Disappointing Endings: SHL Part 1

Before I talk about why the ending disappointed me, I’m just going to list what I consider the three different “canon” endings.

Drama “sad ending” : Wen Kexing opens the armory and uses the Six Harmonies cultivation to heal Zhou Zishu, but can’t bear it and dies as a result.

Drama “happy ending” : Same as above, but Wen Kexing is successful in cultivating to immortality. They go live half-lives on Changming indefinitely, until they decide to die.

Novel happy ending: The armory is not opened because Wen Kexing destroyed the key a long time ago. Wen Kexing goes to finish his plan during the second Heroes conference, with Zhou Zishu saving Wen Kexing’s life at the end. Wen Kexing never had the stupid idea of faking his death, so afterwards Wuxi can heal Zhou Zishu and they spend the rest of their normal human lives wandering with Chengling.

There are three main issues I have with the drama endings.

The first is that given what we know about Ye Baiyi and Rong Changqing, healing Zhou Zishu that way should not work. I can go into detail on this but I won’t, because this is honestly not as big of a deal as the thematic problems.

What do I mean by thematic problems? Well, the whole point of the fight over the liuli armor is that what everyone wants is fabricated by their greed - the armory is forever inaccessible, the key is destroyed, and no one will ever get there. By having the key still exist, even if the only people who enter are WKX and ZZS, it weakens the idea that greed is ultimately pointless - after all, if Xie-wang, Duan Pengju, or someone else had been strong enough to beat them and known that the hairpin was the key, they could have been the one to enter.

The other main theme of the novel is escape - to quote the last extra:

“Ye Baiyi had wanted to jump out of that curse of being one with the Heavens. Madam Rong had wanted to jump out of the iceland that was Changming. Wen Kexing had wanted to jump out of being an evil spirit and return to the human world. Zhou Zishu had wanted to jump out of Tian Chuang and be free.” (tl credit to chichilations)

So in the drama, Zhou Zishu succeeds in escaping Tianchuang and Wen Kexing succeeds in escaping Ghost Valley, only for them to be trapped in the same hell as Ye Baiyi. They might as well die, reincarnate, and be together in the next life like Gu Xiang and Cao Weining.

The entire point of Ye Baiyi’s subplot is that the Six Harmonies cultivation is not a blessing, but a curse - everyone wants it, but they don’t realize that it’s really not a good thing. The drama even acknowledges this with “If it was such a good thing, how could I not have given it to him?” But in the end, he still gives it to Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu - what was the point of that whole conversation with Long Que then? It’s not like they are somehow different or more deserving than Rong Xuan or anyone else. That they manage to “escape” in the novel is largely out of pure luck, which works because they want to escape not in order to become ~special~ and immortal but in order to live and die normally, to live without the burden of worrying about being "good" or "evil." Them being immortal removes so many layers of complexity from the story of Ye Baiyi and the Six Harmonies method, and doesn’t even add anything to their own story - it just feels empty.

Helian Yi Apologism

I think what really gets me about Helian Yi and why I will throw hands to defend him is that he’s really the same as Jing Beiyuan and Zhou Zishu. Everyone in that mess of a group is the same, not wanting to be there and do those things but having to do them nonetheless. The difference is that the latter two chose to serve the nation, and could pay the necessary price to leave, but for Helian Yi, from the moment he was declared Crown Prince to the day he took the crown as a necessity to stave off invasion, there was no way to escape.

Qi Ye doesn’t have to be read as a story about the loneliness of power, but I think that reading adds a lot to the parallels between Beiyuan and Helian Yi. In the first lifetime, Beiyuan’s unrequited love for Helian Yi blinded him, tied him to a miserable life in court and led to his death. In the seventh life, the tables are turned. Helian Yi falls in love with Beiyuan because Beiyuan is a haven away from politics, and when he lets him go, it’s both because he wants someone to be free, even if he can’t be, and because he can’t afford to love and rule at the same time. Perhaps he even saw that that path would result in him killing Beiyuan.

As for Zishu, his love for Jiuxiao was incompatible with his “ends-justify-the-means” approach to Tianchuang - an approach which I think the text presents as necessary and even correct (by some markers), but results in losing his shidi’s regard and life. But though he suffers, in the end, he still has the “out” offered by the nails, while Helian Yi does not; as the Emperor, there is no punishment he can take or price he can pay, he just has to stay there and do his job.

Disappointing Endings: SHL Part 2

thinking about adaptations and ‘changes I dislike’ vs ‘changes that are bad’ in the context of ep30 and the ending - I used to think that maybe I just wasn’t enough of a romantic for the ending but I’ve changed my mind. it’s just bad, even from a romance-centric viewpoint.

In ep 30, though I, as a HLY apologist, am… upset… at how prince jin is so boringly evil, the way the plotline is executed is good. zzs, his decision to accept capture, his confrontation with the prince, etc are given the time and weight they deserve, and for drama!zzs it’s an excellent culmination of his arc! it’s so narratively satisfying to see him go from the broken man in ep1 to facing down the prince at swordpoint. and then it gets resolved even more excellently when he gets rescued by 19 new disciples of the sect he misses, and wkx finally openly identifies as his shidi (which incidentally is another change that falls into the I-dislike-it-but-it-works category).

But the ending - by which I mean most of the wenzhou related plot in eps 32-36 - is not like that. it could have been good! part of drama!wkx’s arc is realizing that his actions have consequences - consequences like the person he loves DYING bc wkx didn’t trust him enough. but no. all we get is wkx showing up at the end, calling zzs a bastard (as if this is his fault - no apologies, barely any emotion at learning his lover is dying bc of him), and proceeding to lie to him AGAIN. after ep31 there is 0 growth for the central relationship of the drama - it just goes downhill. their relationship post-ep 6 is filled with zzs making the conscious choice not to hide. to show wkx his true face, accept him as a shidi, and wait for wkx to meet him there, but we never get to that point. we get close - ep31 wkx acknowledging him as a sect brother and “marrying” him is progress! but then the progress gets undone and more by the lies that follow, and we never actually see a wkx that fully reciprocates what zzs gives him.

it’s just so unsatisfying to see zzs tear himself apart, literally, and get absolutely nothing in return. his goal at the start of the drama is to be free and live for himself - and in ep30, though he is not physically free, he gets to do that! he makes decisions and they matter! but in 32-36 he doesn’t do anything for himself, or even, really, anything that matters. in the beginning of the drama, we see him trapped in a life he doesn’t want because he trusted someone who lied to him, and the ending is no different. it’s just depressing.

and then we get the silly little extra where they’re happy on their little mountain. if you want an ending that’s predicated on the idea that giving up the world for your soulmate is good, you’d better write a damn compelling romance. but because of all the lies in 32-36, by the time I watched the extra I was no longer convinced that wenzhou were, or should be, in love. the drama ended on the lowest possible point in their relationship and then expected us to believe they’d have a happily ever after? that’s just lazy. and I haven’t even gotten into the rushed bullshit with the ‘secret to a happy nation,’ or how the ending retroactively makes ye baiyi and long que’s arcs empty and pointless.

I guess TLDR adaptational changes are fine, but they need to be carried through in a way that makes sense for the adapted characters - the audience’s vested interest in their CP being happy and together doesn’t mean you don’t still have to make the romance and character arcs compelling.

Zhou Zishu and Social Positionality in Qi Ye

Thinking about how Zhou Zishu is fundamentally different from everyone else in Qi Ye in that he doesn’t have to be there. Helian Yi and Jing Beiyuan are both very explicitly shown to be trapped by their birth and positions, and Yunxing at least is probably similar as a noble. Even Lu Shen is known for his academic prowess and would have to pick sides eventually. And Wuxi of course is an actual hostage who’s explicitly forced into his situation.

ZZS is just a random jianghu guy. Imperial politics are a trap, but unlike the others he chooses to trap himself. If he’d wanted he could have stayed in the jianghu forever - Jiuxiao at least would have been happier for it. but no. He’s too ambitious for that (and his name fits so well - yeah yeah the SHL couplet is cute and all but the name itself is really about the arrogant, ambitious, ruthless young man in Qi Ye).

The worst part is that he isn’t even wrong to be so arrogant. TYK ch37′s  “the mountains and rivers of the nation stood testament to his contributions” (quoting from memory) is right! He achieved what he set out to do! But where did that leave him, as a person and not a tool of the state? To quote TYK quoting Wu Weiye, it’s an empty existence only fulfilled by dying.

So he does “die” at the start of TYK, the same way Beiyuan “dies” at the end of Qi Ye. Both of them get to die, and both of them get to be reborn. The difference is that Beiyuan, at his core, is still a nobleman. This is exactly what Beiyuan realizes at the end of TYK, that though ZZS is no longer Zhou-daren, he himself will always carry Nanning-wang inside him. No amount of wiping the slate clean can change the fact that he was born a prince. ZZS’s “pure state” on the other hand, is the ridiculous gremlin we see in TYK, in a way that is very much informed by his lack of inherited status and jianghu background.

That wild, self-assured jianghu arrogance allowed him to turn himself into a killing knife in the capital ( “a pair of bloody hands upon which rests the nation” if you will), but now that Zhou Zishu, leader of Tianchuang, is dead, it’s that same confidence which brings him to freedom, unconstrained by responsibilities and expectations in a way that Beiyuan and Wuxi can never achieve. He’s able to do so precisely because he’s the same dumbass who, voluntarily and with eyes wide open, sold his soul to put Helian Yi on the throne all those years ago.