is weird considering that even the corpses in this show are active and chatty. Wei Wuxian goes to look for Nie Mingjue's head in the place it was before. It's not there and he doesn't think to look anywhere else, even though there is another warded curtain on the other side. Fucking ADHD.

What he finds instead is a dagger, which Jin Guangyao takes out and flourishes. He tells us the following things about this dagger:

It used to belong to Wen Ruohan, then he gave it to Wen Qing

It has killed countless people

It's resentful energy is very strong, which is why it needs a talisman curtain in front of it, although waving it around in a room full of people is fine

It's very sharp! This is always funny to me, when sword cultivators hype up the sharpness of a blade. Like, surely someone as rich as Jin Guangyao has a dude on his staff whose entire job is sharpening all the things?

5. When you look at it, you don't see your reflection, but the reflection of someone it has killed. The VFX department clearly didn't get that note, because while he says this, his own reflection is showing on the blade of the dagger.

He doesn't mention whether Wen Qing used this dagger to do surgery on Wei Wuxian, but I'd like to think it is, just for funsies.

Jin Guangyao holds it out in front of him within easy reach of his suddenly-awake wife. Qin Su grabs it and plunges it into the right side of her abdomen, and dies INSTANTLY.

So, I know we're going for stylized death here, and I wouldn't object if she had done the traditional cdrama neck-cut where you spin around in a circle with a sword at your throat and then die with a little fake blood on your neck. It's cool and just the type of ridiculous that I like to see. It also is a trope that is deeply ingrained in both western and eastern cinema: a cut to the neck will kill you instantly.

There's another equally-popular trope, however: a gut injury or gunshot will NOT kill you quickly. There is a reason Samurai committing seppuku need a second person to lop off their head; otherwise they die slowly. How slowly? I tried to look that up and google got very insistent about telling me about suicide hotlines instead of answering my question. Anyway, what I'm saying is that it's ridiculous for her to die instantly from a stomach wound, and it's extra annoying because so many women in this show die just so men can have feelings about it. Ugh.

Nobody tries to help her, other than JGY telling her to wake up and Lan Xichen checking her Qi. Nobody thinks of, like, a bandage. How are any of these idiots still alive after years of sparring with blades? Maybe they really don't sharpen anything.

Everyone stands around reacting silently for the next several minutes while Jin Guangyao frantically asks a bunch of questions he already knows the answers to. Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang run in and also start reacting.

This scene is like watching an acting class called "reaction faces 101."

Su She transferred in via drop/add from the Eyebrow Work seminar.

Lan Wangji is working on an advanced thesis in minimalism

The prof is getting ready to tell Jin Ling he should consider changing majors.

Jiang Cheng out here ruining the curve for the rest of the class.

Lan Xichen gives a quick recap for them of the previous 41 episodes, finishing up by saying that the sword spirit looks like Baxia. Nie Huaisang asks if the body is Da Ge, and promptly "faints" when Lan Xichen confirms it. Lan Xichen goes back to recapping while Jin Guangyao pretends not to know what's up. Everyone in this scene is speeking as slowly as humanly possible and all of the dialogue is just recapping shit we already know.

Su She talks about how it's puzzling that Lan Wangji, who is righteous and stuck-up, is spending all of his time with a notorious ho like Mo Xuanyu.

Jin Guangyao (FINALLY) draws his sword on Wei Wuxian, only to have it blocked by Lan Wangji. Su She starts to draw his sword but Lan Wangji tells him to stop, and he does.

More reaction faces. *Yawn*

Wei Wuxian tells Lan Wangji to step aside, taking the opportunity to feel his shoulder muscle. Su She promptly lunges and Wei Wuxian dodges. All those years months of fighting with a flute instead of a sword made him very good at ducking.

He spins around and grabs the nearest sword, drawing it and fighting Su She with it. Conveniently, the nearest sword is Suibian, which nobody can open except him. He already opened it once in paperman form, so Jin Guangyao probably put it in an easy-to-grab location for this same purpose.

Jin Guangyao hollers that Yiling Laozu has returned to the world. He took a movement class last semester so he switches which is his forward shoulder to emphasise his shock.

Nie Huaisang wakes up and acts like he doesn't know what's going on. Jin Ling doesn't understand why Zidian didn't work, if he's really posessing Mo Xuanyu. Jin Guangyao drops some exposition to explain how the sacrificing curse works. Now everybody is pointing swords at thim, while exposition continues….endlessly. We get it, the sword is sealed. For fuck's sake, we're 16 minutes into this episode and only two things have happened.

Jin Guangyao takes a swing at Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji blocks it, and then WWX blasts them with an annoying-sparkles talisman, which works against 8 armed cultivators, just like it worked against Wen Chao and his gang way back in the old days when they tried to catch Lan Wangji.

Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian run out of the room together, to find a crowd of around 25 cultivators, which is probably meant to represent an army.

Lan Wangji clamps his hand onto Wei Wuxian's wrist and jumps over the cultivators with him, even though we've seen evidence that Wei Wuxian's lightness skills (the jumping-around part of kung fu stunts) are almost as good as Lan Wangji's, core or no core. Admittedly Wei Wuxian can't just fly into a scene from outer space like Lan Wangji seems to do from time to time.

Back in the storeroom Su She asks JGY if they should chase after them - WHY would you even need to ask that? - and JGY says to chase them. So Su She leaves, by himself, while everyone else just stands around doing nothing. Way to act like you didn't already know about Mo Xuanyu being Wei Wuxian, guys.

Jin Guangyao takes an opportunity to masterfully guilt trip Jin Ling about being fooled by Wei Wuxian, "no wonder you took the murderer of your parents as a friend."

The cultivators near the steps finally decide to chase Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, who are halfway down the big staircase. Lan Wangji keeps ahold of Wei Wuxian's wrist as they run down the stairs together.

Why aren't they just jumping down the stairs? Lan Wangji is capable of hovering in the air while playing a guqin in battle; surely he can jump over a second group of cultivators? This isn't a very logical scene but that's ok, because it's setting things up for one of the best scenes in the show....which I'll cover in the next post. *shakes fist at Tumblr's 30-image limit*

#canary3d-original #the untamed #wangxian #cdrama #restless rewatch #ep42 #reaction faces

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canary3d-obsessed · 9 months ago

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Restless Rewatch: The Untamed, Episode 41 part one

(Masterpost) (Pinboard) (whole thing on AO3)

Warning! Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Empathy

We start off with Wei Wuxian, paper edition, flinging himself onto the surprisingly well-preserved face of Nie Mingjue.

Back in their room, Lan Wangji immediately recognizes that Wei Wuxian is doing empathy, even though it's an advanced technique that Lan Wangji hasn't seen him use before, as far as I can recall. Maybe the wind from nowhere that kicks up as soon as the empathy session starts is an indicator he's been trained to recognize.

Lan Wangji: Where's my fan?

Watercooler Gossip

We head into an extended flashback from Nie Mingjue's memories.

Dead-Nie-Mingjue spends a surprising amount of time thinking about how sexy and imposing he used to be, as well as remembering things he wasn't actually there to witness. The whole sequence is presented in usual close-third-person narrative POV. Maybe when we die, we switch to third-person camera view. *shrug*

Nie Mingjue finishes off a couple of Zombies without wiping his sabre, which would make Aslan very unhappy if we were in Narnia.

Then he glares angrily at his crew of cheerful disciples and their unbloodied swords, for reasons that are unclear. He's an angry guy.

(More behind the cut!)

He says to call the dude who was "the last one to stay guard last time." When they say it's Meng Yao he looks shocked. I don't know why he's shocked because I don't know what he actually means by "the last one to stay guard last time." On Netflix this is translated as the dude who "stayed the latest last time," which I guess means that Meng Yao works harder than everyone else? But apparently the result is that he is required to carry water for the rest of the group, so maybe it means he's a slacker? Without seeing the duty roster I can't really tell what the deal is here.

Next we see Meng Yao walking up with a whole bunch of water bottles on a hill above the CDrama River of Questionable Life Choices, where we have previously seen Wei Wuxian, Wen Kexing, A-Qing, and maybe those Lotus Casebook guys.

He approaches the mouth of a (incredibly beautiful) cave, where he can hear people talking shit about him inside.

Instead of going inside and telling them to shut their collective pie hole, he goes and sits by a tree to have lunch by himself. With…all the water? They should have waited to insult him until AFTER the water delivery. Jeez, these guys are dumb.

While he chows down on his bread, he keeps glancing wistfully at the cave where the dudes are, but somehow fails to notice Nie Mingjue walking up to him until he's 2 feet away.

Nie Mingjue asks why Meng Yao isn't in the cave with the others. Meng Yao makes a face at the cave and Nie Mingjue strides over there, eager for an opportunity to be pissed off about something.

They walk into the cave together and the dudes are STILL talking shit about him. I get that gossip is fun, but there are only 3 things to know about Meng Yao. 1. Mom was a sex worker 2. dad is reknowned creep Jin Guangshan 3. got kicked down the stairs at Jinlintai. That's it.

Anyone who enjoys gossip knows that the conversation would have shifted by now, to one of the following topics: 1. who else's mom is a sex worker? Yours, no yours! 2. the further creep adventures of Jin Guangshan 3. every over-long staircase that anyone in the group has ever heard of, and everyone who either climbed up it or fell down it.

Instead, the conversation has stayed resolutely on the topic of Meng Yao, and Nie Mingjue just stands there with him behind a rock wall, listening while his guys lay out all of the embarrasing detail, along with their big opinions.

One guy says that Meng Yao has accepted his fate and has to run and get water for them, but another guy says he hasn't accepted it, that he's diligent & working hard all the time so he can gain fame and get his father to acknowledge him. This is the only guy who has said anything positive about him, and this is the speech Nie Mingjue decides to interrupt, rather than the speech about how many men Meng Yao's mom has fucked. What the hell, Nie Mingjue? Nie Minjue clearly has no interest in saving Meng Yao embarrassment.

Nie Mingjue yells at everyone and tells Meng Yao that the more that these assholes talk shit about him, the more he has to achieve to make sure there's nothing they can say. Which is…pretty decent advice, sadly.

While Nie Mingjue delivers his lecture, Meng Yao mentally counts up how many guys he's going to be murdering later. Then Nie Mingjue pointedly promotes him to be his deputy General. Meng Yao thanks him formally and apparently sincerely.

Before we jump ahead to what happens next, let's talk about how this scene sets up the relationship between Nie Mingjue and Meng Yao. I think it's a super toxic relationship right from the get-go.

When I first watched this scene it played like a leader seeing the value in his subordinate, defending him from his peers, and elevating him as a reward for his hard work. But I think that's not really what we're seeing. Nie Mingjue's focus throughout this encounter is on the rest of his men; specifically on their unvirtuous behavior and his rage about it. He's using Meng Yao to teach them a lesson, and it seems like he elevates him above them not as a reward for himself, but as a punishment for them.

On the flip side, Meng Yao's lunchtime pity party seems a lot less spontaneous to me, now that I've seen so many other Wuxia & Xianxia dramas, than it did when I first fell into this CDrama rabbit hole. His meek, butthurt reaction to people talking shit about him is inappropriate for a cultivator or any fighter in the Jianghu. It's an entire culture based around fighting and responding to challenges. He definitely doesn't lack courage, so I think his meekness in this situation is crafted for its effect on Nie Mingjue.

Cloud Recesses Revisited

Let's have a flashback of our own, so we can compare this meeting with Meng Yao's first meeting with Lan Xichen, back in Episode 4.

When Meng Yao is presented, some Jiang sect douchebags in the back lay out his whole backstory in loud stage whispers. Lan Qiren quickly silences them -- without losing his temper, notably.

Even though he's a grumpy SOB who doesn't normally hesitate to yell at Wei Wuxian students, he does not embarrass Meng Yao by making a big deal of the situation; not even to say Gossip is Forbidden.

Lan Xichen then steps up and, smooth king that he is, drops the piece of gossip HE has heard about Meng Yao: "I've heard that Clan Leader Nie has a helpful assistant." Then he compliments the elegance of his speech, saying that he matches up to his expectations.

Then he strokes his fingers while he praises the gift he's brought. Then he grabs him and kisses him passionately in front of everyone Ahem. Pardon me.

Where Nie Mingjue's reaction to malicious gossip is to listen to every word of it and then make a big show of criticizing the people speaking, Lan Xichen moves to counteract it with praise, subtly shaming the gossipers in a way that genuinely uplifts Meng Yao. And he does it just because he's a nice guy who finds Meng Yao pleasing, not because he requires anything from him. Whereas Nie Mingjue appears to require quite a lot from Meng Yao.

Nie Mingjue's goal seems to be to improve Meng Yao in a fundamental way; to educate him and sort of force him onto the path of virtue. He also wants to use him to force his men onto the path of virtue...a path he himself does not, actually, walk.

Murder Will Out

Next we jump ahead to Meng Yao shanking the guard captain.

I think Nie Mingjue needs to overhaul his hiring practices because this dude is very easy to stab and perhaps should not be in charge of anything relating to combat. Maybe the "block" button on his game controller broke.

Note that Meng Yao picks up a saber to do this - not a Wen sword, but a Nie saber, which might be a props error, since later Nie Mingjue accuses him of deliberately using a Wen sword to disguise his actions.

We've seen these events before, back in episode 10, but the editing adds some things in the current episode, and removes others. Let's look at the differences.

1. Drunk Guard Captain

The night before this fight, there's a banquet and Meng Yao spends most of it making out with guarding Xue Yang. He does this by checking on him a bunch, which doesn't seem like it should be necessary in a fortress with a proper dungeon, but whatevs.

In Episode 10, we see Meng Yao briefly encounter the drunken, hostile guard captain, who shoulder-checks him and calls him son of a [sex worker], but otherwise we don't see any of their conversation.

In Episode 41, Nie Mingjue's head remembers a longer version of the encounter, with bonus vomiting. The captain tells Meng Yao he saw him talking to someone, asks what he's up to, accuses him of lying, and Meng Yao tells the captain's sidekick to put his drunk ass to bed.

This whole scene is HILARIOUS when you consider that this is Nie Mingjue's mental account of events, which means the Captain must have put everything we see in his report to the boss.

"Well, sir, I was incredibly drunk and vomiting in public near the Lan guest quarters when that twink that you like was seen talking to someone, so I roughed him up a bit and insulted his mother before I went to pass out from drunkenness. I hope you will reprimand him for his bad behavior."

That scene, in Episode 41, ends with Meng Yao all alone, straightening and brushing off his clothes and making his "I'm plotting your death" face.

Nie Mingjue sure does remember a lot of stuff he wasn't actually around to see. Maybe he's filling in gaps with everything he's heard during all the times Meng Yao has stood in front of his head-shelf and gloated out loud about stuff.

2. Wens Attack

In episode 10, Wen Chao and Wen Zhuliu bring some guys to attack the Unclean Realm. Meng Yao goes and stabs the guard captain while Nie Mingjue is in a melee 1-on-1 with Wen Zhuliu, which requires all of his focus and spinning.

Nie Mingjue glances to the side in a moment of respite and sees Meng Yao stabbing the guard captain; he promptly forgets about fighting Wen Zhuliu in order to go shout at Meng Yao.

Meng Yao pulls on a tee shirt that says "commmit to the bit" and proceeds to say "it wasn't me" over and over despite having been caught red-handed.

This distraction enables Wen Zhuliu to almost stab Nie Mingjue, but he's saved by Meng Yao throwing himself in the way of the blade. These people should learn to block with something besides their torsos.

In Episode 41, Nie Mingjue's head has forgotten that Wen Zhuliu was ever there, and doesn't focus on the other Wen dudes right in his eye line. He notices Meng Yao acting a tiny bit squirrely and stops fighting in order to go follow him. Like. Stops fighting to defend his fortress, seat of his power, family home, etc., because he doesn't trust his subordinate.

Did I mention the need to overhaul Nie Clan hiring practices? Also some management training wouldn't be out of place.

Nie Mingjue's head also remembers that Meng Yao smirked evilly while doing the stabbing.

It's cool that he had time to notice this and be shocked and appalled rather than, you know, moving quickly to intercept the blow or otherwise help his captain out.

Side note: Meng Yao doesn't wipe his saber when he's done with it. Aslan is sad now.

3. You're Fired

After the battle is resolved, we go to Nie Mingjue's office. In episode 10 we jump in with Meng Yao groveling on the floor while Nie Mingjue yells at him. In Episode 41, we learn that he's on the floor not because he put himself there, but because Nie Mingjue apparently kicked him and his recent chest wound across the room.

In Episode 10, Meng Yao makes it makes it clear that he killed the guard captain on purpose, and gives a pretty good list of reasons for killing him.

you promoted me to vice general, but he always looked down on me

insulting, beating, and humiliating me

taking credit for my achievements

he let Xue Yang go

Meng Yao says that he could tolerate the first two problems, but he 100% will not tolerate #3. It's not about personal pride, for him, it's about ambition.

There's always gonna be another mountain I'm always gonna wanna make it move Always gonna be an uphill battle Sometimes I'm gonna have to lose Ain't about how fast I get there Ain't about what's waiting on the other side It's the climb

The part about Xue Yang is bullshit, of course, but the rest seem like pretty okay reasons for killing the guy. I mean, in the world of the show, where justice is mostly determined by stabbing.

Nie Mingjue doesn't think pride in your own achievements is a good enough reason, and banishes him.

In Episode 41, Nie Mingjue remembers things differently; this time Meng Yao's justification is:

He let Xue Yang go

He wanted to kill me

He insulted my mother

This time, Nie Mingjue feels like it would be ok to kill the captain in a sudden moment of anger, but if that was how it went down, you wouldn't have an evil smirk on your face. Also, why pretend that Xue Yang did it and why use a Wen Sword? [it was clearly a Nie saber, bruh]

Nie Mingjue thinks he's been planning this for a long time, because the guard captain told him that Meng Yao was colluding with Xue Yang. Nie Mingjue has ALMOST figured out what's going on here, but his anger is making him stupid.

Instead of following through to the logical conclusion that Meng Yao is getting up to some shenanigans with Xue Yang, he focuses on his own hurt feelings, suspecting that Meng Yao was manipulating him from the beginning. Which, of course, he was, but Nie Mingjue was using Meng Yao, too. Red flags all around.

He wonders if Meng Yao would have killed the caveful of bullies if Nie Mingjue hadn't come to help him out. Which is ridiculous since Meng Yao was just sitting and having his lunch when NMJ showed up; if he felt like killing those guys it would be pretty simple to poison the water they were making him carry for them.

Nie Mingjue proceeds to banish Meng Yao not precisely for killing a guy without permission, but for having the wrong priorities and values. So he really shouldn't be surprised when Meng Yao goes to work for Wen Ruohan.

Soundtrack: The Climb, Alan Cumming version

#restless rewatch the untamed #restless rewatch #ep41 #the untamed #the untamed gifs #nie mingjue #jin guangyao #red flags all around #if you read the narnia books you probably noticed #that aslan makes a big deal about sword cleaning #he's pretty much fine with children learning to kill #as long as they take proper care of their equipment

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