Shen Wei's decision not to tell Zhao Yunlan

[riventhorn]

 I'm putting this discussion behind the cut because it contains spoilers for Episodes 38 through 40. 

I'm interested in how others feel about Shen Wei's decision not to tell Zhao Yunlan about his end-game plan for stopping Ye Zun, i.e. turning himself into a bomb. 

Personally, I think it was the right decision--or perhaps it is more accurate to say, the best choice of many bad options. Regardless of whether he told Zhao Yunlan or not, I don't think Shen Wei would have changed his decision to sacrifice himself to stop Ye Zun. If he had told ZYL much earlier, say when he first conceived of the plan or during the famous kitchen scene, it would only have resulted in a lot of fighting, anger, and sorrow, because ZYL would certainly have tried to stop Shen Wei or done something drastic himself to try and stop Ye Zun. I mean, just look at ZYL's face in these moments in Ep 38 when Shen Wei is hurt and how absolutely devastated he is: https://youtu.be/V2dUtbSz4hQ?t=1823

By not telling ZYL, Shen Wei is able to be with him without Shen Wei's looming death hanging over them. Shen Wei, of course, knows what is coming and has to bear that, but I consider it more an act of kindness and love not to tell ZYL as opposed to looking at it as a selfish act. 

Beyond this moment, it raises the interesting question of when it is appropriate to keep secrets, to keep people in the dark, to hide bad news, etc. I know I've read this somewhere, although I can't remember where, but it was something to the effect of how a strong and lasting relationship may not necessarily depend on the parties involved sharing everything with each other. 

Comments

[trobadora]

I know the show couldn't actually have allowed that, but I have faith in them and their strength together!

See, I feel like it does the characters a disservice to judge their actions by assuming they had options they were never going to have. The drama's world is set up so that Ye Zun really is too powerful to defeat in other ways, and Ye Zun just wasn't ever going to listen to Shen Wei/believe the truth until everything was truly over.

(I like alternate-ending fix-its! I want more of them! But you have to really work hard to find a way to change the situation so that it's plausible.)

[xparrot]

Yeah, this is very much a YMMV thing.

For me, Ye Zun's absolute power seems very deus ex machina; Shen Wei's powers are so undefined as well, so Ye Zun being undeniably more powerful than him feels like an arbitrary storytelling decision to force the tragic end. Shen Wei pulling a crazy unseen power out to defeat Ye Zun because Zhao Yunlan is threatened wouldn't feel any more or less plausible to me than the actual end -- or Zhao Yunlan gaining a Dixing power from the serum strong enough to fight Ye Zun, or Ye Zun deciding at the last moment that he can't kill his brother after all, or a host of other things; the only reason they don't have those options is because the writers don't let them?

But it's all subjective! For me, tragic endings are a tough sell -- I do like them sometimes, but it takes a lot to satisfy me; while I'm more likely to go easy on a happy ending. For me, for what the Guardian show is to me and how I relate to it, the ending doesn't work. But that's what fanfic is for!

[trobadora]

Yeah, we're clearly coming at this from very different directions! For me, the drama is building up to that ending so much, I'm having trouble believing anything else. *g*

(I can be convinced for the duration of a fic! I do love a good canon divergence. And I'm here for ALL the happy endings.)

[riventhorn]

Yes, probably how you feel about it depends a lot on how you feel about the overall ending. I'll have to spend some more time pondering why tragic endings can appeal to me. For example, I also really liked the ending of BBC's Merlin, which was arguably even sadder than Guardian. I'd also throw the LOTR in there, with Frodo's "death." I think part of it is that they pack such an emotional punch that the feelings linger with me and make me think more. Also, perhaps in some ways they feel more realistic to me as opposed to a HEA ending in that they capture the bittersweet/sad aspects of life. Certainly with both Guardian and Merlin, I like the tragic ending because it's not just a "ok, I don't know how to end this, let's just kill everyone off" and not just done to be depressing but rather the characters' sacrifices are for a real purpose.

But anyway, as you say, everyone has their own feelings on the subject!

[ranalore]

I can see this argument. I mean, for me, the ending works, and so many things in the show were building up to it. Yet, especially in a discussion like this, my writerly brain turns on and I can't help but see the authorial fiat in that.

Do I think it would take some work to make a happier ending jive? Yes. Yet, there are undefined plot elements that, depending on how you interpret them, could help with some of the heavy lifting. The twins' powers, the powers of the Hallows, how the Hallows responded to ZYL, and how they were changing ZYL, are just a few factors I can think of that could have changed how the ending went down (even if it still ended with all three dying, how that happened could have been radically different). I could even see how, if other conditions were still met (light and resources to Dixing, SW's energy fundamentally changed, for example), ZYL and SW living (and possibly a neutralized Ye Zun) might work with earlier plot threads. I think it would take some careful writing, but I think the potential is there.

[xparrot]

Yes, part of the problem I have with the end is that I agree that some of the show was written toward it -- toward the ending that was required, that the characters had to die, because they could not be allowed to have a happy ending, not as an mlm couple in a PRC drama.

But then, a lot of the show was also taking from the novel (if not the plot, then specific scenes, e.g. the confrontation in ep 23 is nearly a direct adaptation), which does end happily.

I think the story as arranged did necessitate sacrifice -- many stories do. But I don't think that sacrifice had to be their lives. Shen Wei losing his powers and becoming (whole or partly) a mortal Haixingren -- even as Zhao Yunlan took the serum and became Dixingren -- could have also met a lot of the requirements of the narrative setup. (Plus there are threads like Xiao Guo being the lantern's wick that are left dangling...)

[ranalore]

But then, a lot of the show was also taking from the novel (if not the plot, then specific scenes, e.g. the confrontation in ep 23 is nearly a direct adaptation), which does end happily.

I was thinking about that, too. I haven't read the novel, and consider it extracanonical to the show, but of course those aspects of it that made it into the show are show canon. And the thing about scenes that are close adaptations, they come with their own intent--authorial fiat again--with some embedding of the original context. So there is a carefully built throughline leading to the sacrifice-as-written, but there are also pieces there to be connected to lead to a different ending, one closer to that on which the show's own adaptation was based.

Plus, we always have to keep in mind that the show's text itself can be read at at least two levels: what the censors made happen, and what the creators really wanted to make. I have written a lot of fandoms set at least partly in the afterlife; that could still have been a happy ending, had SW and ZYL been allowed to stay together.

Shen Wei losing his powers and becoming (whole or partly) a mortal Haixingren

I would actually love to have seen him become something entirely new, a light energy Dixingren, but that's my id.

Plus there are threads like Xiao Guo being the lantern's wick that are left dangling...

I did wonder about that, and the conversations about that didn't make it sound like Xiao Guo would necessarily need to die for that to happen (though Lao Chu also suffers prettily, so if Xiao Guo did end up dying, it would be for two good causes).

[xparrot]

I would actually love to have seen him become something entirely new, a light energy Dixingren, but that's my id.

Oh hey, that would be cool, I like that one!

And it really would've fit better with the show's themes, to me (one of my biggest problems with the ending, aside from the character death, is that after a whole show's worth of examples of how Haixingren and Dixingren can learn to get along and work together and love each other -- in the end the worlds are completely separated. To me it's a tragedy presented as a victory, and was unnecessary besides...)

[extrapenguin]

after a whole show's worth of examples of how Haixingren and Dixingren can learn to get along and work together and love each other -- in the end the worlds are completely separated. To me it's a tragedy presented as a victory, and was unnecessary besides...
This. So very much this! The show does have throughlines that build towards a sacrifice, but it also has throughlines that build towards other things: all races can cooperate together, and the theme of revenge being not worth it. For the latter, it would IMO have fit perfectly if (due to interspecies cooperation?) Ye Zun had taken a step back at the precipice and not gone through his revenge, letting eg Zhao Yunlan talk him down.

[riventhorn]

The complete separation between Dixing and Haixing disappointed me too. If I was going to have a different ending to the drama, this sort of scenario is what I would want. I also felt, though, that with almost every "villain" story, the show emphasized the idea of making bad decisions with bad consequences based on incomplete information. Ye Zun's backstory fit perfectly within this narrative. So in that way, I thought that it complemented the narrative moods and goals of the show.

[extrapenguin]

True, Ye Zun's backstory fits perfectly, but I think it could have been an excellent capstone to the theme if Ye Zun discovered his information was incomplete and took a step back (and then figured out how to redeem himself), because another thing I noticed was that the show was very kind to its former villains as soon as they stopped being villainous. Had they chosen to do so, they could've gone for the "it's never too late to turn back and fix your mistakes, so please do so now" angle. Community service!

[riventhorn]

It is kind to the villains in some ways, but often it seems not to let them reverse the mistakes they made. For example, Wang Xiangyang dies and cannot reverse the Merit Brush spell that releases Ye Zun. Sha Ya gets sent to Dixing (and eventually eaten by Ye Zun) without being able to change Ye Zun's plan. It's more like, okay, you realized the horrible error you made, now you and everyone else has to deal with the consequences.

Having Ye Zun redeem himself would be a twist on it, true, but to me that seems more of a cop-out "we want a happy ending" as opposed to exploring the theme they have built up and the consequences of it.

[extrapenguin]

Hm, I'd see dealing with the consequences as part of the redemption process. Anyway, my basic point was that they had a lot of throughlines going on, and it would've been pretty easy to choose to emphasize another one a bit more and make Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan's sacrifice a bit less narratively critical and give at least them a happy ending.

[trobadora]

Chiming in: I dislike the Dixing/Haixing separation, too. But I feel like, since Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan are of course going to find each other again, they're going to need some problem to deal with, and that can be part of the plot. *g*

(Totally agreed about Ye Zun and the "incomplete information" theme, btw!)

[riventhorn]

lol, yes, SW and ZYL will need some sort of problem--they could never have a dull existence!

In a future meta post, I'd be interested in exploring the whole "incomplete information" theme too. I wonder if it is there in the novel at all or if it is drama-specific?

[trobadora]

I know I've said this before, but what I want most of all isn' a fix-it, it's a sequel. *g*

And I'd love to read that meta post! It's such a consistent throughline for the drama, and I don't recall hearing it mentioned in relation to the novel. But I haven't read enough of it to be able to say whether it exists there.

[riventhorn]

what I want most of all isn' a fix-it, it's a sequel.

ME TOO.

How would you want their reincarnated selves handled? Would they still look like ZYL and SW or would have new bodies/appearances?

[trobadora]

Honestly, I'm not really a fan of reincarnation in the drama-verse - I'd like some other solution best. (But no matter what, I'd always want them to look like themselves. I just can't imagine them as played by anyone but Zhu Yilong and Bai Yu.)

[riventhorn]

So something like "restored to life as themselves"--sort of more like the idea of King Arthur sleeping on the island until it's time for him to awake?

And yes, I can't imagine them as anyone but Bai Yu and Zhu Yilong either.

[trobadora]

Yes, something like that! Like Shen Wei's dirt nap, maybe, or Ge Lan/Wang Zheng suddenly popping up as an amnesiac ghost 100 years after her death.

[xparrot]

Ahhh, see for me a sequel would be a "fix-it," at least how I conceive of them! My issues with the Guardian drama ending are primarily because it's the ending. If the storylines were part of a larger narrative, I wouldn't have nearly as much trouble accepting them.

E.g. The Dixing-Haixing separation wouldn't bother me so much if in the end they'd mentioned it as a problem -- that the SID was trying to get the portals open or something, to reunite families separated and such. But instead it's treated like it's the solution -- everyone's got their own sun, we don't need to cooperate any longer, whew! And that's frustrating to me.

[trobadora]

You know, I think this conversation just clarified something for me. I suppose I see the final scene between Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan as such a blatant "this is NOT the ending; the story will keep on going!" that I'm not taking things for that final ... which definitely affects how I react to them.

(But yeah, even then I really don't like the Dixing/Haixing separation and choose to believe it won't last for very long.)

[xparrot]

Heh, yeah, that's my sister; she doesn't find the ending especially tragic at all, because she's so sure they'll come back/be reincarnated/whatever...

And I can see it that way sometimes, but I needed a bit more for it to really work for me (okay, I needed a hug, dang it, there's all that glorious angst and torture and whump at the end but I'm an h/c fan, I can't enjoy it properly without some comfort! ;_;)