Discussion Post - Dark Energy

[elenothar]

Welcome to a whole post of me blathering about dark energy and definitely not at all outsourcing my many questions on the subject to everyone here. Definitely.

Caps by tinny and kernezelda, gifs very graciously supplied by presumenothing. This post ended up very visual-heavy, partly because I like the way dark energy looks in the show, partly because I talk about colours a lot, and partly because Shen Wei’s hands are Very Distracting.



Dark Energy and Colour

Every character seems to have their own dark energy colour, for reasons that are not entirely clear to me (beyond making it easier to tell people apart) but are fun to speculate on.

Linguistic side-jump: the subs say the original mandarin for ‘dark energy’ is 黑能量 (hēi néngliàng), which translates literally to ‘black energy’ (‘energy’ in the physics or capabilities sense, according to Pleco) – pretty close English translation, I’d say. Which is relevant because dark energy isn’t actually all that dark/black in many instances.

I keep thinking Shen Wei’s dark energy as the prototype dark energy, partly because it’s the one we see by far the most of and partly because in a chronological sense, it sort of is. It looks like this, black flecked with bits of purple and blue, for the most part, but there is variation across scenes/episodes:





Interestingly, when channelled through an object, like his glaive, there seems to be more white in it:



Ye Zun’s colours, predictably, look quite similar:




Like Shen Wei, his energy channelled through an object (in this case, the very dramatic walking stick) also looks whiter:



And the colour going through Shen Wei’s chains on the pillar is also different:



Zhu Jiu's dark energy looks similar to the twins':



That’s about where the ‘blackness’ of dark energy ends, though, because we are then introduced to several Dixingren characters whose dark energy looks quite different (I did not go through the entire series to catalogue everyone’s colours, mainly for time reasons, but if someone spotted others do shout in the comments).

Zhang Danni stands out the most, with bright green:



But even Chu Shuzhi, whose power we see more often than most, has relatively bright blue energy:



Sha Ya is pretty electric too:



Wu Xiaojun, on the other hand, has almost white energy, which is interesting given the contrast between dark energy and whatever light energy Haixingren have:



And then there are the Yashou. As I understand it, their abilities are also based on dark energy, yet the tribes have very distinctive colour schemes. The Crow Tribe's energy looks pretty much just black, the Flower Tribe and Cat Tribe's are golden and Snake Tribe is red:






Last point – the Hallows. Three out of four have a similar golden colour to the Flower Tribe transformation sequences:




Yet the Merit Brush's colour scheme is much more like the dark energy we see Dixingren wield. During the rooftop confrontation it seems to take on something like Sha Ya's energy colour, and then the night sky, when affected by it, looks like this:



The golden colour always confused me a little, because it’s explicitly stated by Shen Wei that he worries about the usage of the Hallows harming Zhao Yunlan because of their dark energy. And indeed, the Merit Brush looks more like ‘prototype’ dark energy. So why are the Sundial and the Awl so golden? Do they draw on something other than dark energy? And is there a connection between the Flower Tribe and Cat Tribe gold and the Hallows gold?

So what do the different colours mean, if anything? In Doylist terms, I think it’s pretty likely that the intent was to a) make it easier to tell people and their powers apart, and b) make things look pretty (both commendable objectives). But we love to speculate about possible in-universe worldbuilding reasons in this joint, so here are some of the options I came up with:

• the colour depends on the kind of power; this one is hard to verify, since we don’t have duplicate powers. Shen Wei and Ye Zun have similar powers and similar colours, but they’re also related – familial relation is another possibility. Mostly what I’m drawing on is Sha Ya and here electricity power that’s more or less the colour electricity is usually depicted as, and Zhang Danni’s poisonous fog (if that is her power, I’m not actually entirely sure about this) being green, a very nature-y and poison-y colour


• almost a sub-point to the above: the colour depends on the mechanics of the power/the kind of channelling used, or access to dark energy a Dixingren has; this would depend largely on how dark energy is actually used in the specifics (on which, I believe, we have no canon evidence either). Is it all internal reservoirs that are tapped? Is there a degree of taking energy from surroundings? Are the mechanics different for Chu Shuzhi shooting strings vs Shen Wei conjuring a portal?


• random lottery, much like which power a Dixingren gets in the first place


• reflection of soul/character; it’s a nifty idea, but in terms of canon I don’t think there’s much there to support it

Shen Wei’s Power

I’ve already written an entire fic about my take on Shen Wei’s learning powers, but never let it be said I’m not ready to talk about Shen Wei at the drop of a hat, so let’s have a recap of that.

We know that Shen Wei’s power is ‘learning’. As far as I can recall, we never get a more specific explanation than what Shen Wei says to Zhao Yunlan in episode 15:

Zhao Yunlan: “It's like you're omnipotent.”

Shen Wei: “I also have just one power. Learning. I can make any power I see my own. In principle, my material is endless. But I am constrained by the Guardian Writ and by dark energy itself, so I can show only limited power here.”

Now, that still leaves a pretty broad range of interpretations – does the knack for learning only extend to dark energy powers? Is it enough for Shen Wei to be around someone using their power to pick it up, or does he have to do something more specific (and is there a length of exposure factor)? If he glimpses a power, has he immediately learned it? Or is it a conscious choice to learn a power? How does he keep track of it all?

Personally, I tend to think that his learning power specifically extends to learning other Dixingren’s dark energy powers, but that he’s got an affinity for learning in general, which makes him such a good academic and adaptable enough to find his way in terrible circumstances in YOHE and then after the dirtnap in modern and unfamiliar Haixing.

This post is already getting too long, so I’m not going to go through the powers we see Shen Wei use in detail ( ☹ ), but I did want to highlight one I think is particularly interesting in terms of dark energy: the Shen Wei Sonar ™




I just find the idea that he can ‘look’ or sense with dark energy fascinating. Presumably it makes him sensitive to dark energy use (and might explain how he’s so good at figuring out where the trouble is – he’s a single person keeping watch over Dragon City, after all). I’ve always wondered whether the way the surroundings go dark when he does it is a representation of the energies floating around the surroundings, or whether it’s a visualisation of his own energy flowing outwards.

One question I’ve always had re: dark energy is to what extent Dixingren can use it beyond their specific powers. Zhu Jiu can throw people around and throw up a shield against Zheng Yi’s mind control, for example; we see dark energy used to repel or push and possibly augment strength in ways that don’t seem to correspond to anyone’s power. Shen Wei himself frequently uses dark energy in pretty unspecific ways (throwing balls of it at Zhu Jiu, calming the people at the wedding, using it as a diagnostic tool on people who are ailing etc). It seems to suggest to me that to some extent dark energy is just accessible to Dixingren to do basic things with, yet we don’t seem everyone doing so. Perhaps it’s related to power levels or needing a knack for it.

Some further questions:

• What does it mean that Dixing has more dark energy than Haixing? Is it just… floating about in the atmosphere? Imbued in the ground? Something else?


• Can objects be imbued with dark energy? We see a few examples of something I’d call channelling dark energy (Heipaoshi’s glaive, Ye Zun’s cane, Chu Shuzhi’s puppet), but some examples are more ambiguous (the pillar & chains on the pillar, the Hallows, the dark energy gun)


• How do you think Shen Wei’s power works?


• A learning power seems like the jackpot of dark energy powers – do you think there are any drawbacks to having such a power?


Please all feel free to share any dark energy theories or headcanons you have!