#erha spoilers | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

chen-feiyu · 11 months

Text

The impact of Chu Wanning and his values on Mo Ran's morals in the second timeline of 2ha

When I read 2ha, one of the most satisfying things about the story for me was observing how Mo Ran's growth as a person was intrinsically linked to the way in which he perceived Chu Wanning and his values since, deep down, he has always been his reason for existence and the force who restores his faith in humanity.

1.0 is complicated in terms of morals, in the sense that he has no interest in helping others and shows contempt toward Chu Wanning and Sisheng Peak for caring about injustice and the common people so fiercely - albeit with Chu Wanning, there's the added resentment that he devoted his life to helping anyone in need, yet let Shi Mei die during the heavenly rift and refused to acknowledge Mo Ran during all of the time in which he was his disciple.

He loathed to be dismissed by Chu Wanning when he was Taxian-Jun too but at this part of the novel, Mo Ran's PTSD opts to repress most of Chu Wanning-related thoughts for avoiding emotional pain, to the point in which he even comes up with a different retelling of Chu Wanning's death in 0.5, where it occurred by his own hands.

Unlike Taxian-Jun, Mo Ran 1.0 has no desire to trample over the weak or perpetrate suffering. He's merely self-absorbed and focused on enjoying the moment and newfound positive emotions, considering he didn't have any for decades.

Mo Ran is, however, fully aware of the gravity of his actions since the beginning. He doesn't sugarcoat it, doesn't pretend that he had any justification for the pain that he caused, and deliberately makes the choice to not take revenge on Rong Jiu in chapter 2 of the novel, giving us a glimpse of the Mo Ran who strived to stand by Duan Yihan's maxim of repaying gratitude and not holding grudges.

The novel starts with Taxian-Jun being suicidal, talking about his crimes, calling his life sinful, stating he has blasphemed and that his hands are stained with blood. In this regard, Mo Ran is an outlier in comparison to characters like Song Qiutong and Rong Jiu, who don't hesitate to explain their behavior and justify themselves with their circumstances. In Mo Ran's eyes, he's someone who sinned irreversibly and it's a miracle that he got a second chance when he didn't do anything to earn it.

Mo Ran tends to describe himself as a simple person who doesn't like to overthink and has difficulty grasping complex things, especially emotions, yet he knows what he craves the most is acknowledgment and acceptance. He can't overlook when someone does something for him, which is why his feelings for Chu Wanning tend to be so conflicting after the injury in Butterfly Town arc.

After this, Mo Ran begins to observe him closely and is unable to stay away entirely. Instead of feeling sheer hatred at Chu Wanning's lack of ability to take care of himself, he's concerned and takes him food he can actually eat since he really doesn't want Chu Wanning to starve or suffer, and rationalizes his need to protect by thinking he's only doing things because he doesn't want to owe Chu Wanning anything.

At random parts of Book 1, Mo Ran would make passing mentions about how when he looks back at some of the things he did in his previous life, he's horrified and unable to understand how could he become so cruel.

It is important to mention that while these are attempts for Mo Ran to truly reflect on what happened enough to make amends, it isn't until he hurts Xia Sini, realizes how selfish he was, and is able to see Chu Wanning in Xia Sini's words, that he stops being able to repress the influx of guilt, regret, and confusion over the person that he used to be and the things he did. Chu Wanning's figure as his moral compass begins to shape in full form over here, given it is his memory that triggers the need for repentance.

Something I must add about Mo Ran being different than RJ or SQT is that during Xia Sini's soup incident, is very clear that the reason he made Xia Sini wait was due to Shi Mei's insistence on Mo Ran to stay by his side, yet Mo Ran takes full responsibility for what happened and doesn't excuse himself at all. Accountability is something he definitely doesn't struggle with.

It is a common belief in the fandom that without the heavenly rift event, it'd have been difficult for Mo Ran to change his mind about Chu Wanning, and I'm inclined to agree here because as I stated before, disliking Chu Wanning's hypocrisy about the common people and his disciples WAS one of his values.

Hypocrisy is a trait that Mo Ran detests profoundly in any person regardless of the timeline where he's at. It's precisely the reason why Ye Wangxi will always be worthy of respect in his eyes and not Song Qiutong.

Knowing that Chu Wanning died for him changes his paradigm and shatters his reality entirely.

Mo Ran 1.0 used to be a person with no purpose who barely reflected on things, tried to remain in the present as much as possible and assumed that because he already experienced many things in the past, he could take advantage of what he knew and keep going mindlessly as long as Shi Mei was around. He didn't feel the responsibility to help or make amends. Caring about humanity wasn't even an afterthought, but an absurd concept overall in his mind.

2.0 is the exact opposite.

Before Duan Yihan left, she took good care of providing Mo Ran with a maxim that he could hold on to since the world was cruel, and she was aware of what could happen to him if his values didn't remain strong.

The flower removed this and broke Mo Ran's biggest value, leaving him with no sense of self other than spite and resentment over all of the tragedy he had to experience. There was nothing to feel grateful about: Shi Mei and his mother were dead and his Shizun always hated him, so indulging in destruction, debauchery, and revenge was all he could do, regardless if he found it enjoyable or not, if it made sense or not.

Mo Ran 1.0 is the middle ground between a bitter, tired adult who had been drowning in hatred for decades and a teenager who was acquiring new experiences and slowly developing empathy as a consequence.

Mo Ran 2.0 is a profoundly traumatized and broken man who doesn't know what to do with all the pain he carries inside and the voices in his mind who tell him he's dirty, irremediably evil, and undeserving of the sacrifice that Chu Wanning made for him. He can't exteriorize any of this, and can't give up on life either because it was a gift that Chu Wanning granted him.

He's worthless in comparison to Chu Wanning, but if he can dedicate his days to acting in half the decent way that Chu Wanning did, then maybe that would be enough to clean the stains on his soul, if only a little, at least.

In 0.5 Duan Yihan gave Mo Ran a purpose, the flower took it away from him and Chu Wanning tried to restore it, with no luck, when he asked Taxian-Jun to think about kindness and not harbor evil.

In the second timeline, Mo Ran starts his new life with no purpose, Chu Wanning gives it to him by showing him genuine kindness, by letting him see that he had always been acknowledged and protected from the shadows. A pure soul took care of him and gave him another chance, and his purpose in life became to not fail him in return.

Chu Wanning turned into Mo Ran's pillar. He was the person Mo Ran thought about before making any decision, the one who gave him strength during lonely days, and the God of salvation who visited him as he hallucinated during his episodes.

Doing good deeds in Chu Wanning's name became his second nature. Anything Chu Wanning would do, he'd do it too without hesitation and with this, he forged an unbreakable moral code, impulsed both by his devotion to Chu Wanning and crippling guilt.

As the story advances, Mo Ran is able to see that his lack of understanding about his feelings toward Chu Wanning and the inexplicable, obsessive things that Taxian-Jun did over Chu Wanning in 0.5 strived from a misconception about the relationship between sex and love.

Once this is clear to him, all 2.0 can see in Taxian-Jun's actions is nonsense which only works to reinforce his beliefs about his lack of intelligence. I'll discuss his sense of self further in future posts.

In conclusion: Chu Wanning has had a different, yet consistent impact on Mo Ran's morals throughout all of his life stages.

In 0.5, Chu Wanning started as a force who restored Mo Ran's faith in humanity and then gave him a strong sense of identity over being the disciple of the man that he perceives as the embodiment of justice, goodness, and compassion. In my next series of meta posts, I'll be exploring how this is the reason behind Taxian-Jun's cognitive dissonance around him.

In 2.0, Chu Wanning and his sacrifice disrupt Mo Ran's misconceptions created by the flower and external manipulation.

Chu Wanning's selflessness used to be annoying for him, then unsettling because he didn't understand it properly, and in the end, it devastated him so much that it shattered his reality and helped him to forge a moral code.

#first post for my series of 2ha meta!#the first series will be fully focused on mo ran but I'll be addressing other themes in the future #long post #2ha meta #2ha #the husky and his white cat shizun #2ha spoilers #mo ran 1.0 #mo ran 2.0 #mo ran #chu wanning #ranwan #二哈和他的白猫师尊 #mine #erha #erha spoilers #my meta

300 notes · View notes

rejectedfables · 7 months

Text

"how to reconcile Chu Wanning's cooking skills vs Mo Ran's love of The Wontons", a Guide:

(NOTE: I have only read the first two official English translated volumes, and scoured the internet for spoilers-- if there's later canon confirmation of something that I haven't encountered yet, I don't know her)

Chu Wanning is shown cooking things badly (such as the cabbage and tofu stew), and cooking specific things very well (the wontons). He is also implied to have cooked other things at least tolerably well as Chu Fei. Evidence:

The wontons are described thusly, with the implication that they're just as good every time Mo Ran has had them:

Conclusion? Chu Wanning can cook at least this one thing consistently, and Mo Ran loves it every time. As far as we know Mo Ran is the only one who's ever eaten them, so him loving them is not actually an endorsement that they ARE good-- just that HE thinks they are.

When he's going to make the cabbage and tofu stew, this is Chu Wanning's response to being asked if he even knows how to cook:

Conclusion? Chu Wanning is at least not confident enough in his cooking abilities to claim proficiency. I would be tempted to chalk this up to "he's so skilled at other things and so critical of himself that he's downplaying his cooking skills" except he absolutely flubs the recipe so badly that it's unrecognizable, and everyone who eats it gets sick.

When Mo Ran is half asleep, and believes himself to still be in his previous life with Chu Fei, he says this:

Conclusion? Chu Fei frequently cooked non-wonton food for Taxian-jun, which Taxian-jun enjoyed enough to request more of it.

I've compiled options of what this all might mean when put together:

Probably authorial intent: Chu Wanning isn't a BAD cook he's just a SLOW and METHODICAL cook, and that does not lend itself to batch cooking like he was expected to do in Mengpo Hall.

POSSIBLY authorial intent: Chu Wanning is a REALLY GOOD cook when he knows a recipe, but had never made the cabbage and tofu stew before and had no real instructions, so he fucked it up and got an unfair reputation for being a bad cook. This is a loose parallel to how he is broadly misunderstood as a person.

Sappy/sad option: the wontons are fine but the fact that they were made FOR MO RAN makes them special to Mo Ran. He's associated them with feeling good, and because he thought they were from Shi Mei, his happy memories of them weren't warped or stolen by the flower, leaving them as his favorite memory of food. They're untainted by hatred, and therefore they are the best.

Funny option (not supported by canon): Mo Ran just has bad taste.

Funniest option (not technically UNsupported by canon >_>): Chu Wanning is a bad cook, and frequently hurts himself while cooking. Unbeknownst to Mo Ran, the flower's bloodlust can literally be sated with literal blood. Mo Ran's memories of the wontons are his least tormented by the flower, because while eating them he's consuming Chu Wanning's actual blood, so the flower is sated and pleased. They taste the best to Mo Ran because their secret accidental ingredient (blood) overwrites their actual mediocre flavor.

My favorite option: The reason the wontons are the best food Mo Ran has ever eaten is because they're literally just... all of Mo Ran's favorite foods combined into one dish. Chu Wanning isn't a good COOK so much as he's an encyclopedia of knowledge about Mo Ran. The wontons are perfect because they're perfect for Mo Ran specifically.

#erha #2ha #erha he ta de bai mao shizun #erha spoilers #the wontons #ranwan #chu wanning #cwn #mo weiyu #mo ran #mwy #erha meta #2ha meta

102 notes · View notes

princessofxianle · 10 months

Text

Obligatory Ye Wangxi appreciation post

Art from this fansong <- WATCH IT!!!

#true girlboss #she deserved so much better #ye wangxi #2ha #erha #2ha spoilers #erha spoilers #SHES 2ND MOST POWERFUL FOR A GODDAMN REASON #send to mikah

177 notes · View notes

amethystroselily · 3 months

Text

Xue Meng is such a fun character because there is not a single person he cares about in that book who hasn’t been keeping at least one insane secret from him. And he finds out all of them in like one horrible horrible week.

#2ha spoilers #xue meng #erha spoilers #2ha #erha

133 notes · View notes

lachicavoltron333 · 13 days

Text

⚔️Ranwan 0.5 timeline🌸

"the love was there. it didn't change anything. it didn't save anyone. there were just to many forces against it. but it still matters that the love was still there."

50 notes · View notes

friedwizardwhispers · 6 months

Text

I'm always a tiny teeny bit annoyed when people who know the actual twist of The dumb husky and his white cat Shizun calls Mo Ran 1.0 dumb or an idiot. The entire point of the twist explains why Mo Ran acts like this in the first few volumes. He is not being dumb, he is barely recovering from being under the influence of the flower.

We have an inkling of what actual 15 years old, first time around Mo Ran was like and he was aware of his actual feelings towards Chu Wanning.

He is not being dumb and I need people who actually read the entirety of erha to also stop saying that.

#erha #mo ran #chu wanning #ranwan #the dumb husky and his white cat shizun #2ha #can we please stop calling mains character dumb because they are not aware of theirs feelings or the feelings of others ??#erha spoilers #2ha spoilers #the dumb husky and his white cat Shizun spoilers

105 notes · View notes

catradoraism · 1 year

Text

oh my godddd im thinking about the 0.5 timeline again like everything that could possibly go wrong HAS gone wrong. chu wanning is tortured and imprisoned, his best friend is killed, the child he watched grow up is ostracised and humiliated and he has to watch the love of his life turn into a monster beyond any recognition. and above all, he believes that this unending hell is his fault. there is no hope or joy but through all of this suffering and all of this pain, chu wanning still loved mo ran and that alone was enough for him to give up his life for just a chance that mo ran could be reborn and this life wouldn’t repeat itself. and it works, they eventually get their happy ending but it can never change the fact that the original chu wanning died suffering

#‘mo ran do you truly hate me so much that u won’t grant me even a moment of peace at the very end?’ HELLO #*through tears* i love 2ha so much #pour one out for chu fei 😔#2ha #ranwan #2ha spoilers #erha spoilers #erha #chu wanning #chu fei #taxian jun #mo ran

171 notes · View notes

miixz · 8 months

Text

Okay this will be rambly as it's been too long since I've tried to put my thoughts in a coherent meta sort of thing, but I've come to the conclusion I might like how the whipping is treated in erha.

(for anyone following the official english release, beware of spoilers ahead)

It was something that threw me off at first and made me doubt I'd ever really like Chu Wanning, I even compared him to Shen Jiu around that time, but looking back at it having read erha in its entirety I can look at it with a different perspective.

While I do like how having Chu Wanning whip Mo Ran so early on helps present him as the terrible teacher of Mo Ran's altered memories and deceive the reader, I think it's also an interesting side of him as a character that he did that in the first place. To me, it seems that Chu Wanning is one of the people who have bought into the myth of physical punishment which seems to exist in his society. It's not a belief shared by everyone, Mo Ran certainly doesn't buy into it, but it isn't a belief Chu Wanning seems to have taken from within himself or even one that he fully agrees with.

There are rules on Sisheng Peak which include whipping as a punishment, we see this as the system Chu Wanning uses as a guideline to base his decisions on, not only for Mo Ran but himself as well. His punishments aren't chosen entirely on a whim.

Chu Wanning looked up to shoot him a glare. The Jielü Elder shut up. “In accordance with the rules, the punishment for this transgression is two hundred strikes, three days of protracted kneeling in Yanluo Hall, and three months of confinement,” Chu Wanning stated. “I do not dispute the transgression, and I am prepared to receive the punishment.” Dumbfounded, the Jielü Elder glanced left and right, then curled his finger. The doors to the Discipline Court closed with a thud, leaving only the two of them standing face-to-face in the silence. “What is the meaning of this?” said Chu Wanning. “How do I say this… Yuheng Elder, it’s not like you don’t know—the rules may be rules, but they don’t really apply to you. The doors are closed; this stays between you and I. What say we just let it slide? If I actually strike you and the sect leader finds out, he’ll have my old hide.” Chu Wanning didn’t feel like wasting his breath, so he simply said, “I hold others to the rules, and I will hold myself to the same.”

Now, that doesn't excuse him, I wouldn't say that's what the story is trying to say and I'm not either. It's more that to me that's part of what makes it forgivable when to other characters it isn't.

There are characters like Madam Yu from MDZS who are clearly using that punishment excessively and unnecessarily, out of cruelty, which I can't forgive. Chu Wanning, however, I'd say is more misguided, which earns him a different approach.

Although he doesn't look remorseful when we first see him whip Mo Ran, we learn later that he was and tried to make up for it in his own awkward way. One of Chu Wanning's most defining traits is his immaturity (in my interpretation anyhow), he is a man that was raised not to be his own person and hasn't been living with others for all that long and it shows.

Huaizui seems to only have taught Chu Wanning shallowly, to the point of lying about the state of the world outside, because he was never meant to be his own person who has complex relationships with others. It makes sense though, why would he do that when Chu Wanning was only a vessel for someone else's soul?

So when it comes to making those difficult decisions, like how to discipline his disciples, he is sometimes lacking and refers to the guidelines that he has. With whipping being an acceptable punishment in his sect and his own issues with anger, I see how he arrived at that punishment at times.

It's an awful thing to do, but I like how it's a mistake that humanizes him and explores his upbringing and the places where he falls short.

And Chu Wanning himself knows, on some level, that this is the wrong way to go. That's why he feels guilty and makes Mo Ran wontons to apologize, but he lacks the ability to choose another course of action, most likely because he's never been taught how.

(And this is something that he does improve on somewhat throughout the book, especially in regards to how he treats Mo Ran, who challenges him to think about these difficult questions and to work on his emotions the most.)

In the end, I think Chu Wanning is someone who truly wants to be a good teacher and a good person that help others, which he does often achieve, but sometimes he is held back from that by his own shortcomings which themselves are connected with the ways in which he's been failed by others (especially those who were meant to care for him).

#erha #erha meta #erha spoilers #chu wanning

79 notes · View notes