The MDZS novel readalong - chapter 3
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theuntamed_mdzsThis week: Novel Chapter 3, The Prideful (web serialization chapters 6-10)
In this chapter, Wei Wuxian travels to Dafan Mountain, where he encounters many people.
How are we feeling about it all?
Any character observations?
Anything that surprised you even on re-read, or coming from the adaptations?
Spot any difference to other MDZS media? What do you make of it?
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 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)
In this chapter, Wei Wuxian travels to Dafan Mountain, where he encounters many people.
- The donkey Wei Wuxian escaped on is useless and stubborn. Wei Wuxian misses his sword (implied: for easier travel) but speculates that it will have become some cultivator's trophy. (59)
- He hopes to capture a strong ghost to do his bidding. (61-2)
- Low-level cultivators are using his 'Compass of Ill Winds' but it's only a prototype. (63-4)
- The Jins are extremely powerful and nobody dares offend them. (69-70) Jin Guangshan's character and death are explained: over-exertion while whoring. Everyone knows but the Jins like to keep the whoring bit quiet. (71-2)
- Jin Ling uses 'cut-sleeve' as a slur. (72)
- Wei Wuxian has 'thrown together' a qiankun pouch from scraps of fabric. (73)
- There's a ghost in the paperman Wei Wuxian uses to hold Jin Ling down. (73). Jiang Cheng kills it. (75)
- Lan Zhan looks 'embittered, as if he had lost his wife'.(78)
- Jin Ling is 15. (81)
- Jiang Cheng has to consider politics when confronted with Lan Zhan: the sect leaders of Lan and Jin are close friends, so Jiang is isolated. (81) Retreating with him from Dafan Mountain, Jiang Cheng's disciples expect punishment. (83)
- Wei Wuxian randomly finds a qiankun pouch with various items, including a yin-burning talisman. It flares and shows him where to find a 'soul of the dead'. Having found it, he dashes off after Jin Ling, who has gone to the temple. (88) Arriving there and seeing the statue move, he attacks it with the rest of the items from the pouch. (93)
- Wei Wuxian's tirade about how the Lan sect teaches lots of useless etiquette at the expense of practical knowledge; (95) then he sets out his theory regarding the events at Dafan Mountain. (96-100)
- Lan Sizhui quotes the Yiling Laozu on the diet of high-level monsters, but Wei Wuxian tells him the Yiling Laozu was full of bullshit. (100)
- Upon disintegration by Wen Ning, the statue releases a white pearl which contains the souls it devoured. They could be restored, but everyone ignores it. (105)
- Lan Zhan grabs Wei Wuxian. Wei Wuxian grabs him back to stop him chasing after Wen Ning, but Lan Zhan isn't really interested in Wen Ning at all. (109)
- Lan Zhan and Jiang Cheng actually throw down; witnesses see repeated purple and blue lightning strikes. (111)
- Mo Xuanyu allegedly got kicked out for cut-sleeve harrassment of his peers. (113-14)
- Someone accuses Mo Xuanyu of being a cut-sleeve. Jiang Cheng looks disgusted. (114)
- People agree that Wei Wuixan was too straight to ever possess a cut-sleeve and anyway, Mo Xuanyu's flute playing was too awful to be compared to the Yiling Laozu's. Wei Wuxian is a bit hurt. (114)
- Jiang Cheng wants to take Mo Xuanyu back to torture a confession out of him; he's in the habit of doing this with demonic cultivators. (115-16)
- Jiang Cheng is competititive enough to be annoyed when 'cut-sleeve Mo Xuanyu' says he's not his type but Lan Zhan is.
- Lan Zhan agrees that he's Mo Xuanyu's type and takes him back to his Clan.
How are we feeling about it all?
Any character observations?
Anything that surprised you even on re-read, or coming from the adaptations?
Spot any difference to other MDZS media? What do you make of it?
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 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)
no subject
Date: 2022-01-29 02:02 pm (UTC)1) Truly, the implication is that he'd be faster or more comfortable by sword... but has he forgotten he can't fly it any more? Or does Mo Xuanyu have a core that would let him?
2) Big difference from CQL Wei Wuxian, who tends to leave the dead alone when possible. The attitude towards the dead and souls seems to be a bit more slapdash here in general: see also Jiang Cheng simply killing the ghost in 7) (what about liberation? suppression?) and nobody caring about the souls in 14)
6) I love the idea that he can just throw together a multidimensional pouch from some rags he finds lying around. Genius!
10) I was a bit surprised. I mean, it makes sense, given the relationship between Meng Yao and Lan Xichen, but Jiang Cheng is the primary caregiver of the Jin heir... that's not nothing? Still, I like that people here have to think strategically, politically. Even if that goes out the window later (16).
11, 14) Clearly a totally different story to the statue from the one in CQL, where the statue it had held a Yin Metal piece, and only started to act up after Wen Ruohan took it. Still, you'd think one of those cultivators would have picked up the pearl and rescued these poor souls?
15) Hands up everyone who prefers the CQL version! ✋🏻✋🏼✋🏽✋🏾✋🏿
20) Yes, Jiang Cheng and the demonic cultivators... They were very circumspect about that in CQL.
21-2) I love me hopelessly competitive Jiang Cheng, and utterly shameless Lan Zhan. :)
no subject
Date: 2022-01-29 05:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-29 07:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-30 08:42 am (UTC)Then again, this might simply be MXTX's way of showing how much everyone's attention is focused on Wen Ning, that they all forget about something this important. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I also think there was sth about how the younger/poorer cultivators want to make a name for themselves and it would be the coolest shit ever if they could capture Wen Ning, so that's the priority.
no subject
Date: 2022-01-30 08:51 am (UTC)... but Jiang Cheng is the primary caregiver of the Jin heir.
I'm not even sure about that, is he? IDK if it's fanon that Jin Guangyao and Jiang Cheng both had a lot to do with Jin Ling's education/upbringing - perhaps we'll hear more about it later on. But in general I figured that the Jins would try to also have a big influence since JGY doesn't have a heir anymore and so Jin Ling would be next in line.
I was surprised at JC's apparent isolation, though. From CQL, it seemed that he was on well enough terms with the other sect leaders.
But yeah, I also found it funny how he at first thinks about all the political trappings if he starts a fight with LWJ - and then, when WWX might have returned, he's like, "Fuck politics!" XD
Shameless!LWJ is fantastic. XD WWX goes on about how he can disgust LWJ so easily with his shameless comments, and LWJ is just standing there, face impassive, like, "Yep." XD
no subject
Date: 2022-01-30 09:26 am (UTC)Precisely! WWX still pushes all his buttons!
The story of Lan Zhan's life after Wei Ying has returned to him: 'Yep. Wanna make something of it?' ❤️❤️❤️
no subject
Date: 2022-01-30 09:35 am (UTC)Maybe it's simply in terms of Sect Leaders Lan and Jin being so very close, so that not only he but also Nie Huaisang, who hasn't even been mentioned here, might feel a bit shut out. And, well, Nie Huaisang having cultivated his useless persona, Jiang Cheng wouldn't consider him a worthwhile ally.
I don't think Jiang Cheng is on bad terms with the other sect leaders, really. They probably respect him for revitalizing his clan, think he's a bit odd in the head about the Yiling Patriarch (though given what we heard in ch.1, maybe not even that?), and are otherwise 'live and let live' about it all.
no subject
Date: 2022-01-30 10:11 am (UTC)Perhaps it's simply that JC feels isolated from the others as one of the few remaining great sects, because as you said Lan and Jin are bestest buddies, but the reality isn't as harsh and LXC and JGY wouldn't say he's truly isolated and like him well enough. Unreliable narrator strikes again?
no subject
Date: 2022-01-29 05:43 pm (UTC)4. I've just rewatched the Baifeng Mountain hunt episode of The Untamed with a friend, and that makes me want to draw a connection between Wei Wuxian's use of demonic cultivation to give the Jiang clan an advantage there to Jin Ling's use of spirit nets to gain an advantage here at Dafan Mountain. Jiang Cheng was present for both-- I wonder what his perspective is on Jin Ling "cheating" now in much the same way Wei Wuxian did then.
9. Trying to nail down the timeline of ages in all the major players here, it seems like Mo Xuanyu is ~10 years younger than Wei Wuxian's original generation, and maybe ~7ish years older than Sizhui's. Still can't get over Jin Guang-fucking-shan scattering bastards around when his legitimate son is 10 years old. Makes me wonder where Qin Su falls in the Jin Bastard Timeline.
Wei Wuxian casually throwing out a "didn't your mother teach you" and "who's your uncle" have got to be EXTREMELY out of character for Mo Xuanyu and his relationship to Jin Ling-- I'm hoping this is where Jin Ling starts to suspect Something Is Up with him, because he ought to know these things.
I love Jiang Cheng's entrances. He has such a flair for the dramatic. XD And the antagonism between him and Lan Wangji! I LIVE for their petty bitching at each other. LIVE FOR IT.
Page 94. Lan Jingyi with "Who are you calling children?!?!?!" and Wei Wuxian responding "Okay, okay, okay gege" KILLED ME DEAD. They're both little shits and I love them.
13. Lan Sizhui quoting the Yiling Patriarch AT the actual Yiling Patriarch is yet another bit of nonsense that I love. Especially when you realize someone has to have been quoting the Yiling Patriarch to Sizhui first and then I just claw my face and scream.
Translation related (because I'm nerd about linguistics and communication choices): the official translation capitalizes "Night Hunt" and I don't know how I feel about it. I can kinda see capitalizing it for the Dafan Mountain Night Hunt which is big enough that it's drawing (rogue?) cultivators from all over, but I'm so used to fandom treating it as a generic term that the capitals took some adjusting to. If it carries on even through incidental monster hunting I'm probably going to start getting annoyed with it.
Another term change: "Cultivation Chief" instead of "Chief Cultivator." Not sure if I have any feelings about it yet.
no subject
Date: 2022-01-29 07:05 pm (UTC)Well... on page 81 it says that Jiang Cheng is the one who put the nets in place. I guess he only cares about 'cheating' when it's done with demonic cultivation? Though at the Phoenix Mountain hunt, I don't actually feel that he had much of an issue either, except that Wei Wuxian was once again riling up the other clans.
I have been known to watch the corresponding scene in the drama over, and over, and over...
Perhaps the same person that introduced the Lan Clan to using spirit lure flags. :D
Ugh, I hadn't noticed the Cultivation Chief. I don't like it.
no subject
Date: 2022-01-29 08:05 pm (UTC)... I need to see if I can relearn how to do animated icons so I can have Jiang Cheng's Dramatic Entrance for this discussion XD
no subject
Date: 2022-01-30 02:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-30 08:58 am (UTC)I think it would be too early to really suspect. Even though MXY should know about it, there's also the general understanding that hes totally insane, so I think Jin Ling would explain it like that - stupid crazy uncle wants to hit him where it hurts.
The petty bitching between JC and LWJ is the best! They are so entertaining! XD
Lan Sizhui quoting the Yiling Patriarch AT the actual Yiling Patriarch is yet another bit of nonsense that I love. Especially when you realize someone has to have been quoting the Yiling Patriarch to Sizhui first and then I just claw my face and scream.
Oh yes, that bit! It's funny in the moment, because LSZ relies on the info and WWX is like, "Excuse me, that guy didn't know what he was talking about, he made it all up!" Really, please kids, don't rely on YLLZ!WWX for everything, the guy didn't even make it to 25! XD
But yeah, LSZ must've gotten all that info from somewhere, so... T_T Though the Lans are all using WWX's inventions without fearing repercussions, so it seems the useful parts of WWX's findings and inventions are rather common. LWJ surely had a hand in that, and LQR cannot be happy about it. XD
no subject
Date: 2022-01-30 09:27 am (UTC)Ohh, that's a good point. Ouch.
no subject
Date: 2022-01-29 07:33 pm (UTC)Overall, a rather long chapter where we finally get a real introduction to Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng, meeting them as characters, and we also meet Jin Ling and Wen Ning!
1. Characters:
a) Jiang Cheng: Oh boy. Okay just going by this introduction for the character I can kinda see why people in fandom hate him. XD What we get here is: Firstly, people complain about him, calling him a “tyrant“ and stressing that you would not want to be his enemy because he’ll fuck your shit up. Secondly, we actually get to meet him and he’s abrasive, (passive)aggressive, humorless, obviously doesn’t get along with LWJ, and the hints of Zidian show how dangerous he is. But we also learn that Jin Ling is important to him (though he shows it in a peculiar way), that he worries about him, and that he can control himself an retreat if he the situation warrants it.
I get why WWX would latch onto this description; they didn’t part on good terms and what he’s heard so far doesn’t exactly make JC sound like a friendly guy! But even JC’s own PoV narration paints him in a negative light. We hear that he was worried for Jin Ling and rushes to his aid, but he immediately masks his worry with anger. He also wasn’t confident that JL would be able to be successful and so not only provided that overkill of nets but also hid his own disciples among the cultivators to keep an eye on the kid (understandable, really, but it might grate on JL if he finds out). He freely admits that he has no qualms severely torturing anyone who might be WWX and seems obsessed with this as well; he also doesn’t care if he hurts innocent ppl since no one who uses a lick of demonic cultivation can be innocent. He immediately attacks WWX without asking any questions and only gets stopped by LWJ, at least at first until WWX gives him an opening.
If you want to introduce a character as very much unlikeable and an antagonist, here you go. XD
But I liked that he is even good for an impressive entrance in the novel. XD
b) Jin Ling: Just like in the show, he seems to be a little brat! XD WWX’s impression of course underlines this as “He’s really rich!“ so you get the immediate idea of spoiled rich kid that doesn’t really have to work for anything but solves everything with money and gets every wish fulfilled. We learn that he is currently 14, so really quite young, and that he has an air of grim determination about him. Definitely not someone to joke around. But he also seems like he really really wants to prove himself here. And unlike in the show he seems to be alone, no other Jin disciples there. Like, this is baby's first night hunt on a mountain that seems to have some soul eating beast, which should be easy enough. He can be successful without being in real danger!
Ouch what WWX says about JL’s mother really hits hard! And we have to consider here that JL thinks this is his crazy uncle MXY who of course knows what happened to JL’s parents and therefore went for an incredibly low blow! With hindsight, this is a really sad scene for everyone involved. :(
I found it a bit funny how the other cultivators were like, “Well, there are many people who have no parents. If they all behaved like that it would be terrible!” Because, uhm, true. But then they keep on talking and they have the reason for Jin Zixuan's death wrong, saying WWX has killed him because of some little quarrel...
c) Lan Wangji: Love his presence in the chapter. He has no interest in speaking to JC but uses the disciples to get his meaning across. The only thing he actively says to JC is that he’ll take WWX with him to CR. XD
Otherwise, he is introduced as someone who does not say many words and also doesn’t care to win a spoken argument. But he is also shown to step between a very important, strong clan leader and a questionable person out of a sense of justice (and perhaps because he can annoy JC like this), at least the first time he and WWX meet here. The second time, he must have at least a very very strong suspicion that this is WWX and therefore he won’t let any harm come to him. But for the ppl in the scene they would see it as him defending someone from a possible injustice.
Also, please, lets have a moment of silence for LWJ hearing HIS LOVE SONG that he had only played once to that person he loved and that no one else knows - and the one who plays it is the crazy cutsleeve from the Jins, like excuse me wtf is going on here? XD The poor man!
I also liked WWX's observations about him with the “funeral clothes” like LWJ has lost his wife. Well, kinda, WWX, kinda... XD And how he describes LWJ's voice as “deep and captivating” and “making the heart flutter”. Uh-huh. (¬‿¬)
d) Wei Wuxian: It's really like, WWX happens upon a mystery and he has to solve it. Just seems to be his nature. XD I loved WWX with the Juniors. There are two sides of him here at work I think, one is “I wanna help these kids, this is really dangerous” but the other is, “Ugh I need to say something because they are so WRONG!” XD This urge to be the cleverest person in the room is strong in this one! XD
Meeting Jin Ling must've hit so hard, but we at first don't get much on how he feels about this revelation since there is a lot going on, but it's made clear when he slaps himself for it and then mopes at the creek. It really sours his mood, though we as readers take a bit longer to understand why he is upset about this after all, until the exposition of the passersby reveals his relation to JL.
In the meeting with JL, WWX also gets the missing puzzle piece of who that clan leader was that fathered MXY and to his huge surprise it’s someone super famous like JGS. XD I had to chuckle at the part of, “JGS was also leading the Siege at the Burial Mounds and now WWX is in his bastard son's body – he didn't know how to feel about that.” Wondering, whether this makes them even or something. XD
I really like how he hesitates with the flute playing until he doesn’t have another chance anymore and JL is in mortal danger. He of course couldn’t let that stupid and reckless kid die, so in contrast the danger of him revealing himself is worth it. An Sizhui obviously recognises the flute playing immediately (or at least knows what it means? It’s not clear, but it read to me to be more than simply “oh no a demonic cultivator” and rather like “Wait shit I know this!”) while Lan Jingyi does not and only comments on how bad the playing is (which WWX feels kinda sour about because sorry, this was just a bamboo stick with holes!).
e) Wen Ning: We only get the reaction from other people on him, but his appearance speaks of neglect and the chains seem weird. Everyone is super afraid, but WWX is shocked because WTF Wen Ning should be dead! He also questions why WN does not think on his own when he could do so in the past. So we know that something is strange about his presence in general, and that something must've happened to change him.
no subject
Date: 2022-01-29 07:35 pm (UTC)2. Cultivation World:
a) I really like the worldbuilding in this chapter, like the explanation on the small poorer clans vs the prominent rich ones and how smaller ones might be able to improve their standing. That’s very interesting!
b) Again, there is the mention of a hundred year war between the clans – so is this why Nie Mingjue's father was killed by Wen Ruohan? They've all been fighting these stupid, petty wars about who is the greatest clan of all? It also sounds like Chief Cultivator is not an elected position, but simply what they called the winner of that clan war out of respect.
c) Jiang Cheng is, even though his sect is huge and rich, quite isolated politically. Jin and Lan are close because their sect leaders are friends, and the Nie have been in decline and are not so relevant anymore. This is a difficult situation for Jiang Cheng to be in. He always has to consider this, like in his confrontation with LWJ – if he starts an actual real fight, this might have bigger repercussions.
d) Casual homophobia is really a thing here huh? (>_<) JL as a teenager is really like the kids on the schoolyard using it as the meanest insult they can come up with right now (and since it says MXY’s inclination was actually a/the reason for him being send home it seems a logical conclusion for JL to use it to insult him). But also JC, whose mood sours even further when he hears about it. We've also had this with the Mo family in the chapter before.
e) Also, OMG, the story of Jin Guangshan and his death by orgy must have been the greatest gossip fodder for the smaller sects ever! XD
f) It’s interesting how much exposition happens here by WWX listening to people talk. It’s really the quintessence of telling the reader important things they need to know without infodumping them in the narration. WWX gets info he cannot otherwise have, but he also has a reason to think about it further and therefore explain to the reader some important world and/or character details.
g) I also found the general story surrounding Mount Dafan easier to understand in the novel. Who all the people were that lost their soul was clearer, as was why there were many people walking around on the mountain.
3. Translation stuff:
a) Some terms are translated differently and now we have to get used to it. XD Already I’m questioning if the fierce corpse has been substituted with something different… like ghosts? Then of course the Compass of Evil is now the Compass of Ill Wind (which sounds like it might be a closer tl). I find it a bit weird to capitalise night hunt - perhaps because they consider it a specialised term? Also Cultivation Chief instead of Chief Cultivator, and I already see myself simply ignoring this change. XD
b) German TL: German does not keep the terms like gege, Lan-er-gongzi etc., they’re translating all of this. The only thing they seem to be keeping is shixiong/shidi etc., it’s in the glossary so they seem to consider this specialised terms in this world.
c)
So, the Lan Juniors use the formal you for all the adults like Madame Mo or Jiang Cheng. They use informal address for MXY. WWX uses the formal you when talking to JC (of course, not wanting to give himself away). JC is informal to LWJ - LWJ in turn does not talk to him directly until the very last sentence and that’s just a statement. XD But LWJ is informal to WWX, so there’s that.
d) I really had to laugh at the part where WWX hears people complaining about the compass not working correctly and then thinking that it was his first version and he didn’t have a chance to refine it. It’s chuckle worthy in English, but the German tl really hit me as very funny for some reason. In German WWX says “Selbst schuld, dass sie die Grabhügel in Grund und Boden gestampft hatten, bevor er fertig geworden war." (Their fault that they destroyed the Burial Mounds before he was done [with it].) For me, the English version just didn’t convey this kind nonchalant shrugging energy that the German did.
Then again, the pun with his name “Wei” vs “way” (p 64) works much better in English than in German!
e) There is a weird mention of “ghost generals” (p 61), that WWX looks for a “band of ghost generals to do his bidding” which wasn’t there in German. There is was only “ghosts” that he needed. It seems weird that WWX had several ghost generals – wasn't that special for Wen Ning? Do they simply mean the fierce corpses here?
Checked the original. Wen Ning is called “鬼将军”(Guǐ Jiāng-Jūn), but in this passage it's only “鬼将. Which means “ guǐ” = “ghost” and for jiāng it's “to use/to take” while it's for jiàng “general/to command/to lead”. So I guess it might be a matter of interpretation? German TL goes “I need a ghost to serve me/for me to use”, which seems to ring truer for me since WWX's activity had been to search for a strong ghost he can actually use and not a weak little thing. That seems more logical in this context that him wanting to find new ghost generals like Wen Ning used to be.
That's a lot. (*/ω＼*) I'll try to check on the posts already made here, but perhaps not until tomorrow.
no subject
Date: 2022-01-29 08:31 pm (UTC)3a) ha! I had the exact same thoughts! XD
3c) Thank you so much! Lan Xichen shows up next chapter so I eagerly await anything you notice for next week!
3e) I noticed that too! I wasn't sure if it was the translator trying to draw a connection to/seed the idea of Wen Ning before he shows up, or what. Struck me as a little odd at the time, certainly.
no subject
Date: 2022-01-30 09:07 am (UTC)Lan Xichen shows up next chapter so I eagerly await anything you notice for next week!
I'll keep an eye on it. Some of this might be really interesting, as are the slight differences in TL between German and English in general.
3e) It confused me when I read the English TL because I was sure that it hadn't been in there in German. There was another instance in English, where "ghost generals" shows up in that chapter, and German TL didn't use it there, either, going with "ghost soldiers" and something else.
I remember in the ExR TL that there were notes on fierce corpses, ghosts and the like; that the translators were jumoing around with the terms a lot for the first few chapters and then decided to always use the same terms because it got confusing.
no subject
Date: 2022-01-30 09:19 am (UTC)My knee-jerk reaction was to say 'oh, but that was the battle against Xue Chonghai...' and then I realized that the Yin Iron plot insn't in the novel at all... so now I'm also very mystified!
no subject
Date: 2022-01-30 02:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-30 09:18 am (UTC)Ghost Generals makes absolutely no sense, the whole point is that Wen Ning is something unique. IDK what the English translators were on. So I simply ignored that bit. :)
The thing about 'du' vs 'Sie' in German could be very interesting; I cannot imagine that they didn't spend some time thinking this through. It should also map quite nicely on levels of politeness in Chinese, whether 您 vs 你 or title addresses vs name addresses.
As for the Dafan Mountain thing being clearer - I generally expect a lot of things to be clearer in the novel because they didn't have to fudge so much stuff bc censors.
no subject
Date: 2022-01-30 10:20 am (UTC)Yeah that's why I looked up the actual characters used and you could come up with that TL but it is weird in the context, and the German TL went with the more likely and more general term here. The EngTL seems to have a fascination with that particular word, where the GerTL doesn't. XD
The thing about 'du' vs 'Sie' in German could be very interesting; I cannot imagine that they didn't spend some time thinking this through.
I sometimes feel like the TL was rather rushed (they definitely have enough typos and weird phrases in it...) so I'm cautious in hoping for them to actually consider these kinds of speech patterns. But so far it seems to work out well. Then again, we haven't seen much of LWJ yet.
Yes, a lot will be easier to understand in the novel. I understand why they didn't use a dismembered arm in CQL, but the overall explanation of it was very weird and confusing on first watch. Same with the Dancing Goddess - though of course that later has the added factor of connecting it to Yin iron.
no subject
Date: 2022-01-30 09:23 am (UTC)I totally agree. This is in the drama too and I always liked it. It's just... realistic. Especially since those cultivators are the kids of the sunshot generation, where really, so many people died.
Absolutely! First hint at Sizhui's identity here. :) Blink and you miss it.
My impression has always been that Wei Wuxian's song reaches him where he is languishing in a Jin dungeon (and has been since they gave themselves up) so he just up and breaks out of there, chains still on and nails still in his head.
no subject
Date: 2022-01-30 10:36 am (UTC)That's the only thing I'll always be sad about re: all the spoilers I got for CQL: Already knowing the Lan Sizhui reveal.
My impression has always been that Wei Wuxian's song reaches him where he is languishing in a Jin dungeon (and has been since they gave themselves up) so he just up and breaks out of there, chains still on and nails still in his head.
Oh yes absolutely! In hindsight, that's clear. But we don't know it in this chapter, so now the reader has questions - why the chains and shoddy appearance, why is he even alive, where did his consciousness go?
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Date: 2022-01-30 09:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-30 10:32 am (UTC)Just going from that (but also by the EngTL) I'd say it applys to Jin Ling, but also to Jiang Cheng. Jin Ling wants to prove himself here and his whole bearing is entitled, haughty, and self-centred. He's sure he can kill this monster, but also has no qualms about using his uncle's OTT help with the nets to increase his chances for success.
JC is also very much focussed on making JL win this and his attitude towards others is proud and haughty, too. Just the whole way JC and JL treat all the smaller cultivators, acting as if they're the only ones who are allowed to go on this night hunt.
GerTL uses "Hochmut", btw. = haughtiness, disdainfulness, pride. There's the very common saying in German, "Hochmut kommt vor dem Fall". (Pride comes before the fall)
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Date: 2022-01-30 10:38 am (UTC)As a steed or as a beloved pet, it was utterly useless!
I absolutely adore the mutual grump relationship between WWX and Little Apple. They are both drama llamas! And sulky! And then kind of grumpily there for each other!
He was in need of a band of tyrannical ghost generals to do his bidding, so he, too, decided to head to that “Rice Mountain” to try his luck. If there was one that proved useful, he’d capture it for his own use.
This is a thing I hadn't remembered - that reborn WWX isn't quite as chill and seeking to fade into the quiet country life, but kind of looking for some tyrannical assistants. (Or so he says, of course. He does say a lot that isn't necessarily true.)
The eviler the better! It had better be evil enough!
I LOVE HIS ENERGY.
Language note: I don't think I'd ever used the in-Kobo dictionary before - most of the time it annoys me by popping up when I just want to highlight something, LOL - but I appreciated it for "azimuth". (The German translation just went with the compass needle moving to describe what's supposed to happen here...)
I found it interesting that for all he goes on about Mo Xuanyu's make-up looking terrible and whatnot, he keeps it on for a really long time.
around the same age as Lan Sizhui, a mere adolescent.
And the confusion about the juniors' ages is... not improved. *g*
As the final victor of the tangled war between cultivation clans that had spanned over a hundred years, the Jin Clan of Lanling now led the clans and sects; the head of their clan was even respectfully addressed as “Cultivation Chief.”
I think this is the thing I osmosed at some point that in the novel, it's actually the Jin clan who first create the title of Chief Cultivator? i.e. Wen Ruohan was never it.
Leaders of prominent cultivation clans did not normally care for these low-level evil spirits. However, Lan Wangji was an exception. He was never picky about his Night Hunt prey, nor would he refuse to appear if the nefarious creature wasn’t tough enough or if it would not earn him any acclaim. He would attend as long as there was a plea for help, and it had always been that way, ever since he was young. Thus, “appearing where there is chaos” was how the people appraised Hanguang-jun’s Night Hunt expeditions and praised his character.
I know the novel does a lot more with moral ambiguity overall, and I'd forgotten that the "helping the little people" angle of LWJ's travels is much more explicit here than it is in the drama.
(Confession while on the subject of LWJ: I find it kind of silly that LWJ's guqin is also named "Wangji". This is a thing I tend to steadfastly ignore when writing CQL canon...)
After they had gone, Lan Jingyi posed a general question: “Why is Sect Leader Jiang like that?!”
This is hilarious in its centrality. *g*
Wei Wuxian experiences a dip in his relentless energy when he has an emo nemo episode by the water and has to admit to himself that he's "only human". Even then, the depiction of him being emotionally affected stays quite subtle, and like he's still not owning up to being Kinda Sad Really. I felt like Little Apple's reaction to him is much more telling about how emo he actually is than what he allows himself to think in his own narration.
What the water now reflected was a young man. Incredibly handsome and poised, he was so pristine it was as if he had been washed by the moonlight above, with a beaming face and bright eyes, and lips that curved slightly upwards.
This moment really hit me as a big shift in how Mo Xuanyu is described. Wei Wuxian, who has been mostly scoffing at him, is turning kinder in his own head about the poor guy. (Not that I think much more will come of Mo Xuanyu's fate from a narrative POV, IIRC.)
I also found it interesting to experience Jin Ling "anew" here. I've grown really very fond of him in the drama, so even on rewatch, I don't experience the full arrogant rich boy annoyance he initially set off for me. But somehow re-reading the book, I get the full first time Jin Ling experience and he once more ANNOYS THE CRAP OUT OF ME. *g*
The boys couldn’t answer. It was no wonder—the Lan Clan of Gusu had never been a family that needed to consider the question of wealth and poverty.
Ahahaha, the Lans officially don't know what a pint of milk costs.
Wei Wuxian replied helplessly, “What are you blindly believing in him for? Anything he came up with was utter bullshit! None of the rules are absolute! Just take her for a baby. When she didn’t have teeth, she could only eat gruel and soup, but now that she’s grown up, she wants to eat meat. Her spiritual powers just shot up—of course she’ll want to try something new!”
Jiang Cheng's arrival to me marks an interesting point with regard to narration and reliability. Whenever the novel goes "Everyone knew..." I get immediately suspicious that we're not being told the objective truth. Especially around Jiang Cheng in this chapter, I found it noticeable that the narration very subtly shifts in and out what are clearly, definitely Jiang Cheng's own thoughts, and what the narrator is "presenting" about him that may or may not be objectively true. Of course, some of it might be subtleties that are introduced by translation choices and I'd have no way to know. But for example, his thoughts on how he wants to beat a confession out of Mo Xuanyu sound absolutely like Jiang Cheng's own, genuine thoughts, while the story of how he's tortured all those people who engaged in Wei Wuxian's methods blends in public perception again. And, like, I'm really not saying that means he hasn't done that! (If you've had conversations with me elsewhere, you'll know I'm very fond of CQL!Jiang Cheng, but I have no particular agenda about wanting or needing to see novel!Jiang Cheng as fluffier than he is, honestly.) It's just interesting with how much rumors and public image and unreliable narration is part of this story, that this is one where the narration is a step removed from Jiang Cheng's own head again. (Similarly, with the degree of Jiang Cheng's homophobia, there was some fuzzy bleed of what he was actually thinking and what the narrator / public opinion was inferring.)
An omniscient narrator is usually a dealbreaker for me in profic, and initially I came around to the MDZS narrative perspective because it remains quite focused on WWX for such long stretches that it felt like "close enough" to tight third, but I'm really starting to enjoy the style of omniscient narration here in its own right.
Jiang Cheng not being able to resist a challenge even though he certainly wouldn't want some dude to mack on him was hilarious to me.
Finally, an observation after having been in the fandom for a while, and with all due caveats (and deep fondness) for CQL canon and all - I find it remarkable how much fanon ADHD!Wei Wuxian as well as fanon insecure mess anxiety!Wei Wuxian really is quite in contrast to the guy we've met in these two chapters, while fanon steeped in his own heteronormativity clueless!Wei Wuxian is... not. *g*
German edition: I still haven't managed to read it - I discovered much to my delight that a Kindle version seems to exist, which would make it much easier for me to read than the unwieldy physical copy, but after buying that one, too, it turned out it has some formatting/coding issues that make it not a good read. (Apparently, bizarrely, any time "Stimme" (voice) is mentioned, it gets replaced by "visibility:hidden". o__O) I did spot-check some things that intrigued me from a translation POV - I already mentioned the azimuth thing, and I was also curious how they'd translated "cut-sleeve" in the section about Mo Xuanyu being one. The German translation seems to go with "homosexuell", which I can understand on the one hand - I can't really think of an alternative that sounds old-time-y like "cut-sleeve" and still intuitive enough; anything to do with "Ärmel" sounds inherently silly? - but on the other also feels a bit weird and kinda too Latin. On the other hand, Jin Ling using it as an insult was translated as "Elender Homo!" and I felt that kind of worked as a translation choice?
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Date: 2022-01-30 01:47 pm (UTC)I'd come across the word before but got a distinct feeling that it was new for the translators and they kind of fell in love with it.
Me too, and until you just mentioned it... I think fanfic had made me a bit oblivious to how little this actually appears in the drama itself.
LOLOL.
I think for all characters this is probably something to very much keep an eye on.
Absolutely! Now it would be interesting to do some corpus studies and see when ADHD!WWX or insecure-mess!WWX first rose to prominence.
(Though I can see how insecure-mess!WWX can play nicely with heteronormatively-clueless!WWX in terms of Lan Zhan's increasing blatantness. Unless you want to make WWX painfully, downright idiotically clueless, the 'insecure mess' aspect helps explain why after all this time he still doesn't get it.)
Elender Homo! 🤣
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Date: 2022-01-30 06:05 pm (UTC)I absolutely adore the mutual grump relationship between WWX and Little Apple.
Ahahaha, me too. Lil' Apple is such a great companion, he won't put up with any of WWX's nonsense. XD
it's actually the Jin clan who first create the title of Chief Cultivator?
I think that's what I understood as well, which makes me wonder why Wen Rohan would be out starting all the nonsense that led to Sunshot if he didn't feel emboldened by the Chief Cultivator role? I don't think the fan translation I read last year didn't get far enough into the story to reach Sunshot and the lead-up before the official translations were announced, so I guess we'll find out as we go.
what the narrator is "presenting" about him that may or may not be objectively true
oh man, I LOVE this insight! One of the things I really enjoy about MDZS is the unreliability of the narration and how it makes the same events hit differently on the second/third/etc reread as you get more context and information about what the characters have been going through. This immediately made me think about how several of us were commenting last week about WWX doesn't comment about MXY's golden core, either to compare it to his own or just the fact that it exists (does it?)-- at this point, someone who's reading the novel for the first time has no idea why a golden core would even be remarkable or something worthy of mention-- by omitting any kind of commentary on it, the narrator is hiding the golden core reveal from us as the readers.
I also agree on the homophobia from Jin Ling and Jiang Cheng-- to me as a reader of a certain age, it seemed like the casual, no-teeth, "bro that's gay" that I knew people were saying fifteen or twenty years ago that they grew out of after college as times and public opinion changed, not the bone-deep "you are a sinner going to hell" that you see from groups like the Westboro Baptist Church.
For the Kindle edition that you found, can you by chance use Calibre? I've edited e-books (epubs of fanfic from ao3, some bootleg fan-made ebooks of a trashy horror series I used read as a teen) with it before and it's been fairly easy to do.
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Date: 2022-01-30 06:18 pm (UTC)He says it so often and seems so focussed on it, but then forgets about it immediately when another mystery comes his way. I'm wondering if he's simply doing this because... that's what he did in the past, like, he is the reborn YLLZ, so of course he needs some super evil assistants! But then again he wants to keep a low profile and not give away who he is, so it would be kinda ... stupid to have a horde of evil ghosts tagging along. It feels a bit like "Keeping up the image" even though it doesn't really fit anymore.
"azimuth" - heh, yeah. XD I've read so many books in English, also a lot with Age of Sail setting, and that just never came up. XD
After they had gone, Lan Jingyi posed a general question: “Why is Sect Leader Jiang like that?!”
Lan Jingyi asks the most important questions and says what everyone was thinking! XD
I get the full first time Jin Ling experience and he once more ANNOYS THE CRAP OUT OF ME. *g*
RIGHT?! I remember how irritating he was at first in CQL, but later you understand him and he gets some development. But here it's again "snobby rich asshole kid". XD Sorry, Jin Ling, I haven't missed that side of you!
Ahahaha, the Lans officially don't know what a pint of milk costs.
Whenever the novel goes "Everyone knew..." I get immediately suspicious that we're not being told the objective truth. ...
This! I was having some problems with the omniscient narrator at the beginning, because I tend to find it jarring, jumping from the thoughts of one character to the next etc. But it makes for some interesting points in analysis here, because we cannot always assume that what the general narration tells us is true. We have seen CQL and know that some things that "everyone knows" are not true, so everything starts feeling questionable.
And even the thoughts of characters we do get are not always all that helpful or tell us all we need to know (like WWX being sad at the creek, he doesn't say much about how he feels but we can assume from the donkey's actions that he is thoroughly dejected).
Finally, an observation after having been in the fandom for a while, and with all due caveats (and deep fondness) for CQL canon and all - I find it remarkable how much fanon ADHD!Wei Wuxian as well as fanon insecure mess anxiety!Wei Wuxian really is quite in contrast to the guy we've met in these two chapters, while fanon steeped in his own heteronormativity clueless!Wei Wuxian is... not.
Yeah, I always wondered were the extreme versions of ADHD!WWX and insecure mess!WWX came from, because fandom tends to exaggerate these traits to an almost comical level at times. I can kinda see where they might come from re ADHS, but WWX in the show did not strike me as insecure or overly anxious (perhaps at the end, but come one, the poor man had enough reason for that). But then again, as you said, if he's super insecure, it excuses that he seems to be the most oblivious man caught in heteronormativity on the planet. XD
GerTL: Yeah, I also found "homosexuell" a bit jarring, but also couldn't come up with a good alternative. It should be something older, perhaps literary, and not necessarily a crass insult. But yeah, not my area of expertise, and google wasn't helpful. We would need some literary or poetical allusion like in the original Chinese story, so likely we'd have to check 17th century poets or something. (*/ω＼*) I thought in the end, perhaps one could go with "Sodomit", which is negative but at least doesn't feel so modern. Then again, Jin Ling's insult works very well.
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Date: 2022-02-03 02:09 pm (UTC)"This was a young, foreign face. This wasn't the Yiling Patriarch Wei Wuxian, who had once razed the earth and ravaged the world with bloody tempests." (87)
Ah yes, the fact that MXY!Wei Wuxian does look different from Wei Wuxian in his past life. Wangxian here is just basically Lan Wangji falling in love with Wei Wuxian all over again.
Little Apple is much more like a Disney sidekick than in the other versions where it just exists and does its own thing. Here it actually helps out a little with the mystery solving. Definitely deserves all the apples.
I agree that Jiang Cheng's entrance is dramatic af, but the donghua really takes the cake. Clouds even part for him. I was also surprised when Jiang Cheng just destroys the ghost though I guess I shouldn't be given that he obviously destroys the little paperman in the donghua. Death in general is treated pretty candidly here. If you die sucks for you. Later Jin Ling also kind of caused the death of a random cultivator by making a wish to the Goddess statue.
I always thought that the juniors were 13-14 years old but I guess that's a bit too young. Jin Ling is 15 huh. Then I'm assuming the gap between Nightless City and the Siege of the Burial Mounds is a few years? Cause Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli died when Jin Ling was a month old and I assumed it was a few months after that when Wei Wuxian died.
"As you say" is just not as hard-hitting as "Mark your words".
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Date: 2022-02-03 02:44 pm (UTC)He destroys the paperman in the drama too, but throughout the drama there is no indication that any ghosts are attached to these things. Lan Zhan destroys one that Wei Wuxian got to crawl all over him in the summer school. In each case, it seemed like Wei Wuxian was simply directing them/fuelling a spell, so destroying them didn't seem as significant as when you are told explicitly 'there's a ghost attached to this and destroying the talisman kills it'.
I can't remember the novel timeline, to be honest, and never really figured out the donghua one. in the drama, it seems that Wei Wuxian dies mere days after Jin Zixuan's death; and certainly only minutes after Jiang Yanli's.
Hopefully the novel version of the timeline will become clearer as we go.
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Date: 2022-02-03 06:30 pm (UTC)I was a bit surprised by this. In CQL, it's just a stubborn donkey, but here it's a kind of a supporting character. It's cute and gives Little Apple a purpose in the story.
Death in general is treated pretty candidly here. If you die sucks for you.
I'm wondering if this is because the generation experienced the war and therefore is hardened to death in a way people wouldn't be usually. Also, JC of course suffered some additional hits and seems to not give a fuck anymore except when it comes to Jin Ling.
Then I'm assuming the gap between Nightless City and the Siege of the Burial Mounds is a few years?
I checked the timeline, as far as we have one... Wen Qing and Wen Ning surrendering happens a few days after Jin Zixuan's death, another several days later the confrontation at Nightless City happens. "Nearly 3 months later" is the First Siege of the Burial Mounds and WWX's death happens shortly after. But trying to wrap my head around it I always come up with "Jin Ling is a year too old". XD
"As you say" is just not as hard-hitting as "Mark your words".
Now I had to check the German TL. They go with, "Remember (Keep in mind) what you have just said." I think IIRC the "as you say" is closer to the Chinese, but the meaning is more similar to "Mark your words"?
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Date: 2022-02-03 07:16 pm (UTC)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asian_age_reckoning
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Date: 2022-02-03 08:24 pm (UTC)