The MDZS novel readalong - chapters 1 & 2

[solo]

And here we are, our discussion post for Novel chapters 1 & 2, or web serialization chapters 1-5. The format might be refined as we go ^_^ - let's get started!

What happened?

- We got the general gloating at Wei Wuxian's death
- first info on the siege and how Wei Wuxian died
- Wei Wuxian's resurrection 13 years later
- an evil left arm running rampant at Mo Manor
- the introduction of Lan Sizhui and Lan Jingyi
- a glimpse of Mo Xuanyu's sad life
- Lan Wangji making an epic entrance
- and finally Wei Wuxian departing with the donkey.

How are we feeling about it all?

Any character observations? What did you make of the character intros?

Anything that surprised you even on re-read, or coming from the adaptations?

Spot any difference to other MDZS media?


Discussion notes

Spoilers for all adaptations are permitted.

The questions above are meant as potentially helpful starters, not mandatory. :)

Commentary and comparison with other translations is welcome, as is commentary on the original Chinese. (The readalong mods don't speak or read Chinese so this won't come from us, but any dedicated thread or un-dedicated observations will be received with delight.)

Jumping into threads and replying to other people's comments is not just encouraged, but part of the point.

Disagreement is fine. Keeping it friendly is encouraged, keeping it civil is required.

We encourage tracking the post or coming back to it over the week - the fun part of doing this on Dreamwidth is that discussion can happen over time and doesn't have to be instantly!

If you have any questions or concerns you want to ask the discussion mods, feel free to email us at haikuesque@gmail.com.


The reading schedule

Saturday 22 January: Chapter 1 Reincarnation + Chapter 2 The Intractable (web serialization chapters 1-5)
Saturday 29 January: Chapter 3 The Prideful (web serialization chapters 6-10)
Saturday 5 February: Chapter 4 The Elegant Flirt part 1 (official translation pages 119-168, web serialization chapters 11-(halfway through) 16.6, ending as the group set out for Caiyi )
Saturday 12 February: Chapter 4 The Elegant Flirt part 2 (official transllation pages 168-204, web serialization chapters 16.6-18)
Saturday 19 February: Chapter 5 The Sunny Pair (web serialization chapters 19-22)
Saturday 25 February: Chapter 6 The Malevolent (web serialization chapters 23-27)
Saturday 4 March: Chapter 7 The Morning Dew (web serialization chapters 28-32)

Comments

[jo_lasalle]

Funny in that they are like, "Whoa he killed 3000! No 5000! Wasn't it 3000, ah well it might have been 5000!" XD Can't help but think about CQL where you have, like, 100 people standing there at most.

LOL, yes, the CQL visual makes this even funnier!

I found there was a a bit of a discrepancy in his thoughts about himself, which are often reminiscing on his past reputation as if he wants to remind the reader about how evil he was, while many of his actions speak of a good character: He speaks up when Madame Mo gets angry at the Lan Juniors because he sees they are still young and out of their depth with this mystery that is much more difficult than they first thought, so it is unfair of Madame Mo to drag them so while they are trying to help. He kicks Jingyi so that he will save Sizhui from the evil arm; he makes the very obvious comment about the left arm so that Sizhui gets on the right track. He first tries to simply humiliate the Mo family to see whether this is enough to lift the curse instaead of killing them immediately. He is even close to interfering more with whistling and therefore being in danger of giving hismelf away completely and lucks out that LWJ arrives before he does it.

Yes, that's a great point about his internal commentary on himself! (And worth watching out for later. Not every character who has some subjective views on a matter is an unreliable narrator, but I do think WWX comes by that designation honestly.)

*waves* you commented on my DW recently and I will reply soon, I was just too squeezed for time last week

[sunshine304]

LOL, yes, the CQL visual makes this even funnier!
This reminds me also of one of KouriArashi's fics where WWX gets confronted by the sects after his resurrection and they're like, "You killed thousands of people at Nightless City!" And WWX answers, "There weren't even that many people there!" Always cracks me up. XD

I had heard about WWX being such an unreliable narrator in MDZS, so now I'm interested to see this play out. He definitely seems to be a very good candidate for it from that second chapter alone.

No worries! ^_^ I assumed that you've got lots to do atm!