Focus on: Dong Nan

[extrapenguin]

Dong Nan is a Crow Tribe Yashou who can't keep up with the flock and thus spends most of her time at the graveyard, where she meets Guo Changcheng. She dies young, before Ya Qing can arrive at her side.





1. Why do you think Dong Nan chose to spend her short life watching humans, instead of e.g. observing the Crow or other Yashou Tribes' mourning and funeral practices? What made her not want to even attempt to associate with her own people?

2. What was the weakness that made her unable to keep up with the flock and cut her life short? Something genetic? An illness? Would it have been treatable had she had access to proper healthcare? (Is this part of why Ya Qing is pushing for the revitalization of the Yashou?)

3. Can all Crow Tribe members/the leader sense when another one is dying, or was Ya Qing particularly close to Dong Nan and thus invested?

Fanworks
I have found a grand total of one thing on AO3 tagged with Dong Nan – and I wrote it. If you have any to share, please do!
Can One Switch the Dawn and Dusk? Dong Nan/Li Qian where Dong Nan meets Li Qian at the graveyard.

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

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

[trobadora]

Oooh, that's a great point about why she starts talking to Xiao-Guo in the first place, and her wanting to be remembered.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Crow tribe have a kind of "survival of the fittest/no time for weakness" mentality

Yeah, I don't think it's necessarily a deliberate/conscious philosophy - Ya Qing's behaviour doesn't really fit that, IMO - but just in a "people falling through the cracks if they can't keep up" sort of way? That would make a lot of sense to me.

[china_shop]

but just in a "people falling through the cracks if they can't keep up" sort of way? That would make a lot of sense to me.

Yes! I wonder if they even have a village, or if they just roost together in trees at night and raise their young in nests. Perhaps Dong Nan had trouble shifting, and that's why she couldn't keep up?

[trobadora]

I don't know, but I do wonder what their relationship with humans is. Ya Qing must have learned how to use a computer somewhere ...

(I do like the idea of a crow settlement, but I could see them not actually living there permanently, just coming back semi-regularly.)

[china_shop]

Oh, I'd forgotten about the computer. Maybe she went to university?

(I'm really looking forward to your post on her!)