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sid_guardian2018-12-07 08:57 pm
trobadora) wrote in sid_guardian2018-12-07 08:57 pm
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Welcome to SID Guardian!
Hi, and welcome to SID Guardian!
sid_guardian is a noticeboard/community for:- linking Guardian fanworks of all kinds
- linking to Guardian-related news (incl. info about the actors and their other roles) and meta (incl. serious meta, squee, picspams, episode reactions, writing-meta)
- making Guardian recs, and
- making fanworks-finder/rec-finder posts.
- ETA: You can also post content directly to the comm.
Which is to say, it's for letting Guardian fans find each other on Dreamwidth. :)
Please link your Guardian-related posts here! Whether novel or drama, this is the place for it. Don't be shy, and please encourage other Guardian posters to link as well. You can also link to/rec things that have been posted by others.
As the comm develops, we hope to introduce social, discussion and/or prompt posts, but given it's December, we thought we'd start small and manageable.
To kick things off, if you feel like it, tell us a bit about how you ended up in Guardian fandom! Or let us know your favourite character or scene from Guardian, or what your power would be if you were Dixingren.
And remember, there's no tension that can’t be relieved with a lollipop. And if there is, try two lollipops.
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Hear hear, I much prefer to avoid characterization bleedover between these canon versions since they're so, so different at their core. Drama!SW really is a cinnamon roll who had to learn how to kill during the war but even so he still tends to mercy, and he was a kid who once had parents, who was trying to survive with his brother, who was willing to fight for the good of the world; whereas novel!SW had almost nothing from the beginning, with a much more visceral self-hate directed at his very nature (rather than young SW trying and fumbling to live up to people's expectations of the Envoy), who took over KL's duties for KL's sake and not for the sake of the world. Drama!SW cares deeply about his brother drama!YZ at the end of all things, whereas novel!SW doesn't really care about novel!Mianmian at all; as far as he's concerned, they may be the only two Ghost Kings in existence but there's no affection on his end.
And novel!ZYL feels (more) similar to drama!ZYL on the surface, but as the novel progresses, I really feel like the divergence becomes more apparent... novel!ZYL is so isolated when you dig deep into his situation. There's a part in the novel later where he remembers going down to visit the underworld and how he had to deal with his own fears all by himself, and how he nearly dropped out of university because he was struggling to balance real life with his Guardian duties on his own. His dad and mom don't know what he does, his division is something that he himself wrought into being and then recruited supernatural coworkers w/ w/e means at hand. Drama!ZYL may be heading a particularly unusual division, but his dad used to run it, other people know about Dixing, and he's not so alone in knowing what he has to deal with. Ultimately drama!ZYL has much stronger connections; he lost his mother b/c of SID/Dixing-related events, but he reaches out to those from Dixing, he talks about how they're like humans, he comes to sympathize with them and understand their plight in a vaguely X-Men mutant kind of position--but in the novel the point is that the ghosts etc. most assuredly are N O T like humans, and novel!ZYL is not about sympathizing with the entities he's faced but about setting the nature of things right and keeping the world stable. He hasn't lost his parents, but he's seen too much shit at large and lost his childhood anyway; he absolutely won't abdicate his duty to protect the world, but it feels to me like he lives, in a way, outside it, while drama!ZYL still very much lives within it (if that makes sense). I think it's telling that for these lines the drama changed the focus from (novel) keeping the peace among spirits/stability across the realms to (drama) doing good and suppressing evil. They're fundamentally different conflicts. Ha yeah, the drama isn't a great adaptation of the novel per se, but I like it for what it is and I like the novel for what it is
and I wish never the twain shall meet in fic XD/shamefacedly ends tl;drno subject
Hee! :D
Yeah, everything you say about the difference between drama!Shen Wei and novel!Shen Wei is exactly why it becomes very obvious very fast when a fic uses novel characterisation. (Also, I hadn't read enough of the novel to know, so I'm really sad to hear novel!Shen Wei doesn't care about Mianmian. Well, put that down as another drama thing I prefer! Ye Zun is a delight, and I loved the ending he got.)
I've heard a lot of people complaining about ZYL being downgraded to a normal human, but that's part of what makes him so great in the drama? I was just saying that somewhere else - did you see someone just linked a novel-vs.-drama post on the comm? Anyway, as you say:
but he reaches out to those from Dixing, he talks about how they're like humans, he comes to sympathize with them and understand their plight in a vaguely X-Men mutant kind of position--but in the novel the point is that the ghosts etc. most assuredly are N O T like humans, and novel!ZYL is not about sympathizing with the entities he's faced but about setting the nature of things right and keeping the world stable.
And here's where I really, really appreciate the drama's thematic focus, and the way they really heavily lean into that! So given that theme of "the villains of the week are mostly just looking for a better life, and ultimately everyone's just normal people", it fits really well that Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan are no exception, but rather exemplify the same thing. And all the Haixingren/Dixingren relationships among minor characters are in some ways mirrors of theirs. All the love - for all that the worldbuilding has its holes, thematically the drama is really consistent. ♥
I think it's telling that for these lines the drama changed the focus from (novel) keeping the peace among spirits/stability across the realms to (drama) doing good and suppressing evil.
That's really fascinating! It's really interesting to me, the way the drama uses (some of) the novel's building blocks and builds something new out of them. Probably very frustrating to novel-verse fans, but a delight for me!
(Feel free to tl;dr at me any day, so long as you don't mind me tl;dr-ing right back at you. *g*)
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I don't mind ZYL being downgraded to normal human in the drama since that makes sense in-universe. (Though I would've liked to see ZYL using those powers purely just for the visuals. XD) & thanks for the heads up, I saw that post! will be popping over to tl;dr elsewhere soon... >___>
Yes! I love that thematic focus. The mirroring in the cases is great & ZYL's speech about how Dixingren are just like humans is Exhibit A of the theme, haha. :D
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I always thought that novel!ZYL's father also knew what he did. This changes things a lot.
I somehow suspect that Zhu Yilong's acting did a lot for Shen Wei being nice and likeable in the drama. Novel!Shen Wei is much colder and darker and more obsessed (which maybe drama!Shen Wei might be, too, but they couldn't show it so one can always pretend it doesn't extend that far).
but in the novel the point is that the ghosts etc. most assuredly are N O T like humans, and novel!ZYL is not about sympathizing with the entities he's faced
I keep wondering how he ends up loving Shen Wei anyway. Is it explained in the novel anywhere? I wonder how much destiny and reincarnation is involved and if he even had a choice? (I also feel like novel!Kunlun couldn't really love the Ghost King, because he's just not on his level? So was that all one-sided obsession on Shen Wei's part then?)
I really should finish at least one of the canons to get a better grip of the characters. *sigh* Sorry for incoherently blathering at you.
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IA it was partly 1) censorship so drama!SW had to be nicer and 2) Zhu Yilong sold that diff characterization so well to the audience. We can def read more obsession into him but (esp. given our intro to young!SW & his motives) it could never approach novel!SW's level. XD
Re: novel!ZYL falling in love w/ SW when he just started off pursuing SW for SW's looks & his own fun--I think the novel strongly implies why but off the top of my head don't remember explicit statement, I'd have to reread again. Personally, I think he def had a choice, and destiny/reincarnation only plays a role insofar as the duty of being the Guardian over reincarnations shaped ZYL's growing up and thus his attitude toward people/relationships/the world and the way he reacts to SW's perception of him/love for him.
Re: novel!KL's love for the Ghost King--I think he never fully understood how much the GK loved him, that selfish want. Which makes sense, because = god, but the most he could give (the tendon, the soulfire, the 几分真心 "bit of true heart") wasn't what GK wanted. He loved as much as he could for a god (I mean, KL did form attachments to the other gods: Fuxi, Nuwa, Shennong, plus Da Qing and later GK), but the extent of that "could" was limited. I think I once phrased KL's attitude as "I'm sorry, but you won't make me not leave you behind [for the sake of the world]"--so KL/GK was set up to be a tragedy at its core.
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