I finished the Guardian novel yesterday
Sep. 7th, 2019 04:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
potofsoup... I really need to stop reading novel-length fiction during the school year. This is the second week in a row that I spent much of the weekdays neglecting things while I powered through. (And in a week when I was teaching moderation, too! And with a novel that was quite Buddhist in some places!)
Anyways,
- I really liked that author's multiple interpretations of what happened in The Beginning. Good myth-building and myth-reinterpretation. Especially how it's tied in with reincarnation -- that after NvWa created people, it turns out that their lives are short and afterwards their souls are tormented by the Nothingness, so then Sheng Nong creates an Underworld by bringing the demons to life with Kunlun's soul fire, but then it turns out the demons don't have souls so they can't Reincarnate, so they have to seal up the demons and Sheng Nong becomes the cycle of reincarnation instead. But then, by making the deal with Shen Wei, and having Shen Wei keep the deal, Shen Wei, by acting against his basest desires, is able to gain a soul (and by handwaving, give all demons a soul and therefore remove the need for a Great Seal)
- I enjoyed a lot of the humor!
- I really liked the series of interlocking mysteries that carried the story forward. (the ghost mysteries, the items, the Ghost Face, and of course, "what happened 5000 years ago"). It actually kept me guessing, which is rare when I read stories.
- I really liked the 3 small ghost stories that were embedded in the story! I'll write a proper summary of them in a separate post.
- I generally liked the Shen Wei / Zhao Yunlan dynamic I love that Shen Wei is obviously the top once they get started, because his life is all about self control, and every time he loses self control, his demonic side comes out and he basically wants to claim all of Zhao Yunlan for himself and possibly eat him. Of course, this is always after Zhao Yunlan gets him into bed. Seriously, every time they fuck in the book the result is that Zhao Yunlan needs to spend a day recovering. I like the whole "I'm a soulless demon and you're a human with one of your soul lights missing, so if I spend too much time with you, your soul will naturally get sucked out, so I'm going to do what I can to stem that by giving you some heartblood that I drain by stabbing myself in the chest."
.... except for 2 points:
--- Shen Wei being a creep.
So Shen Wei's bedroom is plastered with paintings that he did of Zhao Yunlan over the millenia, and also, he has this habit of gazing at Zhao Yunlan when he's asleep. And Zhao Yunlan *never* calls him a creep for doing that.
And the moment where they actually get together is that Zhao Yunlan is pretending to be drunker than he was, Shen Wei brings him home, and then stares at "sleeping" Zhao Yunlan for a bit. Then, he decides to steal a kiss. And Zhao Yunlan basically "wakes up", rolls Shen Wei onto the bed, and was like "if you're going to steal a kiss, at least kiss better." And then there's Zhao Yunlan revealing that he's actually bought a house for them, and wouldn't Shen Wei please say yes? And I'm like ... um... Zhao Yunlan, you should really call Shen Wei out for kissing you without consent, and Shen Wei, you should really call Zhao Yunlan out for buying a house for you without consent.
But anyway, instead what happens is Shen Wei saying "I'm not a good person, so being with me will just hurt you" (the whole demon soul-sucking thing, except he doesn't actually explain to Zhao Yunlan) and then Zhao Yunlan's like "what, did you wrong me in a past life? if so, I forgive you. Or do you think I can't make decisions for myself? well, I know I love you, and I know this house isn't much for your Lordship, but all I have is that and my heart". And Shen Wei's like "!!!! you said that 5000 years ago!" and was like "yes I will never let go you are stuck with me"
--- Shen Wei being a scheming liar
This is honestly the thing I liked least about the 4th arc, is that so much of it hinged on Shen Wei's layers of plotting. He plotted to keep the origin story from Zhao Yunlan, he plotted the entire mini-climax with the second and third items, and he plotted to get the Ghost Face in trouble with the underworld bureaucracy. Then he decides to take Zhao Yunlan's memory without asking?? It really ruins the story for me to find out that half of the plot and fighting and killing is due to Shen Wei's plotting.
Like, I understand the whole "I want to keep Zhao Yunlan from finding out how he got to enter the cycle of reincarnation as a human and what deal I made with Sheng Nong in order to do so," but I feel like the whole Sheng Nong redirect was too extended. I think it should have been -- Zhao Yunlan gets the false memories in the tree, and then goes "hmmm that doesn't feel right", goes down to the NvWa stele by the Great Seal and gets some more memories, figures out that it's Shen Wei tampering with stuff, confronts him, and then gets the real version. I don't think we needed the whole time loop stuff, and Shen Wei admitting that he wanted Zhao Yunlan to see the heart-stabbing. It just made the entire confrontation seem more manipulated by Shen Wei than it should be. It kind of poisons Shen Wei's motivations for basically the entire book.
Secondly, I agree that it's nice to have a final confrontation with the Ghost Face and have Shen Wei come out on top enough for Ghost Face to use himself to break the Great Seal. But there's no need to have Shen Wei's plotting go all the way back to the second item. The whole thing would have worked just fine to have Shen Wei deciding at that moment to divert the Nothingness up into the River of Forgetting without some deep scheming. And he could have just stolen the first item from Ghost Face while Ghost Face was torturing him on the Underworld Tree. And Ghost Face could have been the one to put trackers on all the monster folk, which actually would make more sense to have that come back and bite him in the butt later.
Basically, if you cut out the time travel bit and half of the Sheng Nong misdirection, and cut out Shen Wei's conversation with Ghost Face and the other one with Zhao Yunlan where he reveals that he planned everything, I would be much happier.
Him deciding to remove Zhao Yunlan's memory is a chump move, but at least Zhao Yunlan gave him shit for it, and it is thematically appropriate (or at least, I'm willing to give him that since he's doing the Big Self-Sacrifice Maneuver, and if he didn't, Zhao Yunlan would have just killed himself.)
Anyway, I have some mental images from the book that I might draw, but if it's already in the tv show, or already drawn by superior Chinese fan artists, then maybe not.
- ice spiked on the tree
- the kiss after delivering the shoulder flame
- the giving of qi by the second item
Anyways,
- I really liked that author's multiple interpretations of what happened in The Beginning. Good myth-building and myth-reinterpretation. Especially how it's tied in with reincarnation -- that after NvWa created people, it turns out that their lives are short and afterwards their souls are tormented by the Nothingness, so then Sheng Nong creates an Underworld by bringing the demons to life with Kunlun's soul fire, but then it turns out the demons don't have souls so they can't Reincarnate, so they have to seal up the demons and Sheng Nong becomes the cycle of reincarnation instead. But then, by making the deal with Shen Wei, and having Shen Wei keep the deal, Shen Wei, by acting against his basest desires, is able to gain a soul (and by handwaving, give all demons a soul and therefore remove the need for a Great Seal)
- I enjoyed a lot of the humor!
- I really liked the series of interlocking mysteries that carried the story forward. (the ghost mysteries, the items, the Ghost Face, and of course, "what happened 5000 years ago"). It actually kept me guessing, which is rare when I read stories.
- I really liked the 3 small ghost stories that were embedded in the story! I'll write a proper summary of them in a separate post.
- I generally liked the Shen Wei / Zhao Yunlan dynamic I love that Shen Wei is obviously the top once they get started, because his life is all about self control, and every time he loses self control, his demonic side comes out and he basically wants to claim all of Zhao Yunlan for himself and possibly eat him. Of course, this is always after Zhao Yunlan gets him into bed. Seriously, every time they fuck in the book the result is that Zhao Yunlan needs to spend a day recovering. I like the whole "I'm a soulless demon and you're a human with one of your soul lights missing, so if I spend too much time with you, your soul will naturally get sucked out, so I'm going to do what I can to stem that by giving you some heartblood that I drain by stabbing myself in the chest."
.... except for 2 points:
--- Shen Wei being a creep.
So Shen Wei's bedroom is plastered with paintings that he did of Zhao Yunlan over the millenia, and also, he has this habit of gazing at Zhao Yunlan when he's asleep. And Zhao Yunlan *never* calls him a creep for doing that.
And the moment where they actually get together is that Zhao Yunlan is pretending to be drunker than he was, Shen Wei brings him home, and then stares at "sleeping" Zhao Yunlan for a bit. Then, he decides to steal a kiss. And Zhao Yunlan basically "wakes up", rolls Shen Wei onto the bed, and was like "if you're going to steal a kiss, at least kiss better." And then there's Zhao Yunlan revealing that he's actually bought a house for them, and wouldn't Shen Wei please say yes? And I'm like ... um... Zhao Yunlan, you should really call Shen Wei out for kissing you without consent, and Shen Wei, you should really call Zhao Yunlan out for buying a house for you without consent.
But anyway, instead what happens is Shen Wei saying "I'm not a good person, so being with me will just hurt you" (the whole demon soul-sucking thing, except he doesn't actually explain to Zhao Yunlan) and then Zhao Yunlan's like "what, did you wrong me in a past life? if so, I forgive you. Or do you think I can't make decisions for myself? well, I know I love you, and I know this house isn't much for your Lordship, but all I have is that and my heart". And Shen Wei's like "!!!! you said that 5000 years ago!" and was like "yes I will never let go you are stuck with me"
--- Shen Wei being a scheming liar
This is honestly the thing I liked least about the 4th arc, is that so much of it hinged on Shen Wei's layers of plotting. He plotted to keep the origin story from Zhao Yunlan, he plotted the entire mini-climax with the second and third items, and he plotted to get the Ghost Face in trouble with the underworld bureaucracy. Then he decides to take Zhao Yunlan's memory without asking?? It really ruins the story for me to find out that half of the plot and fighting and killing is due to Shen Wei's plotting.
Like, I understand the whole "I want to keep Zhao Yunlan from finding out how he got to enter the cycle of reincarnation as a human and what deal I made with Sheng Nong in order to do so," but I feel like the whole Sheng Nong redirect was too extended. I think it should have been -- Zhao Yunlan gets the false memories in the tree, and then goes "hmmm that doesn't feel right", goes down to the NvWa stele by the Great Seal and gets some more memories, figures out that it's Shen Wei tampering with stuff, confronts him, and then gets the real version. I don't think we needed the whole time loop stuff, and Shen Wei admitting that he wanted Zhao Yunlan to see the heart-stabbing. It just made the entire confrontation seem more manipulated by Shen Wei than it should be. It kind of poisons Shen Wei's motivations for basically the entire book.
Secondly, I agree that it's nice to have a final confrontation with the Ghost Face and have Shen Wei come out on top enough for Ghost Face to use himself to break the Great Seal. But there's no need to have Shen Wei's plotting go all the way back to the second item. The whole thing would have worked just fine to have Shen Wei deciding at that moment to divert the Nothingness up into the River of Forgetting without some deep scheming. And he could have just stolen the first item from Ghost Face while Ghost Face was torturing him on the Underworld Tree. And Ghost Face could have been the one to put trackers on all the monster folk, which actually would make more sense to have that come back and bite him in the butt later.
Basically, if you cut out the time travel bit and half of the Sheng Nong misdirection, and cut out Shen Wei's conversation with Ghost Face and the other one with Zhao Yunlan where he reveals that he planned everything, I would be much happier.
Him deciding to remove Zhao Yunlan's memory is a chump move, but at least Zhao Yunlan gave him shit for it, and it is thematically appropriate (or at least, I'm willing to give him that since he's doing the Big Self-Sacrifice Maneuver, and if he didn't, Zhao Yunlan would have just killed himself.)
Anyway, I have some mental images from the book that I might draw, but if it's already in the tv show, or already drawn by superior Chinese fan artists, then maybe not.
- ice spiked on the tree
- the kiss after delivering the shoulder flame
- the giving of qi by the second item
no subject
Date: 2019-09-08 08:34 pm (UTC)But all in all, the plot differences and the fact that the show is entirely missing...well...the entire mythological backstory (thanks, censorship) means that most of those things are just not in play in the drama.
(Okay, no, there is an instance of Shen Wei watching Zhao Yunlan sleep, but I find it about as un-creepy as it's possible for that to be.)
no subject
Date: 2019-09-09 04:51 am (UTC)I really really like the mythology back story, so I'm glad I read the book. I've been reading some random episode summaries on the wiki and it seems like the show is very different? Like, Ghost Face has a completely different role and they really play up the twinsies thing, and the rest of the department have like, their own motives? It just seems so different. For example, in the book, Chu Shuzhi is just a corpse king who willingly took the punishment of 300 years of working for the underworld because he wants his crime to be justified, but he can't help being charmed by Guo Changcheng. And Lin Jing is just a monk who likes selfies and meat. Zhu Hong still has a secret crush on Zhao Yunlan, but in general there isn't a lot of office drama?
Anyway, I was fine with Shen Wei watching Zhao Yunlan sleep in the snow cabin, but Shen Wei's room of Zhao Yunlan candids that were achieved by him teleporting into Zhao Yunlan's room *before they ever met* and just creepily taking pictures is .... a little much for me.
no subject
Date: 2019-09-09 08:21 pm (UTC):/ Blah.
I'm glad I've read what I have of the book, and I'll probably read the rest when the opportunity presents itself, but since the characters are 100% what I'm in it for and I find the drama takes on them (due largely to the actors, as I've almost certainly already said, although there's also the part where drama!Shen Wei isn't doing all of that), I'm much less invested in it.
On principle, I do appreciate how much tighter the actual story is in the book; "tight" and "well-plotted" are not thinks one's likely to hear much about the drama. And yeah, the entire cast of characters is dramatically different; I'm quit fond of the entire SID in the show, though.
(I truly adore Da Qing in the show, but I still can't quite believe someone read the book and went "okay, let's have the cat be in human form for 95% of the show and also be deputy chief of the SID".)
I know so little about Chinese mythology that I didn't really have much sense of how much of what's in the book was rooted in real myths and how much was Priest playing around with them, but it was fascinating. And I think my favorite thing from the book (other than a few very specific characterizations notes that I feel can work with the show's versions) is the whole thing with Kunlun and the young Ghost King, which I found very endearing.
no subject
Date: 2019-09-10 06:35 am (UTC)What? Da Qing isn't a whiny cat for the majority of the story? And isn't some scrawny guy with a ponytail who sashays around when he's a dude?
Actually I was looking through some more episode summaries and wow does it seem completely different. And... they end up separating???? really???????? Instead of the gang moving to a nice quadrangle house down the street from the university?
no subject
Date: 2019-09-10 03:02 pm (UTC)He is not. (The icon in my last comment is his present-day human form, napping on Zhao Yunlan; this icon is how he looked in the past.) I spent quite a lot of my time reading what I've read of the book wondering if he had a human shape at all in the novel, or if that was something the drama made up wholesale, since he was in cat shape for so much of it.
And... they end up separating???? really????????
? I'm not sure which part of the show this might mean? But the show really is just its own thing. (IIRC Shen Wei's the only one who officially moves anywhere in the drama, when he Not At All Suspiciously moves in across the hall from Zhao Yunlan and Da Qing.)
no subject
Date: 2019-09-11 04:17 am (UTC)Ah, I thought I read something about how Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan part ways in the last episode...
Yeah, Da Qing's memory of his human form is locked until reaaaaaallly late, when Shen Wei gets taken down to the under-underworld by Ghostface, and Zhao Yunlan goes after him. It was probably easier for the show to pay a human to play a cat than to pay someone to make a CG cat
no subject
Date: 2019-09-11 02:54 pm (UTC)Oh! Sorry, I misunderstood. Um...yeah, the drama ending sure is A Thing That Happened. There's a lot of fix-it fic, and also lots of "LOL no, that obviously never happened" fic.
The show does some CGI for Da Qing's cat form in the first couple of episodes, and it is terrible. (The actual cat is adorable and I love it.) Fortunately they quickly ditched the CGI effects for him other than the occasional blur of transformation, and after that when he's a cat, he's just a cat (who can talk, but they don't do any horrible CGI to the cat's mouth, thankfully).
no subject
Date: 2019-09-12 06:49 am (UTC)I'm glad that fix-it fics have already happened! I am definitely cruising on the happy feels from the end of the novel. Are there any particular episodes you'd recommend for Prime Character Interaction moments?
no subject
Date: 2019-09-13 04:01 am (UTC)Which episodes...hmm. Episode 8 is one of my early favorites (it's before Zhao Yunlan has pieced together that Shen Wei is the Black-Cloaked Envoy [which, no, does not sound as cool as "Ghost Slayer" *g*]), and the next couple are the ones with Wang Zheng's history/going to the mountains, and there's some good character stuff in there.
(Fun With Censorship: Wang Zheng is not technically a ghost in the show. She's an ENERGY BEING. Clearly that is not the same as a ghost, oh no.)
Ep. 22 has some powerful stuff in it, but I doubt it would stand well on its own... This is hard! ^^; The show's so different in almost all ways that you mostly can't fill in the gaps of previous episodes from having read the book, I don't think.
So while there're lots of wonderful moments and such, I think I'll go with ep. 8 if you want to just grab one and see what you think.
You could also read through