Lovely post and interesting discussion. I have just a couple of points to add:
-- I really love Wang Zheng's modern-day capable office manager persona (it makes me wonder if instead of wreaking bloody revolution, Sang Zan would have been better off setting her up in charge of her tribe with himself as trophy husband/advisor). Her malicious delight in cutting Lin Jing's bonus never fails to make me giggle, it gives the impression that she has strict standards and expects the SID to live up to them, thank you very much.
-- It seems as if, explicitly or implicitly, she and Sang Zan have agreed that the awful traumas of their previous relationship have been cancelled out by the interim deaths and empillarment (?) and that they now have a clean slate to work on and can just be happy and in love (I find their Valentine's Day scene incredibly sappy, but they seem to enjoy it, so why not). If this is the case, it's interesting that they're almost the only people we see who manage to let go of all their past resentment and hurt and start fresh, while there are so many other major and minor characters who continue to be motivated by real or imagined anger and pain. As simple as the fact that they have each other again?
-- Really interested by the discussion above about who in the SID taught her to adjust to modern life. My own guess would be Zhao Yunlan himself, over a handful of brief, patient, efficient lessons interspersed by wisecracks. But (although I can never keep track of the chronology of who joined the SID when) Chu Shuzhi must have had to learn the same things at some point, and it's affecting to imagine the two of them quietly working it out together.
-- I want to know if the red dress is supposed to symbolize a wedding dress? God that dress is beautiful, as is Wang Zheng herself.
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-- I really love Wang Zheng's modern-day capable office manager persona (it makes me wonder if instead of wreaking bloody revolution, Sang Zan would have been better off setting her up in charge of her tribe with himself as trophy husband/advisor). Her malicious delight in cutting Lin Jing's bonus never fails to make me giggle, it gives the impression that she has strict standards and expects the SID to live up to them, thank you very much.
-- It seems as if, explicitly or implicitly, she and Sang Zan have agreed that the awful traumas of their previous relationship have been cancelled out by the interim deaths and empillarment (?) and that they now have a clean slate to work on and can just be happy and in love (I find their Valentine's Day scene incredibly sappy, but they seem to enjoy it, so why not). If this is the case, it's interesting that they're almost the only people we see who manage to let go of all their past resentment and hurt and start fresh, while there are so many other major and minor characters who continue to be motivated by real or imagined anger and pain. As simple as the fact that they have each other again?
-- Really interested by the discussion above about who in the SID taught her to adjust to modern life. My own guess would be Zhao Yunlan himself, over a handful of brief, patient, efficient lessons interspersed by wisecracks. But (although I can never keep track of the chronology of who joined the SID when) Chu Shuzhi must have had to learn the same things at some point, and it's affecting to imagine the two of them quietly working it out together.
-- I want to know if the red dress is supposed to symbolize a wedding dress? God that dress is beautiful, as is Wang Zheng herself.