intyalote

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.