Meta: narrative structure and raising the stakes in the Guardian drama

[china_shop]

I've been listening to a lot of writing and narrative meta lately (mostly Writing Excuses podcast), and one of the things they discussed is what the middles of stories can do in terms of narratives. (Note: they generally focus on plotty stories.) So this is kind of a hybrid of their theory and what I came up with.

Among many other things, middles can:

• raise the stakes and make the stakes ever more personal, to show why it's the protagonist who has to be the one to take action


• have other, less costly strategies fail, to show why the protagonist has to take their final (costly) decisive action


• show why the protagonist is reluctant to take that action, ie, the reasons they don't just go out and resolve the problem straight away.

It's all about building tension so the climax feels climactic and earned.

All roads lead to the Guardian drama, for me, and thinking about Guardian through the lens above made my brain light up. The show does all three of those things so well, using those strategies to ratchet up tension in a way I find super satisfying. And since one of the exercises they talk about in the podcast is looking at existing works and reverse-engineering outlines, I thought I'd analyse Shen Wei's choices leading up to and during the finale, in those terms, for A and B.

A) Why is it Shen Wei who has to stop Ye Zun?

Note: these bullet points are cumulative. The first one (that Shen Wei is the Envoy, and managing Dixing incursions in Haixing is his responsibility) never goes away; it just gets layered with more and more additional reasons.

1. To start with, we don't know that Ye Zun is behind things. Someone is causing trouble and going after the Hallows. It's the Black-Cloaked Envoy's job to stop them.


2. From early on, people are coming after the Hallows, and we learn that Shen Wei is looking for the Hallows, too.


3. ep 13: Zhao Yunlan is kidnapped for his status and usefulness, by Zhu Jiu and Zheng Yi. Shen Wei cares intensely about Zhao Yunlan. This begins the process of making things personal.


4. ep 15: we learn Shen Wei has a special power that makes him a "boss".

   ZYL: Hei-laoge, there is one question I've wanted to ask you for a long time. What is your special ability?
   SW: Why do you ask?
   ZYL: According to our information, each Dixingren can only have one ability. But you can do both melee and distant attacks, in addition, close the door and curtains telekinetically. You are like a bug. (a computer programming abnormality)
   SW: I only have one ability as well: learning. I can transfer the ability I see into my own. In principle, my material is endless. But since I am restrained by the Guardian Token and because of the limit of dark energy itself, I can only show limited power up here. You thought too highly of me... if you view me as omnipotent.
   ZYL: If you were in a game, you must be the boss.
   SW: (thinks) However, to be powerful, one must pay a price.

   In thinking that last line, Shen Wei is confirming that great threats are his responsibility because he's the one who has the power to handle them. It may also be that, if he suspects a) Ye Zun is involved, and b) Ye Zun is able to absorb people's powers by eating them, then he is resolving here not to let his power fall into the wrong hands.


5. ep 20: during Ye Zun's first attack, Zhao Yunlan is blinded -- a great cost, and Ye Zun isn't even corporeal yet!


6. ep 23: Shen Wei talks to the pillar. Whether or not we've figured out their familial relationship, Ye Zun's antagonism is explicitly personal.


7. Ye Zun becomes increasingly active, and his minions attack the SID directly (eg, the Master of Nightmares). It becomes ever more clear that Ye Zun, with his charismatic radicalisation and his mind control, has frightening and unlimited resources at his disposal, and he knows how to use them.


8. ep 34: Ye Zun impersonates Shen Wei in Haixing, using that disguise to get close to Zhao Yunlan and attack him. Wang Zheng and Sang Zan throw themselves into the line of fire, and even so, Shen Wei barely arrives in time to stop Ye Zun again. The impersonation is a direct attack on the trust between Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan, so is super personal.


9. eps 34-35: And then we have Ye Olde Haixing Era:
   
   
   
   • We find out/confirm Ye Zun is Shen Wei's twin. At this point, it's clear the threat is fundamentally personal for Shen Wei, who is Ye Zun's older brother and so is responsible for him. (As a contrast/thought experiment: if it had been Chu Shuzhi's brother, Nianzhi, who was destabilising the world from beyond the grave, I think most people would instinctively feel that this was Chu Shuzhi's story, and it had to be Chu Shuzhi who was central to fixing it in the end.) Shen Wei can't allow Ye Zun to wreak havoc in Haixing, on innocent people, and he can't let him harm Zhao Yunlan (or the SID), in either era.
   
   
   • We also find out that Ye Zun's contemporary vendetta against Shen Wei is a continuation of the war the Envoy fought 10k years ago. We see Shen Wei determined to keep the peace and to protect his people. We see his shock at finding his brother has taken his enemy's place, and we see Ye Zun's bitterness and determination to get vengeance. Ye Zun is clearly (and not really through any fault of his own) someone who can't be reasoned with. And the stakes could not possibly be more personal.


10. ep 35: return to present day. Shen Wei learns Ye Zun has impersonated him in Dixing, in a direct attack on Shen Wei's reputation and used this deception to destabilise the safety of both worlds by ripping up the treaty and inciting Dixingren to be dissatisfied. The peace Shen Wei worked so hard to establish is shaken and could now turn into an outright war between Dixing and Haixing.
    
    So, all of Shen Wei's people, in both worlds, are under threat from Ye Zun. This isn't a danger Shen Wei can disavow responsibility for, even if he wanted to.


11. Finally, in episode 40, after Shen Wei's sacrifice, we see the event that set things in motion: young Shen Wei's promise to protect his brother when they were children, and his failure to do so. It's that failure that led directly, over 10k years, to the ending: his brother as a raging megalomaniac, threatening to destroy everything.
    
    And although it's in no way fair, narratively speaking that failure is the real reason it had to be Shen Wei who stopped Ye Zun.

B) Progressively more drastic attempts to mitigate/stop Ye Zun's attacks

1. To start with, Shen Wei as the Black-Cloaked Envoy and, separately, working with the SID as Professor Shen, tries to stop each individual attack. A few people get hurt and killed, but overall, they're keeping a lid on it. They work to secure the Hallows and place them at the SID.


2. ep 13: When Zhao Yunlan is kidnapped by Zhu Jiu, Shen Wei overextends himself for the first time, trying to find Zhao Yunlan and rescue him. We start to see the limits of the Envoy's powers in Haixing.


3. eps 20-22: Then Zhao Yunlan is blinded in his first confrontation with Ye Zun. Shen Wei manages to send Ye Zun to his room, but he can't restore Zhao Yunlan's sight. It takes several attempts/strategies to cure him, and there are costs to Shen Wei: humbling himself to the doctor, taking the risk of sharing his energy, and receiving light-energy contamination. (They also try the Yashou market, which doesn't have any real costs or benefits.)
   
   Shen Wei doesn't begrudge these costs at all. As he says, Zhao Yunlan is absolutely worth it (as someone Shen Wei holds dear, and probably also as someone who is needed to maintain the integrity of the timeline, because time travel).


4. ep 23: Shen Wei's light-energy contamination is probably an unintended side-effect of the energy exchange, but he quickly realises he can turn his weakness into a failsafe. Even at full power, he wasn't strong enough to be sure of victory over Ye Zun, and he can't risk his abilities falling into his brother's hands. But he doesn't stop looking for another way--


5. ep 29: Wang Xiangyang unlocks the Sky Pillar before Shen Wei and the SID realise that was the plan all along, so Shen Wei hurries to Dixing to try to contain Ye Zun (and perhaps hoping to mobilise the palace to act?). Instead, it's Shen Wei who ends up chained to the Sky Pillar for days, unable to protect his people, the palace having already fallen to Ye Zun's side. Ye Zun's power keeps growing like a malevolent avalanche.


6. ep 30: At Ye Zun's bidding, Ya Qing hacks the SID and releases information, undermining their public reputation, turning all of Haixing against them. This is an attack on their status and also a strategic move to weaken/hamper the SID in doing their jobs and supporting Shen Wei to do his. And even Cong Bo can't put all the worms back in the can.


7. ep 37: There's still one last hope: the Hallows. But when they find the Guardian Lantern, the wick is missing, and when Shen Wei goes in search of it, in Dixing -- a final shot at finding an alternative solution to the Threat of Ye Zun -- he's ambushed and tortured.


8. eps 37-40: There are no more options open to him. It's too late. The only thing he can do now is to make one last, desperate move.

Questions
Does this way of looking at things work for you?
What have I missed?
I ran out of time to look at C) the reasons Shen Wei doesn't just go and blow up Ye Zun as soon as he realises he can use his light-energy contamination, but I think the show does a pretty good job of setting out all the things he has to lose/live for. What do you think?

Comments

[china_shop]

People often complain about things like cheap special effects, bad wigs or costumes, filmed in a quarry, etc., and if I'm into a show I barely notice them. It's like my mind only really focuses on those things when I don't like something about the the rest (the script, the acting, the characters and plot), and glosses over them otherwise. *g*

Me too! (I do notice bad animation, regardless, because my partner's an animator, but I can brush it off pretty easily.)

(I actually find the complaints about wigs really distracting, because they get in my head and call attention to the artifice, and that's the last thing I want when I'm watching. ;-p)

[trobadora]

I don't know how to tell good animation from bad animation, but animation rarely works for me because I tend to find the art style offputting.

[china_shop]

I meant CGI (though I do watch a lot of fully animated shows and movies as well).

[trobadora]

Oh, that makes more sense! *g*