Hiiii, if it's not too much, can you describe the biggest differences between the live action characters and the novel characters in MDZS? They are a lot, so I will love even the difference between few of them! I haven't seen the live action and I don't know if I will ever, but I am curious, considering all the meta. Anyway, thank you in general, even if you don't answer!
Hello anon! This has been in the inbox forever because there are soooo many ways to answer this! However, let me be transparent that I've watched maybe like 1/10 of CQL. Among other obstacles, I simply do not care that much about Lan Wangji and he's always there (even though Wang Yibo is giving it his all... it's not his fault I'm a hater...). Chewing through a book with Ms. Mxtx's commentary was just more enjoyable to me, and even then, to be honest, I still liked SVSSS better. (I just love Shen Yuan/Shen Qingqiu so much. That dude is wild.)
Still, the live action definitely affected how I understood certain characters (...primarily Nie Huaisang) and made me interested in relationships that I didn't pay any attention to in the novel. (I freely admit that the nieyao brainrot is 100% CQL's fault.) Also I found Wang Zhuocheng's Jiang Cheng very cute and loveable. It definitely contributed to my Jiang Cheng Brain Disease.
LISTEN. HE HAS BIG SAD EYES AND THE MEANEST SNEER AND HE MIGHT BURST INTO TEARS AT ANY TIME. HE IS A BABY. A baby who could kill you with his terrifying lightning whip! But a baby nonetheless, to me.
So if you want someone with a real and knowledgeable opinion on the live action, I'm probably not the right person for that! However, here's one difference that changed a bunch of stuff about the characters that I found compelling in the novel: the second flautist.
CQL adds Su She as a second flautist doing unorthodox cultivation in a couple of different places, including at Qiongqi Path, where he seizes control of Wen Ning and is therefore responsible for Jin Zixuan's death. Removing the responsibility for Jin Zixuan's death from Wei Wuxian creates a bunch of cascading character and relationship implications that I don't love.
Firstly, all of the people who cautioned Wei Wuxian against his unorthodox cultivation are now... wrong. If he never lost control, then actually his assessment that he could maintain control wasn't overconfidence, it was just true, and he was persecuted because the Jin needed a scapegoat and wanted the Yin Tiger Tally, not because his cultivation path actually involved significant risks and drawbacks. (To be fair, the Jins actively exploited those drawbacks, the public perception of his cultivation, and Wei Wuxian's failure to manage his reputation. But it matters whether the risks exist or are just made up.)
Secondly, removing his responsibility for Jin Zixuan's death transforms both Wei Wuxian's character and how we understand his relationships with Jiang Yanli, Jiang Cheng, and Jin Ling. Because, in the novel, he kills Jin Zixuan under duress but also after a lifetime of conflict with him. Like, he hates the dude, he doesn't think he's worthy of Jiang Yanli, and he's not willing to examine his hatred and resentment even though Jiang Yanli loves Jin Zixuan and wants to marry him, even after she marries him and has a child with him. (I would argue that a lot of the resentment is because of the eventual marriage; by marrying Jiang Yanli, Jin Zixuan becomes legally recognized family to the Jiang siblings, while Wei Wuxian's relationship with them has no social recognition; I think Wei Wuxian is deeply threatened by that but can't articulate it.) It's a huge failure! Like, dude, you loved someone and you killed that person's beloved spouse. That points to a certain degree of repressed jealousy, possessiveness, longing, arrogance, the list goes on... I am so compelled by that conflict, and the adaptation just erases it.
This also affects how we read Jin Ling's relationship with Wei Wuxian. In one scenario, a teenage Jin Ling is (eventually, minus one little stab) ending the cycle of violence by not seeking vengeance for his father's murder. In the other, it was actually someone associated with Jin Ling's paternal family that killed his father, and he's maybe just... coming to terms with that? One of these scenarios is so much richer and more interesting.
How it affects the relationship between Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian is a little more subtle. It locates the responsibility for a lot of the harm done to the Jiang siblings with the Jin sect, not with Wei Wuxian, removing some of Wei Wuxian's culpability in the devolution of his relationship with Jiang Cheng. If Wei Wuxian isn't guilty of wronging the Jiang family (and instead is also a victim of the Jin sect), then all of Jiang Cheng's rage and betrayal was misdirected. They were both tricked. In some ways, maybe that's easier to patch up after canon? (I wonder if this is why many CQL yunmeng shuangjie reconciliation fics have Jiang Cheng apologize to Wei Wuxian, but not the other way around?) But it's so much less interesting to me!
Finally, it removes Wei Wuxian's tragic flaw! Dude is legitimately a genius but he's got hubris coming out of his ears and it fucks him up big time! This is classic stuff. Please stop flattening my boy!!
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Jazz's little. Her parents are super cool. They're ghost hunters! It sounds like something from a movie about future and scientists and supernatural beings and cool-looking tech. They have cool-looking tech at home. It's even cooler than tech in the movies.
Jazz also has a little brother. He's stupid but he's hers, and she will protect him from anything. Her brother is very small, he needs someone to protect him and teach him about the world.
She knows about the world. She understands their parents much better than him, and she can tell her brother when they shouldn't be distracted. She knows when they're upset and irritable, and she knows when they're too excited and being near them is dangerous because of all the inventions.
Jazz does a very good job keeping her little brother safe.
---
Jazz goes to school. Her teachers say that she's very smart, the best student in class, and very mature. Her parents are proud of her - when she manages to distract them from ghosts. Her brother is still kinda stupid and doesn't know how to properly fight food, but she's always there to protect him, because that's what older sisters do.
Her classmates seem to think that she's weird though. Some of them say mean things and call her a teacher's pet and a show-off. Jazz isn't sure why they think so because she's always trying to be friendly but maybe she's doing something wrong. She goes to the school library and finds a book about people and their communication.
It's a very interesting book.
---
Jazz is almost a teen. She's gotten better at communicating with people. The school library ran out of psychology books, and Jazz now has to go to the city library but that's fine. Human brain fascinates her.
She's been feeling like something is wrong about her though. She even thought that she was going crazy for a little bit. That probably wasn't true because she didn't match any symptoms but she was still worried.
Someone told her that being so good at lying and faking face expressions is not okay. That's probably not true, Jazz is pretty sure almost everyone can do that. Or maybe she's just being a prodigy again. It's a very good thing to be able to do after all. She can hide her emotions from her family when she's feeling sad. She wouldn't want to worry them, would she?
She'll have to research it.
---
Jazz is a teen. She now knows that her parents aren't actually that good. It's something that was really hard to accept but it did explain everything. Her parents are kinda bad at being parents, and they also don't really listen when she tries to explain it to them.
It's okay. She's almost an adult and Danny has her. She can take care of herself and her brother.
She learns everything she can about being a parent and a therapist and tries to use her knowledge. It's hard, but she's a Fenton, which means that she's very smart and determined. She pushes through, and trains on her classmates and herself.
In the evening she writes about her feelings in a journal. It's very important to be aware of her feelings because that's the first step to dealing with them.
She's experiencing sadness. And anger, actually, even though she doesn't like to admit that.
She writes "this family is a fucking mess" in her journal and then covers the paper with ink until the sentence is absolutely unreadable.
---
Jazz is sixteen, and her stupid parents opened the stupid portal, which means that they're even worse than usual. It's pretty much okay when they're just stuck in their stupid lab, making some stupid weapons. It's not that okay when they're out of the stupid lab, because they get their stupid inventions all over the stupid house, and stupid food comes to life, and she has to protect Danny from both their stupid weapons and stupid hotdogs, and oh god everything is so stupid.
She's experiencing anger.
She's also acting perfectly calm and almost cheerfully.
Jazz hates how perfect her fake smile is in the mirror.
---
Jazz is seventeen. She wants to put her headphones on and listen to some loud music. Jazz can't do that, because she gets anxious if she can't hear what's happening around her. She needs to be fully aware of her surroundings because she needs to be able to protect herself and her brother if weapons against ghosts become weapons against children again.
She thinks that it's not okay.
The house smells of ectoplasm, so she'll be extra careful when opening the fridge.
She thinks that she shouldn't know how ectoplasm smells.
Jazz should probably also warn Danny: her little brother's gotten better at fighting food but doesn't notice the smell of ectoplasm. Funny, considering his ghost sense.
Funny, considering that her brother is a half-ghost.
That her brother died.
That she failed at protecting him after all.
Jazz stops breathing to prevent herself from crying, and doesn't need oxygen for a few minutes too long.
Maybe she failed at protecting herself too.
---
Jazz is turning eighteen next month. Her parents are all of a sudden more attentive and caring, as if that can change their almost-absence during her whole life. She doesn't like their attention because she doesn't know how to deal with it. She doesn't even really think of them as parents anymore.
She thinks of them as a threat.
Once she's eighteen, she's gonna try to move out, and she's going to take Danny with her because it's not safe to leave him here. Maybe after she gets a good job and saves some money, she'll even get into therapy.
Jazz thinks that she needs therapy.
She's been having Bad Thoughts lately, and she doesn't write them down in her journal. Jazz stopped writing anything in there ever since she found out that Danny is a ghost. She just couldn't risk anyone finding that journal.
Jazz isn't sure if she should call those Bad Thoughts intrusive. They scare her, and they're Bad, but it could be just her normal thought process.
It's still definitely not normal.
---
Jazz is eighteen. Her parents are very excited, whispering to each other about how they found a perfect present for her, some surprise that she's gonna love.
She doesn't care.
Her little brother is late from school, and it's weird, because he was also super excited about giving her his present.
She's worried.
Her parents brush off her concern, say that Danny probably just got distracted talking with his friends. They don't listen when she says that Danny wouldn't get distracted like that on her birthday because he's not them, he actually cares about her, he doesn't forget her birthdays, and something has to be wrong for him to be that late.
They don't listen to her at all.
She's angry.
Her parents are excited and talk loudly about how they wanted to find a perfect gift for their favourite daughter, and how they managed to do it because they love her so much. She hates when they're excited. It only leads to problems.
They bring her to the lab because of course they do, why would they make a gift that is normal and isn't kept in the lab, right? They usher her in, so obviously proud of themselves.
She hates them.
And she hates them much, much more the next second, because the gift is her little brother in his ghost form, strapped to a table, unconscious and injured, and the smell of ectoplasm is strong in the lab because of his green blood dripping on the floor.
There's a cold part of her that analyses her feelings and tells her what emotions she's experiencing, and that part is very aware of thick black smoke of wrath twirling and twisting under her skin. It's suffocating, and she stops breathing as it invisibly fills her lungs, scared of letting it out.
There's a perfectly fake part of her that keeps the smile on her face as her parents gush about how hard it was to catch the ecto-scum, and what they can do to it - together with Jazz because they wanted to share this with their amazing daughter.
Jazz is black smoke of rage under perfect glass of calmness when she grabs Fenton anti-creep stick. The smile she learned to fake under any circumstances doesn't falter when Jazz brings the baseball bat down on her father's head. It grows a little bit wider when she hits her mother, because Jazz learned to smile brighter when she's hurt or sad or scared or angry - experiencing any "bad" emotion actually.
Jazz is angry when she grabs her weapon.
Jazz is furious when she kills her parents.
Jazz is worried when she checks her brother's wounds.
Jazz feels nothing when she rigs the portal to blow, walks out of the house and presses the button.
She is her parents' genius daughter after all, and she did listen when they were telling her about their inventions. Maybe it would have taken longer to do, but she had Bad Thoughts, and they probably weren't just intrusive after all, because she did what they told her and made it very easy to make a bomb out of a portal. Just in case. Her parents were a threat, and Jazz was smart enough to prepare to dealing with threats, and she was smart enough to make it look like the threats dealt with themselves.
She really hoped she wouldn't have to use that button though.
---
Jazz is nineteen. Her sort-of-friends at uni offer to go to a restaurant, and she tells them that she doesn't celebrate her birthdays. There's a noise of all of them saying that maybe she should try, noise that she really should have expected, because humans are always so excited about any holidays, it's hard for them to understand that someone might not like them. It's not hard to stop that noise though. They shut up very quickly when Jazz says that she had "a very traumatic event" on her birthday.
Good. She doesn't like loud people.
Jazz goes home to her little brother. He's sad because his parents died in an awful explosion a year ago. He's still trying to smile because it's also her birthday, and Jazz is very happy that he's bad at faking a smile.
It means that he won't end up like her.
Jazz hugs her little brother, and he gives her a little present that she adores, and then they sit in silence and eat some takeout. It's very nice.
She never tells Danny that their parents died before the explosion, and that the explosion wasn't an accident, and that their ghosts did form after that because of all the ecto-contamination they had, but she made sure this wouldn't become a problem. She never tells him what she's done, because that would hurt her little brother, and she would never let anything hurt him.
Jazz will protect her little brother from anything.
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I feel guilty: In some ways, I feel Hayley and the Mikaelsons set up Hope to fail. Now, with canon included, I think Hope did find her way - but ironically feel like her story should have been "Klaus, Hayley, and Elijah are what the remaining family tied to Hope but with the three dead - Hope is on her own, and having to navigate a world where she loves her dad but everyone is just as entitled to hate him and come into conflict with that". (Sorry, that's a long one). Basically because of how morally dubious the TVD gang (+ Dorian) could be - it makes sense that they know to separate Klaus's actions from Hope - but what about those who did not have that luxury and only remember a monster that was Klaus? I would use Tyler's story, but in a vague gesture: Hope needs to earn someone's trust after her father (or other relatives) brutalized them and has no way to defend or justify it. Essentially getting someone's trust for her as "Only Hope" and not the surname she's connected to. Or the more common arc, Hope realizing just because she loves her family doesn't mean she can overwrite the centuries of cruel history they left behind.
I'm not saying the Mikaelsons didn't love Hope, but Hope is unique (not just as a tribrid but the only living blood relative who hasn't been alive for a millennia) and had pressure on her that shouldn't be there. Hayley loved her, but should have warned her that living in a town that still had - living - people her dad fought with and hurt should have taken precedence over keeping a torch lit for their relationship. Klaus had his chance to be someone in this world, now Hope has to live in it and make something of herself - in his name or by herself.
(Sorry if this comes off anti. While I have anti thoughts and do like Hope, I think she could have stood to have a better characterized arc.)
I'll start by prefacing this and say that I haven't seen much of Legacies, I only know a lot of the show from edits.
But I agree that the show did a pretty terrible job with really diving into the cycle of trauma and pressures that were put on Hope since before she was even born. They were so focused on making Klaus redeemable and centering Hope around Klaus that they didn't allow for her character to have the development she needed.
I really like what I know about Hope's character and I even look past the wild hoops the writers had to jump through to make her existence possible. But for a show that centered around a magical, miracle baby, they sidelined her character a lot. The writers were so focused on setting up Legacies that they forgot to give the characters the development that was necessary for it to get there.
People love to say that Klaus broke the cycle of abuse with Hope, but he didn't. It just manifested in a different way. He never physically harmed her, but he neglected, abandoned, and emotionally harmed her repeatedly. This trauma is something that Hope doesn't even get to work through.
Hope at 7 years old seems more or less well adjusted. I think Hayley did a good job protecting her from everything. She missed her family in an abstract way because she didn't truly understand what she was missing. She had Hayley and Mary. Klaus allowing himself to be captured and held prisoner was the best thing he ever did for Hope. She was able to live for seven years safe and loved. I may get hate for it, but Hope was better off living as a Marshall away from the Mikaelsons.
I don't necessarily think Hayley was wrong for letting Hope grow up believing the best in her family. At that point, Hope was very isolated. She deserved to have a childhood without it being taken away by the Mikaelsons. But I do think Hayley should have had more conversations with her as she got older, especially if she was going to a school where it was likely to come up.
As soon as she is back with the Mikaelsons, her life once again revolved around what she can do for Klaus. I'm not saying they all didn't love Hope, but she was never allowed to just exist. The fact that she used to keep points when she was "good" or "bad" shows just how much she felt it. She had to be perfect because if she wasn't, she wouldn't be worth their sacrifice or Klaus might slip back into a terrible person.
I've talked about it before, but sending Hope to the Salvatore School made no sense to me. She was safer in New Orleans. She had her mother's pack, he vampires would protect her for Josh and Marcel, Vincent wouldn't let anything happen to her, and she had her mother. Hayley sending her daughter away to boarding school for most of the year made zero sense. I watched the first few episodes of Legacies before TO and I genuinely thought they all died when she was a child because of how she acted with Alaric and the twins. She desperately wanted a family, something Hayley had done a great job providing in the past, but sending her away to school made Hope feel neglected. She was already being neglected by Klaus, she didn't need to feel abandoned by both parents.
And, as you said, she is sent to a school that is run by a man who hates her father, in a town full of people who hate her whole family. She had to listen to people talking about how awful they were, and it was all warranted, which makes it worse for her. She didn't get to attempt to process that on her own. She had to do it while constantly being compared to her family. Alaric was always using it as a way to punish her. The adults clearly were not mature enough to separate Hope from what her family did and they had no business being in charge of her.
The entire terrible legacy of the Mikaelsons was put on Hope's shoulder and the show just ignored that trauma because if they didn't, they would have to admit that Klaus wasn't redeemed, everyone just moved on. So then the people who didn't just move on look like the bad guys. Alaric had every right to hate Klaus, Tyler would have every right to hate both of Hayley and Klaus. They don't owe the Mikaelsons anything, but it is also not fair that Hope has to take the brunt of their anger because Klaus died and got away with literal murder. Hope was a child and shouldn't have had to work to prove herself. She deserved love and support and understanding, like every other child. She deserved to have the space and support to sort out her feelings toward her family, the good and the bad. She deserved to yell at Klaus for abandoning her, to be angry at Elijah for putting that pressure on her, to be angry at her aunts and uncles for abandoning her after her parents died. She deserved to figure out who she was outside of the legacy of pain and torment her family left behind, but as far as I can tell, she is never given that time. All of this would have given her character more depth. Coming to the realization that her family were terrible people but she still loved them is a hard pill to swallow, but it was something she needed to come to terms with. Glorifying Klaus and erasing Hayley, did very little for her development except to play on Klaus' popularity for views.
I love the Mikaelsons but each and every one of them were terrible at being family and terrible people. Hope suffered because of this.
Thanks for the ask! Sorry if I just went on a tangent and didn't fully answer your question.
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