He also just really wanted someone to ask him why he's doing all this eating – turns out the answer is that people suck #relatable. But eating people is NOT the solution! It hardly ever is, really.
he goes to follow his dear Shen Wei into death in a manner that outdoes blowing oneself up to defeat the supervillain and sacrifices himself to become the wick of the Guardian Lantern. I know people have a lot of different feelings about this, and that's totally fair, but I love it. As a resolution to the narrative. It still stabs me in all the soft parts and makes me want fix-its. With a big caveat that this is all just my perspective: Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan make commensurate noble self-sacrifices. Zhao Yunlan has little interest in surviving without Shen Wei (which he pretty much told Shen Wei in the hospital bomb scene). But more than either of those, Zhao Yunlan's last act is to finish Shen Wei's work. Shen Wei gives his life to protect -- well, everyone, but Zhao Yunlan most directly. He effectively leaves the fate of his people in Zhao Yunlan's hands. Zhao Yunlan vindicates Shen Wei's faith in him by finishing the bloody business of bringing light to Dixing. It's a mic drop on the themes of giving of oneself to protect others, and of different kinds of people being better together, and it's just fucking beautiful. (Now, Dixing's problems are far from completely solved at the end, and the whole "cutting off Dixing from Haixing" thing is widely acknowledged to be dumb and bad, but this specific thing, from a character perspective, is just pure gold IMO.)
Now he's trying to not hide, though Zhao Yunlan probably wouldn't object to hiding his face in Zhao Yunlan's neck and cuddling. P-PLEASE. (I got all my coherence out in the last bit, now for the crying.) PLEASE JUST HUG.
So I kind of hate the "one year later" epilogue, but that might be because the major trio are dead and the show expects me to keep watching for multiple minutes like this is fine and okay more than because of the contents. The Zhu Hong and Li Qian bits are especially satisfying, in isolation.
Given that his age is over nine thousand, moving into his son's body might not even be the weirdest thing he's done. You've committed several word crimes here, but I think the most egregious is bringing back that prehistoric meme.
Hey you -- thank you so much for all the hard work you've put into the rewatchalong! It has been useful and funny and brilliant (and, um, I was reading it before I became Ratbones *blush*). The posts and comments have been a rich vein of meta and ideas all along. I know I'll be referring back often. <3
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#relatable. But eating people is NOT the solution! It hardly ever is, really.
he goes to follow his dear Shen Wei into death in a manner that outdoes blowing oneself up to defeat the supervillain and sacrifices himself to become the wick of the Guardian Lantern.
I know people have a lot of different feelings about this, and that's totally fair, but I love it. As a resolution to the narrative. It still stabs me in all the soft parts and makes me want fix-its. With a big caveat that this is all just my perspective: Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan make commensurate noble self-sacrifices. Zhao Yunlan has little interest in surviving without Shen Wei (which he pretty much told Shen Wei in the hospital bomb scene). But more than either of those, Zhao Yunlan's last act is to finish Shen Wei's work. Shen Wei gives his life to protect -- well, everyone, but Zhao Yunlan most directly. He effectively leaves the fate of his people in Zhao Yunlan's hands. Zhao Yunlan vindicates Shen Wei's faith in him by finishing the bloody business of bringing light to Dixing. It's a mic drop on the themes of giving of oneself to protect others, and of different kinds of people being better together, and it's just fucking beautiful. (Now, Dixing's problems are far from completely solved at the end, and the whole "cutting off Dixing from Haixing" thing is widely acknowledged to be dumb and bad, but this specific thing, from a character perspective, is just pure gold IMO.)
Now he's trying to not hide, though Zhao Yunlan probably wouldn't object to hiding his face in Zhao Yunlan's neck and cuddling.
P-PLEASE. (I got all my coherence out in the last bit, now for the crying.) PLEASE JUST HUG.
So I kind of hate the "one year later" epilogue, but that might be because the major trio are dead and the show expects me to keep watching for multiple minutes like this is fine and okay more than because of the contents. The Zhu Hong and Li Qian bits are especially satisfying, in isolation.
Given that his age is over nine thousand, moving into his son's body might not even be the weirdest thing he's done.
You've committed several word crimes here, but I think the most egregious is bringing back that prehistoric meme.
Hey you -- thank you so much for all the hard work you've put into the rewatchalong! It has been useful and funny and brilliant (and, um, I was reading it before I became Ratbones *blush*). The posts and comments have been a rich vein of meta and ideas all along. I know I'll be referring back often. <3