The Story of Minglan

[azdak]

I’ve just finished episode 64 of The Story of Minglan and it was a corker. The series hits a narrative kink of mine I was only vaguely aware I had – probably because it’s a trope more common in the breach than the observance – in which a man falls in love with a particular woman, decides he’s going to marry her, bends all his resources and willpower to this end - and then discovers, on succeeding, that you can take a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. It isn’t a forced marriage. Minglan does, after initial reluctance, consent, but it’s not what you’d call enthusiastic consent. To her, marriage is an unavoidable social obligation, not a matter of love. She’s got to marry someone, bear his children and run his harem, and since he’s gone to all this effort, it might as well be Gu Tingye. She’s an affectionate, considerate, clever wife, who grows increasingly fond of her husband, but there’s a part of her she’s had to keep locked away for most of her life, and she doesn’t trust her husband enough to reveal it to him. Gu Tingye, though, once caught a glimpse of the real Minglan, (at a polo match, since you ask) and his inability to coax his wife into being that person, passionate, loyal and utterly fearless, causes increasing friction in their marriage. Minglan, meanwhile, believes that her husband’s devotion to her is temporary infatuation and that eventually he’ll start installing concubines, so she guards her heart very carefully indeed. The concubine thing is a not unreasonable expectation, as Gu Tingye’s scheming relatives are constantly attempt to stuff concubines – some willing, others less so - into his household. Eventually, his aunt gifts them with one MInglan feels it would be dangerously impolite to refuse, so much to her husband’s horror, she accepts her (Gu Tingye is the only man in Ancient China who actually wants to be monogamous). In a scene that is both funny and rather awful, Minglan shuts him up with the new concubine, saying “Consider this your wedding night!” leaving him to sit sullenly in the dark, fully clothed, waiting for his wife to send a message to rescue him, until the poor concubine eventually falls asleep. Minglan never does send the message. Gu Tingye never sleeps with the concubine. He keeps going to sleep in his study instead, but it doesn’t help. Minglan won’t take off her docile mask, won’t be jealous of him (expressions, of jealousy are, as she knows only too well, a concubine’s trick for manipulating men), she won’t call him pet names (ditto), and she doesn’t understand what he means when he asks her despairingly if she loves him as Gu Tingye or only as the Marquis. All he can do is try to derive scraps of comfort from the few occasions when he pisses her off enough to garner an angry glance. Spontaneous emotion! Yay! I didn’t like Gu Tingye much for an awfully long time, but I have enormous sympathy for him here, as I, too, have had quite enough of Minglan’s performative docility and want to see her true hardcore self emerge for once.

And then, finally, in episodes 63-64 it happens! A crisis occurs and a very pregnant General Sheng Milan comes charging in, sword quite literally in hand, to save the day. And her husband misses it all! He’s away on a salt taxation mission! He only arrives in time for the mopping up operation because Minglan’s sister-in-law has written to her husband (who is also on the salt tax mission) asking him to come asap (and sending - sensible lass – 6 fast horses to speed things up). In the emotional aftermath, Gu Tingye asks Minglan why she didn’t ask for his help, doesn’t she trust him? And Minglan, irritated by his persistent obtuseness, says no, she doesn’t, as a Marquis he’s got too much to lose for her to involve him in such risky defiance of social convention. It’s all rather wonderful, although I also look forward to the inevitable scene where Minglan finally feels she can let down her guard with him and be her true self. Right now, though, there are still another 8 episodes to go, she’s got a baby to give birth to, and those salt farms won’t tax themselves!

Comments

Re: The Story of Minglan

[azdak]

Ah, people thinking the past might have been better than the present - that's a fear that tells you a lot about the Party's own beliefs about the present. But I certainly wouldn't be tempted by Minglan's era, and even men would presumably think twice about it, given what a shit time most of them have, even if it's not on the same level as the women's suffering.

I'm put off The Untamed because it seems to have solved the problem of not wanting to depict the shittiness of women's lives by just not having women as main characters. Shows that only care about men irritate me. I think ultimately the NiF approach is probably the best that can be achieved - pretend, by omission, that only the Emperor and the Crown Prince have concubines and depict everyone else in monogamous relationships, historical realism be damned. It's not as if the martial arts stuff is remotely realistic either.

Re: The Story of Minglan

[lisbei]

Re. the censorship - yup, they're not much for escapism and especially don't want people questioning that there might have been something good about the past, or better than the present.

Re. The Untamed - I get where you're coming from about the scarcity of female characters, and a possible reason for this is that the source material is danmei, the Chinese version of yaoi. You're not going to have a female lead along with the male lead, because the lead character has a male love interest. so yes, you end up with a lot less women, and many of them don't survive till the end of the series (though one does! She is our queen!). But yes, so very few female characters in the story, which is weird as the writer's a woman.

Of course, the censorship authority have an even bigger problem with LGBT than with time travel, so all of a sudden the two are soulmates (no-one tell the censors that's even closer than before) and you find a lot of youtube reactors who've only watched the show and maybe the animated version asking if the boys have a bromance. It's pretty amazing how many hints at their love the director and show runners managed to smuggle past the censors, and one pretty massive anvil of a hint is that a song which one character writes for the other, which he names after a portmanteau of their names, becomes the central love theme of the entire series. But sure, they're just good friends.

I'd love to watch Nirvana in Fire again, to be honest - I've watched a few shows recently which have irritated/infuriated me so much, I need to cleanse my palate. I'm curious, what did you think about the reveal to Jingyan? I expected a bit more discussion between them; and then the reveal that Lin Shu died with the pearl suddenly appearing in the shrine - that was harsh.

Re: The Story of Minglan

[azdak]

which he names after a portmanteau of their names

Oh dear, I'm going to die laughing!! Chinese fandom, you are so wonderfully fannish!

I totally expected a massively emotional scene between Jingyan and Mei Changsu and was initially very disappointed not to get it (I also felt robbed that I didn't get the scene where Prince Jing convinces Xia Dong to let them into the Xuanjing Bureau). But after much thinking about it I had to admit that it's entirely consistent with his characterisation that MCS basically runs away and hides the moment Jinyang finds out - he really, really didn't want to him to know what Lin Shu had turned into, and he was never able to cope, and everything that happens in the show is consistent with that (I mean, maybe deep, deep down he did want Jingyan to recognise him , but only in a fantasy way in which he could magically go back to being Lin Shu at that moment, but what actually happens when his identity is revealed is that Jingyan says "This person is nothing like Lin Shu, how could you possibly think there was a connection?" And after that MCS never gives Jingyan the opportunity to say "Actually, I did realise it was you, it's just that you and my mother both gaslit me about it so I thought I must be going mad, and then I had to persuade my father that Xia Jiang was lying!"). See, so much to think about! How can I not love it, even if it wasn't what thought I wanted?