#cliff scene vis-a-vis yunmeng bros rather than wangxian because and i quote

[coquelicoq]

i said this in some tags a while back but it just really gets to me how much the structure of cql centers the yunmeng bro relationship in the narrative. not to the exclusion of other relationships, but it is one of the central, driving character pairs of the story. stop me if i'm being obvious but the show opens on the most antagonistic moment of their relationship and then spends a 30-episode flashback showing us them working together as a team, being affectionate & proud of each other, and supporting & valuing each other. so of course that sets up a delicious tension between what we know is to come (or what we think we know is to come) vs. the choices we see them make over and over in the first life to reaffirm their care for each other and their partnership.

this sets us up to be invested in what happens to them! imagine if episode 1 started with the cloud recesses study abroad arc and we worked up to the cliff scene after 30 episodes instead of seeing it at the beginning. though their relationship would still be compelling on its own merits, we wouldn't have as much of a reason to obsess over when the shift is going to happen. but because we saw the cliff scene first, we're sitting there for 30 episodes going, is this going to be the thing that pushes jiang cheng over the edge, oh no wow that wasn't it, okay surely this will do it, nope wrong again, god they really love each other don't they!! like it's that subversion of our expectations, over and over, that heightens our involvement in what happens to them. it's precisely because we expect jiang cheng to stop trusting and prioritizing and valuing wei wuxian that it hits us so hard every time he doesn't do that.

(i'm using "we" here to mean "the portion of the audience for which this was effective" as there are people who watched this show without caring about the yunmeng bro relationship, just go with it)

we see that same cliff scene come around a second time and this time there are subtle changes in the pacing, lighting, acting, etc. that make jiang cheng seem more conflicted, less certain. the scene would hit differently for us anyway because now we have a deeper understanding of just how broken things must be between them to get to this point, but reshooting the scene with these little changes makes it possible to reinforce those perceptions on a subliminal level. this would not have been so powerful if we had only seen the cliff scene once.

and then even once we catch up to the present and don't know what's coming next, we keep getting these tidbits reminding us that things aren't as simple as they seem with these two: the golden core hot potato of it all and how we don't actually get the last piece of information about it until the last episode, and even then, it's a secret we share with jiang cheng, and wei wuxian still doesn't know about it; wei wuxian wishing to return to lotus pier but jiang cheng not hearing him say that; all the great shots we get of jiang cheng's conflicted face at burial mounds 3.0; obviously guanyin temple and the way they're each saying the exact things the other person least needs to hear. the way that guanyin temple has so many extra layers on the rewatch! idk if this is making any sense but. the story just keeps rewarding us for caring about them!!

#the thing about the cliff scene that gets me is that there are three people: wei wuxian jiang cheng and lan wangji #technically three relationships if you count jc-lwj but in that scene they're clearly only interacting with each other incidentally #because they each have a relationship with wei wuxian #so two relationships. yunmeng bros and wangxian #wangxian is THE central relationship of the show. and it is very important in this scene! this scene is also doing interesting #things to build that relationship and our perception of it. but as i said in my original tags i am MUCH more interested in the craft of the #cliff scene vis-a-vis yunmeng bros rather than wangxian because and i quote #lan wangji is also there in the first scene and he's doing great work et cetera but there isn't as much mystery there #like yeah we get the dissonance of seeing how much he cares and then seeing him be so cold #but it's not rocket science to figure out how that shift could happen. xiao zhan is right there and none of us are immune to him either #the untamed #they're brothers. they are BROTHERS #storytelling #my posts #jiang cheng #wei wuxian #f