#which of course. yibos there duh

[piosplayhouse]

Editing after I read some of the notes but just to add to the co-op meta library a bit I do think the de-emphasis on wangxian's relationship in the books is, if not purposeful, a natural consequence of mxtx's conceptualization of writing. In a 2016 interview she talked a bit about why she didn't write mdzs from lwj's perspective, with the hosts asking her a few questions about what lwj's thought process is throughout the story and she's kind of just like. Idk he's too mysterious even for me. Figure it out yourself it's just the writer's job to narrate it's the readers job to interpret (LMFAO).

In a 2018 interview about whether she'd write another side couple, she mentions how even though people shipping side couples is totally fine (misinformation that she's completely against side ships still goes strong today unfortunately but this is her official statement), she thinks analyzing every character's relationships purely on a level of whether or not they felt romantic feelings towards someone "distorts" the nuances in character relationships by coloring them with a sort of ship or no ship binary opinion; she puts a lot of effort into complex and realistic character dynamics and in some ways I imagine fans trying to constrict those into binaries for shipping reasons must be pretty frustrating.

While this is mostly directed towards side ships/character analysis, I think the nuances in wangxians' non/pre-romantic interactions contribute a lot to their characters that falls to the wayside when, a la cql, "friendship" becomes a necessary substitute for "romance", so the "friendship" between the two characters has to take a big role from the very beginning as it becomes a conglomerate of a variety of complicated nuances that aren't able to come across quite as well in the format of an episodic TV show rather than a novel epic.

Back when I was watching cql but hadn't touched mdzs someone--(was this you @rhinefall?) said the show had really overemphasized the pseudo-familial, fraternal elements of the story, at the expense of wangxian.

(Which I found deeply off-putting ngl because it makes it sound like the show made up a lot of the meaty content there, which it did not. Its major invention in that area is jiang cheng's crush on wen qing.)

And it's like. Looking over them both. I can see where that statement is coming from, in that The Untamed frontloaded jiang cheng, gave jiang yanli extra appearances, and generally expanded the ratio of page/screen time for the backstory in order to let that carry more of the obvious narrative arc. Since the romance arc could not play out as in the novel, due to censorship.

But being able to compare them now, I honestly feel like what cql actually wound up exaggerating most was...wei wuxian's relationship with lan wangji???

Because. They had to take the romance out. But they also had to make them love each other or there's no point. Which means wangxian had to be friends.

Which in turn means that in the live action version teenage and young adult Wei Wuxian consistently pays attention to, focuses on, confides in, and routinely interacts with Lan Wangji very much on purpose, as part of a relationship he values, considers strong, and is making an effort to maintain.

None of which is true, in the novel.