How To Be A More Interesting Character Than The Main Hero (Pt.4)

How to be a more interesting character than the Main Hero (Pt.4)

Shangjue and his fiancée

Shangjue has an interesting yet complicated relationship not only with his didi, but also with his fiancée, who happens to be an assassin. The girl aims him from the beginning and plays a cruel game to win his attention, because her mission is to get the secret weapon of Gong clan (the Sutra), to which Shangjue has an access. She is a liar and he knows it, so he decides to choose her as his bride in order to keep his enemy even closer than his friend. So, in the beginning they both play their roles. But Shangjue has a critical vulnerability: he looks like Mr. Danger, but inside of him is a heart of silk. It`s not that hard to tear it apart if you can sneak beneath his ribs.

Their relationship unfolds in an interesting way: an assassin tries hard to find a tiny crack in Shangjue’s nutshell and to guess his thoughts by doing some stuff (cooking meal he doesn`t like, planting flowers he doesn`t want to be planted and bringing havoc into his well-ordered world), and he ends up kinda liking it. He badly needs someone who will dig into his inner core and find there what he truly wants, because he thinks of himself just as of a function and barely knows his own desires. The blankness of his residence is like one of a service apartment – everything is only for work, nothing is for soul.

But bit by bit she learns more about him and finds out that he is not that person she thought he is. At the beginning of the story she says to the female lead that Shangjue likes no one but himself. But in reality, he hardly likes himself either. There is no «himself» at all. There is a sharp saber against clan`s enemies, a legendary martial artist who brings wealth and prosperity to his clan, a wise father figure for didi but there isn`t a man who is called Gong Shangjue. Her thought of Shangjue as of someone who doesn`t love anyone beautifully echoes with herself. Her tutor said that she loves only herself, but at the end of the story she ends up feeling something (not love, but not nothing at least) towards said tutor and Shangjue as well.

Bay flowers are Shangjue's favorite. Btw, their conversation about these flowers is very eloquent, too. An assassin says that Shangjue's favorite bay flowers mean something dangerous yet beautiful and bewitching. Just like her by his side. And he says that they represent victory and prosperity, which are his goals as a Gong clan member (but maybe not what his heart truly wants).

Paying the last respect for the tutor. While an assassin is toying with Shangjue, he is toying with her. He always pulls her closer and immediately pushes her away, gives her approval of her actions and the next moment punishes her for the same actions. He knows that she is dangerous and got closer to him on purpose, but he ends up liking her anyway.

Along his toying with her, nevertheless, he treats her as his real future wife and indulges her to change something chaotically in his realm of order in front of his servants and, I suppose, starts believing himself that she will be his wife.

Meanwhile, an assassin uses the knowledge she received very skillfully: she learns about death of Shangjue’s mother and talks about her mom in order to worm her path out into his shell, later she uses the information given her by Yuanzhi (about Gong clan above everything for Shangjue) to make Shangjue believe she knows his heart.

It looked like he would kiss her. But he didn't.

Their conversation in this scene is heartbreaking: she tells him, that the Main Hero puts Gong clan in danger because he knows there is an assassin in the residence and does nothing about it, and Shangjue has got no evidence that could help to catch her red handed. And by the time she is speaking Shangjue already knows - it is HIM who knows that an assassin is by his side and voluntary puts his clan in danger (and, as we know, will proceed to do it till the end of the story). When Shangjue catches his fiancée as a suspect, his moral trial begins.

Watching the drama for the first time, I was very surprised that he did almost nothing to interrogate her (pushing at the wound can't be considered as a torture). His duty is to expose and to kill a Wufeng assassin, but he ends up eagerly believing any lie his fiancée tells him because he likes her and WANTS to believe her. Then he is about to touch her but doesn't dare to do so, and it's a significant sign, too. He hadn't problems with touching Yuanzhi (at least, when they were younger), so, I suppose, this lack of touching between Shangjue and his fiancée represents his inner struggle. He wants to be tender with her because he likes her, but tenderness is a weakness and shouldn`t be shown to an enemy.

Speaking of intimacy and touching, a lack of it between them is so palpable that I felt very uncomfortable when, a few episodes later, that pool sex scene happened. Many people didn`t understand either, have they banged or not, because even them touching each other is already something unbelievable in this drama. I spent a lot of time thinking about how they banged considering Shangjue’s problems with touching her and allowing her to touch him 😁😁😁.

Btw, this scene is definitely a sex scene. In China there is a very strict censorship in terms of a lot of things, including queere-relationship and sex, but there is also a lot of ways to show it without actually showing something (but even the fact that they were NAKED together in one pool told me everything, as long as in other dramas people had to have sex being dressed in three layers of hanfu). I`m not that deep into Chinese culture, but I have read in comments that the strange phrase of Shangjue «These buds will bloom soon, then you will know if I like you like this (her less obedient and more ambitious self)» refers to a Chinese idiom about a loss of virginity (so if it’s true, Shangjue deliberately invited her to have sex with him if she wanted to know if he liked her and that’s why she came to him without undergarments in the dead of night). The lanterns in the water of a pool refer to the unity of male Yang and female Yin energies (and we could see them in the scene of their first «date», btw). He loosened her hair in the pool: manipulations with girl’s hair it`s something that only husband is allowed do (that’s why you often can see in dramas that a male lead gifts his lover a hairpin or a comb). After everything’s happened, he hovers his cup above a saucer, which means «want to repeat». However, I couldn`t find any proof of these meanings because it seems like Chinese internet doesn`t cross English-speaking one at all and I respectively don`t understand Mandarin. So, if you know something else about it, feel free to correct me in comments. Btw, I`m sure, Yuanzhi's constant speaking about tea in front of Shangguan Qian refers to some kind of idiom, too, but I couldn`t find any information about it. UPD: my fellow @randomingoftherandomness says that it has something to do with a Chinese slang phrase 綠茶婊 (green tea bitch) - "a person who tries to look innocent being in fact calculating".

During the «torture» scene an assassin asks if Shangjue can spare her life and he says «no», because his duty is not to show mercy to Gong clan enemies. This scene echoes with the end of the story, when she asks him again to spare her life and he says he will if she gives him back the Sutra. And he really lets her go, which is strictly opposite to his mission of protecting Gong clan, because she knows everything about their inner residences and Gong clan members, and, what is the most important, the secret of the Sutra. But Shangjue wants to let her leave because she is the first thing he wants for himself, the first longing of a person, not of a function. Only by opposition between his duty and his heart he could find out who the real he is. Letting her go is very VERY irrational decision, but, unlike for the Main Hero, who stole his assassin‘s heart by his incompatible with life naivety, for Shangjue it is a natural point of his character development: being restricted from all his human wishes for a decade, when he gets the opportunity to fulfil them, he gets off his leash and does it fully. Very human behavior, btw.

I was very surprised seeing that Shangjue’s fiancée had time during this mess to change her clothes. Later I understood that she did it on purpose: she had more chances to survive if Shangjue would recall his feelings for her because this pink dress was a gift from him. In their final scene together he says that he would let her go if she gives him the Sutra back, it means she doesn't need to pretend to be pregnant in order to save her life, as soon as Shangjue always keeps his promises. But he lets her know that he doesn't count her as someone from Gong clan (and as his fiancée as well) anymore, and maybe that’s why she says that she bears a child and formulates it's so as if it's a new member of Gong clan, not just a fruit of their passion, because Gong clan does matter for him and his own personality doesn`t (and, btw, remembering the fertility problems, children are very valued in the clan). But I don't understand why preserving of her bond to Gong clan is so important to her. Yes, she couldn't go back to Wufeng because her information caused its collapse but she couldn't stay with the man she just tried to wipe out as well. Maybe her only hope was that she could keep the Sutra as a clan member (a mother of a Gong child), but Shangjue snatched it back. Her story have had some curtain development but kinda not till the final point so I would like to see how their relationship would move further. It is crystal clear by this last scene of them together that Shangjue catastrophically and fully lost to his assassin. When I have watched the drama for the first time I was sure she would use his soft spot on her to kill him, especially when she put his sword down and came to him very closely. At the very end of the story it seems that Shangjue believed everything she said to him in this last conversation, because her information about Wufeng’s boss is spreaded across the Martial World by the Main Hero, which means Shangjue shared it with him.

Azaleas mean "I belong to you forever".

Back in the story, when didi takes the assassin to Shangjue`s residence, he says that the most vulnerable and unpredictable thing is a human heart and that people often don`t want to know the truth. The story itself proves him right: it’s true in terms of Yuanzhi self, whose heart can be and is hurt only by Shangjue, even if his sworn brother doesn`t have a clue about the inner processes that are going on inside didi’s head; it`s also true in terms of an assassin, so far as she starts seeing a handsome man instead of her victim; and, of course, it’s true for Shangjue as well: he deliberately deceives himself believing the assassin isn`t assassin just to have an opportunity to be with her.

It was a pure pleasure to feel for these characters and to watch their stories unfold and I definitely would recommend this drama for watching.

Shangjue. Introduction Shangjue and his didi, Pt. 1 Shangjue and his didi, Pt. 2

Tags

cdrama enemies to lovers to enemies my journey to you yun zhi yu gong shangjue mjty shangguan qian SDaboutMJTY cheng lei gong shang jue lu yu xiao

How to fight your doom (Pt.2)

Episode 8 I think this and the next one episode are most important for development of Devil’s and Girl’s relationships. The story is filled with fateful accidents as well as interesting parallels and some of them we can see in this episode too. It’s funny that at the beginning of the story Girl IS in love with God of War and he IS in love with her. You may think: if their feelings are mutual, what can go wrong? But God of War is too afraid to go against his brother (although he is more powerful than all of the fairies together, as we can see in ep. 26) and too fixated on his duty to get this mutual love. He lies to his brother that he doesn’t like and even despises Girl. And Devil shows this scene to her. I love that it happens by accident: Devil sincerely doesn’t know about GoW’s affection, so he doesn’t have any intention to disrupt their relationships, he just forces her to face the truth (and he also believes it’s true), but it will matter to romantic feelings of hers for GoW later. At the same time it parallels with the future situation when Devil himself tells the same lie to her face and it breaks hers as well as his life. A lie destroys any relationships.

Devil starts to feel something other than Girl’s emotions and I love how he tries to find some rational explanations why it happens. If Devil’s heart hurts when he sees Girl as GoW’s bride, it’s because of Girl’s physical state. Not because Devil cares. No way! If he is angry when Girl praises GoW, it’s because of wicked effects of the curse. Not because Devil is jealous, no. And Dragon boy watches it all with the poker face: «Master, when are you going to force her to fix Destiny Book? Not today? She needs to sleep? Hmmm… OK».

Then there comes this ICONIC scene:

Girl tries to refrain from tears and Devil says that she shouldn’t pretend to be strong in front of him because he knows how she feels. He knows it, obviously, thanks to the curse, but Girl doesn’t know about it, so she thinks he is very empathic. Knowing how another feels is very intimate thing, only our nearest and dearest ones can say how do we feel just by looking at us and only in front of them we can be ourselves and don’t have to hide our weaknesses and pain. Devil doesn’t get even medium level of emotional intelligence by now but he is a VERY good learner, so he does some very empathetic and important for their relationships things: when she asks him, if he looks down on her like others do, he squats. He SQUATS to be on the SAME LEVEL with her! He is ben zuo, the higher God of Demons, he doesn’t need to do it at all, but he does.

And then he wipes her tears. This movement is raw and quite not gentle but, as we will see later, he even doesn’t know how to smile and how to show his affection to his relatives. Tears wiping is a big deal for him. And again: he doesn’t have to but he does.

And after that we can see EVEN MORE ICONIC SCENE:

Girl knows that he is a criminal who has broken free from the Fairy Prison and is a demon from the enemy tribe. But she has no prejudice against «enemy» tribe. Devil has done to her mostly good deeds (let’s put aside that attempt to strangle her at their «first date»). She is very compassionate and doesn’t want him to die because of other’s prejudice, so she grabs him and hides him beneath the Arbiter Hall, in the sea.

Devil is almighty and doesn’t need to be saved, so maybe in this moment he thinks that she tries to save her precious GoW from his Hellfire. When she is out of breath and slowly falls to the bottom of the sea, we can see another parallel, which shows us Devil’s changes.

Devil high above looks like in his battle against Fairy Realm 30 thousand years ago: we can see only his silhouette, he is very afar and out of reach, indifferent to lives and deaths of those who beneath him. I find this scene a little bit funny because we all know: he can’t be indifferent to Girl’s life anyway, he is cursed and if she suffocated so did he. So Mighty Demon God sighs and comes down to breathe life into Girl.

What I love in this story the most – we can think about «point of no return» when their affection starts, but, exactly like it goes in the real life, we can`t find the certain moment. Forging affection is a process, not a flash that pierced one’s heart right away. So, even forced to save her life, he is truly embarrassed when they are at the Arbiter Hall again, he touches his lips trying to understand his current emotions and the Spring starts in his Sea of Heart with the first tiny green leaf of feelings. He is quite affected. But his affection is fragile and ghostly by now.

And then this BEAUTIFUL scene comes:

"Little flower demon?!"

He wakes up. Somewhere. He was unconscious. He was knocked out by little, harmless and suspiciously nervous Girl. And he wakes up. He wasn’t poisoned to death. He wasn’t imprisoned. Everyone in this world wants him dead, he was short-sighted and could be already dead but he is still here. And Girl says that she knows he is enemy of her tribe, she knows how risky it is to send him away now, but she CARES about his safety, well-being, warmth and food and wants him to go back to the Demon Realm so no one could kill him.

Later, when he comes back, he learns that this 10% of soul recuperation couldn`t be proceeded not because of Girl`s unrequited love for GoW but because she really was worried about him.

This realization is very important for him as we can see later in this story. In his life Devil always was an enemy to be hated or a weapon to be relied on. But even almighty evil lords are just human beings deep in their hearts. If you are strong it doesn’t mean you don’t need to be cared, supported and loved. So this situation pushes him to rethink his life and his father’s teachings about affections. And in this scene he also learns how to show his attachment: later in Human Realm he will give to Girl food on the go as she in this boat scene does.

Btw there are plenty of stories when people fall in love with nice attitude towards them (and GoW is one of them), and I find it much healthier than to fall in love at first sight or with someone’s appearance. So, although Devil’s Tree of Seven Emotions will bloom far later, I think in this episode him falling in love with Girl starts to be inevitable.

Episodes 1-7 Episodes 9-13 Episodes 13-19 Episodes 20-26 Episodes 27-34

Tags

long reads cdrama love between fairy and devil cang lan jue SDaboutLBFAD dong fang qing cang xiao lan hua me trying to process my obsession

90 notes View Post

sombredancer

6 years ago

Once I Believed That Everything And Everyone Drawn By Me Would Dissapear From My Life. But I Am Still

Once I believed that everything and everyone drawn by me would dissapear from my life. But I am still here. Am I?

Tags

self portrait learn to draw SDaboutstuff ugly pictures

2 notes View Post

sombredancer

1 year ago

Tags

stray kids lee felix skz lee youngbok SDaboutSKZ love his facial expressions

37 notes View Post

sombredancer

1 year ago

I just watched ep. 13 and I have a bad feeling that Gong Yuanzhi is dead for real and Gong Shangjue just went insane out of grief.

Firstly, everyone kneeled when GYZ trailed off his speech and dropped a herb. As servants did in other dramas when Emperor died.

Secondly, there were some mourning lanterns in the air and Gong Shangjue watched them in his clothes from the date with an assassin (so it belongs not to the flashback).

Thirdly, YWS saw the light on the tower was lighten up. The previous time it was lighten up when the previous leader of Yu-lineage died. Gong Yuanzhi is the leader of Zhi-lineage. God, I hope I think too much and went to the wrong conclusions, and director didn`t treat my favorite characters of this drama like that...

Tags

cdrama tian jia rui my journey to you gong shangjue SDaboutMJTY cheng lei gong yuanzhi

25 notes View Post

sombredancer

2 years ago

Thoughts on TtEotM

Well... I didn't like it. LYX was marvelous, CGI, too, plot elements were pretty good changed to tie the story up (and the part with Ming Ye was better tied to the main plot than in the book), but still... I didn't like it. In the book it was the story about man without abilities to feel something, his "love" in the first part of the story was wicked and twisted, so the contrast with the second part was huge and palpable. TTJ was a monster and became a man, he turned from egoist who only wanted to survive no matter what to person who was ready to give away the most precious thing for him (his life) to make his beloved happy (it happened that saving the world was the thing that could make his beloved happy, so he sacrificed himself to do it). And his heroic deed was rewarded with resurrection and a normal life with his family and new-found home. The story in the drama has nothing to do with that. There is a poor boy (no monster at all!!!) who constantly suffers and wants to die, falls in love with the first person who treated him well and sacrifices himself for the world that was so unkind to him. It`s awful! I know that Chinese people love the idea that you should die for the greater good, but this philosophy is as far from my heart as Jupiter from the Earth. Maybe DFQC will remain the only one drama "villain" who's got the happy end. And that drama will stay my favorite.

Tags

enemies to lovers be cdrama till the end of the moon black moonlight holds the be script chang yue jin ming SDaboutTTEOTM luo yunxi

107 notes View Post

sombredancer

6 years ago

My favorite character from Solo: A Star Wars story

Tags

portrait learn to draw enfys nest SDaboutstuff SDaboutSW ugly pictures

5 notes View Post

sombredancer

1 year ago

Swooning over a secondary character (again), Pt. 3/3

Dandelions as a symbol of a longing for salvation (and of their love as well, which is SYMBOLIC).

He is about to run away with his sister (who is happened to be lovesick and heart-broken, too) but then he learns it was his lover who ordered assassin to shot him and decides to talk to her one more time before leaving. He is foolishly brave, as usually. Maybe he is very understanding, too, and this wicked attempt to make him stay said to him how desperate the princess needed him, or something, idk, it's never been said in the story.

They meet in private again and she says she wants to run away, too. He is reluctant and it makes her upset.

But finally feelings take over rationality and he promises to take her away with him. But this secret tryst was watched by Kim Cha-eon's spies, so now he is sure his daughter is pregnant with Moo-yeon's child. And also he knows Moo-yeon lied to him about killing of the Crown Prince. This all doesn't bode well for Moo-yeon.

Kim Cha-eon takes Moo-yeon hostage and threats his daughter to kill him off if she doesn`t obediently play her role of a Crown Princess, pregnant with Crown Prince's child. He is also not happy with her humble choice of a baby's father.

Meanwhile, during the investigation of his own murder attempt, the amnesiac Crown Prince makes a big mess in Kim Cha-eon's mansion and finds something very interesting in vice-prime minister's barn...

So here we have a sweet family reunion. A wanna-be-murderer of the Crown Prince turns out to be a big brother of a woman he loves.

After blaming Moo-yeon for leading such a miserable and disgraceful life and serving for a murderer of their father (even if it all was for her sake), Yoon Yi-seo tells him to hand himself over to the Crown Prince and to confess his crimes (which is a death sentence for him for sure) and Moo-yeon does it.

Moo-yeon tells the Crown Prince that Kim Cha-eon tried to kill him because Kim So-hye is pregnant with Moo-yeon's baby and the Crown Prince says no his beloved's brother nor his unfaithful wife will be forgiven.

"Escort the Crown Princess out of palace. She went out in the deaf of night to meet her paramour and was killed there. "

The Crown Prince didn't forgive them but let them run away together just as they wished to. I don't care there are 1,5 more eps, this drama ended up for me here, they ran away and lived maybe not super-happily, but free together and raised their child in love. The end.

"Once it heavily rained for a long time. The whole soil was drowned and even dandelions were about to die. A small dandelion prayed to the skies. It pleaded for salvation. Then suddenly the wind blew. The dandelion's seeds took flight and landed on a sunny hill. Shortly after they sprouted and bloomed. If we ride the wind, we will be able to bloom somewhere else, too."

Here is Part 1 Here is Part 2

Tags

kdrama han so hee 100 days my prince moo yeon Yoon sokha SDabout100dmp kim sohye Kim Jae-young Yoon Seok-ha Kim jaeyoung Kim So-hye han sohee

22 notes View Post

sombredancer

7 months ago

Why Are You Always Taking Their Side? Why Can't I?

Why are you always taking their side? Why can't I?

FANGS OF FORTUNE 大梦归离 — 2024, dir. Edward Guo, Luo Luo, Wei Nan

Tags

fangs of fortune li lun SDaboutFoF mmmm… BL romance!

382 notes View Post

sombredancer

7 months ago

Tags

i love this stray kids skz giant venom chk chk boom skz giant SDaboutSKZ MV aesthetics

5 notes View Post

sombredancer

1 year ago

Swooning over a secondary character (again), Pt. 2/3

The evil vice-prime minister promised Moo-yeon (aka Yoon Sok-ha) that he can be relieved from his servitude and safely reunite with his sister if he fulfills the last and the most difficult task: to kills the Crown Prince. But Moo-yeon failed to do it during the organized by Kim Cha-eon attack and is forced now to finish this task by his own means.

Eventually, Moo-yeon finds the prince amnesiac and, moreover, wedded to Moo-yeon's sister, who happened to hide all this time in a nearby village as a peasant.

His sister seem to genuinely like the amnesiac prince, so, after some moral sufferings, Moo-yeon dares to deceive Kim Cha-eon making him believe the Crown Prince is dead. And then he gets his long-longed freedom.

And he could live freely and happily ever after with his sister (and her husband) if not for one thing.

Namely: he has an affair with the Crown Princess (the Crown Prince's wife and also Kim Cha-eon's daughter, whom he threated with the blade as he was a kid). Going out of Kim Cha-eon's mansion, Moo-yeon accidentally hears that his lover is pregnant, so he also decides to bid farewell to her before finding his sister and disappearing with her for good.

His lover, Kim So-Hye, is a very miserable woman, too. Her father used her from her childhood on to reach his political goals and arranged her marriage with the Crown Prince who hated her from the bottom of his heart as a daughter of the murderer of his childhood love Yoon Yi-seo (which is VERY ironic). She was very lonely in the palace so she couldn`t stand her lover leaving her, too, and hired one of father's assassins to hurt Moo-yeon and make him stay (even if only for the time of his recovering).

The Crown Prince never ever got laid with his wife, so she is obviously pregnant by someone else and Kim Cha-eon tried to kill the prince in order to cover for his daughter (because adultery of the princess should be punished by death of the whole cheater's family). He told her to kill the biological father of her child by herself in order to eliminate the witness, believing it was one of a noblemen of the palace. Later he learned she killed a son of an official and felt relieved. But the situation over Moo-yeon being shot in order to prevent him from leaving makes Kim Cha-eon rethink the adultery of his daughter. And from now on he starts being suspicious of Moo-yeon.

Meanwhile, there are rumors spreading that the Crown Prince is alive and it forces severely wounded Moo-yeon to try to make him disappear for good (because if Kim Cha-eon learns that Moo-yeon lied to him, the little liar won`t be able to escape and reunite with his sister). But he predictably fails and stays lying on the ground, unconscientious and bleeding.

Fortunately, he has good subordinates who find him and bring him back. The Crown Princess is very anxious, she never wanted to hurt him so seriously, so she takes a good care for him.

But the situation over the Crown Prince's fake death becomes more and more dangerous, Moo-yeon‘s life and freedom as well as his sister's is hung by a thread, so his subordinates help him to run away.

He sends back to his lover a bracelet she once gifted him and bids his farewell to her, planning to start a new life with his sister far away from Jeoson. Unlike the Crown Prince, who hated Kim So-hye for who her father is, Moo-yeon is in love with her even despite her being a daughter of his father's murderer. But he understands that their relationship is doomed as far as she is a nobility and (an unloved, but still) Crown Prince's wife and he is a mere slave of her father, unable to protect even himself. So he thinks it`ll be better for them to just forget each other. (And he is so goddamn right! But love is love. *sighs*)

Here is Part 1 Here is Part 3

Tags