china_shop: Zhao Xinci looking at a gun pointed at him, with the text "Filial piety in ur face." (Guardian - filial piety)
The Gauche in the Machine ([personal profile] china_shop) wrote in [community profile] sid_guardian 2020-09-23 07:18 am (UTC)

I became extremely anti-Zhang Shi when I was writing up my ZXC post, probably unfairly so.

No, I think that's entirely fair. :-) I mean, I think some of the problems of Zhang Shi are circumstantial (it's a difficult power to use ethically), but I feel like his presence does contribute to many of the Zhao family's problems. I've actually been wondering whether Zhao Xinci got ZYL a dog (which we only hear about when it's lost) as a kind of compensation for his own emotional withdrawal as he tried to protect his family from this newcomer/interloper. :-(

I kind of see him as both kinder and more ruthless than Zhao Xinci; warmer and less critical in his individual interactions, but also willing to play a long game and arrange matters so as to sacrifice, by definition, the best people he knows to the Lantern.

Yeah. Saving the world doesn't come easy, does it? Otoh, he has foreknowledge from Ma Gui that Zhao Yunlan's going to choose to make that sacrifice. Zhang Shi tries to head it off at the pass with Guo Changcheng (who iirc, in the novel, can light the Lantern without it costing him his life? unclear whether that's also true in the show), but the timeline goes the way it goes. And there certainly is a 'working to preserve the timeline and for the greater good' drive to his actions. Zhang Shi, being so old, has perspective on matters. A mortal lifetime must just zoom past. And yet he cares deeply about Yunlan.

there's probably an epic novel to be written about their relationship over the years.

Oh, yes! Otoh, it would be just endless angst: the cost to the Zhao family, Shen Xi's death and ZYL's alienation, Zhao Xinci's increasing bigotry and the friction that must have caused between them, the looming endgame... :-(

But I still feel as if Zhang Shi's approach set himself up as the good dad and Zhao Xinci as the bad one, rather than trying to work with Zhao Xinci to make it easier for the latter to be Zhao Yunlan's dad (an uphill approach, granted).

Yeah, though Zhang Shi wasn't particularly present as a parent. But still, Zhao Xinci might well have compared his own reactions to Zhang Shi's -- how could he not? -- and felt that contrast on top of Zhao Yunlan's resentment. *weeps*

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