She doesn't openly despite them, but I don't think she has warm feelings towards them either. In that same conversation, she says to Guo Changcheng, "Humans after all aren’t all selfish, coldblooded animals" (ep 25, 40:47), as if he exceeded her expectations just by being kind. It would be fascinating to know which other humans she's had dealings with -- particularly given the Yashou seem very aware of their history, so she must know they were once allies.
Agreed, she doesn't think well of humans, just not to the degree Zhu Jiu does. She's not a fanatic. And she is willing to recognise it when someone doesn't act as she expected - she's not so clouded in her own sense of purpose as to become blind to reality.
I do wonder what her actual interactions with humans may have been like, and under what circumstances she acquired her computer knowledge!
Wrt what she says about Dong Nan, maybe she distinguishes between hanging out with humans (bad) versus being interested in how humans live (eccentric, but okay)?
Or she thinks it's okay if the occasional eccentric wants to do that kind of thing, especially if it's someone who's ill and doesn't have long to live, but it's a different matter under other circumstances?
And there don't seem to be any particular ties between the Envoy and the Yashou leaders, pre-canon.
Yes! And the Yashou don't seem to have diplomatic ties with humans either. That's probably by design since the Yashou wanted to be left alone - but it didn't serve any of them in the end. I hope that post-series all that can be improved - long-term and not just while Zhu Hong is at the helm.
I don't see any guilt in her -- which I think is one of the reasons I don't really connect with her. She behaves more like a military leader than a ZYL-style team leader. Which might be a Yashou thing. Neither of the other tribe leaders seem very interested in whether their tribes people agree with their political stances either.
Good point about the other Yashou leaders! They don't seem to be very democratic societies, no. And I agree that guilt isn't her thing, but she does recognise her mistake and take responsibility for fixing it. Personally I find actions more meaningful than feelings when it comes to this kind of thing, if that makes sense to you.
We really only get a tiny glimpse of her on the show after the fighting is done, and we have so little fic about her, but I agree, her taking further steps to make recompense, including for Jia-ge, would be great to see.
I enjoyed your Ya Qing/Ying Chun fic very much, and it sold me on that ship.
Hee! Thank you. If I ever end up writing Ya Qing/Zhu Hong, maybe I'll be able to convince you of that, too?
And I've actually been thinking, as I've been putting my Fourth Uncle post together, that Ya Qing, Ying Chun and Zhu Hong's father might have been in a similar kind of closeknit, complicated triangle to Sha Ya, Hua Yuzhu and Gu Ban. And that when Zhu Hong's father left to live with the humans, maybe Ya Qing went with him for a while and that's when she picked up some of her computer skills. Maybe his premature death (or his forming a relationship with a human woman?) was what soured her on humans in general? Entirely my fancy, but I like the idea of it.
That's a fascinating idea! I would love to see that in fanfic.
My other thought about that was that it could be a skill bestowed by the Merit Brush before Wang Xiangyang died, in anticipation of this next move.
Can the Merit Brush bestow mundane skills? I wouldn't have thought so, but I may be forgetting something ...
Randomly, I like how in ep 19, when Fourth Uncle and Ying Chun are trying to detain Ya Qing, they try political persuasion and it doesn't work, and then Fourth Uncle convinces her to hang out with them because it's the Reunion Festival, and that's when she stops trying to leave. She clearly still has warm feelings for them, even if she's put herself at odds with them.
Yes! And it's not just Ying Chun. She doesn't want to be on the outs with them, but she's convinced she's doing the best for all of them, so she'll do it. She hasn't turned away from them because she stopped caring.
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Agreed, she doesn't think well of humans, just not to the degree Zhu Jiu does. She's not a fanatic. And she is willing to recognise it when someone doesn't act as she expected - she's not so clouded in her own sense of purpose as to become blind to reality.
I do wonder what her actual interactions with humans may have been like, and under what circumstances she acquired her computer knowledge!
Wrt what she says about Dong Nan, maybe she distinguishes between hanging out with humans (bad) versus being interested in how humans live (eccentric, but okay)?
Or she thinks it's okay if the occasional eccentric wants to do that kind of thing, especially if it's someone who's ill and doesn't have long to live, but it's a different matter under other circumstances?
And there don't seem to be any particular ties between the Envoy and the Yashou leaders, pre-canon.
Yes! And the Yashou don't seem to have diplomatic ties with humans either. That's probably by design since the Yashou wanted to be left alone - but it didn't serve any of them in the end. I hope that post-series all that can be improved - long-term and not just while Zhu Hong is at the helm.
I don't see any guilt in her -- which I think is one of the reasons I don't really connect with her. She behaves more like a military leader than a ZYL-style team leader. Which might be a Yashou thing. Neither of the other tribe leaders seem very interested in whether their tribes people agree with their political stances either.
Good point about the other Yashou leaders! They don't seem to be very democratic societies, no. And I agree that guilt isn't her thing, but she does recognise her mistake and take responsibility for fixing it. Personally I find actions more meaningful than feelings when it comes to this kind of thing, if that makes sense to you.
We really only get a tiny glimpse of her on the show after the fighting is done, and we have so little fic about her, but I agree, her taking further steps to make recompense, including for Jia-ge, would be great to see.
I enjoyed your Ya Qing/Ying Chun fic very much, and it sold me on that ship.
Hee! Thank you. If I ever end up writing Ya Qing/Zhu Hong, maybe I'll be able to convince you of that, too?
And I've actually been thinking, as I've been putting my Fourth Uncle post together, that Ya Qing, Ying Chun and Zhu Hong's father might have been in a similar kind of closeknit, complicated triangle to Sha Ya, Hua Yuzhu and Gu Ban. And that when Zhu Hong's father left to live with the humans, maybe Ya Qing went with him for a while and that's when she picked up some of her computer skills. Maybe his premature death (or his forming a relationship with a human woman?) was what soured her on humans in general? Entirely my fancy, but I like the idea of it.
That's a fascinating idea! I would love to see that in fanfic.
My other thought about that was that it could be a skill bestowed by the Merit Brush before Wang Xiangyang died, in anticipation of this next move.
Can the Merit Brush bestow mundane skills? I wouldn't have thought so, but I may be forgetting something ...
Randomly, I like how in ep 19, when Fourth Uncle and Ying Chun are trying to detain Ya Qing, they try political persuasion and it doesn't work, and then Fourth Uncle convinces her to hang out with them because it's the Reunion Festival, and that's when she stops trying to leave. She clearly still has warm feelings for them, even if she's put herself at odds with them.
Yes! And it's not just Ying Chun. She doesn't want to be on the outs with them, but she's convinced she's doing the best for all of them, so she'll do it. She hasn't turned away from them because she stopped caring.