So morning thoughts on Fatal Journey!! Tagging with #qgjp because we all fucking know that Twitter is actually not the fucking place to have any kind of in-depth discussion, and I still miss the heyday of LJ. for fandom.

Item first: the budget upgrade and production quality!!!!!! Things looked so good!!!! #qgjp

I fucking love the color palette and the gray cast and the way it helps give a sense of sense of Qinghe as being a specific, distinct location -- think about the color differences between here and, say, Koi Tower or Cloud Recesses. And #qgjp

In particular, I'm thinking of the distinction drawn between Qinghe and Yunmeng with respect to architecture. It's not my hobbyhorse at all (plants and fictional generational sadness are) & Chinese architecture something I know even less about #qgjp

But even at the shallowest level, there is a real difference in the visuals. Remember the main gate at Lotus Pier? That lovely half-moon entrance into a wide courtyard? And the interior of the place, with walkways over water, rooms set over water, #qgjp

the tiny water fountain at the heart of the Jiang ancestral shrine. Contrast that to Qinghe, which is actually named after a river (清河 meaning 'clear/translucent river'), but there is no water in sight. #qgjp

Instead, it's gray stone. Gray stone courtyards, gray stone walls. Angles. Straight lines. Tall, serious people dressed in shades of gray. Think about the difference in the intro here and the intro to Lotus Pier when the boys come home -- #qgjp

Everybody breaks ranks and runs up to them in delight to welcome them home, and a pigtailed servant dashes off, shouting, to give the news to Yanli who is writing in an airy pavilion on the water. Here, there is no breaking of order. #qgjp

We come in on the camera, we see the people doing exercises together with a group vocal component (a key part of Nie-style cultivation we realize later) and NMJ watching over them with Baxia in hand. A servant runs up and discreetly whispers in his ear #qgjp

So yeah, Yunmeng and Qinghe, very different places in terms of tone and architecture. But this being me, I'll argue that you can draw hints about the climate from the vegetation and lack thereof -- I mean, yes, I know, they shot this in the colder season CQL in the summer #qgjp

But that's an arboreal forest that they ride through with the tentacle plant monster that gives NMJ a good ol' squeeze.
No leaves on the trees, no grass on the ground, people in layers. Cf with Yunmeng, where you have lotuses blooming pretty much in every frame; lotuses #qgjp

need multiple weeks of water-temps above 80 degrees to start blooming. Not air temps, water temps. So you can draw a further conclusion: Qinghe is significantly colder than Yunmeng. Further, I'll argue that you can conclude that Qinghe is further west #qgjp

because lotuses don't grow in quick-moving, mountain water. They need slow-moving water, thick with silt and organic matter. They like lakes and ponds and big, wide river bends, like the kind you get when rivers have joined together and start winding towards the sea. #qgjp

That kind of water is muddy and slow, thick with sediment, and the exact opposite of the "清河" of the Nie. So I'll argue that not only do we know that Yunmeng is south of Qinghe given China's position wrt the equator, but we know that Qinghe is likely to the west #qgjp

of Yunmeng, because in China, rivers generally start west and work their way east. And yeah, it could be two river systems, but given that we're talking about a group of four interrelated clans, I'm going to pretend for handwavy #qgjp

world-building fun that they are the same river system, that Qinghe is upstream of Yunmeng, with those luscious lotus fields being made possible renewed by snowmelt-driven seasonal flooding from Qinghe. #qgjp

I kinda had a sense of it from the series, which is why I made the whole thing about Qinghe rains and Yunmeng floods in the captive bride Xichen fic, but now that we've had a full movie set in Qinghe, wild fucking horses (put a pin in that for later) couldn't stop me. #qgjp

And part of the reason why I went SO HARD and SO DEEP on the compare/contrast between the two places is because of the vivid contrast the movie makes between NMJ and NHS in Qinghe and JC and WWX in Yunmeng. Like. #qgjp

It's really rewarding to me to read those sets of brothers against each other -- like, in contrast to JC and WWX where the two of them are in competition for love and status and accomplishments and being-in-charge-ness #qgjp

In Qinghe, you have NMJ and NHS where there is 0.00 question who is in charge, who is "better", who is the one that embodies the spirit of the sect and fits with the surroundings. JC and WWX resolve their conflict in canon by moving into separate spheres #qgjp

With JC in charge at Yunmeng and WWX first off being a rebel in the Burial Mounds, then being d e a d, then becoming a rogue cultivator who goes home to a husband in Cloud Recesses. They're still tied by history and Yanli and (complicated) sentiment and mutual sacrifice #qgjp

But the plot arc and the arc of their lives is to take them apart. Contrast that to NMJ and NHS, where their conflict is that they occupy SEPARATE spheres. As kids, before he understood the cost of the family legacy, NMJ decided #qgjp

To take on its full weight, so that his brother could be comparatively free. It's book canon that the Wens murdered the Nie Dad, which I accept because well -- if you watch your dad go and entomb yourself, you totally fucking know where the sabre cultivation #qgjp

will take you and won't be so, ah, confident that you can bear it for the entirety of your (much) younger brother's life. But NMJ is wrong. He can't do it all himself. And so, the conflict we see at the start of the movie. Instead of conflict from #qgjp

competition, NMJ and NHS are in conflict because they live in separate spheres, because NMJ's boyhood decision to allow NHS to follow his heart has led to a situation where he is worried NHS cannot lead after his upcoming death #qgjp

And the resolution at the end of the movie is that NHS steps into his brother's sphere and shoulders part of the burden -- not a piece that NMJ is aware that he undertakes, not in a way NMJ will hopefully ever know, but it's also something that NMJ cannot do

NMJ is fundamentally incapable of lying. His emotional crisis in this movie is that he cannot lie to himself about how bad things are. He cannot lie to himself about where this is going to end. So that's what NHS will do for him.

IT TOOK THIS MANY TWEETS BUT I FINALLY FORGOT THE TAG SOZ #qgjp

But yeah, that's what NHS does for NMJ. That's the burden he takes up -- lying. He lies to his da ge's face about who killed their newly sworn brothers (put another pin in that), and then lie to JGY's face for however many years. Out of brotherly love #qgjp

It's pretty epic. I've got a bunch of other thoughts that I'm going to start bullet-pointing, but I'm fascinated by how NHS's journey in this movie is foretold in the scene with New and Now Dead Hot Nie Man #qgjp

Where young, innocent NHS has created a beautiful, elegant, classic scholar's ink painting, but the ink is still wet. And then Zong Hui turns the book right-side up, and smears the ink -- not out of malice, out of kindness and good faith and loyalty #qgjp

but the damage is done, and NHS says that the beautiful willow has become a dead tree. #qgjp

So yeah, that last fucking shot of NHS looking up from his deep bow, hands in front of eyes that are absolutely blazing with hatred for JGY?????????????????? #qgjp

Quicker small points now: given the discussion above, I was absolutely DELIGHTED when horses showed up. I know, I know, it was a budget thing, but traditionally, horses were associated with the Western areas of where the Han lived. #qgjp

As a kid, I was told that part of the reason why the Qin were able to unify China was because they were on the western frontier for the Han and had more room to grow and expand, but also because they had better horses and superior cavalry #qgjp

And for centuries, the Chinese fought massive wars of conquest and extraction deep into Central Asia for superior breeding stock and horses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferghana_horse #qgjp

So yes, when I saw them mount up, part of me was like, Rhod, chill your fucking tits, it's just a budget thing, but the rest of me immediately screamed THE NIE HAVE HORSES!
THE NIE HAVE HORSES!!! THEY HAVE FUCKING MOUNTED CAVALRY!! THE SABRE IS SO FUCKING #qgjp

HEAVY BECAUSE IT IS MEANT TO BE WIELDED FROM HORSEBACK AND NOT ON FOOT!!!! FUCK!!! FUCK!! DAD NIE TOTALLY FUCKING HAD A FERGHANA STALLION, A BEAUTIFUL BLOOD BAY THAT CAME WHEN CALLED AND KNEW THE FAMILY, AND WHEN DAD NIE DIED, NMJ TOTALLY CALLED ITS NAME TO THE ALTAR AND #qgjp

WHEN IT CAME, BRAIDS IN ITS MANE AND TAIL, GOLD ON ITS CHEEKPLATES, HE SACRIFICED IT AS A GRAVE OFFERING TO HIS FATHER!!!!!!!!!!!!!! #qgjp

As an antidote, imagine NHS being put on a fat pony before the age of three, and how much fatter it gets when he starts sneaking extra oats and food to it from the human kitchens. #qgjp

The other thing that I put a pin on -- the Nie soldiers are fascinating. You see them engage in group cultivation (including holding NMJ up like they're doing a fucking pyramid, a 6'2 cis dude in armor is gonna be a LITTLE heavier than a 4'11 cis lady cheerleader) #qgjp

But they also shout together, which I initially took as a sign of their ~~ martial discipline ~~ but it becomes clear that's an actual battle tactic, practiced and learned as a group. I love how it really plays into the idea of the Nie soldiers as a brotherhood, with NMJ #qgjp

and now NHS explicitly at the heart of it. You know that the Jin and Lan don't think of it that way, and while the Jiang seem very warm and personally connected to JC and WWX, it's never framed that way. When they all swear brotherhood in the tomb??? #qgjp

It also provides an avenue for reconciling, for me, the speech that NHS gives to NMJ about not treating people as a means to an end with, y'know. His endgame. Which is using a whole shitload of people as a means to getting JGY dead in a very painful, specific way. #qgjp

I was initially complaining about it to vorareme and destro while I watche,d but I think I'm ultimately fine with it -- it's an in-circle, out-circle thing. It's a key, traditional divide in Chinese culture, where it's completely expected & normal #qgjp

To have different moral standards for people inside the circle and people out. So when he argues with NMJ, if you're Western-raised like me, it's easy to read it as a universal statement on how we should treat each other #qgjp

But you can also read it as his pitch that the Nie soldiers belong inside the circle. Mo Xuan Yu, WWX, and LXC are never in the circle, and JGY is fucking cast out of the circle on a fucking goddamn rocket. #qgjp

Alternate read, of course, is that the movie is NHS coming to the other side and breaking bad. Which I will also take! #qgjp

Final thought on this huge, even for me, tweet thread -- I continue to be really impressed and pleased in my, like, Chinese linguistic ability of a 7 year old way, by how the show handles language -- there's some nice stuff in this episode that's flattened by the subtitles #qgjp

For example, whenever NMJ shouts what was translated as "Run!" in the subtitles I read, he's actually shouting something closer to "Forward!" There are a couple ways that the command "Run" can be translated in Chinese, and the usual way is to say "zou!" which carries a #qgjp

connotation of retreat, of going back to safety. Which is pretty close to how "run" gets usually gets ued in action movies in English. But the word that NMJ uses is "pao"
which doesn't have that connotation. It's the physical act of running and #qgjp

ties, for me, at least, to an overall idea of NMJ's ethos of never retreat, never surrender, always forward. There's also the fact that when he fights with NHS in front of the soldiers, it isn't in super-formal Chinese. Like, it's not super-slangy, but compare #qgjp

The ebb and flow of his speech -- long sentences, multiple modifiers -- with what the reading of the Lan rules sound in the lecture episodes. The Lan rules are all in short, usually four-word sentences (da DAAAAAA da DAA), which serves as a #qgjp

marker of how seriously you're supposed to take them. If Uncle were delivering a reprimand on the same topic to a wayward Lan that NMJ delivered, it would be four-word sentences all the fuck over the place because moral regulation is the Lan #1 reason to live #qgjp

But when NMJ is bawling NHS the fuck out, it isn't that way at all. It isn't that he can't do them. Later, he delivers a speech to his men about going into the tomb, he breaks out four-word sentences of command and formal direction #qgjp

But then, when he has that incredibly emotional bit where he pledges brotherhood with the men who are willing to go into the final boss fight with him, he doesn't use them -- four-word sentences of command aren't his fundamental framework for relating to people. Instead, #qgjp

it's the language of brotherhood, heightened due to the weight of the moment, trembling with emotion, talking about shared sacrifice and courage and how they will bear this weight together #qgjp

Last thought on FJ for now: in the pit at the bottom, NHS says 'falling leaves return to their roots'. It's a famous idi om: https://blogs.transparent.com/chinese/chinese-idioms-vol-7/ #qgjp

U know I'm into NHS acknowledging that the family roots are a death-pit where their leaders lock themselves to die horribly and alone when they can no longer control their sword-spirits #qgjp