Elwin (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
elwinfortuna) wrote2021-06-24 10:28 am
elwinfortuna) wrote2021-06-24 10:28 am
Everything is WangXian and nothing hurts...
...or, why you as a Silmarillion fan, should watch The Untamed & read Mo Dao Zu Shi.
First a quick scene setting: The Untamed is a live-action 50-episode TV series currently available on Netflix and also on YouTube. It is an adaptation of Mo Dao Zu Shi (Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation), a Chinese fantasy novel that is also straight-up gay erotica with an epic slowburn. The Untamed had to deal with working around Chinese censorship, so the gay is subtext but it's coded subtext and really obvious if you know what you're looking for. Like, the production team and actors had a line they couldn't cross and they knew it but sometimes they danced on that line.
The story is set in fantasy ancient China and it's about the "cultivation" world where certain people have magical powers and are basically wizards. "Cultivation" means cultivating your "golden core" or qi, and the stronger your core is, the more power you have. The cultivators use their powers in all kinds of different ways: from magical swords they can fly with, to musical instruments to channel magic through, to talismans they write in the air, and much more.
The main characters are Wei Wuxian, the Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation as per the title, a trouble-making, heroic-minded, chaotic good, cheerful, mischief-loving disaster bisexual genius who goes on a journey into some dark shit with all the best of intentions
and
Lan Wangji, a righteous, upright, stone-cold, repressed gay badass who can't hold his liquor and who has one (1) soft spot. Seriously, you can literally pinpoint the moment he falls in love, if you're watching closely.
They are the focus, but it's not just about them; there are other wonderful characters such as the fan-bearing, fainting Nie Huaisang, smirky, giggly, pretty, villainous Xue Yang, wandering cultivators and life partners Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen, gentle and diplomatic Lan Xichen (Lan Wangji's older brother), anger boi Jiang Cheng (Wei Wuxian's brother by adoption), frail and kind Jiang Yanli (Wei Wuxian's sister by adoption), doctor, double-agent, and utter queen we stan Wen Qing, her brother Wen Ning, who is either perfect cinnamon roll or murder puppet no in-between, and so many more.
So why would you as a Silm fan be into this? There are just so many reasons!
First of all, nearly everyone is super fucking pretty and they've all got long dark hair that they wear in fancy headpieces, and they wear robes with long flowing sleeves that somehow magically rarely get dirty and they fight incredibly gracefully with their magic swords which sometimes glow. Seriously at times they're just missing pointy ears to look exactly like Elves. NGL, my visual headcanon for Fingolfin basically looks more or less like Lan Xichen now.
Second, the use of music! Music is very important to this story, it's in fact the key and the lynchpin to everything. Lan Wangji uses a guqin, a seven-stringed instrument, in a variety of ways, both in combat and to declare his feelings. Wei Wuxian plays an evil magical flute (as well as not-evil magical flutes), and after he's resurrected from death, Lan Wangji knows him instantly because he plays their song, despite the fact that he's literally in a different body and trying to conceal his identity.
Third, do you like the intimacy of thees and thous? Try the intimacy of using different names for someone depending on how you feel about them! Try using a title you're not supposed to use as a way to declare your feelings, or put someone down. It's glorious and I love it!
Fourth, gorgeous settings, from eerie underground caves to the serenity of Cloud Recesses to the beauty of Lotus Pier to the harsh landscape of the Nightless City. And little towns and so many beautiful mountains and valleys. So much of this series is a feast for the eyes.
Fifth, some of the themes include:
You’ll need to have a little patience with the story, as it drops you in media res for the first two episodes and then goes into a thirty-episode flashback, but the payoff is worth it. I would suggest give it to the end of episode 6 (by which time you’ve met nearly all the main players and Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji have already had to get symbolically married for “plot reasons” ahahahah) and the main plot is just about to kick off. By that point I was totally hooked.
Also, I would like to throw in one deeply poignant thing that hit home with me as a Tolkien fan. Lan Wangji secretly composes a song for himself and Wei Wuxian and this song is very plot-relevant. He calls it "WangXian" which is of course the ship name, but also means "Forgetting Envies." This is an allusion to a proverb which in part runs 'a pair of lovebirds is more to be envied than immortality,' in other words, true love is more desirable than eternal life or "I would rather spend one lifetime with you than face all the ages of this world alone."
...I am not okay.
And finally, here's a list of ways in which Wei Wuxian is similar to Fëanor (and why I love them both).
First a quick scene setting: The Untamed is a live-action 50-episode TV series currently available on Netflix and also on YouTube. It is an adaptation of Mo Dao Zu Shi (Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation), a Chinese fantasy novel that is also straight-up gay erotica with an epic slowburn. The Untamed had to deal with working around Chinese censorship, so the gay is subtext but it's coded subtext and really obvious if you know what you're looking for. Like, the production team and actors had a line they couldn't cross and they knew it but sometimes they danced on that line.
The story is set in fantasy ancient China and it's about the "cultivation" world where certain people have magical powers and are basically wizards. "Cultivation" means cultivating your "golden core" or qi, and the stronger your core is, the more power you have. The cultivators use their powers in all kinds of different ways: from magical swords they can fly with, to musical instruments to channel magic through, to talismans they write in the air, and much more.
The main characters are Wei Wuxian, the Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation as per the title, a trouble-making, heroic-minded, chaotic good, cheerful, mischief-loving disaster bisexual genius who goes on a journey into some dark shit with all the best of intentions
and
Lan Wangji, a righteous, upright, stone-cold, repressed gay badass who can't hold his liquor and who has one (1) soft spot. Seriously, you can literally pinpoint the moment he falls in love, if you're watching closely.
They are the focus, but it's not just about them; there are other wonderful characters such as the fan-bearing, fainting Nie Huaisang, smirky, giggly, pretty, villainous Xue Yang, wandering cultivators and life partners Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen, gentle and diplomatic Lan Xichen (Lan Wangji's older brother), anger boi Jiang Cheng (Wei Wuxian's brother by adoption), frail and kind Jiang Yanli (Wei Wuxian's sister by adoption), doctor, double-agent, and utter queen we stan Wen Qing, her brother Wen Ning, who is either perfect cinnamon roll or murder puppet no in-between, and so many more.
So why would you as a Silm fan be into this? There are just so many reasons!
First of all, nearly everyone is super fucking pretty and they've all got long dark hair that they wear in fancy headpieces, and they wear robes with long flowing sleeves that somehow magically rarely get dirty and they fight incredibly gracefully with their magic swords which sometimes glow. Seriously at times they're just missing pointy ears to look exactly like Elves. NGL, my visual headcanon for Fingolfin basically looks more or less like Lan Xichen now.
Second, the use of music! Music is very important to this story, it's in fact the key and the lynchpin to everything. Lan Wangji uses a guqin, a seven-stringed instrument, in a variety of ways, both in combat and to declare his feelings. Wei Wuxian plays an evil magical flute (as well as not-evil magical flutes), and after he's resurrected from death, Lan Wangji knows him instantly because he plays their song, despite the fact that he's literally in a different body and trying to conceal his identity.
Third, do you like the intimacy of thees and thous? Try the intimacy of using different names for someone depending on how you feel about them! Try using a title you're not supposed to use as a way to declare your feelings, or put someone down. It's glorious and I love it!
Fourth, gorgeous settings, from eerie underground caves to the serenity of Cloud Recesses to the beauty of Lotus Pier to the harsh landscape of the Nightless City. And little towns and so many beautiful mountains and valleys. So much of this series is a feast for the eyes.
Fifth, some of the themes include:
- fighting monsters and evil, including the evil within oneself and in society,
- the power of love, family, and loyalty,
- important questions about true heroism and sacrifice,
- the struggle to determine what is good and evil, right and wrong, and what true virtue is,
- healing and how to heal when you’ve suffered things nobody else has,
- resurrection from death, hope beyond hope fulfilled.
- Also, bunnies. They really like bunnies. It's a whole thing.
There are moments of genuine tragedy and despair but also moments of eucatastrophe (you see one in the literal second episode but don't realise it until much later!). It gets super dark but there is happiness in the end with both halves of the couple alive and well, and in the book, married with a very kinky sex life which is described in delicious detail.
You’ll need to have a little patience with the story, as it drops you in media res for the first two episodes and then goes into a thirty-episode flashback, but the payoff is worth it. I would suggest give it to the end of episode 6 (by which time you’ve met nearly all the main players and Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji have already had to get symbolically married for “plot reasons” ahahahah) and the main plot is just about to kick off. By that point I was totally hooked.
Also, I would like to throw in one deeply poignant thing that hit home with me as a Tolkien fan. Lan Wangji secretly composes a song for himself and Wei Wuxian and this song is very plot-relevant. He calls it "WangXian" which is of course the ship name, but also means "Forgetting Envies." This is an allusion to a proverb which in part runs 'a pair of lovebirds is more to be envied than immortality,' in other words, true love is more desirable than eternal life or "I would rather spend one lifetime with you than face all the ages of this world alone."
...I am not okay.
And finally, here's a list of ways in which Wei Wuxian is similar to Fëanor (and why I love them both).
- Genius inventors who aren't afraid to question and break the rules.
- Both take after their mothers who were geniuses themselves.
- Both have a berserk button only triggered by something happening to a particular member of their family.
- Both die with no body left.
- Both get questioned, attacked, vilified, blamed, and misunderstood.
- Both of them love their children and have to leave them behind when they die.
- Both have intense issues and conflicts with a brother and deep problems with a mother figure/step-parent.
- Both are eloquent, persuasive, act from good intentions initially, full of passion and excitement in life.
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Do give it a few episodes. The first two episodes in particular, you won't have any idea what's happening or how these people are connected to each other but this is on purpose and it pays off as you slowly begin to pick up on things over the next 30 episodes of the flashback.
One of the things I found as well is that because we're obviously watching with subtitles, it can be easy to miss some nuances in the terms used, especially in the names and titles, because, much like Tolkien, everyone's got a bunch of names, swords have names, etc. Definitely worth keeping notes to keep track of everyone.
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*Saves links*
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I hope you do at some point!
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I just love all the fight scenes, they're so graceful and balletic almost. Flowing hair and robes, totally impractical in a fight, don't care, won't care. :D
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I showed it to Kev, or a clip and he said, ‘Elves.’ at once 😂 He may watch it on Netflix after his 1000 odd-whatever things he’s currently watching, but watching it on the iPad is better for my eyes.
Flowing hair and robes, totally impractical in a fight, don't care, won't care. :D
No, I don’t care, either 😂
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Okay 😏
And finally, here's a list of ways in which Wei Wuxian is similar to Fëanor (and why I love them both).
Genius inventors who aren't afraid to question and break the rules.
Both take after their mothers who were geniuses themselves.
Both have a berserk button only triggered by something happening to a particular member of their family.
Both die with no body left.
Both get questioned, attacked, vilified, blamed, and misunderstood.
Both of them love their children and have to leave them behind when they die.
Both have intense issues and conflicts with a brother and deep problems with a mother figure/step-parent.
Both are eloquent, persuasive, act from good intentions initially, full of passion and excitement in life.
Phew *Fans self*
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(There are also Ways In Which Wei Wuxian Is Similar to Maedhros, and the very first scene of the show is a deeply illustrative case in point!)
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😭
If this is on YouTube, I can watch it there :)
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(and yes *sobs*)
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Glad you are enjoying The Untamed, too.
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I have a Type, and that type is raven-haired beautiful geniuses who get slandered, for sure. :D
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As soon as I finish the run, I am 100% going back and watching those first two eps again!
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I shall watch it again and give it more focus - perhaps over Christmas.
I totally agree that if you can take on-board the world of Tolkien and Silmarillion - especially Tolkien's elves - these shows are for you. The beauty, the tragedy and the clan drama are totally fitting.
And the subtle m/m love - so thoroughly done through their expressions and their eyes - just hits you right in the heart. ❤ ❤ ❤