Focus on Ye Zun: The world is terrible, better destroy it

[extrapenguin]

Ye Zun! Shen Wei's identical twin brother, raised by the villainous bandits, screwed up in many ways by his upbringing and then tossed into a pillar to marinate in his hatred for 10 000 years. Then he decided that since the world had hurt him and sucked so bad, he had to destroy everything about it he didn't like, i.e. absolutely everything. He did backpedal fast when he realized he'd been wrong about his brother, though. Too bad that only happened posthumously.





More pics at linked picspam.

Discussion starters:
1. Do you think Ye Zun could've been turned around at any point before the end? He folded easily enough once Shen Wei told him the truth, but would getting through to him require dying?

2. What sort of upbringing do you think he had? We know the Rebel Leader mind controlled him as an adult, but did he get mind controlled as a child as well, and how would that affect neurological development? What use would the Rebel Leader have had for a powerless child, anyway? Why was Ye Zun always clad in white and significantly cleaner than the rest of the rebels?

3. Who do you think Ye Zun is, under all that vengeance and desire to inflict the pain he's suffered onto others? If he and Shen Wei reconciled, what would he be like?

4. Locking Ye Zun in a pillar for 10 000 years was far from the best way of dealing with the situation. Why do you think the Hallows did that?

5. Relatedly, what do you think would have been the best way of ensuring Ye Zun couldn't be an existential threat to the world or its people?



Fic recs

Voice of the Heart, by Wei This is an intriguing fic about Zhu Jiu getting to know Ye Zun, through games of weiqi, and Ye Zun gradually placing more and more trust in Zhu Jiu. It's an aspect of canon we don't often see in fic, and this one blew me away.

Brand New Start, by maggie33. I found this AU where Zhao Yunlan falls on top of baby Ye Zun instead of baby Shen Wei for the time travel interlude to have nice Ye Zun characterization, and I enjoyed Ye Zun and Zhao Yunlan getting a measure of each other.

Adaptation, by draconicsockpuppet This is a time loop fix-it, and I really enjoyed what it did with the time loop, as well as Ye Zun's reformation and the dynamics between the three of them.

Where I can bear to live, by china_shop. Time travel Peggy Sue with Ye Zun confronting his past self! It inspires some thought on whether Ye Zun could've let go of his hatred and at which point.


So - come and talk about Ye Zun! Share links to Ye Zun -centric meta, picspams, and fanworks, new or old! Self-recs whole-heartedly encouraged. Basically, this is the place for anything you want to say or link to about Ye Zun.

Important: If you're commenting with meta/discussion/thoughts, please say whether you're coming from a novel perspective, a drama perspective, or a blend of the two, so we don't end up talking past each other. Thanks!

Comments

[fandoestrans]

i'd just like to rec this amazing fanvid by Rina, it's very much new and freshly cooked up last night!! I think this video is pretty awesome and deserves more love and appreciation~

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dKkncuOUW0&feature=emb_logo

[extrapenguin]

Ooohhh oh wow, yeah, it's very cool! Thank you for the rec.

[trobadora]

Oh wow, that is gorgeous! Thank you for the rec!

[maggie33]

This is amazing. I love it very much. I'm glad you linked it here.

[china_shop]

Oh wow! That's so good!

[phyrry]

Drama-only perspective here.

So I was not, shall we say, a Ye Zun fan, and then I watched episode 40. What struck me was how quickly he about-faced once Shen Wei showed him what really happened back on the cliff with the bandit leader. He went immediately from, "You abandoned me, die," to "... you didn't abandon me, I'm so happy," in the space of half a minute. There was no recalcitrance, no hanging onto old grudges. Rewatching confirmed it for me - Ye Zun wanted to reconcile beneath all that rage at the betrayal of trust. He wanted his brother not to have abandoned him. And when it turned out that Shen Wei hadn't, he grabbed on like a lifeline.

It sucks that they had to die to get there, though.

After that, I got cranky that Shen Wei spent all his time lecturing the pillar instead of, you know, having an actual talk with his brother. These days I see Ye Zun as a sulky, emo teenager with poor conflict resolution skills (obviously picked up from the bandit with bloody hands who raised him), who needs to be stopped but can easily be rehabilitated before he reaches the point of no return. "Cool motive, still murder," yes, but ... the whole mess could have been avoided with decent communication skills and maybe some family therapy.

[extrapenguin]

Your Ye Zun appreciation journey is mine! Ye Zun was a ball of rage and issues (see: all his remarks about eating the Hallows finally erasing his shame), but he just wanted to reconcile and have someone care for him. I wish they could've gotten there sooner, too. I also wonder what it would've been like if Shen Wei had apologized for leaving Ye Zun (because he did leave Ye Zun when the empillaration happened, in a way) and Ye Zun would've misinterpreted it as being about the cliffside abandonment. Mostly I just want to see everyone okay and maybe a hug or three.

"Cool motive, still murder," yes, but ... the whole mess could have been avoided with decent communication skills and maybe some family therapy.
Yeah. They both have their communication-related issues, especially Ye Zun, but couldn't Shen Wei have just ... asked, at some point, instead of lectured, before it all went to shit? If nothing else, Ye Zun's cranky rejoinder migth've been illuminating.

[phyrry]

Oh, and let's see - I answered #1 and #3, and I'll skip #2 for personal reasons, but:

#4) The Hallows are evil and hate all life.
#5) TALK TO EACH OTHER FFS.

[trobadora]

I love Ye Zun, and I'm really glad he and Shen Wei got to reconcile in the end. But honestly, I don't think Ye Zun was capable of believing the truth until he had hit rock bottom. Until he had lost, completely, and knew it.

How to achieve that without killing him ... I honestly don't know.

[extrapenguin]

Given his eagerness to reconcile and utter lack of doubt when Shen Wei told him the truth, I think it would have been possible – but not when he was in his endgame of believing he'd win, or tying Shen Wei to pillars. Some canon divergence would be necessary, but not killing him, I think.

[china_shop]

But honestly, I don't think Ye Zun was capable of believing the truth until he had hit rock bottom. Until he had lost, completely, and knew it.

+1

I think his revenge thirst was his lifeline, his only reason for keeping going, and he had zero interest in undercutting it. What changed at the end was not just learning the truth, but nearly destroying the world and receiving Shen Wei's forgiveness despite that. I think it was that forgiveness that made him able to believe the truth, when before he'd had little capacity for trust (how would he have learned to?).

And I mean, IMO, Ye Zun and Shen Wei were kind of locked in a stalemate, in that Shen Wei couldn't forgive Ye Zun¹ until Ye Zun showed some remorse, and Ye Zun couldn't show remorse until he found a way to stop hating.

So to me, it seems like something really big had to happen to break that stalemate: Ye Zun eating Shen Wei, Shen Wei giving his life to stop him -- epic stakes, huge cost, the world hanging in the balance, and devastating failure so there's nothing left to be gained by hating. And then redemption.

¹ For leading the rebels that had killed so many men, for trying to kill him and Da Qing and Kunlun, maybe irrationally for the Hallows taking Kunlun away; and later for his threats and crimes in the present day, particularly against Zhao Yunlan and the SID.

[laireshi]

I like Ye Zun. I also appreciate that we got to see him cry, for purely aesthetic reasons.

Shen Wei had asked him before why he hated him so much--so I assume Ye Zun had never answered that, not before there really was nothing else for him to lose, nothing to do but tell the truth when they were both already dead and his anger spent. I'm glad they reconciled--I'm sad that came so late.

[extrapenguin]

I like Ye Zun. I also appreciate that we got to see him cry, for purely aesthetic reasons.
Ha, samesies!

Shen Wei did ask Ye Zun why he hated him so much, but given the context (during a fraternal bondage session), it's up to interpretation whether Shen Wei ever asked that before, or whether he only asked that one time, when Ye Zun was really showing the depths of his hatred. I really wish they could've reconciled earlier, with less dying.

[enviropony]

I LOVE Ye Zun, partly because I love his particular type of dramatic, tortured villain. I do blame Shen Wei for not communicating with him more thoroughly, but like others above, I'm also not convinced that he would have turned a corner unless he had absolutely nothing else going for him. So either before he gained power, or after his death, he needed something to hang on to and the truth was the best thing he could have heard, but in the middle of his rise to power... I think, as Shen Wei said, he was addicted to consuming (people, power, whatever) and he wouldn't have believed it... at least, not soon enough to make a difference.

Now, do I want him to believe it right away? Hell yes! I love this guy and I want him to be happy (and I want Shen Wei to get his little brother back). So I'll believe any happy-ending version of events that anyone gives me, even though my own headcanon is that it's not as easy as just talking it out.

CW for sexual abuse/noncon: I'm also of the belief that the Rebel Leader kept him as a pet, possibly for more nefarious purposes than canon was ever going to be able to show. I do think Ye Zun was sexually abused, or would have been in a fully realized telling of the story. My headcanon of him doesn't really have an option for "not sexually abused," even if it was (at minimum) more on an emotional level than a purely physical one (i.e. he saw people having sex as a child, he saw people raped, he was touched inappropriately). I do think the Rebel Leader used him, and that's why he's so much cleaner looking than the rest of the rebels. The leader wants nice things, so his pet/slave is gonna be kept nice and neat, no matter how badly abused he actually is.

[extrapenguin]

So either before he gained power, or after his death, he needed something to hang on to and the truth was the best thing he could have heard, but in the middle of his rise to power... I think, as Shen Wei said, he was addicted to consuming (people, power, whatever) and he wouldn't have believed it... at least, not soon enough to make a difference.
I think there was a window, if not upon their first reunion (where I think Ye Zun would've been willing to give Shen Wei a chance in his heart of hearts, except that Shen Wei struck a bad chord with the "I thought you were dead!"), then after the dirt nap when Ye Zun was still stuck in the pillar and a captive audience. It wouldn't have been as instantaneous as it was in canon, but talking it out plus Shen Wei genuinely being nice and caring to him over a period of time? I can see it.

So I'll believe any happy-ending version of events that anyone gives me,
Do you have any recs? :P

I do think the Rebel Leader used him, and that's why he's so much cleaner looking than the rest of the rebels. The leader wants nice things, so his pet/slave is gonna be kept nice and neat, no matter how badly abused he actually is.
Yeah, me too. We saw the Rebel Leader and Ye Zun interact for, what, five minutes, and that was chock full of verbal and physical abuse. Couple that with how he behaves with people he wishes to intimidate (Professor Ouyang, Ya Qing, Guo Changcheng), and it gives a very disturbing look at how he must've been treated. Because after all, why else would the Rebel Leader go kidnapping little kids...

[maggie33]

A shallow note at first – wow, that gif is beautiful. :)

I liked Ye Zun from the start. He is an interesting and entertaining villain. That “like” turned to “love” during episode 34, when he pretended to be Shen Wei and tried to seduce Zhao Yunlan. That and his relationship with Shen Wei. Complicated sibling relationships are like catnip to me. :)

Do you think Ye Zun could've been turned around at any point before the end? He folded easily enough once Shen Wei told him the truth, but would getting through to him require dying?

I like to read and write redemption fics for Ye Zun, but in drama canon – I don’t know. Maybe it really did require dying for him to believe that Shen Wei was telling him the truth. Because even if Shen Wei managed to explain what really happened earlier, I don’t know if Ye Zun was ready to believe him. Hatred for Shen Wei and his belief that Shen Wei betrayed him was too deeply ingrained in Ye Zun, I think.

And awww, thank you for the rec. :)

[extrapenguin]

That “like” turned to “love” during episode 34, when he pretended to be Shen Wei and tried to seduce Zhao Yunlan.
His Sexy Shen Wei cosplay was very entertaining! And yeah, his relationship with Shen Wei is complex (as is his relationship to Shen Wei's boyfriend). Do you have any recs for fics that explore that?

Because even if Shen Wei managed to explain what really happened earlier, I don’t know if Ye Zun was ready to believe him. Hatred for Shen Wei and his belief that Shen Wei betrayed him was too deeply ingrained in Ye Zun, I think.
Ye Zun was desperate enough to reconcile and trusting enough that I do think reconciliation would've been possible earlier as well – even if it would've probably been a more gradual process, with the truth being a niggling doubt in Ye Zun's mind until he comes to some internal crisis point. And yeah, he says that his hatred of Shen Wei was what kept him alive in the pillar, and with the Rebel Leader. (I suspect it was a defense mechanism of the mind: displace the hate from the very real abuser to the absent evil brother.)

And awww, thank you for the rec. :)
♥ It is a good fic!

[china_shop]

Great post! And aw, thanks for linking to my fic! :-)

I have a couple of other Ye Zun-ish fics, too, though they're both Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan: Based on a True Story and A Key to the Future. I'm still (always) figuring him out, and I have maybe a dozen WIPs that are stalled because I don't consistently know how to write him. *sigh*

[cyberbrain]

Yay, Ye Zun discussion! (*¯︶¯*)

Drama perspective here. I'm linking to the post in which I whined about Ye Zun.

I think there were plenty opportunities for Ye Zun to be told the truth but I don't think he would have wanted to listen and/or been able to believe.
Shen Wei could have told him pre-pillaring. I'd like to think, if the Hallows hadn't interrupted, a nice talk could've been had.
Shen Wei could have also told him after waking up but that's where I run into a wall. See, Shen Wei had a probably-not-bad time sleeping while Ye Zun sat in his misery. After 10k years of that, it's very logical to me that he would be done with everyone's shit and not want to listen.
So what would it take–somehow locking up Shen Wei and Ye Zun in one room together, ensuring they can't kill each other, and leaving them for long enough to talk. But good luck doing that.

The way I see it–he did get mind controlled as a child but not like "be evil, little Ye Zun," rather the Rebel Leader made him believe Shen Wei abandoning him is the full 100% real truth and lodged it in his brain to never question that "fact." Maybe that control lasted his whole lifetime and prevented him from actually talking to Shen Wei about his problems. After that, plain (as in, non-powered) abuse and manipulation would have probably kept him in line.

Warning for non-con: I, too, believe that Ye Zun was sexually abused as a child. Probably even after that. Of course, the drama can't tell us if that's true, but lots of his face-to-face interactions read like this to me. Seems like, in person, flirtation is his go-to weapon. I didn't mention this belief in my Ye Zun post because I wanted to focus on the things we know are canon.

About his dressing in white only–isn't white the color for mourning in Chinese culture? I always thought it was symbolic in a way. Like Ye Zun is always mourning–himself, his parents, Shen Wei. But of course, it symbolizes purity as well. Maybe he only had white clothes when he was still with his gege, but after that... maybe he wanted to cling onto some purity in his terribly impure life.
But I like enviropony's idea of the Rebel Leader wanting to keep his pet neat too.

As for who Ye Zun is... If I handwave all the trouble he caused, I'd imagine him as... reserved, careful, fearful. Honestly, I'm not sure. I want him to be well and happy but getting there would be a journey through darkness, I feel.
If Ye Zun and Shen Wei reconciled, I think Ye Zun would be trusting of his gege, protective too (and all the things I said in the previous paragraph).

For question 4: because the Hallows are stupid! :(

I basically said this above but I think, if back in YOHE, Shen Wei and Ye Zun had talked and not had the Hallows make decisions they shouldn't, things could have been cleared up and everything might have worked out.

[extrapenguin]

Shen Wei could have also told him after waking up but that's where I run into a wall. See, Shen Wei had a probably-not-bad time sleeping while Ye Zun sat in his misery. After 10k years of that, it's very logical to me that he would be done with everyone's shit and not want to listen.
I think there was a chance at their first meeting, had Shen Wei hit some of Ye Zun's buttons and Ye Zun gone "You forgot that you are the most evilest????? Let me remind you of your failings!" But locking them into the same room, no murder allowed, would probably be a more reliable choice.

About his dressing in white only–isn't white the color for mourning in Chinese culture? I always thought it was symbolic in a way. Like Ye Zun is always mourning–himself, his parents, Shen Wei.
White is the color of mourning, but Ye Zun isn't in mourning robes. Mourning robes would be much coarser and undyed, whereas Ye Zun's robes are reasonably fine in make. Compare mourning robes from Nirvana in Fire 2 vs Mu Nihuang in white. I suspect the color comes because the parents color-coded their twins and then the kids kept it up. :P

And yeah, I subscribe to the sexual abuse interpretation as well. He really didn't catch any breaks in life.

As for who Ye Zun is... If I handwave all the trouble he caused, I'd imagine him as... reserved, careful, fearful. Honestly, I'm not sure. I want him to be well and happy but getting there would be a journey through darkness, I feel.
I think he'd have trust issues and be clingy, maybe? But yeah, reserved and fearful and having behavior flashbacks to how he was at the rebel camp, because all he knows is that and supervillainy.

[nnozomi]

Wonderful post, thank you very much. I have a bunch of reactions to the above fascinating discussion which I'll just dump here....

starandrea has an ongoing series of fics that are sort of Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan/Ye Zun, with the current installment from Ye Zun's perspective. It's a particular variant of characterization but I'm really fascinated by what she does with him.

I suspect it was a defense mechanism of the mind: displace the hate from the very real abuser to the absent evil brother.
Oh yes! And it's easy for him to think, well, it was his brother who left him with the abuser in the first place, the ultimate responsibility was his brother's....as well, his brother is still alive and there to be hated, and the Rebel Leader is long gone.

I do blame Shen Wei for not communicating with him more thoroughly, but like others above, I'm also not convinced that he would have turned a corner unless he had absolutely nothing else going for him
I think that in a different sense, this also goes for Shen Wei, with regard to the question of forgiving Ye Zun. Unlike his brother, Shen Wei isn't a free agent; he has responsibilities to Dixing and Haixing in various ways, and ties to people there, and Ye Zun has already caused them great misery and destruction. I imagine that Shen Wei, the little boy who got pushed off the cliff, is aching for any chance to forgive and reconcile with his brother, but the Black-Cloaked Envoy and Professor Shen are not able or willing to set aside their duty to everyone else in the worlds who has suffered from him. (And then there's Zhao Yunlan, because as much as Shen Wei cares for his brother, everything in his adult life has been oriented toward Kunlun=Zhao Yunlan, and he's not easily going to put Zhao Yunlan at risk or treat him carelessly even for the sake of his brother.)
So it's not until Shen Wei has carried out his responsibility to keep everyone else safe from Ye Zun that he's able to reconcile with him and let them forgive each other. "Let's go home, didi" always makes me cry.

[china_shop]

I imagine that Shen Wei, the little boy who got pushed off the cliff, is aching for any chance to forgive and reconcile with his brother,

Yes, and to be forgiven by him too, maybe? He must feel responsible for not protecting Ye Zun from the rebel chief, however irrational that feeling is.

but the Black-Cloaked Envoy and Professor Shen are not able or willing to set aside their duty to everyone else in the worlds who has suffered from him.

Yes, this.

[solo]

Drama perspective: I do not like Ye Zun. :D

And I'm a bit concened at long threads of people agreeing with each other that it's all Shen Wei's fault for not communicating. It's not like Ye Zun was communicating. He didn't have to wait to be asked what his beef was, he could have venomously accused Shen Wei of abandoning him every single time Shen Wei came near.

1. No, I don't think he could have been turned around because the guy is deranged and eaten up (no pun intended) by hatred. 10k years stuck in a pillar does not for good mental health make. I also think that once he was out of the pillar, it would have been too risky for Shen Wei to try and talk out of his murder plans or, even if he claimed to have reformed, give him the benefit of the doubt. Well, not unless they found some foolproof way to secure him.

2. I think that he had an abusive upbringing with the Rebel Leader - after all we get a glimpse of how he's being treated. I don't think the Rebel Leader would have had patience with his sickliness for very long. TBH I don't even see why he ever wanted Ye Zun in the first place, or why, when he got fed up with him, he didn't just kill him. But maybe he was useful for little tasks.

3. I think at this point Ye Zun has become 'all that vengeance and desire to inflict the pain he's suffered onto others'. If he'd lived, he'd probably have had to spend a lot of time figuring himself out and discovering who else he could be. Years of therapy. Okay, one thing I know he'd be. Clingy.

4. The Holy Tools are not particularly concerned with people's emotional wellbeing? They saw a threat, they eliminated it, end of story. There's probably also a limit to the things they can actively do.

5. Back in YOHE, if they'd had a chance, they could have locked him up initially, and maybe with some decent treatment he could have made a turnaround eventually. Yes, he was being evil, and his power would always be a clear and present danger, but I think pre-empillarment all was not necessarily lost. Maybe if he'd found another kind and patient person to be with eventually, gained some physical and mental stability... but that didn't happen.

[extrapenguin]

I'm a bit concened at long threads of people agreeing with each other that it's all Shen Wei's fault for not communicating.
I ... do not see anyone saying that? I see people wishing Shen Wei had communicated in a different manner, since his default manner of communication/caring (concerned morality rants) did not get through to Ye Zun, and Ye Zun's manner of communicating (deranged monologuing) did not get through to Shen Wei. (And he thought Shen Wei knew what he'd done, so it makes sense he'd not see the need to infodump about Shen Wei's crimes.)

it would have been too risky for Shen Wei to try and talk out of his murder plans or, even if he claimed to have reformed, give him the benefit of the doubt.
It would have been risky, yes, but this is the guy who doesn't tell his colleagues that the Big Bad is his identical twin, and also has a catch-and-release program for murderers. I don't think we can say that Shen Wei is motivated solely by risk calculations. :P

TBH I don't even see why he ever wanted Ye Zun in the first place, or why, when he got fed up with him, he didn't just kill him. But maybe he was useful for little tasks.
I (and some others) think he picked up Ye Zun for sexual abuse purposes. Other possibilities include having someone powerless to blame, as a sort of "internal enemy" to let all his other men feel grateful that at least they weren't at the bottom of the pecking order.

They saw a threat, they eliminated it, end of story. There's probably also a limit to the things they can actively do.
I mean, they can rip holes in the fabric of spacetime – surely they could've killed him, or depowered him, or even sent him to the space between worlds if they couldn't do anything else (because there he wouldn't be able to rise again and wreak more havoc)?

[starandrea]

Novel perspective: Ye Zun and Shen Wei are literally identical, but for the fact that Shen Wei fell in love. ♥

ETA: Which, as I think about it, makes it interesting that the show went to such lengths to make Ye Zun "evil," when the point of the novel was the lengths Shen Wei had gone to in order to make himself "good." :)

[extrapenguin]

Which, as I think about it, makes it interesting that the show went to such lengths to make Ye Zun "evil," when the point of the novel was the lengths Shen Wei had gone to in order to make himself "good." :)
I suppose the idea was to maintain the contrast between Shen Wei and Ye Zun/Ghost Face? But I admit I don't know enough about the novel to say anything for sure.

And here are some recs

[cyberbrain]

I forgot to say in my original comment, that gif is 11/10 hot, +1 to the praise it's getting. ♡ (￣З￣)

I'll start with my favorite videos:
Drama Ye Zun is badass (youtube, with subs)
Ye Zun/Shen Wei (18+, bilibili, no subs) I really admire the creator's editing skills here. ("Barrage comments," which run over the video, can be turned off from the little blue button below the player.
Ye Zun&Hei Qi(Fairyland Lovers) dramatically yelling at each other (youtube, with subs)

Fics:
ExtraPenguin's Overwritable is a really fun fix-it, go read it please.
Eliza's Longing for a Foothold explores Ye Zun's outlook on Shen Wei (and then on Shen Wei/Kunlun).
ratbones' Flesh from Bone, Soul from Flesh (Part 1 of the Flesh from Bone series) might be mostly focused on weilan but Ye Zun is there too and he's a badass and, most importantly, he's doing pretty well. Part 2 is very fun, kind of crack-y, but it focuses on Ye Zun and it's great. This is a link to the series.

Art:
Here are a couple of pieces by 代号-279 on weibo. Pretty Ye Zun and Ye Zun/Pei Wende(Legend of Fa Hai).

Re: And here are some recs

[extrapenguin]

Thank you for the recs! (And also thank you for the rec. *g*)

Ye Zun/Shen Wei (18+, bilibili, no subs) I really admire the creator's editing skills here.
Okay, wow, this... *fans self* Wow. Excellent editing, very hot! (Shen Wei's pain noises at the pillar scene were ... kinda nsfw, let's say. I am glad to see them used to good effect.)

Eliza's fic is good! It was a nice look at how Ye Zun disapproves of gege paying attention to people who are not him. :P
I'm glad Ye Zun got a happy-ish ending in ratbones' fic. It's an excellent casefic, too, but Ye Zun getting to get brotherly attention is always fantastic.

Weibo is geoblocked for me, alas! Sometimes the mobile link work – could you give mobile versions of the links?

[galaxysoup]

The big tragedy of Ye Zun and Shen Wei, for me, is that they never quite manage to be on the same page at the same time until the very end of the show, when enough has been stripped away from both of them that they're able to reconcile. I mean, the first time Shen Wei realises Ye Zun is alive and his didi (in battle! While Ye Zun is leading men to kill him and all his friends!) he's ecstatic! He's thrilled to bits to have his baby brother back, regardless of the circumstances. But Ye Zun at that point is not in a place to be able to handle it in the same way (thanks for nothing, Rebel Leader). And, as you pointed out, by the time Shen Wei has woken up, Ye Zun has been marinating in hatred for 10,000 years. He can't have much sanity left at that point - 10,000 of incorporeal captivity would screw up even psychologically stable people. It's not until the end of the show that Ye Zun has worked through his rage enough to be coherent about the source of it, and by that point he's spent a lot of time and energy trying to kill people Shen Wei loves and trying to damage him verbally as much as possible.

And while I also wish Shen Wei had been able to say something while Ye Zun was still in the pillar that would trigger a comment from Ye Zun that would let him figure out where the base misunderstanding came from, I think it's important to remember that Ye Zun had been stewing for so long that he probably wasn't even capable of articulating it. Moreover, I think it's important to remember that while Shen Wei is definitely the one of the two with more emotional health (not a high bar) and ended up spending his childhood in a less damaging way than Ye Zun did, he still also had an unbelievably tough road to travel. I mean, he was essentially a child soldier - by the time he meets Kunlun he's firmly internalized the idea that he's only useful as a weapon and doesn't have a right to full personhood, a conviction that arguably drives a lot of the tragedy in the show. Shen Wei is more emotionally intelligent and coherent than Ye Zun, but he's still pretty fucked up. While it certainly would have saved a lot of tragedy and heartbreak for them to hash out their differences while Ye Zun was still contained and had to listen to him, I don't know if Shen Wei would have been capable of communicating clearly enough with Ye Zun to get the job done.

Basically, I think both of the brothers really could have benefited from an emotionally and psychologically stable brother to be able to help them recover, and that obviously wasn't going to happen. Shen Wei lucked out by falling in with Zhao "I will beat you over the head with caring until you accept it" Yunlan, but even that only took him so far given that his ultimate plan was still essentially a suicide bombing.

To sum up:

1. I don't think he could have without drastic changes to the timeline (i.e. Shen Wei climbs back up the cliff as a child and rescues him immediately). Partly it's because their story is a classic tragedy construction, so it's built to withstand fixing, but partly also because 10,000 years in solitary confinement with nothing to do but think about his anger and hate is a hard thing to come back from.

2. I'm gonna go with BAD, and also how is he so clean all the time?? I don't understand!

3. It's hard to say, because we see so little of Ye Zun as a child before the Rebel Leader gets his hooks in. Basically all we know about him is that he's sickly and Shen Wei protects him, so I would guess he'd be quiet and very close to his brother (or he'd chafe under the protection? Could go either way). I like to imagine that he'd still have a bit of an instinct for chaos, though!

4. I think the Hallows are less sentient than they are kind of like an inflexible AI system. Ye Zun = threat, threat = elimination, threat is too powerful for elimination, therefore threat = containment.

5. Therapy. So, so, much therapy, for him and for Shen Wei. Failing that - or in addition to that - the ancient Dixing version of Child Protective Services, for both of them.

[china_shop]

I mean, the first time Shen Wei realises Ye Zun is alive and his didi (in battle! While Ye Zun is leading men to kill him and all his friends!) he's ecstatic! He's thrilled to bits to have his baby brother back, regardless of the circumstances.

I feel like he's also kind of stricken? Like, you know, "All this time and I didn't know! I should have looked for you harder! I failed you again by mourning you instead of finding you sooner!"

Moreover, I think it's important to remember that while Shen Wei is definitely the one of the two with more emotional health (not a high bar)

Your parenthetical made me laugh. ♥

Basically, I think both of the brothers really could have benefited from an emotionally and psychologically stable brother to be able to help them recover

The first time I read that, I thought you meant they should be triplets! *g*

[ratbones]

Since other people have pretty much said every intelligent thing I could possibly say by now, let me just hit #3 for funsies: Ye Zun is a brat. He's very fearful and anxious, but the way he makes himself feel safe is...well, first, murder, but if that's off the table, the secondary defense mechanism is sass and superiority. When I imagine Ye Zun in recovery, I imagine Ye Zun being a royal pain in the ass. (And also clingy. Which is quite a combination. God, I love him.)

[extrapenguin]

A clingy pain in the ass not above using his pout to make Shen Wei feed him? Yeah, sounds plausible. (I'm now imagining Zhao Yunlan putting, like, a Shen Wei body pillow on expenses with the explanation "So that the Black-Cloaked Envoy can use the bathroom in peace" or something.) I suppose he'd also be very insecure for a long, long time.

[lannamichaels]

I am drama only, haven't read the novel.

1. Do you think Ye Zun could've been turned around at any point before the end? He folded easily enough once Shen Wei told him the truth, but would getting through to him require dying?

I think he absolutely could have. There's this whole narrative thing of "well, why didn't X happen? because then it would be a much shorter book/show/movie". He can't be turned around until the end because he's the series villain, so idiot balls must be carried to prevent him and his brother ever having any kind of conversation.

But getting them to have never had that conversation is somewhat exhausting. As you said, he turns around immediately once he finds out the truth; there's no real reason they couldn't have had that conversation earlier. So you gotta make both of them very very stubborn and unwilling to listen. It just seems absurd to me that Shen Wei never angsted at the pillar "if only I hadn't been tossed off a cliff and lost you". And then Ye Zun would turn pillarshocked and go "the fuck now?"

Unless Ye Zun has some kind of mind control on him that he needs dying to break, it doesn't really work for me. I think Ye Zun could have turned around before canon for sure.

2. What sort of upbringing do you think he had? We know the Rebel Leader mind controlled him as an adult, but did he get mind controlled as a child as well, and how would that affect neurological development? What use would the Rebel Leader have had for a powerless child, anyway? Why was Ye Zun always clad in white and significantly cleaner than the rest of the rebels?

I assume that someone who uses mind control like that would probably be using it all the time to make sure he had the most ideal interactions with the people around him. Ye Zun probably got mind controlled a lot. The amount of gaslighting that would go into that probably does help with #1 in terms of him not believing things. On the other hand, it also should have taught him he can't believe any of his memories of his life before he ate that guy.

3. Who do you think Ye Zun is, under all that vengeance and desire to inflict the pain he's suffered onto others? If he and Shen Wei reconciled, what would he be like?

Very determined and very very dramatic. XD

4. Locking Ye Zun in a pillar for 10 000 years was far from the best way of dealing with the situation. Why do you think the Hallows did that?

Honestly, at this point, I have reached "paradox". Ye Zun created the Hallows and they went back in time, but he would only survive to make them in the future if they imprisoned him for 10K years. It makes as much sense as anything.

5. Relatedly, what do you think would have been the best way of ensuring Ye Zun couldn't be an existential threat to the world or its people?

IDK, talking to him? That worked eventually.

[extrapenguin]

But getting them to have never had that conversation is somewhat exhausting. As you said, he turns around immediately once he finds out the truth; there's no real reason they couldn't have had that conversation earlier. So you gotta make both of them very very stubborn and unwilling to listen. It just seems absurd to me that Shen Wei never angsted at the pillar "if only I hadn't been tossed off a cliff and lost you". And then Ye Zun would turn pillarshocked and go "the fuck now?"
It requires a ... very particular characterization for Shen Wei. And yeah, he's not really a type to go "if only Past Event had gone differently", but with the status updates he keeps giving his brother, as well as the expressing caring through lectures... It's kinda dodgy that he'd not have said anything like that for a decade plus.

I assume that someone who uses mind control like that would probably be using it all the time to make sure he had the most ideal interactions with the people around him. Ye Zun probably got mind controlled a lot. The amount of gaslighting that would go into that probably does help with #1 in terms of him not believing things. On the other hand, it also should have taught him he can't believe any of his memories of his life before he ate that guy.
I think Ye Zun would definitely be bad at modelling conversational flow, given that he grew up only seeing it interrupted by mind control all the time. And I guess he's still got some lingering issues re: memories. Maybe he sort of appreciated the Rebel Leader for "revealing the truth" about his brother, in a Stockholm Syndrome-y way?

Ye Zun created the Hallows and they went back in time, but he would only survive to make them in the future if they imprisoned him for 10K years. It makes as much sense as anything.
Weren't the Hallows (officially) created by Ma Gui? Though he also speaks about them as if he discovered them lying around or something...

IDK, talking to him? That worked eventually.
Thank you for the laugh! I needed that, after today's workday. :D