Thoughts on the end

[clevermanka]

It was suggested that I link a post about my thoughts on the ending, so...I'm also pasting the relevant section here in case people don't want to see a couple personal life updates that are in the linked post. I hadn't thought about it being something I should maybe highlight for general fandom discussion--whoops!

I like the ending. It hurts, oh how it hurts, but it's so beautifully constructed from at least episode three that I can't be mad at it. Current western media has a noticeable lack of well-constructed tragedies and this is such a gorgeous one that I can't hate it. No plot twists, no gotcha moments, just a slow build to a Pyrrhic victory that the show producers left justttttt open enough for plausible fix-its. ranalore posted about the last several episdoes a couple days ago, and just yes. All that. The way our beloved heroes hit the ground running after Zhao Yunlan gets back from the past and things just. don't. slow. down until they ... well, stop. And while I probably wouldn't have complained about a canon happy ending for the drama, I feel like, the way it was presented from the early episodes, it wouldn't have been as...idk, powerful? Guo Changcheng sorta being hinted as the lantern wick was a great red herring and made ZYL's sacrifice more believable because of course ZYL would throw himself on that grenade before letting anyone else do it.

And yes, the Bury Your Gays chafes, but the fact that they presented the ending the way they did, considering the Chinese Tragic Romance Tradition, lends a bit of weight to the fact that this is an Actual Romantic Love Story.

Also, I am an emotional sadomasochist.

Comments

[bonibaru]

I mean, we all bring the sum total of our own experiences (dare I call it emotional baggage? can I say that and have it not automatically read in a negative sense?) to our interpretation of any story with an outcome, be it a work of fiction/non fiction - even a news story or a science article. One person reads about a new technology and thinks "wow we have come so far this is groundbreaking" and another thinks "oh god oh god we're all going to die when the robots take over". Reading the exchange here makes the scientist in me wonder what trobadora and I are bringing with us that have us spinning the ending in a whole different light vs what naye is bringing to the table. Not putting a value judgment on anyone's interpretation being right vs wrong, just exceedingly curious now about our personal histories that shaped us into the lantern-is-half-full vs the lantern-is-half-empty views on the ending :D

I am so invested in the characters that I completely forget that at the end, Dixing is separated from Haixing - but I think about it more as an oppressed population (the Dixingren, so oppressed that they're kept hidden, and regulated, and hunted when they come to the surface) achieving independence and freedom through having the lantern as their power source giving them new opportunities and making their life in Dixing better so they stop trying to escape to Haixing where apparently all the good stuff is. But it is thought-provoking to wonder why the show chose a neat and tidy separation rather than showing the beginning of ..... what probably would have been a long and painful integration now that I think of it, merging two disparate cultures together with no small amount of bitterness still lingering on one or both sides, so perhaps it's telling that "you stay in your lane and we'll stay in ours and we can all be independent and happy with our own kind" is actually a completely different take I did not really examine closely until just now writing this comment out.

[clevermanka]

One person reads about a new technology and thinks "wow we have come so far this is groundbreaking" and another thinks "oh god oh god we're all going to die when the robots take over".
And some of us are both of these people at the same time. =D

[trobadora]

Yeah, I don't know where it's coming from, but it's very interesting!

but I think about it more as an oppressed population (the Dixingren, so oppressed that they're kept hidden, and regulated, and hunted when they come to the surface) achieving independence and freedom through having the lantern as their power source giving them new opportunities and making their life in Dixing better so they stop trying to escape to Haixing where apparently all the good stuff is

Yes! All of that! And I don't forget about the Dixing/Haixing separation even so, and it does bug me, but not as much as it should because I'm so incapable of seing it as anything other than temporary. Just like with Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan, OF COURSE it doesn't stay that way. (And there's not really anything to go on for that feeling, unlike with Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan ... but the epiphany I had above in the comments about looking at the Dixing/Haixing thing as symbolic for Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan probably explains why I feel that way.)

[china_shop]

the lantern-is-half-full vs the lantern-is-half-empty views on the ending :D

Ahahahaha, I love that so much I had to icon it. I hope you don't mind! <333

I made two:

[bonibaru]

OMG MAY I HAVE ONE

[china_shop]

BY ALL MEANS HELP YOURSELF! :D :D :D

[umadoshi]

*also snags icons*

[china_shop]

Hee! \o/ :D :D :D