Guardian Episode by Episode: 05

[extrapenguin]

Welcome to Episode 5 of the Guardian rewatchalong! If I am only somewhat coherent, it is because work has been hectic and I haven't gotten enough sleep lately. This week's imgur screencaps album has 69 images. In this episode, we meet Dixing, get characterization, and I also bring up cinematography, as usual.

Previously on:
Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4

This episode starts and concludes the bathroom kidnappings case and starts the mirror girl case.

Introductions
We're briefly introduced to Dixing!

Dixing! In front and on the left, some sort of town/city/village; on the right, what's probably the palace atop a mountain that's halfway into becoming lava. Doesn't it look like a wonderful place to live?

Dixing is foreboding, Dixing is dark, Dixing looks like a primordial hellscape. We see some geometric-ish buildings and large gates. The light is a bit bluish.

Characterization
This episode, we see Shen Wei start to be affected by his association with the SID: the Dean comes to his office and tells him he has to move out for a bit but continue teaching and research as usual. Shen Wei's expression is curiously blank and a bit sad at moments, but he already anticipated this development or decided he absolutely must move opposite to Zhao Yunlan for other reasons.

They meet in Shen Wei's office over tea at 9 sharp.

He also later does some plainclothes envoying by meaningfully walking past Butler Wu (while he's being interrogated by Zhao Yunlan – Shen Wei, it's almost as if you want him to suspect you) to draw him out, then ominously gives him a few days to finish up business here before transporting him back to Dixing. I'm a bit unclear on how Wu Tian'en broke the treaty, but maybe it was due to him not reporting back to Dixing from the sojourn? Another intriguing tidbit is that Wu Tian'en must've seen the Envoy unmasked, because how else would Shen Wei taking off his glasses make him recognizable as the Envoy?

He finishes up by unfreezing the onlookers while not even looking at them like a badass.

Zhao Yunlan, on the other hand, has been doing his job of being very good at getting people to open up. He also spotted it when Shen Wei very meaningfully walked past the interrogation in the café. Later on, when Da Qing suggested calling up the Envoy, he declined (probably didn't want to call on the Envoy just because), but called Shen Wei instead. It was a very interesting conversation: light in sentiment, feeling almost playful and flirty at times, and then it contains stuff like Zhao Yunlan saying that whatever is fishy with Shen Wei, Zhao Yunlan will certainly get to the bottom of it.


Zhao Yunlan also continues on the anti-vigilante track started last episode. He tells Wu Xiaojun, "For the crimes these people committed, the law will punish them." Then there's a cut to the scene of the SID and Wu Tian'en, which I'll talk about a bit later.

Some thoughts on Chu Shuzhi: we see him start to correct Huang Chaoyang over the Special Investigation Department's name, and he tells Guo Changcheng that "No matter whether they're human or not, wherever there are groups, there is class and hieararcy, and thus there is endless killing and oppression." (He may or may not have gotten his dramatic speech skills from the Black-Cloaked Envoy.) However, we're informed that he's changed – he pokes fun at Zhao Yunlan and then Zhao Yunlan comments that he didn't used to do such things.

Smug face after making fun of his boss.

Next, two pieces of pictorial evidence I would like to present:

Lin Jing is a giant.

In the manner of all cats everywhere, Da Qing goes for the high ground, even when jogging.

Now, some thoughts on the SID as a whole! We see Lin Jing with a popcorn machine feed everyone (except Chu Shuzhi), and Zhao Yunlan not only tolerates this, but eats all the popcorn. (A few episodes ago, he stole a cake, and now he steals the popcorn!) When Zhu Hong comes to complain about wasting SID resources, Guo Changcheng brings an offering of popcorn, and she is appeased. It's very domestic and kind of cute.

Zhao Yunlan hops onto the table like a civilized person who was in no way raised by cats.

When Wu Tian'en is injured by the dart Huang Chaoyang's men shoot him with, he's dragged to the SID couch (via bodily lifting and a car trip?) and then Guo Changcheng, the pure soul he is, is very much moved by the father-son display of affection and requests to use the Longevity Dial. Zhao Yunlan chooses to use it himself, however, and the moment it activates, the Black-Cloaked Envoy turns up to scold him. (Did he rig up some sort of alarm system on Zhao Yunlan and/or the Dial? If not, how else did he get this timing – did he assimilate a Dixing power that lets him know when Zhao Yunlan is doing something stupid?) Shen Wei then asks whether it's worth it for Zhao Yunlan to shorten his life to save a Dixingian, to which Zhao Yunlan replies that a life is a life. I'd say this is a capstone to the conversations the two of them have been having about whether Dixingians are people: Zhao Yunlan doesn't evade the question and instead resoundingly answers with "Yes, you are."

Shen Wei gets a bit misty-eyed at it all. The SID really has changed from Zhao Xinci's day.

Then the Envoy saves Wu Tian'en out of gratitude, and we get to see more of the troubles of Dixing we've been told about: someone sent people over with orders to kill the witnesses. It might even have been the Lord of Dixing.

Zhu Jiu's involvement is easy to guess: he incited Wu Xiaojun into villainy, and hoped he'd get the father in as well.

Canon details

• Wu Tian'en has been employed by Huang Chaoyang for 20 years and 7 months. Wu Xiaojun disappeared 20 years ago. ("I watched him grow up as well" my ass, Huang Chaoyang!) The Envoy also sent Wu Tian'en upstairs on an expedition 20 years ago. I suppose this is maths-able as the expedition being 20 and change years ago, after which Wu Tian'en's wife took their son to search for dad, the wife died due to some reason, and then let's say 19 years and 10 months ago Huang Chaoyang made Wu Xiaojun disappear. This timeline would be very compact, and mean Wu Tian'en had one very crappy year.
• The expedition captain also survived, but lived on to commit crimes and then was shot dead before Shen Wei got to him. (Maybe he betrayed the rest of the expedition?)
• Wang Zheng suggest that maybe the Hallows are sentient.
• The SID has several databases of Dixing abilities they've encountered.
• The SID has a robot spider.

What they all call each other
Guo Changcheng at one point refers to Lin Jing as "Lin Jing-ge".

Cinematography
This show isn't afraid of being colorful and saturated! We also see lots of shots from afar...

...and from above...

Look at this scene composition! It is amazing. Green, saturated, and a V-shaped outline.
...and below.

Showdown at high noon.

We also see lots of shots via mirrors.


Zhao Yunlan jacket watch
We see one very nice vest thingy that I want to own stat, worn for two days in a row, a repeat of the leather jacket of last episode, and jogging gear, then back to the nice vest thingy.



Shen Wei shoe watch
No clear close-ups of his shoes this week, but his black ones definitely have some heel, and his brown ones seem to have some as well.


Did Shen Wei take off his glasses?
Yes, to intimidate Wu Tian'en/reveal himself as the Envoy.

Comments

[ranalore]

I'm not into pining, especially if it lasts unhealthily long, and the longer he's been awake/conscious, the sadder the thought of Shen Wei as a character becomes.

For me, it depends on the needs of the story. I'm much happier thinking Shen Wei slept through it all (really, I'd be happy believing Shen Wei was asleep right up until ZYL became chief of the SID, much as that clashes with his professorial backstory), but if the story I'm writing works better with him awake for some of that time, or dreamwalking, or drowsing but feeling time stretching out, or just waking up roughly twenty years pre-series but still feeling that vast temporal dislocation, then that's how I write it. I may have one preferred headcanon, most of the time, but I also tend to generate a lot of theories and I like to write based on several of them.

Plus, I just can't shake both what Shen Wei says about waiting 10,000 years for ZYL, and the way he says it. While that's explicable by him waking up around twenty to twenty five years ago (the time of the expedition to find the Hallows), realizing how much time has passed, and not actually knowing what happened to "Kunlun" or how soon he'd see him again--though desperately clinging to ZYL's reassurance that he would--it's also explicable by some form of awareness, at least some of the time, while he's buried.

[extrapenguin]

Oh, I change characterization takes and worldbuilding details depending on what the story needs, but in pure preferences, I want him to have woken up about 14 years ago, and gone to University straight off the bat so he can actually be reasonably close to the 32 he claims (assuming bb Shen Wei is actually a bb), and also have had time to make some human connections. Definitely still feeling that vast temporal dislocation, though – it's a very appealing trope to me! I also think the temporal dislocation might "help" make the time Shen Wei has waited seem longer, even if what he really means with his remark is "I time traveled 10k years into the future for you and everything is alien, please help, I demand some compensation".

[ranalore]

Oh, wow, we are so on the same page, and I'm so relieved, because I've been wondering since I finished the series if people were going to think I was out of bounds for looking at the way they did up bb Shen Wei and thinking, "That boy is a teenager." Nor could I figure out why Shen Wei wouldn't have aged the necessary years to match the expedition timeline, while yet aging enough to be clearly older in the present than he was 10K years ago (though I always have to make allowances for what odd things he learns through that power of his). And it kind of feels like, the way they dropped the expedition storyline, maybe that's how they retconned it anyway (maybe he woke up, ordered the expedition, and immediately fell asleep for another six years, which would be why nobody followed up on the expedition when it went to hell). I suspect Shen Wei feels like he time traveled, which is what they're showing us with his ineptitude with technology and possibly both his formality as a professor and his...everything as the Envoy. I wish they'd had the budget and time to show us some similar details when ZYL went back, like trying to handle a sword or ride a horse (or maintain his carefully cultivated scruff without modern grooming supplies).

I like your statement about how the temporal dislocation would psychologically affect Shen Wei. It's what I was trying to say, but fibro and words don't always play nice.

[extrapenguin]

There's a sliding scale of interpretations on bb Shen Wei, but to me the mask and expressions and camera angles all make him look like a pudding-faced bb. Like, he's clearly pubescent, but he's still (very) young, and the way his insecurities are played is very ... young-seeming. In any case, he must've been a child soldier at some point, which would be an interesting avenue to explore in fic – he's really been put through the wringer, no wonder he has troubles relaxing and trusting people and letting other people share the burden! (Zhao Yunlan, give him a hug and bring him to a psychologist.) In the modern era, he's hit with the double whammy of being from the far past and being Dixingren, and yet not being able to tell anyone about either of them. He sets himself apart from his people due to his position of authority, and if he really were from 10k years ago in Earth time, he'd be illiterate (writing was only invented ~8k years ago), and definitely not speak anything legible to modern ears. Hell, he predates wheels, agriculture, and silk. Obviously time on Haixing works differently, but he really is from another place and alien in two ways he must keep secret. Of course he'd cling to the only remnants of Home that he has (Zhao Yunlan, Ye Zun, maybe Da Qing).