Focus on Sang Zan: devoted

[sakana17]

"I hear the flowers saying they don't belong to anyone. They belong to everyone."

"Everyone was born with rights."

Sang Zan is devoted to:
* freedom from slavery
* Ge Lan/Wang Zheng
* the SID



In the drama, Sang Zan goes from slave to freedom fighter to Patriarch to despot to prisoner to librarian. Through his story we learn details about the complexity, customs, beliefs, and violence of the Hanga Tribe. Before he leads a slave uprising, the Hanga are ruled by the aristocracy, and the treatment of Sang Zan's family (and, presumably, of slaves in general) is cruel. After Sang Zan becomes Patriarch, the cruelty is directed at those who were the nobility, and Sang Zan's devotion to Ge Lan becomes his downfall, when he won't kill her, shelters her, and even plans to run away with her.

Wang Zheng says Sang Zan changed after her execution. He becomes vicious and calculating, playing his political rivals off of each other and killing them in turn. They are the same men who had Ge Lan executed, and their deaths seem to be Sang Zan's revenge. To punish him, the tribe will burn Ge Lan's place of burial, and it's there that they confront him and tell him they will make him a slave again.



Sang Zan: "All I've ever done in my life was to escape the identity of a slave. I thought I had succeeded. But now I understand, the Hanga Tribe will go extinct sooner or later. No one can save us! This time, it shall be over for all of us!"

When he produces the Mountain-River Awl and activates it, it turns the Hanga into "half-men, half-ghosts" and they are frozen in rock inside the mountain. Sang Zan is imprisoned with the Mountain-River Awl in a pillar of stone and ice that is chained very much like Ye Zun's Sky Pillar is.



One of the character themes of Sang Zan is communication. When he meets Ge Lan as a masked slave, he speaks forthrightly to her and her bodyguard (who, by the way, switches loyalties with apparent ease after the uprising, and then leads the group who want to make Sang Zan a slave again). When Sang Zan removes his mask, he becomes shy. When Ge Lan and Sang Zan are alone together and happy, he's quiet with her. But then he boldly leads the slave uprising (wearing his mask) and doesn't hesitate to execute a noble (Ge Lan's brother?). As the Patriarch he's confident, becoming arrogant.

After being imprisoned in the pillar for a hundred years, he has difficulty speaking and needs many things explained to him. Wang Zheng has to teach him to write.



Sang Zan's troubled past is disturbing, but once he joins the SID he's loyal, thankful, and resourceful. (It's one of his traps that causes Tan Xiao to let go of the Mountain-River Awl, to soar into Zhao Yunlan's hand.) Zhao Xinci/Zhang Shi calls him a young person "with a calm heart." Sang Zan and Wang Zheng are devoted to each other, rarely leaving each other's side, and it's shortly before their tragic but noble sacrifice that Sang Zan finally speaks clearly to her: "As long as I'm with you, whether living or dead, it's all good."

* What changes for him when he removes his slave mask for Ge Lan? He tells her nothing will change, but he accepts the flowers she gives him and her friendship, and then her love. Does he see this as an opportunity to get close to the Patriarch and plot the uprising/exact his revenge?

* Ideas/thoughts for how Sang Zan got the Mountain-River Awl? He says it's "the treasure I got unexpectedly...they told me this is a holy tool." Who are "they?"

* Did wearing the Mountain-River Awl change his personality after Ge Lan's death? We are told repeatedly that prolonged exposure to the Holy Tools corrupts humans.

* Was he literate in the past? When he orders a rival's death as Patriarch, he holds up a written slip, but it's clear he'd already decided the man's fate. However, he can read as the SID's librarian, because although Zhao Yunlan questions Sang Zan's comprehension when he asks for everything the library has about the Holy Tools, Sang Zan delivers exactly that.

* What is Sang Zan's character like in the novel?



Fic:
with their hearts open wide by teaotter
Author's summary: Ah, young love!
My summary: Charming, brief, slice-of-life story about two couples in SID.

What's your favorite color? by weilongfu
My summary: A sweet, short fic with a WeiLan focus about Sang Zan learning to communicate and understand. (It's labeled 'chapter 10' because it's part of a series of drabbles and short fics the author posted as one multichaptered work.)

Icons:
by naye
by enviropony
by tinny
by tassosss
More at this post

So-- what are your thoughts about Sang Zan? Do you have recs or links for fic, meta, picspams, and other fanworks that focus on Sang Zan? Feel free to rec your own Sang Zan fanworks!

Come talk about Sang Zan!