kakashi: Ouf, some heavy tears in this episode - but also a new beginning. One trial down.
JoAnne: Too sad. Too sad.
Episode 31
Burdened by his blatant failure to protect his daughter, A'Mo's dad puts her unconscious body on a raft, cuts several of the ropes and pushes it into the lake. His bitter tears when it breaks apart in the middle won't bring her back :(
What an impossible situation to be in. I remember being stunned by Sophie's Choice, and Beloved, too. It's beyond cruel.
GoW is watching the ordeal in the Heavens and looks very disturbed but Si Min is there to once again remind him NOT TO INTERFERE. The more he repeats it, the more anxious I get about it. A'Mo's body sinks and sinks... but then, something activates... is this GoW's handiwork? Or just the miasma lighting up because like one layer of it is gone... hm, anyone? Anyway, it wakes her up and she swims to the surface.
I did not think it was GoW, at least. Do they actually have to die, for a trial to end? Or just survive something horrendous/learn something difficult? And HOW exactly does NiNi even make being green beautiful?
Back in town, her father learns that the Crown Prince has been cured (Yup, it was Qing Yao) - all that demon lady stuff, utter bullshit! an official tells them. Yes, you weak man, you killed your deaf daughter FOR NOTHING. Ah, but just when he gets really emotional, A'Mo runs through the gate - and then it gets even more emotional. When she realizes her father pushed her into the water to kill her... and when she realizes she isn't even his real daughter... Goddamn, NiNi, stop it with those tears.
Make it stop, I can't handle this, she's breaking my HEART
All of this is too much, she faints. When she wakes up and sees her father sitting at her bedside, she pulls the covers over her head - she doesn't want to talk to him right now, even if it breaks her own heart. Apparently, she has passed her first trial, as Si Ming declares. Which part was the trial? Having another father figure promise to keep her safe and failing her miserably?
I think learning she's been betrayed is the trial and her response to it determines whether she passes or fails. Except...I don't think she's quite worked out her response and so Si Ming shouldn't really be able to give a verdict, so maybe that's too neat. If the trial is dying and she died unconscious, who learns what? How is that passing? It's not surviving, that's for sure. Ugh. Stop.
The next day, she refuses to eat anything but bows low instead - and then thanks her father for all he has done for her. He should not feel guilty for anything, she assures him, she loves him dearly and that will never change - but now is the time for her to leave. She wants to create her own path.
Which makes me think the purpose of the trial is for her to grow as a person; she demonstrates love and forgiveness and unselfishness in her response to her father - which I think she possessed anyway - but now she's going off on her own, and she wouldn't have thought to do that before. Also, ugh, so sad.
GoW watches her when she takes a little dirt from the peach blossom grove to carry with her in a handkerchief (she must be a little blind as well as deaf not to see him, he stands so brightly in his white robe). He also follows her through the forest and only barely hides himself by going translucent when A'Mo turns around. Well, no more time for stalking, Si Ming comes to tell him something bad has happened.
She sure isn't taking much. I mean, there can't even be a change of clothes in that little bag. Did they wear underwear back then?
It's about Shanling! It's been conquered by the Demons, as we already knew episodes (those Celestials have abysmal intelligence) and after puzzling over the reason why the Queen never sent for help, the Emperor sends Jiu Chen to check out the situation and mend the relationship if possible.
Also known as: the boring part of the story we don't care about.
The not-so-nice Princess is still looking for Jing Xiu, but he's nowhere to be found. Well, he's not where you're looking, dearie, but in the forest - taking ineffective shelter from the rain. Coming right his way: A'Mo. Ta-da.... FATE! Jing Xiu opens his eyes when he hears a sound - they are unseeing. Something about him seems to capture A'Mo's attention. She goes closer to offer him her umbrella, whispering "here" and "I don't need it". She begins to write on his hand to tell him there's a village not far, with a clinic and police, but he doesn't need those things, he says. We end the episode with her sitting down in the hut opposite of him, waiting for the rain to stop.
Okay, this is a little interesting.
P.S.: Qing Yao's mortal ex-husband refuses to accept a potion that could make
him remember his previous lives. His reasoning, in short: what's the
point and it would change me into someone I'm currently not. Hm, I like
this scene much more than I thought I would. Is it their farewell scene? After she leaves her ex-husband who doesn't want to remember her, Yun Feng latches on to her with all possible tenaciousness again.
I do very much like his reasoning. We do not need to know everything just for the sake of knowing it.
Comments
A big step for Ling Xi to leave that house and go her own way, I'm impressed. I like that she left with no bitterness, but only praise for her father. She's a true saint, able to see his action not as an evil directed against her but something he was forced to do by evil circumstances. Not that I agree with it: her father cried very convincing tears, but he DID try to kill her. I cannot forgive this easily - it's not like he had a trick planned like GoW. So, even though I like him, I also hope A'Mo's father will struggle a lot with his decision and will never forgive himself either.
I don't think he will. He didn't have a lot of time to come up with an alternate plan and some people just aren't good at that, anyway, so I have some sympathy for him.
I know that Jing Xiu is a controversial character here - or worse, you guys don't like him in the least. At this point in the drama, I'm neutral towards him. That they meet at this point in time is intriguing. One is deaf, the other is blind. One is on a trial, the other is a fugitive with nails in his body for power disruption. An interesting pair to say the least.
I don't think I saw how he ended up here....hmmm. I don't dislike him, but I don't like him either. I always said he was a bit of a mystery to me. I never believed he betrayed his father, at least not the way we were led to believe.
