Legend of Fuyao – The Drama - Part 4

Episodes 41-50: Is Fuyao's behaviour reckless, endearing, irritatingly immature, or is she a role model?

Still on friendship, as a sweetener, watching the relationship between Fuyao and Zhong Yue settle into mutual respect is nice.  It’s not unexpected, because accepting your brother’s girlfriend is a natural endeavour.  With Fuyao, recognising her talents and skills with people and in battle challenges Zhong Yue’s resistance towards her.  He never really stood a chance.  If Wuji loves her, he will accept her. Their banter has a constant scratchiness to it.  Thus, when Fuyao enquires about his health after he is seriously injured whilst protecting her, his response is:

“If you die one day, I’ll definitely not ask the king of hell to give you back…”

So funny!

Decisions, Decisions

It’s been mentioned that Meng Fuyao costs lives and leaves havoc in her wake. She’s often1 like a raging bull with no common sense and a death wish. And there’s a selfish streak so big that it drags innocent people into the maelstrom of her misadventures. Fuyao wants what she wants, the way she wants it. Her good deeds are undermined by her bad temper, her intemperate behaviour, and the respective broad-reaching consequences of her decisions and actions.  Fuyao never seems to learn from her mistakes. Legend of Fuyao, [1] for all that, manages to draw Fuyao’s character as normal, heroic, admirable.  

Another one exhibiting poor common sense repeatedly is Emperor Lord. When this emperor father sanctioned his older son to hunt down his younger son as punishment for straying from the prescribed agenda, did he not consider the potential outcome? Irrespective of percentages, probability is a gamble where any of the players could lose. So why collapse in disbelief and grief upon receiving news that your golden son, the one whom you turned against when he begged for the life of his first true love, is dead?  Oh, come on! What a sham. What hypocritical disgrace.

Emperor father gambles against his two sons:  one an immoral, sexual predator with so much resentment towards his younger sibling that he can hardly remain civil towards him. The other has no more affection for the older brother and looks down on him with disdain and contempt.  Their father’s machinations  around the inheritance of the throne causes the former’s hatred.  The cause of the latter’s hatred is towards the character of that family member that is everything he finds despicable. The puppet master father must cackle with glee at night alone in his cave.

Still, both men are well trained in military strategy, and the war for the crown should be balanced if not fair.  Because Wuji will never lose to Zhangsun Ping Ron in a fair fight.  For once, planning against Wuji, whilst not unusual, is blessed by the rare support of their father.  This appears to have resulted in Zhangsun Ping Ron’s wishes coming true.  Wuji is dead and the heir to the throne title is at last his.  Except: few believe it about Wuji’s death.  Not the father once he recovers from the initial shock of the message about Wuji’s demise. Not his friends. Not Fuyao.  It’s not the impossibility of Wuji dying that keeps their hopes alive, it’s that their love for him won’t contemplate his disappearance from the world the way it was reported.  In a desert?  Alone? The viewer is left unsure.  A small four-legged telepathic creature is seen to breathe magic air into Wuji’s semi-conscious body. [2]  There is, indeed, hope for all us believers.

Emotions out of control

The devil is an anti-social man called Emperor Lord. Hidden away in his ‘office’ in Tianquan Royal City, Emperor Lord wields power punctuated with a single strike of his bonger thingy.  The sound from the bonger is similar to his soft voice; neither can be questioned nor ignored.  Both create anxiety and fear in those who hear it.  All yield to the ‘voice’ of their leader.  It’s quickly realised that every word the man, if not the monarch, speaks is laced with poisonous intent. Whether to his wife or to his sons, we learn that none of those closest to him escape his resentment, hatred, or calculating schemes for control. Indeed, doesn't Wuji, being the one he loves the most, suffer the greatest? Our king of kings is caught in a loop of bitter loneliness, one which, having cultivated it so carefully and so well, he cannot, himself, escape. Does he love the wife he is openly humiliating and slowly poisoning? I'd say he does. Unsurprisingly, however, having abused his power and position to force her to marry him, he fails to win her heart. Related to this, the attempt to emotionally destroy Zhangsun Jia, his brother that she was destined to marry, fails.  There is, indeed, a limit to power, no matter your status.  As a couple, the younger brother and the emperor’s wife never separate. Instead, the older brother is rejected and cuckolded by his empress.

Another man would break the marriage, kill 'the enemy', or otherwise act to reassert his dignity. Instead, said leader of the world bears the shame and slowly leaches away what limited humanity was left in his heart in exchange for power over the lives of those who hurt him. His aim is to infect them all with his hatred.  His plan, it turns out, is to arm his youngest son.  Happy at learning that the Crown Prince and the apple of his wooden heart survived a terrifying dessert ordeal, His Lordship appears simply relieved that his long-brewed scheme can be advanced.   Against an uncle that never wanted the throne but won the hearts of the citizens anyway, nephew Wuji is tasked to strike a death blow as an act of filial piety towards his father. One of them will die.  He hopes it’s his brother; he clearly doesn’t care if it’s his son.  The infidelity of his wife is the excuse he gives for the loathing he exhibits towards everyone around him, especially those closest to him.  So many years later, there surely is more to it than meets the eye.

The reported death of Wuji stymied his plans.  The report that Wuji survived the assassination attempt did not stop his father’s plans of using him for revenge.  His tears over losing his favoured son were, then, over the interruption of his plot, not over the son himself.   Where the father celebrated Wuji’s survival, his brother bemoaned the loss of his short-lived Crown Prince status. [3]  Prince Zhangsun Ping Ron, we witness with glee, falls at the last hurdle to being formally crowned heir to the throne.  It is at the hands of the lethal duo Wu-Fu, against who all who dare are bound to lose.  They always have fun at such times.  This time it is no different. Their act is more powerful for being spontaneous. After making Prince Zhangsun Ping Ron believe that the ‘dirt pellet’ they force him to take is a toxin that will kill him unless he tells them how to dissolve the poison he injected Fuyao with, our duo laugh all the way home.  If it was embarrassing for the viewer watching his royal high-ness battle uncontrollable flatulence, one can only imagine how he felt living it.  Serves him right.

So Wuji is back, and back in charge.  As for the Rat Pack. They are all crazy.  Reckless magnets attracting trouble wherever they go.  A thwarted ruler kept in check by the hostaging of his mother.  A self-blinded-for-love groupie princess.  A medic whose black magic skills are waning.  A lovesick youth.  And Zhangsun Wuji. They band together like high-school mavericks to create the best mischief and worse nightmares imaginable. [4] Fuyao?  The leader of the pack.

Wuji aside, they all lack discipline, are impulsive, short on self-restraint against emotional provocation, and have tempers to match. Oh, Xiao Qi simply follows along like the youngest family member that he is.  Ahh! Zhong Yue is the most emotionally controlled of the group.  I guess, too, Princess Yalan Zhu is always strategic (if not wise) in her actions. The military general that Zhan Beiye is mostly holds himself in check. There is it.  Only Meng Fuyao encompasses all those negative traits mentioned earlier.  Still, together, they are playing games with their lives as there are real dangers involved, real chances that something will go wrong. Again and again, into the fray they venture. [5]  What a hoot to watch. Such fun. Of course, our crown prince Wuji, the second most important person in the universe, injects himself into the battles for political control over countries that he deems a threat to the world he will control.  Nip it in the bud ahead of the problem taking root is the foresight Wuji rules with.  Sometimes, he upsets the social or political order simply to help a friend, and then another friend, and then to accompany his one true love, Fuyao, who calculates nothing and swims against the tide without fear. But each and every time, one comes to understand, Wuji’s calculating mind sees some benefit to be gained for himself.

Episode 51-60: Hold on tight.  It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Long story short, Fuyao plays some tricks looking like a girl in a man's military uniform to help a rightful heir succeed by thwarting the tyrant king sitting on the throne that he stole.  No-one notices anything strange (neither looks nor voice). Outcome: the rightful king is now on the throne; blind girl (who lost her sight while saving her one true love) gets her sight back after winning rightful king (whose mother is now safe) as her man; the witchcraft-doctor-best-friend kills who he should, thereby getting revenge for his wiped-out clan.  Actually, the wicked bastard enemy kills himself, [6] but all's good on that score. Fuyao's now so in love with Wuji she breaks down in tears almost every time they meet. Shameful and disappointing. Love doesn't take away the power and independence of a strong woman. She can be happy at good news and sad at bad new without creating channels of tears down her face at every encounter with Wuji.  More realistic would be some lovey-dovey moments and doings. Wuji. Bless you, my son. Please continue to stay above the madness.

Hidden in Plain Sight

I have a sense of foreboding. Like it is time for Wuji to pay for interfering in everyone's business.  For being unfilial and defying his father. For stubbornly rejecting the river-of-gold Princess Folian whom his mother ordered him to marry.  And, of course, for staying dumb in defiance of the instruction of head of the Ancient Firmament and pretending that he has not found the girl with the five coloured stones, Fuyao, whom he has been ordered to kill to save the world.  Wuji is about to learn the cost of his multiple rebellions. If they all beat him at once, they will surely break his back, never mind his spirit. As dramas go, get ready to sigh over the plight of our beautiful crown prince. Is Wuji a god come down to earth, or a man ascended to the celestial plane and returned armed with wisdom, magic, and power? It's unclear. Looking at all the failings of everyday man around him, it's pointing to him being an angel brought to earth on a mission as an assassin. And the angel, Wuji, wears head to toe white on the battlefield. [7]  This speaks of supreme confidence that he will not die, will not even be injured. Thus, we, too, believe wholeheartedly that no blood shall be spilt by our Wuji, no harm will come to him. Preposterous. Ludicrous. All good. All good. The battle ensues and true to his promise, our hero isn’t even splashed by sweat much less blood. Phew!

Long Time No See

Off on another adventure poking into other people’s business.  Whilst Wuji could conceivably claim it’s work related, Nosey Fuyao cross dresses again in preparation for getting herself in trouble.  Whilst Wuji heads there on official business in response to a mysterious coded letter, Fuyao accompanies him for the fun of it.  Plough, the country of gold.  Why not see what that’s all about. And besides, she is overdue a holiday.  But there’s something else nagging at her, thoughts that are growing in frequency, sometimes with images.  None of it makes sense to Fuyao, but it is enough to pique her interest enough to share it all with Wuji.  

Plough, it turns out, is Fuyao’s personal road to hell.  Welcome to the country of vipers. Queen of Plough equals involuntary shivers down the spine. Quite terrifying. Makes Lord Emperor look like a tiger cub. He’s still dangerous, but not compared to this mother of demons. In fact, the gruesome twosome comprising Queen of Plough, Feng Xuan, and her daughter, Folian (Feng Jing Fan), make all the other villains look like apprentices.

In Plough, our boy's okay, so far. It’s only a matter of time, no doubt, for Fuyao to be targeted.  Unusually, none of it is her fault. Let's not question why she is once again pretending to be someone else. This time it’s as medical sage, Zhong Yue.  She’s at least a foot shorter than the real medic, slight in frame where he is muscled (subtly), plus she has no medical training. Even if trouble had not found her, she would have found it on her own. The intrepid trio (she who makes trouble, he who fixes her problems, and little brother) enter Plough armed with nothing to guide their game of playing detective but a coded unsigned letter.  They just about escape with their lives.  Along the way, Fuyao discovers she is not an orphan, finds her father, and  picks up a royal title.  Not bad.  The Legend of Fuyao really packs it in.  No complaints.

What about Fuyao's trial in Plough?  It’s noteworthy and interesting that the worst and greatest attempt to destroy Fuyao is when she is least expecting it. By women. Those who are kin to her. Fuyao’s Plough torment is found to have started soon after her birth and orchestrated by the same mother-daughter pair of charlatans who are as hell bent on killing her now as they had been in the past. [8] For the mother, Fuyao represents a secret she did not want known in the past and wants known even less now. For the daughter, it’s because of Wuji, a man whose heart she briefly held through her careful lies and, ironically, mistaken identity.   

Leonora 

asiandramaobserver@gmail.com

[1] Legend of Fuyao. Yang Wenjun, Linmon Pictures, 2018. Rakuten Viki, https://www.viki.com/Legend of Fuyao/35844c

[2] Episode 43

[3] Episode 44

[4] Episode 46

[5] Episode 50

[6] Episode 51

[7] Episode 51

[8] Episode 56