drive-by Guardian thoughts

[riventhorn]

 I was watching ep 3 today, and was struck once again by ZYL's people skills. The first time he meets Professor Zhang, he notes how she is overly apologetic and connects that to either low self esteem or past trauma. In contrast, Shen Wei keeps insisting that she has nothing to do with the crime, and that one of the three students who we find out later was involved in raping Professor Zhang is a "sincere and warm" person. ZYL comments that although Shen Wei has studied many living things, he is lacking in the area of studying human beings. 

Other moments also support the idea that Shen Wei does not always have great interpersonal skills. For example, the way he "comforts" Zhu Hong about her unrequited feelings for ZYL. I think he is really trying to comfort her, but is obviously doing a terrible job. 

However, I think his relationship with Li Qian is quite different in this respect. He notices that she is stressed and unhappy; he finds ways to comfort her about her grandmother, etc.  And of course, his relationship with ZYL, where he is quite observant of ZYL's emotions. 

So, I'm interpreting Shen Wei as the sort of person who does better in long-lasting, deep relationships where he spends a lot of time with an individual and comes to know them and feel comfortable with them, as opposed to ZYL who can connect with people much faster. For this interpretation, I am assuming that Shen Wei has known Li Qian for a while and she has been his grad assistant for a while too. 

In a related note, I love how swiftly Shen Wei becomes super concerned over Zhao Yunlan's health. We're only on ep 3, but Shen Wei is already chastising ZYL for eating sweets when he has a cold. <3<3<3

Comments

[riventhorn]

Oh, I didn't mean to imply that Shen Wei isn't within the normal range of human interactions or that there was something wrong with him. I was thinking of it more as "Shen Wei strikes me as very introverted and would feel more comfortable with fewer but very strong relationships" as opposed to a more extroverted personality.

[rheasilvia]

I agree! That's how I read your entry, too; that part of my reply was in response to extrapenguin ("His suboptimal childhood and the whole "time travel 10k years into the future" shows up in how he has trouble interacting with the hoomans on occasion"). Sorry, I should have quoted!

Interestingly, I also see Zhao Yunlan as being introverted at heart, despite his high comfort and skill levels with other people, and all of his networking, general bonhomie and sociability. He has extremely few close relationships - only Da Qing, before Shen Wei comes along. He doesn't show his true self more easily than Shen Wei; in fact, his extroverted, casual, flippant and thoughtless ways are a protective facade, in many ways.

But that is a different topic! :-)

[riventhorn]

You're right--his public persona is very much about protecting himself and making it seem like everything is all right. We also never really get to see ZYL interacting with potential friends he might have outside of SID. Because the SID employees are also his subordinates and people he feels he needs to protect--kind of like Shen Wei and Li Qian.

[winter_blossom]

Interestingly, I also see Zhao Yunlan as being introverted at heart, despite his high comfort and skill levels with other people, and all of his networking, general bonhomie and sociability. He has extremely few close relationships - only Da Qing, before Shen Wei comes along. He doesn't show his true self more easily than Shen Wei; in fact, his extroverted, casual, flippant and thoughtless ways are a protective facade, in many ways.

This is exactly how I see it, too! In the novel they even go out of their way to mention it, and while I don't see very many similarities between either of the two protagonists' drama and novel selves, this is one aspect of ZYL's personality that I think they lifted wholesale from the source material, but which you wouldn't really notice without the benefit of actually being inside his headspace.