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ratbonesSo I've been rewatching Guardian because of course. (Actually, because I've been feeling a bit lost and stressed, and I'm overdue for a review of canon if I'm going to keep writing fic.) A few days ago I watched episode 3 and, with the help of cyberbrain, pieced together some thoughts more cohesively than I had before, so here are those.
For the first three episodes, Shen Wei has no idea what to make of Zhao Yunlan. He resembles Kunlun in a lot of ways but seems like a stranger in others, and also he's Zhao Xinci's successor/son, which...there's no way Kunlun is that person, right? Zhao Yunlan's suspicions against him don't help. Shen Wei is well aware he's being investigated, and even if he is sort of enjoying the attention in a perverse way, it's not how Kunlun would treat him.
He's also not chosen to tell Zhao Yunlan that he's the Black-Cloaked Envoy, which I think was a choice he could've freely made. Zhao Xinci knew, and based on later events I assume there's no rule that the current SID chief shouldn't know.
But Zhao Yunlan doesn't seem to like the Envoy much and dodges Shen Wei's prompting regarding the humanity of Dixingren, choosing to file it under "Shen Wei is sus" rather than actually converse about it. And aside from Shen Wei just not wanting to be disliked, he's also got concerns. This Kunlun lookalike appeared at the same time as the Longevity Dial and a handful of Dixing criminals. As much as Zhao Yunlan is rightfully suspicious of Shen Wei, Shen Wei is rightfully suspicious of him, too. This is a cluster of strange events, and seems targeted at him. I don't think he believes he's dealing with the real Kunlun, at least not fully, or at least he's trying not to believe it. Even if Zhao Yunlan sneezing on his fish tank and then stealing his cake does seem very in-character for Kunlun. (Never mind his quick intellect and his cleverness with words and the way he ~gazes~ at Shen Wei.)
Then at the end of episode 3, two things happen that seem to shift Shen Wei's stance. First, Zhao Yunlan rushes to rescue Shen Wei from Wang Yike. Shen Wei doesn't need a whole lot of rescuing, but Zhao Yunlan doesn't know that, and when he gets to him, he's very worried. There's a gentle arm around Shen Wei, he asks if he's okay, he makes big worried eyes at him. It's genuine concern, protectiveness even.
Zhao Yunlan is not feeling up Shen Wei's shoulder muscles. Zhao Yunlan is simply worried.
Second, and promptly interrupting their cute moment, Wang Yike accidentally saps Zhang Ruonan's life force to a deadly degree, and Zhao Yunlan is not having it. He's desperate to save Zhang Ruonan's life, and keeps barking orders that everyone but him seems to believe are useless. He's moved to tears by her apparent last moments with Wang Yike. He's not even thinking about arresting Wang Yike; he only cares about protecting the people in front of him. And the person he's trying to save is Haixingren, true, but Wang Yike's emotions are affecting him here, too. It's not just "we shouldn't let an innocent person die," it's "they love each other and this is too tragic for me to watch."
Zhao Yunlan is having an emotion. Lin Jing and Chu Shuzhi don't really want to be here.
Shen Wei's duty doesn't require him to intervene here. If he's trying to play human, he probably shouldn't. But he looks at Zhao Yunlan and then decides to save Zhang Ruonan.
Shen Wei noticing Zhao Yunlan's distress before he heals Zhang Ruonan...also noticing that Zhao Yunlan has conveniently turned his back.
I think Zhao Yunlan made a damn good case for himself here. It's the compassion, and the really intense emotions about other people's suffering, that change Shen Wei's mind. He sees Kunlun in Zhao Yunlan clearly for the first time, and I think he decides to act as Kunlun would want him to.
Shen Wei is pretty convinced of who he's dealing with after this. I believe he's long since figured out that Kunlun was a time-traveler, and the time loop is only a small logical leap when you've gotten that far, so he may have even guessed how this is Kunlun. At the end of the episode, Shen Wei is making calls about moving house, so it seems he's decided to protect/stalk Zhao Yunlan from a shorter distance. We see him touching his pendant through his shirt for the first time, too, unless I missed something.
Of course, episode 4, which I also just watched, is an absolute emotional rollercoaster for Shen Wei, with Zhao Yunlan seeming to pingpong rapidly between suspicion and trust, and showing a lot more concern for Shen Wei's well-being ("Don't you know you could get TETANUS?"). But I think Shen Wei has been set on the path towards trusting Zhao Yunlan...while sort of half-heartedly pretending to be human around him, because he's being targeted by Zhu Jiu all day long, and because Zhao Yunlan isn't a huge fan of the Envoy, and also because he already committed to it and now he's stuck.
Rewatching this show from Shen Wei's perspective is a wild time (and really impressive.) Also I'm not all that good at gathering my thoughts for meta and I've been known to update my perspective, so I stand by none of what I just said.
Bonus thought:cyberbrain and I were talking about the tragic lesbians and questioning why Zhang Ruonan lives for a couple minutes without intervention after being subjected to Wang Yike's power, and we kind of came around to the thought that Wang Yike's power drains away vitality/time from the victim, but doesn't directly kill them. Or something like that. Anyway, I'm forced to conclude that some of those rapists she killed might not have died instantly but had a few minutes to languish with the knowledge that they'd been punished for what they did, and I can't bring myself to feel too bad about it. (This is not true of the last victim, who we see dead right after Wang Yike attacks him.)
Bonus bonus thought: Why does Shen Wei let Wang Yike go? Does he let her go, or does he just let her out temporarily to visit Zhang Ruonan? These early cases are written to mirror certain elements of the SW/ZYL relationship, and in this one, Wang Yike is Shen Wei's foil: Zhang Ruonan is the first person to see her power and not fear her, and possibly the first person in Dragon City to be nice to her at all, and in return, Wang Yike is intensely loyal and will do anything in her power to protect Zhang Ruonan. I think Shen Wei sees the parallel and feels a kinship, but is he kind to her because of that, or because he's trying to live up to Kunlun's standards of mercy, or is sneaking law-bending kindnesses within the Black-Cloaked Envoy's nature all along? I guess probably all three, a bit, but let me know your thoughts.
cyberbrain, pieced together some thoughts more cohesively than I had before, so here are those.For the first three episodes, Shen Wei has no idea what to make of Zhao Yunlan. He resembles Kunlun in a lot of ways but seems like a stranger in others, and also he's Zhao Xinci's successor/son, which...there's no way Kunlun is that person, right? Zhao Yunlan's suspicions against him don't help. Shen Wei is well aware he's being investigated, and even if he is sort of enjoying the attention in a perverse way, it's not how Kunlun would treat him.
He's also not chosen to tell Zhao Yunlan that he's the Black-Cloaked Envoy, which I think was a choice he could've freely made. Zhao Xinci knew, and based on later events I assume there's no rule that the current SID chief shouldn't know.
But Zhao Yunlan doesn't seem to like the Envoy much and dodges Shen Wei's prompting regarding the humanity of Dixingren, choosing to file it under "Shen Wei is sus" rather than actually converse about it. And aside from Shen Wei just not wanting to be disliked, he's also got concerns. This Kunlun lookalike appeared at the same time as the Longevity Dial and a handful of Dixing criminals. As much as Zhao Yunlan is rightfully suspicious of Shen Wei, Shen Wei is rightfully suspicious of him, too. This is a cluster of strange events, and seems targeted at him. I don't think he believes he's dealing with the real Kunlun, at least not fully, or at least he's trying not to believe it. Even if Zhao Yunlan sneezing on his fish tank and then stealing his cake does seem very in-character for Kunlun. (Never mind his quick intellect and his cleverness with words and the way he ~gazes~ at Shen Wei.)
Then at the end of episode 3, two things happen that seem to shift Shen Wei's stance. First, Zhao Yunlan rushes to rescue Shen Wei from Wang Yike. Shen Wei doesn't need a whole lot of rescuing, but Zhao Yunlan doesn't know that, and when he gets to him, he's very worried. There's a gentle arm around Shen Wei, he asks if he's okay, he makes big worried eyes at him. It's genuine concern, protectiveness even.
Zhao Yunlan is not feeling up Shen Wei's shoulder muscles. Zhao Yunlan is simply worried.
Second, and promptly interrupting their cute moment, Wang Yike accidentally saps Zhang Ruonan's life force to a deadly degree, and Zhao Yunlan is not having it. He's desperate to save Zhang Ruonan's life, and keeps barking orders that everyone but him seems to believe are useless. He's moved to tears by her apparent last moments with Wang Yike. He's not even thinking about arresting Wang Yike; he only cares about protecting the people in front of him. And the person he's trying to save is Haixingren, true, but Wang Yike's emotions are affecting him here, too. It's not just "we shouldn't let an innocent person die," it's "they love each other and this is too tragic for me to watch."
Zhao Yunlan is having an emotion. Lin Jing and Chu Shuzhi don't really want to be here.
Shen Wei's duty doesn't require him to intervene here. If he's trying to play human, he probably shouldn't. But he looks at Zhao Yunlan and then decides to save Zhang Ruonan.
Shen Wei noticing Zhao Yunlan's distress before he heals Zhang Ruonan...also noticing that Zhao Yunlan has conveniently turned his back.
I think Zhao Yunlan made a damn good case for himself here. It's the compassion, and the really intense emotions about other people's suffering, that change Shen Wei's mind. He sees Kunlun in Zhao Yunlan clearly for the first time, and I think he decides to act as Kunlun would want him to.
Shen Wei is pretty convinced of who he's dealing with after this. I believe he's long since figured out that Kunlun was a time-traveler, and the time loop is only a small logical leap when you've gotten that far, so he may have even guessed how this is Kunlun. At the end of the episode, Shen Wei is making calls about moving house, so it seems he's decided to protect/stalk Zhao Yunlan from a shorter distance. We see him touching his pendant through his shirt for the first time, too, unless I missed something.
Of course, episode 4, which I also just watched, is an absolute emotional rollercoaster for Shen Wei, with Zhao Yunlan seeming to pingpong rapidly between suspicion and trust, and showing a lot more concern for Shen Wei's well-being ("Don't you know you could get TETANUS?"). But I think Shen Wei has been set on the path towards trusting Zhao Yunlan...while sort of half-heartedly pretending to be human around him, because he's being targeted by Zhu Jiu all day long, and because Zhao Yunlan isn't a huge fan of the Envoy, and also because he already committed to it and now he's stuck.
Rewatching this show from Shen Wei's perspective is a wild time (and really impressive.) Also I'm not all that good at gathering my thoughts for meta and I've been known to update my perspective, so I stand by none of what I just said.
Bonus thought:
cyberbrain and I were talking about the tragic lesbians and questioning why Zhang Ruonan lives for a couple minutes without intervention after being subjected to Wang Yike's power, and we kind of came around to the thought that Wang Yike's power drains away vitality/time from the victim, but doesn't directly kill them. Or something like that. Anyway, I'm forced to conclude that some of those rapists she killed might not have died instantly but had a few minutes to languish with the knowledge that they'd been punished for what they did, and I can't bring myself to feel too bad about it. (This is not true of the last victim, who we see dead right after Wang Yike attacks him.)Bonus bonus thought: Why does Shen Wei let Wang Yike go? Does he let her go, or does he just let her out temporarily to visit Zhang Ruonan? These early cases are written to mirror certain elements of the SW/ZYL relationship, and in this one, Wang Yike is Shen Wei's foil: Zhang Ruonan is the first person to see her power and not fear her, and possibly the first person in Dragon City to be nice to her at all, and in return, Wang Yike is intensely loyal and will do anything in her power to protect Zhang Ruonan. I think Shen Wei sees the parallel and feels a kinship, but is he kind to her because of that, or because he's trying to live up to Kunlun's standards of mercy, or is sneaking law-bending kindnesses within the Black-Cloaked Envoy's nature all along? I guess probably all three, a bit, but let me know your thoughts.
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Date: 2021-07-09 09:05 pm (UTC)I'm pretty focused on getting a clear handle of what's going on in Shen Wei's funny lil brain this time around! Glad the post was a fun read. As for stalling out...I'll have to drag myself through those episodes in the late 20s/early 30s where Shen Wei is chained to the Sky Pillar at some point in the future, sigh.
Yeah, that's true. Bb!SW is already pretty harsh on people he sees as wrongdoers, but I think he never meant for the treaty to seal all Dixingren underground and he's not really enthusiastic about enforcing that when he himself doesn't have to obey it. I'm not sure that would usually apply to Wang Yike, who did actually murder three Haixingren (far from innocent people, though). But you bring up an interesting point - yeah, he really does seem to be working independent of the SID, probably having had irreconcilable differences with Zhao Xinci, which suggests he'd rather enforce his own form of justice than have to obey the official rules.