Focus on Fu You: The Yashou are a people of peace

[waterscroll]

Fu You (a drama-only character) is the Yashou High Chief and Snake Tribe leader who led the Alliance together with her human counterpart Ma Gui. In episode 34 she says that she made the Hallows, together with Ma Gui, in order to benefit all of Haixing. Her goal after the war is over is for everyone to go to different places: Humans stay where they are, Dixingians go underground and Yashou go ‘far away.’ The reason she wants this is that, as she says, the Yashou are a peace-loving people. In episode 35 she is present but almost entirely silent when Ma Gui makes the treaty with Dixing and gives them the Hallows.

In episode 34, in a conversation with Ma Gui, she asks if ‘this timeline’ will change. So she at least believes in multiple timelines, and may have seen others.

Ma Gui is in love with Fu You but (despite Zhao Yunlan’s encouragement) never quite manages to tell her. In the end she and the Yashou leave Ma Gui and the humans. Ma Gui almost tells her his feelings but she interrupts him, telling him that as leaders they are not free to indulge themselves.

In episode 37 we see a flashback to Ma Gui trying to make a seed from Fu You’s hometown grow in the hope that it will make her smile again. After Zhao Yunlan helps him grow it he gives it to her, and she says that she will pass it on to her children and her children’s children. It ends up becoming the Sacred Branch that Zhu Hong uses to become High Chief of the Yashou.

When Zhu Hong sees Fu You in episode 38 she immediately falls to her knees, showing that the Snake Tribe at least remembers her.

In episode 40 Fu You makes a last appearance to tell Zhao Yunlan how to restore the Lantern, while Ma Gui warns him that if he does this he will die.


Fu You and Ma Gui tell Zhao Yunlan how to save Dixing and what it will cost him.


I find Fu You so fascinating because she had a key role in creating the separation of peoples that gets so fraught and complicated during the series, as well as the Hallows. Between that and her comment about timelines, there seems to be a lot to explore in her character.

Some questions:

1. Does Fu You seem snake-like in any way or remind you of any fictional tropes about snakes? Des she have anything in common with the other Snake Tribe Yashou we meet? (Zhu Hong, Fourth Uncle)
2. Why did she want Humans, Dixingians and Yashou to all live separately? Why did she think that was what would bring peace?
3. How was Fu You remembered among the different Yashou tribes?
4. What was her role in making the Hallows? Why do you think she thought they were important?
5. Did she actually see any other timelines? Or try to change this one?
6. Did she love Ma Gui or was it one-sided? Do you think their relationship reflects on the Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan in any particular way? Or on the Zhu Hong&Zhao Yunlan relationship?
7. What was her relationship with Shen Wei like? Was her relationship with Shen Wei different from Ma Gui’s? Do you think Shen Wei knew about her plan that Dixingians should return to Dixing? If so, what do you think he thought of it?

Fanworks:

Fu You is tagged in eight fics on AO3. I’ve also seen her appear untagged in other stories as part of the background in fics set during Alliance times.

Cosmic Variables by PK20 features a Fu You who knows that timelines can change and is working on making that happen.

Meeting in a Time of Peace by china_shop has Shen Wei and Fourth Uncle talk about Fu You and what she was like and what she wanted.

My ficlet Two Peoples explores the different goals that Fu You and Ma Gui had for their alliance.

Please let us know what other interesting takes you’ve seen (or written) on Fu You in fic, especially where she might not be tagged or might only have a minor role.

So - come and talk about Fu You! 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 Fu You.

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

[waterscroll]

Maybe this is why she thought the Hallows were important, they showed her a few alternate timelines?

Yeah, the Hallows seem...not obviously helpful, and it isn't clear why anyone thought they were a good idea, but if they helped fix the timeline (or get a better one?) they start to make sense.

I suspect there'd have been multiple points of view on what to do once the rebels were vanquished; given Fu You's preferences for segregation, I would find it very plausible if she preferred the faction that wanted all Dixingians to go back to Dixing.

I like this idea very much - that there was a segregationist faction among Dixingians and Shen Wei wasn't part of it but the treaty-signer was. Hm.

Thank you for commenting!

[extrapenguin]

Yeah, the Hallows seem...not obviously helpful, and it isn't clear why anyone thought they were a good idea, but if they helped fix the timeline (or get a better one?) they start to make sense.
Ma Gui made an offhand remark about being surprised about their function/"So the legends were true!" so ... I have no idea who actually made them, or who made the blueprints. (Maybe future discussion on the Hallows will help?) I guess they knew there were time-related properties, and Fu You wanted to affect the timeline/maybe desired to undo the meteor collision?

[waterscroll]

Yeah, I've been thinking about that line. Why would there be legends about something they just made? Possibilities I can think of:
1. They did not actually make the Hallows and Fu You was being flexible with the truth when she said they did. Or they made them based on blueprints or materials that there were already legends about.
2. Fu You made them a long time ago and is older than she looks, and when she says 'we' made them she's giving Ma Gui credit for something he didn't do, or possibly not talking about him at all.
3. They both made them a long time ago, possibly through time-travel shenanigans enabled by the Hallows themselves.
...and now I'm just spinning fanfic ideas. Yes, I'll look forward to further discussion on the Hallows.

I guess they knew there were time-related properties, and Fu You wanted to affect the timeline/maybe desired to undo the meteor collision?

I like that idea!

[trobadora]

I thought the legends might have referred to the meteor metal in general, which the Hallows were made out of.

Those are all excellent fanfic ideas!

[trobadora]

I said it further down the post, but the legends may have been about the meteor metal, rather than the Hallows themselves? Then Ma Gui and Fu You could still have made them. Maybe the raw metal already had similar effects to the mad stuff the Hallows get up to.

[waterscroll]

That opens a chilling explanation of why there is no time in Dixing - because the meteor, with its Hallows-like power of time manipulation, destroyed it. Maybe the hope was that the Hallows would allow time to happen in Dixing again, and maybe that worked until the Hallows were lost.

Fascinating to think about a meteor that could destroy time and what that would do to people who survived it.

[extrapenguin]

I said it further down the post, but the legends may have been about the meteor metal, rather than the Hallows themselves?
Intriguing! Though that leads to the question of what happened to the rest of the meteor material. Surely the Hallows can't have been all that hit the ground? *resists doing calculations* On Earth, meteor craters are 20x the diameter of the impacting meteor. Something large enough to cause the ecosystem damage of the meteor that hit Haixing would probably be ~100m in diameter, or in any case much larger in mass than the four Hallows combined.

[trobadora]

Maybe the meteor wasn't all metal? Yeah, the Hallows can't be the whole thing!