#it's very much giving me sacrificial savior where the hero is for the people and not any given individual

[kingsandbastardz]

Tumblr ate the anon ask I was responding to so I'm gonna paraphrase it here:

what do mean llh gave di feisheng to fang duobing? the letter totally said something else

Yes, it did - but I didn't feel I could comment too deeply on it when it's been retranslated and people who are far more literate than I am have analyzed the contents already. -- The letter itself seems pretty straight forward.

However, what I wanted to focus on was analyzing unspoken social dynamics - so I'm gonna get in depth into my reasoning for my interpretation. And admittedly in previous posts I was playing fast and glib with my responses (they were just insomnia-fueled thoughts I typed real fast) so I wasn't really in depth or anything. Anyway~~~ That means it's time for me to get long winded.

So! First thing - this is the scene: The letter was written from Li Xiangyi and addressed in its entirety to Di Feisheng. However, when it was delivered the fisherman asked for both DFS and FDB. It was then read outloud by either the fisherman or FDB -- I assume read out loud, and loudly, because DFS never left his position by the rocks and emoted his distress at the contents. That means everyone there also was privy to the letter contents.

The letter itself is straight forward. It's addressed from LXY telling DFS that he regretfully can't make the duel and that he respects him both as a martial artist and as a person, and if he wishes, he can go to FDB who has inherited his skills and shows great promise, etc.

The thing IS - I firmly believe that this is not a message meant just for DFS.

Both LLH and DFS code switch between their non-leader selves vs Li-Menzhu and Di-Mengzhu. It's easiest to see based on what they're wearing. Li Xiangyi when he's dressed in the Sigu Sect uniform. Or the Styx flower hand-off scene where he calls him Di-mengzhu (not Lao Di or A-Fei or whatever else) likely as a reaction to his official regalia/red uniform which means DFS was showing up in an official capacity. Both of them know very well the importance of a certain.... how to say.... drama? They're both leaders and they were also very performative in their roles as leaders. They both expected that massive peanut gallery that showed up to witness the fight - the one filled with members of various sects, including Sigu Sect leadership -- because dfs was likely the one announcing it.

Imo - aside from the need to express the full weight of what he felt, part of the reason LLH was so formal in his letter is expectation that there would be other people there - influential people. The very people DFS and FDB would have to deal with in the future alone. FDB would be ok but he's largely unknown to the rest of jianghu and therefore his story is still malleable. DFS is known, but infamous and his narrative is as much of a trap as LXY's was. And now he no longer has the benefit of a sect to act as a buffer.

LLH's last act as LXY was not to save Yun Biqiu but to carve a new path open in the world for DFS and FDB:

Expresses that he bears deep emotion and the greatest and deepest respect for DFS despite a reputation of them being enemies

Informs everyone that DFS is not seeking dominion or 'the throne' but rather, is going the fighter-scholar path of studying and testing martial skill -- aka, this is message from one sect leader to all the others present. Spread the word, this man is NOT gunning for your power. None of you have reason to take him down.

Establishes FDB as his one and only successor - while also stating clearly it's entirely up to FDB to decide whether to continue down this path or not

Creates a pathway for DFS and FDB to maintain their connection with each other - and in fact lets everyone else know that there is a pre-established, legacy relationship between DFS and LLH that FDB will be inheriting.

Gently asks DFS to keep an eye on FDB's development - iterating that if dfs is the one asking, then FDB may make the decision to continue to train - aka help him see his full potential whatever his decision is.

At the same time, he silently wishes FDB to maintain connections with/keep an eye on DFS. In another reply I kinda went on about this: imagine a scenario where your friend's mom pulls both of you in front of her. And the whole time is telling your friend that they need to do, expectations, a list of goals, etc. The entire time she's only focused on your friend - but there is this silent implication that you, as the witness, is expected to act a reminder or even an enforcer if your friend isn't listening. If things go wrong, you're expected to go in there and help them to do the thing they were asked to do. This is the unspoken message I'm getting for FDB. Even though his name wasn't mentioned in the letter, it was explicitly delivered to both him and dfs. He's standing right there while an imaginary LLH talks to DFS. So if after all this, dfs disappears without another word = fdb can feel emboldened to go after him, knocking on doors until he answers. Should he decide to do so.

Entreaty - "These are LXY's (my) last wishes. Please respect my memory after my death."

Conclusion: LLH's last actions were to create a space where both DFS and FDB can make their own decision on their path in the world, without the weight of all those other people in jianghu influencing them.

Note: I also believe that on dfs' side, his clothing choices point toward his plans to publicly step down and leave the martial path with Li Lianhua. But llh sucker-punched him and left him standing on some rocks like a widow waiting for her husband who's lost at sea. They were technically on the same page, but it somehow went wrong because... well. Unfortunately that's DFS' narrative. He never quite reaches his goal without the hero either hindering or helping him. The entire drama was LLH being that karma busting fulcrum for him. But now, should he wish it, it'll be FDB's turn to step up and do the same.

#also as an aside - with all the marriage symbolism and the dead brides in every story arc - both lyx and dfs with red uniforms? #llh stealing dfs repeatedly away from marriages? sgd wanting llh to wear the red for HIM but instead llh wears it for everyone else but him #it's very much giving me sacrificial savior where the hero is for the people and not any given individual #mysterious lotus casebook #my royal ramblings #di feisheng #li lianhua #li xiangyi #fang duobing #lxy's last letter #meta

[cogentranting]

I still think Once Upon a Time could have done something really interesting if Rumple died instead of Neal in season 3. 

Rumple has arcs I like after season 3, but overall when I look back at his full story over the seven seasons, it doesn’t work very well because there are too many back and forths between he’s redeemed, no he’s not, he’ll do anything for Belle, he’s gonna be really abusive for a season etc. It’s too inconsistent. But if you end the story with his death in 3, it’s a pretty clear clean arc. 

Meanwhile Neal is the Dark One’s son, a huge part of Emma’s origins, Henry’s father, the whole reason the curse was cast... and his impact in the present is pretty minimal. Even his sacrificial death doesn’t actually do that much. It just tells them who the witch is (which they could have found out if they just thought to themselves for a second ‘hmm there’re exactly two new people in town after this second curse. Zelena and Robin. I wonder which one is the evil witch lady?’). Even his role within the love triangle feels underutilized because Emma never makes any sort of choice. She never even really confronts her complicated feelings for Neal. 

So what if, instead, Rumple dies stopping Pan same as always, but then when Neal brings him back using the vault, the way that they save Neal is not by doing the weird combining Neal and Rumple thing- it’s by giving Neal the dagger and having him stab Rumple, becoming the Dark One. 

Then you have Rumple die his big hero death in 3A and cement it in 3B by not letting Neal trade his life for his. And you have Neal suffer the consequences of turning to Dark magic regardless of the price, by being corrupted. From that point forward, Neal can take the place of most of Rumple’s story lines. 

For the rest of 3B Neal is the Dark One and is controlled by Zelena. Through this there’s little hints of him going dark but mostly he remains the same. During this Emma follows the same progression in her relationship with Hook, but at the same time gets to actually make the choice to close the door on her relationship with Neal instead of having it closed for her. She can even make that choice at around the same point that Neal dies in the real show (3x15). Then at the end of the season, Neal is free, seems to be stable, but kills Zelena, just like Rumple did. This is his tipping point into becoming really the Dark One. 

Season 4A his motivations are essentially the same as what Rumples were; he wants to separate himself from the dagger but keep his power (because he’s been powerless his whole life, trapped by his father, by Pan, in hiding in the real world, controlled by Zelena etc. and he’s never gonna be controlled again blah blah blah). He still takes Hook’s heart but this time the connection dives more into the whole twisted family history and their Neverland connection. You maybe bring in some of the “you took Emma from me” idea but keep it pretty clearly as a side thing.  The whole situation now has this added note of tragedy because instead of a straightforward rivalry there was once real familial affection between them. At the end of 4A he’s driven out of town just like Rumple. I think you maintain the connection/friendship that he had with Belle in 3x15 throughout 3B and 4A and still have her be the one to use the dagger for this (though now maybe also have Hook and Emma there as his other two main connections) and it still reflects similar growth in how she views the Dark Ones just with the romantic element removed. 

4B plays out basically the same except that instead of Rumple rewriting his story to make Belle love him, Neal is trying to force Henry to love him (you use 4A to do more with their relationship of them trying to build something but it being off because of how Neal is being corrupted, and then you use Hook and Henry bonding as a foil for that, a positive alternative. This influences the animosity Neal feels while he’s controlling Hook. And at the end of the arc Henry also cuts ties with Neal. In fact if you wanted you could have him fully take the role of Belle in this arc and not develop a relationship with Belle and Neal. However, I don’t want to cut Belle from the story, so you’d have to find her a completely new arc. Maybe you find her a new love interest  (not Will. Ana’s his true love) or maybe you just develop her as a friend for Mary Margaret or Emma. ) The story mostly plays out the same way but with Henry a little more center which fits well with his role in the finale becoming the author. However, there are two difficulties. 1. you have to remove the arc about the darkness killing Rumple, since Neal wouldn’t have accumulated near enough darkness to be killing him. You do have to work in some actually truly evil things for him to do instead of just evil things he almost does, so I think some characters have to really get murdered. I’m thinking Archie or some fairies since they don’t do much anyone and everyone would be horrified. The attempt to remove the darkness to save him would need slightly different justification but it’s all magical mumbo-jumbo anyway so who cares. Potentially he could do something to try to hurt Henry and that could be framed as “an act so dark and against his nature that it’s destroying all the light in his heart” or something like. or it could just be a misguided attempt to stop him from being the Dark One that backfires.  The other difficulty is the alternate storybook. The finale story line really only works if Henry isn’t initially in the book. But I think you can work around that just by saying that A. Isaac is pulling the strings and B. putting in something about how because Henry is the author, their attempts to rewrite him into the book didnt’ work. Other than that it’s the same. You can even still have “heroic Rumple” in the story. 

Season 5A plays out the same except Belle needs a new plot. Play up the Merida connection, let her flirt with Merlin, have her trying to save Neal for the sake of Rumple. I don’t know, her 5A story isn’t great to begin with. Emma and Hook’s Dark One guide is still Rumple not Neal (for that matter if you want to keep Rumple around let Neal see Imp Rumple as his guide for a season or so). Letting Hook die to get his power back is seen as a big step toward Neal being irredeemable. His underworld arc involves a lot of back and forth of different influences-- he’s being forced to try to save Hook who he’s burned a bunch of bridges with, he’s reunited with his mother who gets to move on but her influence isn’t enough to save him, Pan plays more of a role of trying to forge a connection with him, and ultimately he keeps making worse and worse choices until he’s more and more like Rumple at his worst. Eventually he sides with Hades in the conflict and he ends up killing someone (Robin if you want to keep the rest of the story mostly the same, Zelena if you want to make further changes. Belle if you want to go really dark and tragic.) Then Henry trying to destroy magic in the finale is a direct parallel of Baelfire trying to go to a land without magic, because this time Henry is trying to save Neal from the influence of the Dark One. But the season still ends with Neal being the most evil he’s been yet. 

Season 6 has more of a shift. The Black Fairy is still a major influence but instead of using Gideon (who no longer exists in our story), she’s interacting with Neal directly. You keep the savior Rumple backstory because it still plays into the themes of the family history and the two sides of Henry’s lineage. But here Fiona takes more of a backseat and Neal becomes the main villain of the season, and in a lot of ways the culminating villain of the main seasons 1-6 arc. It ends with Emma defeating him, but after he’s defeated there’s a moment of him turning on Fiona inspired by Henry’s love for him (very Luke and Vader- esque). This isn’t presented as redeeming Neal, just offering a glimmer of hope for his redemption. He ends up banished back to the enchanted forest (or another realm). 

Neal then takes Rumple’s role in season 7. He’s looking for the Guardian but now the motivation is sort of a short cut to redeeming himself-- he’s trying to remove the darkness at the expense of someone else in hopes of it magically making him back into who he once was. The Alice relationship is essentially the same. Now the Weaver/Tilly relationship also provides a sort of parallel to the his relationship with Emma when they first met (though of course not romantic) except this time he’s redeeming himself by becoming a more positive influence rather than shaping her into a thief. The Weaver/Rogers relationship plays basically the same role, with adjustments made to accommodate the ways in which the Hook/Neal relationship is different from Hook/Rumple one. But now, Weaver’s connection to Henry is a big deal, and the relationship ties the plot lines together more tightly. Neal’s redemption plays out through this season in equal parts through Alice, Rogers and Henry. It culminates in the finale, with Wish Rumple still being in the finale as a sort of final temptation, and with the glimpse of evil Wish Henry being an inspiration toward his final act of redemption, saving Rogers in order to heal the separated father and child in a way that his own family was never able to heal. This is also plays a part in Wish Henry and real Henry’s final confrontation. 

The way I’ve described it here make it sounded a little like focus is shifted off of Emma, but that’s not the case, her story remains virtually the same  and she is just as dominant. But this gives us three clear avenues- the hero lineage with Snow and Charming and Emma, the redeemed villains with Regina and Hook, and the villain lineage with Pan, the Black Fairy, Rumple and Neal. It gives us a clear through-line on the side of the villains where each subsequent villain gets us closer to our ultimate villain as we watch Neal go from the kind and noble son of the Dark One who he lost, to the skeevy love interest, to the Dark One and the main nemesis. His negative character development becomes the antiparallel to Emma’s heroic growth. 

It also keeps the story lines more closely linked, since often Rumple’s motives in the real show are tangential to what the main heroes are doing. Neal’s corrupt “love” of Henry that put him in clear opposition to Emma’s true love. The romantic history of Emma and Neal informs and complicates their dynamic and presents extra challenges in confronting him, without being a main point, except to positively highlight the strengths of the Captain Swan romance. It let’s Emma be a clear nemesis to the main villain, rather than an incidental obstacle. Defeating him also thematically represents defeating the tragedies of her past-- rising above the broken relationship that made her stop trusting, led to her giving up her son, and putting up her walls etc. in order to be someone who is a wonderful mother, is very happily married, and a hero who protects everyone. 

It also streamlines Henry’s arc. There’s some concept in the existing story of Henry’s mixed lineage, but it’s only explored intermittently. This allows him to have clear representation from all three avenues: from his mother’s side of the family you have the clear heroes. From his father’s side you have the worst villains. And in his chosen family (his adoptive mother and his stepfather) you have the redeemed villains. He’s the product of every type of great hero and villain. By having an evil Neal continually vying for his affections, and having Henry continually and consistently choosing the side of good and hope and redemption, you have a clear representation in him of the show’s main themes.  The finale involving adult Henry, Wish Henry, Wish Rumple, Dark Neal, Regina, a version of Hook (even if it’s not actually the one that’s Henry’s step father) and (in this version) more of a presence for Emma (discussing her more even if you still couldn’t have her in it, but if we’re spinning entire alternate shows here, I’m putting her in the finale) Henry and Wish Henry become a focal point for the themes of the show and Henry’s triumph and the resulting redemption for Neal become a representation of the show’s values. The heroes of seasons 1-6 who aren’t in season 7 also get a piece of this final triumph because their influence on Henry (making him someone who ultimately kind, and generous, and brave and faithful) is what has won out in the end. 

#ouat #ouat au #ouat rewatch

[him-e]

Hi, I'm the anon who wrote the 5 asks about the Dany plotline and GRRM. I'd like to apologize to u for lashing out, it was uncalled for and u have every right to state those opinions regardless of what I (or anyone else) think. Feeling hurt by the show wrt Dany's story made me react badly to the idea that it was actually acceptable, especially coming from someone whose ideas I appreciate so much and have spent hours invested on. You can answer them, delete them, idk, I just wanted to say sorry.

No need to apologize, anon! I’m currently on semi-to-full hiatus and that’s why I’m being so slow at answering messages—and yeah, I understand the frustration completely, and I don’t blame you for it. ;))

I’m going to answer your ask anyway. Long reply after the cut:

I hope this doesn’t come off as offensive or confrontational bc that’s not the point, I’ve enjoyed reading your ASOIAF/GoT and TB metas for years and would not reply to them if I weren’t invested on them. That said, I’d like to ask why do you insist on 1) arguing that Dany’s dark turn was reasonable if you don’t hate her and 2) defending D&D and blaming GRRM for what happened on the show. When it comes to 1), sure, Dany might *accidentally* burn KL, but to willingly choose to burn thousands of innocents? She may accept that some casualties would have to occur, but not in the way that the show presented (in that she had the choice to not kill anyone but did). You argue that that direction was valid of because of the recurring theme of how power corrupts, but then I’d argue, what if it were Sansa, another character very much involved in the world of politics? Would you be ok if people argued that it’d make sense for her to give up her ideals and become just as power-hungry and cynic and bitter as Littlefinger? Probably not; what’s the point if those characters become their worst possible selves? Dany was made a villain, was implied to be mad and was called “your satanic majesty”. I really can’t see how you could call those writing decisions valid. When it comes to 2), I’m not saying GRRM is perfect, he’s been quite callous in the book series and especially in F&B when it comes to social issues, but D&D are also professional writers with critical thinking skills and moral values of their own who could have tried to alleviate the problems in the books and not made things even worse. That’s why I don’t get why you’re blaming GRRM for what D&D wrote when the former wasn’t even involved in the ending’s writing process aside from possibly giving them an outline of what happens. GRRM should be criticized for what he wrote and will write, and the finale may have feel been a product of his ideas, but he still has no (moral or legal) responsibility in helping to make the TV show better or worse.

The reason why I maintain that the show’s ending is a (badly written) version of GRRM’s ending is that I can 100% see Martin’s blueprint in the climax+anticlimax structure of the season. The way it twists the audience’s expectations and delves into what happens AFTER the final battle is won, the way it subverts the most reliable narrative conventions and, instead of building up in a crescendo towards a final spectacle where the heroes would sacrifice their lives to save the world in a blaze of glory, it shifts gears almost unpleasantly, slows down to show what happens to them once their heroic purpose is fulfilled and zooms in on their identity crisis, their depression and isolation and sudden lack of purpose… it’s all too deliberate, and IN MY PERSONAL OPINION it’s done with a vision in mind—something I don’t believe d&d would spontaneously put any effort in, especially not if GRRM had already served them a perfectly fine, crowd-pleasing endgame involving Dany’s heroic sacrifice against the Others.

I understand my stance might come across as “defending d&d and blaming GRRM”, but I’m really not? I’ve often repeated how I believe d&d messed things up and that GRRM’s version will make infinitely more sense and be infinitely better written, and I’m sure he will avoid the pitfalls of cynical, circular storytelling, because he’s ultimately a better writer and someone who believes in idealism and true heroism even as he deconstructs it. How can the overall narrative remain uplifting & give a message of hope and faith for humanity while still telling a story that ends with Dany’s descent into “true villainy” (but haven’t we repeated ad nauseam that heroes and villains are too reductive categories for asoiaf?), I don’t know, but it’s not my job to figure it out, and I ultimately trust & respect Martin’s vision and ability to tell the story HE wants.

sure, Dany might *accidentally* burn KL, but to willingly choose to burn thousands of innocents? She may accept that some casualties would have to occur, but not in the way that the show presented

1) I’ve always conceded that, while I think the gist of the storyline is Martin’s, there’s absolutely no guarantee that the battle of King’s Landing will go as we’ve seen in the show, or even happen at the same point of the story (for one thing, Young Griff & JonCon will probably be involved, and that seems more likely to happen before, and not after, the war for the dawn);

2) That said, what I’m relatively confident of, at this point, is that Dany will NOT die in the WftD as a self sacrificial hero (this is entirely FANON SPECULATION, and people treating it like a fixed point in the universe, something the narrative is “inevitably” building towards, is one of the reasons the fandom seems unable to critically analyze show!Dany’s evolution without going hysterical about it and resorting to no true scotsman arguments. I’ve often complained about the dangers of elevating fan theories to canon status, and trust me I never wanted to go full cassandra about this, but here we are). The details and plot points leading up to this might be wildly different from the show’s version, but I think Dany will survive the WftD, which will leave her directionless and purposeless and doubting the truth of her heroic destiny for the first time in her life after she hatched the dragons, and that she’ll cross the ultimate moral horizon in a hail mary to restore that sense of self, that sense of purpose, completing her parabola from princess in rags, to breaker of chains, to conqueror, to savior of humanity, to conqueror again, to TRAGIC HERO. How can this be a valid writing decision, you asked—well, why shouldn’t it? Is something only valid as long as it pleases the audience? What screams tragic hero more than the hero turning into the very thing she swore to eradicate, and realizing it only when it’s too late? There’s something genuinely chilly in Dany’s “if I look back, I’m lost” refrain. This is the mantra of someone who thinks the only way to stay alive is to cross one threshold after the other. So far this coping mechanism has brought her higher, and higher, and higher. But what if it will be her downfall? “I tried to grasp a star, overreached, and fell”, indeed;

3) Dany’s burning KL *accidentally* is like Stannis burning Shireen “but only if the circumstances are dire enough / the stakes are high enough”. No offense, but this is typical stan logic: you admit the possibility that your faves might go through a dark phase but you don’t want to have to unstan them, so you want them to do bad things for good reasons, or because there’s no other choice, or because “they didn’t know”. That’s understandable, but I don’t think Martin is the type of writer to give his character free passes or soften the blow of their moral crucibles like that. This is NOT to say that the show did Dany’s dark turn WELL, because it DIDN’T—her motivations were all over the place, the turning point (the bells) wasn’t believable because it lacked connection to her character arc, the narrative backed away from showing the attack from her pov which betrays the writers’ inability to make sense of this psychological downfall from HER perspective, etc. But to say “Dany will NEVER! BURN! INNOCENTS! ON PURPOSE!” sounds very, very premature to me.

(re: Sansa, hasn’t power corrupted her too, to an extent? Hasn’t she lied, schemed, manipulated, spilled secrets, in order to restore & secure the Stark hold on the North? Isn’t she queen, in part, because the rest of her family was scattered at the four corners of the known world? I’m not particularly happy with the way she was written this season, and I think some of her choices were questionable; but at the same time I reject the idea that a character ending up more flawed, or morally ambiguous, or less likeable than they were at the beginning must necessarily be bad storytelling)

I’m not saying GRRM is perfect, he’s been quite callous in the book series and especially in F&B when it comes to social issues, but D&D are also professional writers with critical thinking skills and moral values of their own who could have tried to alleviate the problems in the books and not made things even worse. That’s why I don’t get why you’re blaming GRRM for what D&D wrote when the former wasn’t even involved in the ending’s writing process aside from possibly giving them an outline of what happens. GRRM should be criticized for what he wrote and will write, and the finale may have feel been a product of his ideas, but he still has no (moral or legal) responsibility in helping to make the TV show better or worse.

Martin is not responsible of the show’s writing, but he is responsible of the outline he gave to the showrunners, and right now I have no reason to believe they didn’t follow it, at least for the most part. For years I’ve been told that “the show is not the books”, and while that’s certainly true, I can’t, and won’t, separate the show from the books when it comes to book speculation, because the show is still for all intents and purposes an ADAPTATION of the book series, and while it’s irresponsible to expect it to be a 1:1 transcription of what will happen in TWOW and ADOS, it’s also equally (imo) irresponsible to act like the two canons have nothing to do with each other and that it’s stupid to use the show as a resource for book speculation. If people want to pretend the show never happened, good for them, but that’s not the way I think, personally. I don’t blame GRRM for the show’s faults, and my reservations are actually 90% about the EXECUTION of the plot which is ENTIRELY on d&d, but there’s a 10% of my concerns that is about the IDEA in itself, regardless of context and execution—the idea of the story ending with a bittersweet anticlimax involving the death/downfall of the MOST PROMINENT FEMALE HERO OF THE SERIES, who is also the carrier of the most subversive anti-establishment political message in the story.

tldr: I’m not criticizing GRRM for what he hasn’t written yet, but I can certainly criticize him for what I think is a (however botched) adaptation of his outline, if the main selling points of said outline are questionable in themselves. No one can convince me that GRRM told d&d that Jon and Dany would die heroically to save the world and they ARBITRARILY decided to fuck it up for shock value or whatever, and just accidentally stumbled onto a more subversive and provocative ending than what Martin HIMSELF was planning. (that would make them two geniuses, even if the execution sucked, lol)

and if i’m wrong about it, well:

but until then…

#anon #asks #got wank #got asks for ts #got discourse #got finale #got negativity #show vs books #dany discourse #dany** #grrm #asoiaf spec #asoiaf endgame