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The Untamed Episodes: The Second Life
3 Plays1 hour ago
In Part 2 of our Untamed discussion, Ben, NiNi, Shan and Bookworm talk our love for Jiang Cheng, our hatred for Meng Yao/Jin Guangyao, and why we will always hold out hope for more Chinese BL.
Episode transcript available here.
00:00 Welcome
00:55 Intro: More Notes From The Future
01:45 The Second Life
09:23 The Second Life: The Fallout of Wei Wuxian's Choices
16:52 The Second Life: Meng Yao's Dastardly Deeds
26:52 The Second Life: The Tragedy of Wen Ning
32:35 The Second Life: Two 'Fools'
37:41 The Second Life: Various Random Musings
48:18 Page to Screen (and Audio, and Anime, and Stage, and...)
56:59 Afterlife: The Impact of The Untamed on BL and Fandom
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Transcript
Introduction and Focus
00:00:21
Speaker
Welcome to The Conversation, the queer media and brown liquor podcast. I'm Ben, the media critic. I'm Nini, the vibes queen. And we're your drunk Caribbean uncle and auntie who are sitting on the porch in the rocking chairs.
00:00:33
Speaker
We're here to talk queer film and dramas with a special focus on Asian QL. If you like deep dives into queer stories. If you like cracked out takes on art and commerce and queer media.
00:00:45
Speaker
you just enjoy simping for attractive people. We believe in simping. Tune in.
00:00:56
Speaker
And we're back.
Introducing The Untamed Discussion
00:00:58
Speaker
We're going to continue with our huge two-part episode on the Untamed. We finally bullied Nini into watching it.
00:01:06
Speaker
We got her into the booth with Shan and our good friend Bookworm.
Resurrection and Power Dynamics
00:01:11
Speaker
I really hope you listened to the last episode because we're going right into Wei Wuxian's Second Life.
00:01:17
Speaker
The Second Life is so much fun. There's some stuff we talk about in here that I could have continued talking about forever. No more beehive commentary from you right now. No more beehives, but I just want the world to know that I love Chong Chong.
00:01:31
Speaker
Oh, that poor boy. What a hot mess of a man. Angry purple man. My angry purple dreamboat. How dare you?
00:01:45
Speaker
On to the second life. So this is after Wuxian is resurrected, 16 years after his death. The Jin clan is now holding the most power in the cultivation world.
Major Storylines and Mysteries
00:01:56
Speaker
They have the chief cultivator position. Guangyuu has had a meteoric rise to power in the time Wei Wuxian has been gone. His father has died. he has gotten married. he has an heir heir.
00:02:08
Speaker
We also have a whole new generation of junior cultivators along for the ride with us, notably Jin Ling, the son of Zhang Yunli and Jin Zixuan.
00:02:20
Speaker
Lan Sijui, whose identity is a mystery that's not very well concealed. Although we did not mention our beautiful Ayuen in the first life. Just know that we love him dearly. There's too many things to mention. i didn't even go off on an extended period about Madame Jung beating the shit out of people. I know, right? I know.
00:02:41
Speaker
She was such a bitch, but she came through when it mattered. My God. There's so many characters here, but please know that we love them all dearly, even if we haven't gotten the chance to talk about them all. Aiyuan is very close in our hearts.
00:02:52
Speaker
We would just be screaming his name for like five minutes. Yeah. So Lan Sidhui is who we come back to in this new timeline. And Lan Jingyi is also around his best friend, so his lifelong bosom companion, you might say.
00:03:05
Speaker
Major storylines in The Second Life. We, of course, have Wuxian getting resurrected in Mo Zanyu's body. Although in the show, it's just the same actor the whole time because they didn't want to do that to us mentally, which I appreciate.
00:03:17
Speaker
He is supposed to settle his grudges as part of that spiritual agreement for his resurrection. so he is pursuing the folks who harmed Mo Zan Yu. The big mystery unfolds with trying to figure out the last grudge that he holds.
00:03:31
Speaker
That aligns with unraveling the big mystery of the hidden foes from the first life. Jin Guangyou, a.k.a. Meng Yao, is the villain behind most of the horrible things that happened in the first timeline and also getting up to all kinds of other noxious shit like marrying his own sister killing his own son because he's an incest baby murdering his father
Emotional Arcs and Relationships
00:03:54
Speaker
via a gaggle of prostitutes fucking him to death that's a thing that happened people It's normal stuff over there. And recruiting a number of folks to do his dirty work, including villains Su Hsieh and Zuyang. He is a half-brother Mo Zanyu and responsible for a lot of what he went through as well. He's just all up in the business. He also murdered Niam Mingzhu and tricked Lan Zichen into being complicit in all of that. While that's happening, Wuxian is reunited with Wangji.
00:04:26
Speaker
They are following these clues that I'm sorry, we have to be clear that, like, by following the clues, we mean Wei Wuxian wakes up. It's like, wow, this place sucks. Whoa, where'd that arm come from? All right, let's put this arm in a bag.
00:04:40
Speaker
Well, the arm's pointing that way. I guess we're going there now. That's only in the book, Bestie. So in the show, it's actually just this one spirit. The book is way more gruesome. There's, like, body parts. It's a whole thing. The show is a little simpler, but...
00:04:50
Speaker
Okay, yeah. They use a sword, but it's literally like, oh, okay, I guess we're going east? All right. Yeah, the sword points them in the direction they should go to follow some clues. Wangji and Wushen work together to follow the sword spirit, unravel the mystery, the juniors are along for the ride. There is a very devastating arc in Yi City where they meet Zhao Jingchen and Song Lan, who we had briefly encountered in the first timeline series.
00:05:16
Speaker
and unravel a whole plot about them being tormented by Yang, who is fucking evil. Very much a fan favorite arc, I think. It is the best arc, and this also the most tragic
Character Analysis: Zhang Cheng
00:05:28
Speaker
arc.
00:05:28
Speaker
It's quite sad. Nobody knew what was going on. Everybody got tricked into it. The Yi City arc is pretty brutal because we basically see just how Mungiao has orchestrated these complex events to torture and murder people he doesn't like.
00:05:43
Speaker
Zhiyang does the same thing to two roaming cultivators, not boyfriends, which culminates in him turning one of them into a puppet akin to winning and then driving the other one to death by making him commit evil acts unknowingly, which is diabolical.
00:06:02
Speaker
Mm-hmm. After the Yi City arc, that is when Wuxian and Wangji discover the truth of Ni Mingzhu's death, which was very intentionally perpetuated by Meng Yao.
00:06:15
Speaker
By unraveling that, they cotton on to his whole evil shit. This all culminates in a confrontation at Guan Yin Temple, where Meng Yao is fully unmasked. Ni Mingzhu's corpse rises and is really out for some revenge, which, fair enough, I would be too.
00:06:32
Speaker
Zhang Chang confronts Wei Wuxian after learning about the Golden Core transfer that he consented and we finally learn that Ni Hwasong was actually the one who is behind Wuxian's resurrection and orchestrated this whole mystery plot as a way to get revenge on Meng Yao for murdering his brother.
00:06:54
Speaker
While these plot things are happening, there are a couple emotional arcs going on. There is, of course, the continuation of the Zhang family drama and the tension between Zhang Cheng and Wei Wuxian, which is now complicated by the involvement of Jin Ling, who is Wei Wuxian's nephew and has grown up an orphan because of Wei Wuxian's behavior.
00:07:16
Speaker
Zheng Cheng needs to learn the truth about Wei Wuxian giving him his core, and they have to kind of work through all of their emotions about that, which don't come to any kind of satisfying resolution, because how the fuck could they?
00:07:28
Speaker
And then finally, there is, of course, the reunion second chance romance between Wuxian and Wang Ji.
Villainous Manipulations by Meng Yao
00:07:33
Speaker
Honestly, their adult romance is so great. Wushen is resurrected. He immediately reconnects with Wangji. He's having some fascinating mix of memory loss and obliviousness that is his signature and some just emotional denial about the feelings between them.
00:07:48
Speaker
Wangji is having none of that. He is very clear on the fact that he is in love with this man, sticking to his side like glue and not letting anyone hurt him again. So they are traveling together while they solve this mystery. They're having all kinds of very fun ship moments. Lots of cute stuff happening. Wanji's getting drunk a lot.
00:08:06
Speaker
There's a piggyback scene. There's definitely some piggybacking happening. There's a definite wedding. i mean, these guys have gotten married like at least three times in this Right. Exchanging of chickens. Very important stuff.
00:08:18
Speaker
Yeah. And of course, standing together publicly in this second life in a way that Wangji was not able to do for Wushen in the first life. He declares himself very much unambiguously on Wushen's side in front of all the other clans. He does not give a shit anymore. And then of course, we learn over the course of this arc that Sijui is Aiyuan and that Wangji rescued him after Wushen's death.
00:08:43
Speaker
brought him into the Lan clan and raised him. Wow, what a fucking man. They end on an ambiguous note because this is a censored sea drama. So instead of the book ending, which involves them getting married and fucking in a field, we get Lan john very out of character deciding to become the chief cultivator and Wuxian going to travel alone and them having an ambiguously implied reunion right at the very end of the show. But we all know that they got married and had a lot of sex. That's what happened.
00:09:12
Speaker
So yeah, that is the second life in a nutshell.
00:09:23
Speaker
There are two or three really big things that stand out for me and this arc. One is just Seeing Wei Wuxian's
Wen Ning's Transformation and Implications
00:09:32
Speaker
regrets, he's looking back at his life like, wow, maybe I shouldn't have done that like that. Or, wow, I was such an arrogant kid. I should have thought about these things in a different way.
00:09:42
Speaker
You see him having regrets as he sees the outcomes of the choices that he made in his first life. Alongside that, the choices that he made in his first life have made him kind of folk antihero. He's now the scary story. that parents tell their kids about.
00:09:59
Speaker
Be good or the yelling patriarch will come get you. He's wearing another face so people generally don't know it's him. So he gets to hear how people are talking about him 16 years later.
00:10:10
Speaker
And he's realizing, fuck, I was evil. He's like, I did kind of do a genocide. That was my bad. We really should not downplay that this man literally killed thousands of cultivators. He sure Thousands of people.
00:10:25
Speaker
Out of anger and arrogance. I mean, you saw how it built up because he really was just trying to mind his own business and everybody kept poking him.
00:10:35
Speaker
But he still killed thousands of people because he got mad. These other clans that hate him, it's for a reason. It's because he killed all of their family members. It's not some minor petty grudge. Well, in this arc, but when they hated him before, it was because he had power that they wanted and he wouldn't tell them how he got it.
00:10:54
Speaker
Yeah. In the second life, his reputation is in tatters and people hate him because he killed everybody they love, which is terrible. In my opinion. It's absolutely fair. like Completely fair. Totally understand that. So that arc is a really interesting arc for me because it carries through all the various relationships.
00:11:10
Speaker
It carries through his relationship with Jiang Cheng because at the end when Jiang Cheng is like, well, what am I supposed to fucking do with this? Okay, you saved my life, but also, hi, got my entire family killed.
00:11:25
Speaker
Am I supposed to thank you? I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this. Zhang Trung was spitting nothing but facts in that temple. Nothing by but facts. He was 100% correct.
00:11:37
Speaker
And he's stuck in this place now because he loves Wei Wuxian. But at the same time, basically his family opened their home to this man and he got them all killed.
00:11:49
Speaker
Objection. Thank you, Ben. Wei Wuxian did not murder the Jane Clan. The Wens did, and they were going to do it anyway. Wen Chao's active abuse of the hostages was a prelude to them eventually getting killed.
00:12:03
Speaker
When he left them in the cave like that, he intended for them all to die. Wei Wuxian is not the reason why the Wens sacked Lotus Peer. Madam Jang may be mad because she believes that her husband is probably Wei Wuxian's father.
00:12:18
Speaker
Unconfirmed. Pretty much, yep. But, like, that boy is not the reason why Wen clan went on a tear to slaughter their way to more power.
00:12:31
Speaker
That's true. But he is culpable for Zhang Yanli's death, and that is the one that hurts the most. Yes, that part he is. I also want to make it clear, like, she ran into battlefield.
00:12:45
Speaker
That woman gave a month old child to somebody. And then she just ran into a battlefield. No one's saying Yanli was the smartest bulb.
00:12:55
Speaker
We're not with some of her choices. But Nini's point from Zhang Chang's point of view is correct. That's true. The facts and the emotions that he was spitting at that moment was very true. The reason why the story is so compelling is that you have all of these people who had taken and very personal losses and they have very personal emotions that are connected to basically a political war for power.
00:13:22
Speaker
What? are the motivations behind the people who ultimately want to be at the top. What will they do and how will they manipulate the narrative to just achieve that?
00:13:34
Speaker
If they get a scapegoat, all will and good. I'm not saying that Wei Wuxian didn't do all of those things. He killed whole bunch of people. And he was a dumbass who refused to talk to anybody. just being clear that my client, who did kill thousands of people...
00:13:50
Speaker
Did not specifically kill his own clan. He shot the sheriff, but he did not shoot the deputy. All right. Let's be clear.
00:14:00
Speaker
and folks We got a lot of content to get through. The reason that Jung Chung's arc is so compelling is because if you think about things from his perspective, like, wow, what the fuck happened to this kid? He was a teenager when his home was destroyed and his parents were murdered in front of him.
Political Machinations and Conflicts
00:14:22
Speaker
His brother then, from his point of view, ah abandoned him, left the Klan to go protect a different family, adopted new siblings that he prioritized over Zhang Cheng, never explained himself, started doing evil shit, would not tell him anything about why he was doing these things, ultimately started a battle that culminated in the death of their sister, and then jumped off a cliff.
00:14:51
Speaker
That is what Zhang Cheng's brother did to him from his perspective. And so it is not hard to understand why He both loves and hates him in equal measure.
00:15:02
Speaker
Why he struggles so much to understand him and why he wants to forgive him, but he can't. And Wei Wuxian can never make it right. He made these huge mistakes that they can never come back from. They will never be able to trust each other and be close again.
00:15:18
Speaker
my favorite thing about Zhang Cheng is the emotional core of why he's so mad at Wei Wuxian is Wei Wuxian will never let him be useful. Jung Chung feels like he got no credit for getting them out of the cave.
00:15:31
Speaker
He loses his core because he was trying to save Wei Wuxian. He thought he was going to die, and he doesn't get to have a noble death. He gets turned into a mundane person.
00:15:43
Speaker
Then Wei Wuxian helps him get his core back so he can continue to be a cultivator. But then something's clearly wrong with his brother. He then disappears. They find him again. He's trying to rebuild his clan. Wuxian is supposed to be helping him, but it's clearly not the same. And he can't get through to him.
00:16:00
Speaker
Basically, every time he thought he was doing something for Wei Wuxian, Wei Wuxian was doing something for him. So he constantly feels undercut. by the brother he admires own excellence and ego.
00:16:12
Speaker
He feels like he is forever playing second to Wei Wuxian. And he can't ever get over that because now he has Wei Wuxian's core. And he knows that now by the end of the story. That's some like real mind fuck stuff.
00:16:24
Speaker
Now he's stuck wondering if all the things that he's been and done since then are because of him or because he has Wei Wuxian's core and therefore because he's Wei Wuxian. So he doesn't ever know if he's good enough now.
00:16:37
Speaker
Exactly. Oh my God. Zhang Cheng, they will never make me hate you. Never, never. I understand that angry purple man.
00:16:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:52
Speaker
I feel like Bookworm should talk a little bit about the way the Meng Yao and Mingzhu and Zixian stuff plays out in this arc. Because I know you have a lot of strong feelings about it.
00:17:05
Speaker
All right, let's get to it. I really love when you can hear her getting all of her notes together. She's getting organized. I have to organize my slide deck. I've got notes. All right.
00:17:17
Speaker
So in the second arc, we only start by knowing that Nimu Jue died this horrible death. And we have this mystery of his sword and the sword spirit leading them around.
00:17:30
Speaker
They're just solving the mystery of this murderer who at the time... They did not know that it was a murder. It comes to heads when they go to the Jin headquarters and solve this mystery by basically having Wei Wuxian turn into this tiny paper man and go and perform, I think it's called Empathy, on Nimi Chui's stubborn head that is in Jin Kuan Yeo's secret closet.
00:17:57
Speaker
I cannot believe there are people who defend this man. We get flashbacks of Weibushin finding out exactly how Mingyau manipulated Zeeshan into bringing Nimijue and all of them into this sworn brothers pact sort of thing after the war.
00:18:14
Speaker
And how he used that to slowly erode Nimijue's composure using tainted music. And finally it breaks him.
00:18:25
Speaker
He runs away. and the official count is that he is lost. But we know that Jing Guan Yao cut his head off with his own sword and then just keep it in his closet, but like a very normal person.
00:18:40
Speaker
The way this is revealed, you see all of the major players trying to understand what actually happened and why Lan Wangxi and Wei Wuxian chose to have this confrontation.
00:18:52
Speaker
And you can see how he pulls the thread in that scene so well. He orchestrated the action where Wei Wuxian pulls out the sword that was sealed because he lost his core and revealed his identity to everybody in attendance who are all, we have already established, super mad at Wei Wuxian for killing all of their loved ones.
Emotional Climax at Guan Yin Temple
00:19:18
Speaker
And then you see him kind of imply that Lan Wangxi has been seduced into helping Wuxian He didn't use a homophobic slur, but we heard it.
00:19:29
Speaker
Right! Everybody kind of zeroes in on what Lan Wangji is going to do at this moment. And even Wei Wuxian expects him to remove himself from Wei Wuxian's side. He was worried about what this could mean to the Lan sect itself. So he was like, okay, I'm just going fly solo from here. But it culminates, of course, with Lan Wangji's standing.
00:19:53
Speaker
by Wei Wuxian and declaring openly that he is going to walk the single blank path in the dark till the end with him, which is just ah so romantic.
00:20:04
Speaker
ah Jin Guan Yao, he has basically very successfully isolated somebody who has a stellar reputation in the cultivation world. Within a matter of minutes, he questioned his motivations and he wanted that person to declare his allegiance.
00:20:21
Speaker
And when that person was forced to do it, that's it. Like that was almost a surgical precision of political strategy, but that was insane.
00:20:31
Speaker
It was a real showcase for his skill set. On his back foot, he really won that entire encounter. He did. That was a fight that Jing Huan Yeo, 100% won.
00:20:42
Speaker
I think at that point, everybody wanted to fight them, but obviously, we know that nobody's going to fight Lan Wangqi. So they then flee. We still have like two more showdowns after this, which is where he ultimately loses. But this one...
00:20:59
Speaker
Jin Guan Yao 100% won. Even if the cultivation world doesn't know that he was a villain at this point, we as an audience or very clearly shown that this was a man who can talk this bae out of anything.
00:21:13
Speaker
That is exactly what he has done for so long, for almost 20 fucking years. He has talked his bae to the top of a cultivation world like He has risen from being an illegitimate child to the top position.
00:21:30
Speaker
His methods are never to get his own hands dirty. His methods for framing Wei Wuxian in the first life, his methods for continuing to do his dirty deeds in the second life, are through these villainous dudes that he recruits into his cause.
00:21:44
Speaker
Suchet. who is a former lawn cultivator who has a lot of bitterness that he plays on. Zhu Young, who is another one of Jing Guangshan's illegitimate sons. The illegitimate sons are just all over this story. The way the story unfolds, and this is, I think, one of our probably biggest critiques of the show, they eventually end up pinning a lot of what Wei Wuxian ostensibly did in the first life on Su She as a second character.
00:22:11
Speaker
demonic cultivator who was controlling people when we thought Wei Wuxian was. That's a change from the book to the show. It's a change I hate a lot. I think about it this way. If Wei Wuxian wasn't doing what he was doing, he wouldn't have created the cover that Sushi had to do what he did.
00:22:29
Speaker
So I still blame it on Wei Wuxian. Yeah, I'm with you. i think the show wants to let him off a little bit, but I will not be doing that. I think one of the things that I find compelling about Munyao because of his starting line, he will never be as powerful as someone like Wangji or any of the other...
00:22:51
Speaker
clan leaders and named characters in this story. It doesn't surprise me that he ends up teaming up with people who, for whatever reason, also cannot achieve those kinds of heights. Like, Su-Shu's just not as good as Wangji, and he's envious of him.
00:23:07
Speaker
And he hates that Wangji won't acknowledge him. He hates that Wangji won't even remember his fucking name. and every time who are you so good so amazing it's notable that the three of them who form this little evil trio all hold specific grudges about the way they feel disrespected everybody mungyao has killed he kills because at one point or another they called him the son of a prostitute and he's like well i'm adding you to my list fuck you then You're gonna
Aftermath and Emotional Closure
00:23:37
Speaker
die.
00:23:37
Speaker
Mingzhi originally shielded him and elevated him based upon his actual ability and merit. And Meng Yao took out one of his grievances in the middle of a battle and got caught doing it.
00:23:49
Speaker
That's when Mingzhi turned against him. It's the same thing for Susha. Like, Susha wants to have his own clan be acknowledged after Cloud Recesses is destroyed. You can see this man's like, now's my chance!
00:23:59
Speaker
But he just sucks! He doesn't have the skills. He just sucks. Even the Lan Juniors are like, you are bad. You do not know how to play your intro. The fact that they use the fact that he sucks to hide him in the story as a villain until the very end. Like, he's playing...
00:24:17
Speaker
the song to attack wrong but everybody just accepts that because he sucks right so of course he's playing the music wrong he's playing it wrong on purpose but everybody else just thinks that he sucks at it him sucking is how he hides in plain sight i love that so much mung yao's whole group is shittier versions of other people like susha is a shitty version of lan chan and zhi young is an insane shittier version of wei hushin It's true. They're like the sad little copycats who will never have glory. That's what I think is so compelling about it.
00:24:52
Speaker
Like how much of the story would have been solved by people just not being rude to Mung-Yau? He would have found another reason. gotta say, I don't think murder is a proportional response. Right. ah Exactly.
00:25:04
Speaker
How much is my finger worth? All of their lives.
00:25:09
Speaker
All of them. Oh my God. Brad Young was a fucking unhinged serial killer. Holy shit. Psychopath. Let me tell you, that actor is my favorite of the whole series.
00:25:24
Speaker
I love his ridiculousness the whole time. That's a bold statement. My favorite actor in this is definitely Wang Yibo, who did so much with so little. I'm being a little bit facetious there.
00:25:35
Speaker
Of the side characters. Fair enough. Of the supporting characters, he's my favorite because they were like, what's the direction? Just s serve cunt. Got it. Yeah.
00:25:48
Speaker
And he's serving, kind but we cannot overstate that he is by far the most fucked up evil dude in this story. Like what he does to Zhao Xingqian Song Lan is disgusting. My God. Yes. Let's talk about that.
00:26:03
Speaker
We're going to get into how evil this man is. But when he talked to Wei Wuxian, he's like, i need your help with this sort of stuff. And Wei Wuxian's like, what the fuck? Why would I help you with that? He's like, well, you started all this shit. What is your problem, dude?
00:26:16
Speaker
He's a mentor. And Wuxian's like, no, no, this is not what I'm doing. This is not connected to me. I would like very much not to be a part of this particular narrative.
00:26:29
Speaker
Well, you have to talk about Wei Wuxian reflecting. It's like, is this the company I've collected? Exactly. Like, holy shit. If this man thinks that I would help him, what does it say about me and my actions so far?
00:26:43
Speaker
Yes, what have I been doing?
00:26:52
Speaker
We haven't actually talked yet about what Wei Wuxian did to Wen Ning, and we should. oh man. The tragedy of tragedies. Wei Wuxian learns from Wen Qing that the Wen remnants are basically being tormented and experimented on by the Jin clan who are trying to understand Wei Wuxian's demonic cultivations.
00:27:13
Speaker
When he arrives at this site, he loses his shit, sees that they have killed Wen Ning, and then revives Wen Ning as a puppet. That's the term that they use him for basically his zombies.
00:27:26
Speaker
And sends Wen Ning on a tear beating the crap out of people. After which he tries to develop a method to restore Wen Ning's consciousness, but he has forever trapped this originally very kind boy in a perpetual state of unde And he will forever be at the control of anyone who can produce the proper tunes to force him to go beat the shit out of people.
00:27:49
Speaker
This is another thing that Wei Wuxian does without the consent of the person involved. He turns Wen Ning, who is a very gentle, loving soul, into a weapon, basically.
00:28:03
Speaker
He turns him into an indestructible ghost puppet who Wei Wuxian uses to perpetuate violence and who other people, we learn, can use to perpetuate violence.
Tragic Relationship: Lan Zichen and Meng Yao
00:28:15
Speaker
One of my biggest criticisms of the story, not just the show, but also the novel, is that it never unpacks what a violation that is on Wen Ning. Basically, if he hadn't done what he did to Wen Ning, Jin Shizuang would still be alive. Yes, and Wen Ning would not be holding the guilt of having murdered him.
00:28:33
Speaker
The winding situation is extremely tragic, but also there are two things that protected the wind prisoners of war when they were sequestered in the burial mounds. One was the entali, the power of demonic cultivation.
00:28:49
Speaker
And the other, even though he was not intended for that purpose, once he was resurrected and once he was given the consciousness back and once people poro understood that he could be a weapon, I think it also protected them a little bit more.
00:29:07
Speaker
Around a year or so, they were able to survive on that mountain. And I really don't think in such a politically tense period, it would be possible to do that without a very obvious threat to that they can just sort of unleash on people.
00:29:24
Speaker
It also backfired so spectacularly because his control can be just transferred to whoever wants to take care The winning that we saw before he was transformed, this boy who tried to help everybody was so sweet and very shy.
00:29:41
Speaker
Even when he wanted to learn things, he was just sequestered. He was secluded. He didn't really attract people because he knew that the Wind clan was not the greatest.
00:29:52
Speaker
You take that character and you turn him into basically a walking nook. Wei Wuxian, do first, think later. One of the things that really gets my goat is that after the massacre at the Changshe path, he had the fucking audacity to go after Benning.
00:30:12
Speaker
He woke up and he was like, you murdered these people. I will never forgive that man for that moment. i was like, what the hell are you talking about? It was brutal. And like Wen Ning's accidental murder of Jin Zishuan was what caused the entire Wen clan to turn themselves in and be exterminated.
00:30:32
Speaker
It is what led to Wen Ning being basically imprisoned and his mind taken over while Wei Wuxian was dead for 16 years. He was locked up with bolts in his fucking head.
00:30:46
Speaker
They were experimenting on him. When Wei Wuxian was resurrected, he did liberate Wen Ning. But from there, Wen Ning had an extraordinary lonely existence because he's the only one of his kind.
00:30:59
Speaker
His entire family is dead. And so it was nice to see at the end him get some measure of peace by being reunited with Aiyuan again, finding Sidgway and being able to travel together and bond over their dead family and their connection to each other.
00:31:18
Speaker
But Wen Ning is indestructible and immortal, and he is going to live a very lonely life. I wish the story had actually unpacked that in any way or Wei Wuxian had ever reckoned with his choices and how he harmed his friend.
00:31:34
Speaker
To me, the tragedy goes even further because the reason that Wen Ning is so protected at all by Wen Qing and others in the beginning is because he's already been hurt.
00:31:45
Speaker
When he was a child, he's already been attacked spiritually by like this fairy statue or whatever. So he's already weak and In some ways, it feels like Wei Wuxian thought that maybe he could make him strong, but he just ruined him even more.
00:32:02
Speaker
He does make him strong in a way that he wasn't strong before. But the tragedy of it is that he's a sweet, sweet kid that he turns into a monster. And Wen Ning never blames him for it.
00:32:15
Speaker
He is loyal to him till the end. yeah but again, how much of that is because he's been turned into a puppet or his natural tendency? We'll never know. We'll never know. I love Wen Ning. A lot of Wending mentioned in this section. Good job, everybody.
00:32:35
Speaker
If were we're talking about tragedy, we got to talk about the tragedy of Meng Yao and Lan Zichen at the end. Because, oh my God, he ruined that man. He destroyed him. All right, let's go.
00:32:46
Speaker
Round two. This is why i do not buy interpretations of canon that claim Meng Yao truly loved Zichen. because He did not. You do not.
00:32:57
Speaker
to somebody you love. Absolutely not. He loved that Lan Zichen loved him, but he did not love Lan Zichen. He loved the influence that he had on Lan Zichen.
00:33:09
Speaker
He was so over the moon happy that he had this very influential man that he could just control and do whatever the fuck he wants with him. So this all culminated at Guan Yin Temple when Hua Sang tricked Zichen basically into thinking Meng Yao was attacking him from behind.
00:33:28
Speaker
Zichen automatically activated his sword, stabbed
Nihosong's Political Acumen
00:33:32
Speaker
Meng Yao. Meng Yao, on his way out as he was dying, chose not to comfort Zichen, but instead to guilt trip him for killing him and not saving him.
00:33:42
Speaker
Walked down the fucking sword. He pushed the sword in deeper. Oh, bitch. He sure did. Brutal stuff. Zichen destroyed. We know that after this, he went into seclusion for several years to try to recover from the emotional blow of this happening to him.
00:34:00
Speaker
And that is how it was revealed that Ni Hussong was the one behind all of this to get revenge for his brother. Zichen, man. Oh, my God. He's tragic. But let's talk about Hwasong.
00:34:12
Speaker
Oh, my God. What a good deal. Let's talk about the one person who's really good at politics and only wanted to use it for own reasons, not for grabbing power or anything. I mean, it was implied at the end that he would rise to the top.
00:34:30
Speaker
That man knew how to play the game, but he would have just minded his own fucking business if nobody murdered his brother. he just wanted to draw his porn and play with his fans.
00:34:41
Speaker
yes Gaslight Gatekeep Girlboss. That's what he was doing. He wanted to sit in the background, gossiping, listening, collecting tea just for fun.
00:34:53
Speaker
But no, he just had to go murder his brother. he had to get involved. He understood what he was up against and his plan is really elegant. It works because he understands his friends.
00:35:05
Speaker
He knows that if Wei Wuxian comes back and you give him a little mystery to solve, this problem will sort itself out.
00:35:14
Speaker
like, just point Wushan at it. He's just like, all I need is to bring him back and Wangji has to find him first. That's it. And he gave them little nudges along the way to help them find the clues that they needed.
00:35:28
Speaker
He found and set up witnesses to be discovered. He was gathering all of the tea and making sure to strategically place it around where Wangji and Wushan could find it Do we see Nihosong at the confrontation when all of this was unmasked by Wei Wuxian and Lanmongxi at the Jin headquarters?
00:35:49
Speaker
miss He's not there. So he saw the goddamn mess Jin Kuan Yeo was able to make of that situation. and then he was like, you know what?
00:35:59
Speaker
I'm not going to leave this to you bitches anymore. And then he showed up at both the burial mounds and at the temple. And he played both of those situations to how he wanted. He was like, Sushay, what are you doing?
00:36:12
Speaker
Why are you being weird? The great thing about the reveal is when you go back and look at earlier scenes, he is in the background of so many crucial scenes where he is gathering information totally unobtrusively. You don't even notice he's there.
00:36:26
Speaker
But he is. I notice because I notice the fan. always see the fan. It's in the past too. Like he's one of the people who picks up on the intensity of Longji and Wei Wuxian's relationship. He doesn't have any aspirations about it, but he's clearly aware of it because he watches it happen.
00:36:41
Speaker
Not just watches. I'm pretty sure that he showed Wei Wuxian the porn that he then shows to Lan Wangji. He did. He did. And there was that whole segment where he was tagging along on their date, being a third wheel.
00:36:54
Speaker
That was so funny. He is relying upon them to help him achieve his ends here. But like, they were also his friends. That is probably one of my favorite mystery reveals in drama.
00:37:05
Speaker
Very good shit. Excellent. I remember being just gobsmacked with my jaw on the floor when I read the books and got to the
Character Development and Growth
00:37:13
Speaker
reveal. Yeah, I just blacked out and my ears started ringing.
00:37:16
Speaker
I flashbacked everything that happened for the last five books and tried to figure out. It was so good. This is exactly why this show has really got me much value. Once you know all the information...
00:37:28
Speaker
You see from episode one how all of them connects. It's so satisfying.
00:37:41
Speaker
Let's do the best moments in the second life in reverse. So Ben, you go first. Wen Ning revealing the history of the core to Zhang Cheng. Honestly, the entire set of reveals around the end of the Yi City arc and the reveals at the Lotus Pier, because you get to see how fickle the politics of this era have been.
00:38:02
Speaker
As soon as some folks come forward with some information, everybody's like, oh my goodness me, oh no. And I really love the confrontation where Zhang Cheng's being a bitch again Wen Ning's like, I've had enough!
00:38:17
Speaker
And reveals everything that's going on. And you see how devastated Wangji is about this too. With him finally piecing together what was wrong with Wei Wuxian all this time. i also really like Wei Wuxian mentoring the juniors in Yi City.
00:38:32
Speaker
Because he's actually good at it. And it makes you sad for what Zheng Cheng was hoping he would get out of Wei Wuxian. Because Wei Wuxian actually is good with young people. And good at teaching them stuff.
00:38:42
Speaker
yeah would have actually been a really good head disciple. Yeah. And that's what he wanted. He had genuinely had no designs upon Zhang Cheng's legacy. He really wanted to just support him. He thought that maintaining the dynamic that their fathers had was going to be the best thing of his life, which is what's so sad about it all.
00:39:04
Speaker
I think my favorite moments actually are moments within those scenes that you're talking about. When everything goes down at Lotus Bear and when Ning spills the tea, there's a moment when Lan Wangji asks, was it painful?
00:39:19
Speaker
And I just fucking broke. He's just found out that this man essentially sacrificed himself for his brother and never told anybody. And he's remembering all the times he got on his ass about it. And all he could think is, oh, my God, did it?
00:39:36
Speaker
hurt him when they did this, when took out his core. I was ruined. Absolutely fucking ruined. And then the time that I giggled, I had a great time, is in the Yi City arc, when Lan Lanji is fighting Zhiyang and...
00:39:52
Speaker
when Ning is fighting the puppets Wei Wuxian is like well what am I supposed to do and then he sees the kids and he's like I can do that and that was a great moment for me as well but then my ultimate moment and like I've been obsessed with this moment since I saw it is when they're back at cloud recesses after they fled the Jin clan and Lan Zichen is hiding them and he's talking to Wei Wuxian and Wei Wuxian is starting to think a little bit about what Lan Zhan means to him And then Lan Zhan walks up, hair down and soft, with two bottles of Wuxian's favorite liquor.
00:40:29
Speaker
They should not be drinking in cloud recesses because it's one of their 3,000 rules or whatever. He don't care. He loves this man. He missed this man. This man could get anything that he wants. So he comes up with these two jugs of the Emperor's smile and his hair all soft and sexy. And I'm like, oh, they go fuck tonight. They did not.
00:40:46
Speaker
But they should have. In our hearts, they did.
00:40:52
Speaker
Okoram, favorite moments from The Second Life? One of but my favorite moments is the one that I already talked about, the whole confrontation ah the steps of the Jin Manor when Lan Wangji says that he will walk the single blank path with Wei Wachian.
00:41:07
Speaker
The reason why it's one of my favorites is that line is the culmination of 16 years of regret. Lan Wangji was introduced to us as this it extremely repressed and it extremely by the book, follow the rules guy who grew up in this clan, whose politics also seem to be, we are not going to do anything unless it becomes a direct and very visible active threat.
00:41:37
Speaker
We're not going to get into the machinations of the dirty politics stuff. We're just going to stay above it all. And then this man sees how not commenting, not acting, and letting it become a monster, which they can then fight, has consequences. And how him not questioning and blindly following all of those rules, how his entire upbringing basically led to death and complete destruction of the love of his life.
00:42:06
Speaker
And then he had 16 fucking years in solitude, regretting all of his actions. But we finally see Babushan come back and we see the political world wanting to do the same thing once again.
00:42:19
Speaker
to Wei Wuxian, he was like, bitch, no, not this time. And he goes for it. That was such an amazing line. And the whole arc of how it came about is why it's one of my favorites.
00:42:32
Speaker
and Another one. This one's subtler. It's all the looks Zhang Cheng gives Wei Wuxian when they get to Lower Spear after the confrontation at the barrier bounds. Like, he stops and looks at Wei Ying and Wen Ning before they enter. Like,
00:42:49
Speaker
do you really think you can walk into this place? And then Vennin just walks away. Then they get to the main hall and he turns around once again. And he's like, do you think I'm going to let you into this throne room? And then Vennin just sits on the steps without another word.
00:43:07
Speaker
That man is so good. Zhang Cheng's actor. Let's put some respect on his name. Wang Zhao Cheng is the actor's name and he is fantastic. Fantastic. So good.
00:43:18
Speaker
He is such a nuanced character. and there's almost at least three different emotions that he's feeling at any given moment. Every time it's just a complicated mess of things that's going on in his head and you can see him playing it out.
00:43:32
Speaker
The first time we see him interact with Bay Wuxian after he's resurrected, you see the doubt and you see that he suspects that this is Bay Wuxian. And in that scene somewhere, there's a moment where you can see that he is hopeful, but he's also just raging.
00:43:49
Speaker
You see that he's so mad. If he finds out that this is Bay Wuxian, he's going tear him apart. That's what that looks means. But he's also so sad. That is what it has come to.
00:44:00
Speaker
That was his brother. And now he wants to kill him, very rightfully so. But you see him just fighting all of those differing emotions inside him, and you see it all on his face.
Show vs. Novel: Differences and Reactions
00:44:12
Speaker
Zhang Sheng, on the whole, that character is just extremely complicated, extremely tragic. And he was played so beautifully. Y'all talked about some of my favorite moments already, but some additional ones that no one's mentioned yet.
00:44:26
Speaker
First of all, let me just give a shout out to Second Life Long Longji and his sense of humor. That man is fucking funny. He is making fun of Wei Wuxian all the time after he's resurrected. It's so subtle, but it's so well done. I love every scene where he is basically mocking him for not remembering things from the past.
00:44:49
Speaker
I love every scene where he's teasing him about, bitch, I know who you are because you played our love song as soon as you woke up. But Wei Wuxian never figures it out. He does not understand that that is the reason Wangji instantly knew who he was.
00:45:04
Speaker
then at the end, he's like, are we ever we're going to give this song a title? And he's like, bitch, you really can't remember anything, do you? Come It already has a title. Obviously, everybody would have caught it at this point. But in the first arc, when they were stuck in the cave fighting the tortoise, Bemushan asks him what is the name of the song.
00:45:24
Speaker
You see him slowly drifting off. You see the scene blurring. But it is very clear that Lan Wangji mouths Wangjian at him. He says it.
00:45:34
Speaker
But just insane. Like, how did they get it? I'm going to give Wu Shen a pass for not perceiving that because he was very feverish and passing out when he said it. When he resurrects in his second life, he doesn't know why he knows the song and he doesn't know where it's from.
00:45:49
Speaker
But it's like in his soul and he just plays it without even knowing why. That is why Wang Ji knows who he is immediately, despite the fact that in the book, he's in a completely different body in the show. He's wearing that silly mask.
00:46:01
Speaker
All of the scenes connected to that are so funny to me. Obviously, there's a lot of comedy in the drunken shenanigans. The other part that I like about the Second Life arc is the moments where Wei Wuxian kind of gives himself away with his fantasies about Wangji.
00:46:15
Speaker
One of the most stark ones to me is the only memory he has of his parents. is of his mother riding the donkey while his dad leads the donkey down the road. And then we see Wuxian orchestrate, recreating this moment with Wangji. He gets on Little Apple and he has Wangji walking beside leading the donkey.
00:46:35
Speaker
And the show never actually comments on it. They just show you. It's so clear, like, in his mind, even when he is still not really fully clicked into his feelings, what his fantasies actually are about the life that he wants with Longji.
00:46:49
Speaker
I love that. And then this all culminates in the ultimate family moment of... him realizing who Sijui is. I fucking love that scene at the end of the show where Sijui runs up and tells Wuxian that he knows who he is.
00:47:06
Speaker
And it finally clicks for Wuxian that this is Ayuen. And without Lan Zhan saying a word, he puts it together that Wangji has rescued him. this kid who he was helping to raise in the burial mounds and raised him as his own son and that he did that in large part for Wuxian.
00:47:24
Speaker
You just see the emotions over Wei Wuxian's face as he just puts this together and looks at Wangji. He starts crying. It's this such a perfect, happy, joyful moment. Him realizing Aiyuan is okay. He survived. He is this kid that he has already come to love as Sidgway. And then realizing that Wangji did that for him. It was beautiful. And then Sidgway clinging onto his leg and just being so happy to be reunited with his Jean Gaga from his previous life. It's such good shit.
00:47:58
Speaker
The show gives it away early on who Sidgway is. So it's not about a reveal there. It's about the emotional culmination of all of them finally putting together who they are to each other.
00:48:09
Speaker
One of my favorite moments in the whole show.
00:48:18
Speaker
right, we're three hours. We got to wrap this up. I think I'll mention in terms of the other adaptations, there is an anime version of this, which better mimics the pacing and structure of the novelization.
00:48:33
Speaker
Also, the giggly version of Wei Wuxian that you get in the anime better reflects what I felt like I was reading, though I do appreciate the way Zhao Zhen approached the character, who realized that all that giggling would be aggravating as hell.
00:48:46
Speaker
He instead does like a very peculiar smirk, which I think is a much better choice for the drama. Yeah, it works better on the screen. In terms of story structure, I do prefer the novel's structure, intercutting between the present and flashbacks. It preserves the mysteries a lot better. The show, if you're paying close attention, you can solve everything far in advance because you're just given a lot more information in chronological order that you didn't have while reading the book.
00:49:10
Speaker
So I do prefer the structure of the book for the mystery purpose, but the show, i think, made the right choices for a screen adaptation. we should probably talk about the ending.
00:49:21
Speaker
I will say that I don't hate it. Considering the horrors that Twig and I have lived through in queer cinema and BL, they didn't brutally slaughter them or break them up in an unforgivable way at the end of the narrative. I think ending on an ambiguous note is one of the nicest things that the show did for these characters considering the censored nature of this.
00:49:48
Speaker
Everybody who follows any amount of lore knows this is based upon a novel that's way spicier. By not ending on a dour note, I think it makes the curious audience more likely to go read the novels if they want to see what the explicit romance looks like.
00:50:06
Speaker
And I think that's an overall good choice considering the obstacles they were up against. so I don't think it's great, but I'm not mad about it. The whole show is censored. We know a romance is occurring.
00:50:17
Speaker
but technically one isn't. Bookworm, how did you feel about it? Like I said before, I am very used to watching stories culminate in a very ambiguous ending.
00:50:28
Speaker
I have seen so many movies just ends in a shot of like, I don't know, two people standing, staring into the distance. Like Ben said, you are aware that this is a censored B.O.
00:50:39
Speaker
That is one of the things that impacts how would you receive this ending a lot. I read the books first. I could see all of the things that they had to poke around to make this get through the censors, but also make an effort to depict the romance in any way they can.
00:50:57
Speaker
When I got to the ending, I will be honest, I started screaming. Yeah. I was there. It was actual screaming. When he stopped weighing and weighing turns around and they go into the song, I was heartbroken.
00:51:10
Speaker
I was so mad. At that point, I had all the information. I know that they're not going to And how they ended in the books. But still, it was so heartbreaking to watch this man walk away from Wei Wuxian.
00:51:24
Speaker
It is such an out-of-character moment. There is no way the Lan Wangji that I read about and the Lan Wangji that was depicted in the show for so long would walk away from Wei Wuxian.
00:51:36
Speaker
But we eventually got to the end of the song and Longchan calls Wei Wuxian's name and he just turns around. We end on this frame where we assume that Wei Wuxian sees him and just breaks into the spine.
00:51:48
Speaker
There is no other ending where the art could survive and get to its audience. I'm sad that we did not see the actual story.
00:51:59
Speaker
But it was left open to our imagination that Lan Wangji found him again and they're going to get back together. And I was happy with that. Almost every C-drama ends
Impact and Legacy of The Untamed
00:52:10
Speaker
this way. And this includes C-dramas, not just queer ones, where if a character has been morally gray, if a character has used magic, if a character has done anything that precludes them from being a perfect, pure person, they're not going to get a happy ending. They're going to get an ambiguous ending. This is just how C-dramas work.
00:52:27
Speaker
So I read the ending as exactly what needed to happen to get this show to air Absolutely, there's no way in hell that Wang Ji would ever become the chief cultivator because he fucking hates clan politics and he's bad at it.
00:52:42
Speaker
No way that he would ever do this or that anyone would ever want him to. But I recognized that instantly as Chinese nationalism rearing its head for censorship reasons. He needed to devote himself to the state.
00:52:56
Speaker
He had to separate from Wei Wuxian because they weren't allowed to have a happy ending because they used magic and because they did morally great things. Wei Wuxian had to go and wander the world alone to atone for his sins, quote unquote. These are all really classic censorship things. I feel strongly that the creators of this show trusted the fans to know why they needed to do these things and to just brush off the pieces of it that don't make sense and understand the real ending.
00:53:23
Speaker
Outside of the trappings of the plot of what happened there, we saw them exchange these meaningful looks. They did a fucking duet together. And then we end on this beautiful scene of,
00:53:35
Speaker
Wei Wuxian standing on a cliff playing their song and turning around after hearing Wangji call his name and smiling as his eyes fill with tears.
00:53:48
Speaker
That is a gorgeous ending. i am so impressed that they were able to work that in in a way that would not preclude the other things they needed to do for censorship reasons.
00:53:59
Speaker
I'm annoyed. I'm just going to say it, but I also know why it happens. But the fact that it ends ambiguously is not what bothers me. I really just do not believe that Lan Wangji would ever take over the clan or that he would let Wei Wuxian leave while he did it.
00:54:17
Speaker
It just doesn't fly for me. Even with everything going on with Lan Xichen, to me, they should have just ended where they see Wen Ning and Lan Xichui off, and then they could have just written off into the sunset.
00:54:32
Speaker
But yeah, they definitely could not do that for censorship reasons, but I hear you. I know. I feel like that's the ending i would have been the most satisfied with. Even if the last shot of them was just of them there standing together Lan Wangji giving him that look that says we have to part or Wuxian walking away and Lan Wangji standing there.
00:54:55
Speaker
Even that would have been more ambiguous to me because I could have spun it in my head as, oh, he's just watching his man walk away and then he's going to run again. catch up with him. But the whole part where he goes back to the clan and he becomes the clan leader, that just doesn't fly with me.
00:55:09
Speaker
Nili, you know what the fix for this is. You just have to read the books. Read the books and a long list of fanfic that I will be sending you later today. Yes. Already Twig has provided. i have read the smutty parts of the books.
00:55:22
Speaker
Thank you, Twig. So I have read the full and proper ending and I am quite satisfied with that. And Sean is going to send me a list of fix. So I'm fine. I'm not a fix girl usually, but in this story, it's absolutely necessary. Just too many gaps that I need to fill.
00:55:39
Speaker
That's why there are 50,000 fanfics on AO3 for this show. So many fanfics. At one point you read so many of them that you forget what's canon and what's fanon.
00:55:50
Speaker
That's how it goes. I'm waiting for Sean to curate me a list. I do want include an earnest plug for the books though. I think the creators want you to, they've done their best, but yeah they want you to go there.
00:56:04
Speaker
Exactly. They want you to go to the books. And without spoiling much of it, if you want a little bit motivation to go to the books, Lanvin G only gets drunk once in the show. It happens so many times in the books.
00:56:15
Speaker
More than once. He passes out like a few times. He does. There are more extended drunken shenanigans scenes in the book. The wall slowly comes down. but We wish I get slowly just unraveled, trying try to understand what the fuck is going on with Lanvin Why is he acting like this when he's drunk?
00:56:34
Speaker
Those are my favorite sequences, and I hope it convinces you to go read the books. Between now and me, it's textbooks and case studies. After that, we'll see what happens.
00:56:45
Speaker
I'm talking to the people, Nini. I'm also in the same graduate school hell with you. Begging the listeners to go read the books. Go read these damn books.
00:57:00
Speaker
We're living in the post-untamed world. This show brought a shit ton of people to BL who had not been here before. And a bunch of people who had not engaged with Chinese daytime dramas probably ever genuinely started watching them after this.
00:57:16
Speaker
Despite how the censors may feel about a queer, not queer work being so popular, this show has had a huge impact on many people's willingness to engage.
00:57:29
Speaker
with Chinese media. After the addicted stuff, we had basically written off China. And The Untamed, even five years later, continues to be the reason why people keep hoping that the Chinese creative teams will be able to get more stories to us.
00:57:44
Speaker
The downside of all of this, fans are still super feverish about this. And a o three ends up getting banned in China, There was, as always happens in fandom, people writing real person fiction about the actors instead of fan fiction about the characters.
00:58:02
Speaker
And Xiao Zhan's fans got very upset about people posting smutty real person fiction about him. We've talked about some of the fan issues with getting overly possessive about the idols and the actors. And this is part of what the party cracked down on. and After Word of Honor maybe pushed the envelope too far and the ensuing drama after that, we haven't really gotten much big Chinese BL since then.
00:58:31
Speaker
We started seeing more of it again last year, but there are still projects from like 2020 that have been shelved that we've been hoping get released to us. It's complicated because you can tell that the powers that be want the attention and tourism associated with it, but it doesn't conform to some of their civic management goals.
00:58:52
Speaker
It's not like the Chinese people are any different than everyone else in the world. They eat the fuck out of BL. They're the primary consumers of together. So, I don't know. There's been a real dearth of quality...
00:59:04
Speaker
ah Chinese BL since. The few productions that started to come out last year are mostly being produced in other countries, like in Singapore or in Hong Kong. We're starting to see Danmei productions and adaptations happening in Thailand or in Taiwan. That's how these things are getting made now.
00:59:21
Speaker
Despite that, the fandom around this show is immense. It is not slowing down. The books have been out for 10 years. The show has been out for six years. New fans still find it every day.
00:59:31
Speaker
Create new fan works every day. New meta all the time. New fanfic all the time. It endures. This is a story that has really connected with people globally. It's something pretty amazing to see.
00:59:44
Speaker
I would like to personally thank Xiao Zhan Wang Eagle in particular because, sir, you did what you needed to do. Amen, sister. And what you needed to do was break my heart on a regular basis and the extremely attractive while doing it.
01:00:00
Speaker
Good job. I'm really surprised by how much the show succeeded. They did not have a lot of money. They were filming in kind of unsafe ways. Two people literally died making this show.
01:00:11
Speaker
But it's kind of wild how much genuine talent they got on this production. Nobody's really slacking on this. It's a really impressive project considering this is a web drama.
01:00:22
Speaker
It's hard to really give final thoughts on this show. I just end up incredibly impressed by what they managed to pull off. I think to close, I will just say ah short summary of everything we've just talked about as follows.
01:00:40
Speaker
The Untamed is a story about an itinerant freelance accidental genocidal maniac and the man who pays all his bills and defends his life.
01:00:53
Speaker
And it's amazing. And you should go watch it. That's all we have to say. It's a must watch, I think, from the conversation. What's the point of even rating it? Yeah, it's not one that I really want to give a real rating to.
01:01:07
Speaker
Under like Ben's scope, it'd be like a nine. Most people should watch it. Yeah, it kind of transcends that ratings thing that we normally do. if you care about BL, if you care about queer media, if you care about Asian drama, you should watch this show. It's foundational.
01:01:24
Speaker
This is a very carefully constructed narrative with so many moving parts. And I think that's the appeal. It just gives you so much to noodle on.
01:01:34
Speaker
Don't be scared that this will not be your cup of tea. You'll find something to love. There is so much going on that something will grab you and you will just be forever obsessed with the story. yeah Go watch it or go read it and then come talk to us about it.
01:01:50
Speaker
Tag us. That is going to wrap us up after three hours and 20 minutes of unedited time. I'm so hungry. On the Untamed.
01:02:04
Speaker
We did pretty good. I've been chomping on grapes this entire time. Thank God. I have to go make dinner. All right. We out. Say bye to the people before.
01:02:15
Speaker
Bye, people. Say bye to the people, Shan. Bye, y'all. the banks of the people, Ben. Peace!