On a heartless path of his own: A character study of Tantai Jin from TTEOTM
aka: an excuse to talk about Tantai Jin, as well as Luo Yunxi's acting, excessively
Born into tragedy, living out someone else’s script, destined to suffer through all hardships of humanity, only to overcome it all and ascend to godhood – Tantai Jin’s journey is of epic proportions. It’s the story of fighting to control one’s own fate, learning to love and grow, but ultimately sacrificing everything for the greater good. And while the story is larger than life, Luo Yunxi’s excellent acting grounds it into humanity – drawing the audience into the tragedy that is the life and death of Tantai Jin, husband of Ye Xiwu.
The empowerment of embracing powerlessness
“Dignity? It means nothing to me. For me, personally, this bowl of rice matters more. I can’t survive without food. But I had had dignity would have died long ago.” (TTJ in E02)
As the Devil’s fetus, Tantai Jin is born without love-threads and therefore without the ability to process emotions. This is amplified by the loveless and hard conditions under which he grows up. Fighting for survival since early childhood, Tantai Jin lacks any form of control or agency in his own life. The audience pities him and is easily willing to excuse his psychotic tendencies due to the unfortunate circumstances of his life. And while this is true to some degree, in the context of Till The End Of The Moon’s literary and poetic approach to story-telling, I argue, that he is also a “Kunstfigur” (art/artificial figure) – a symbol of humanity, instead of the representation of a real person.
In this sense, Tantai Jin is a stylistic device to tell a story about humanity and destiny. The concept of “Kunstfigur” stems from German literature and theater and describes a character that stand at a certain distance from reality, i.e. reflects it in some way. Tantai Jin does not become evil, he was born with something evil. The people around him abused him, not only because it’s part of human nature, but because they noticed something is wrong with him, something unsettling. We can see this best with his two maids, that have witnessed his birth and childhood. The actions of all these characters are not meant to be realistic, they are a comment on the reality of humanity. This is what makes Till The End Of The Moon such a compelling (and controversial) drama.
What makes Tantai Jins suffering special, is that even when he hits a new low, he never appears really weak. There are so many emotions in his expression, even when he deliberately schools his face to look indifferent, you can always see a hint of underlying emotions, often some kind of deviance, burning in his eyes.
Saving face, avoiding humiliation and embarrassment are powerful incentives for behavior. Pride or ego make us try to avoid these negative experiences. But what if these negative experiences determined our entire life? Tantai Jin fears neither humiliation nor belittlement, only hunger and betrayal. Not only has he grown used to them, he is not able to process them properly. More than that, he has understood how embracing humiliation can itself be empowering. There is power in being perceived as weak. There is power in alluding others to believe they have power over you. There is power in giving up pride. There is power in not fighting back, not giving other the satisfaction of seeing one struggle and suffer. And it's not just that he lacks the love-threads and fails to understand human emotions. It's the way he accept his fate, that makes it feel powerful/empowering.
This is unique for a character in fiction. A role like this is usually reserved for the court jester or a concubine. Tantai Jin is neither. I think, that what makes these characters so different is also Luo Yunxi’s subtle but excellent acting skills. He is able to portray weakness without ever feeling weak. His approach to acting allows him to emote many complex emotions in every single scene. It’s not limited to his facial expressions, but is also present in the way he immerses himself into a character, how he studies him beforehand and how he pushes himself to his physical limits, if needed. I don’t think many actors would be able to create such a character as compelling as Tantai Jin.
This last scene isn’t just fascinating because of the splendid acting, through which the special effects almost feel real, based on the convincing way Luo Yunxi interacts with them. It’s interesting for another reasons: After Tantai Jin feels real (magical) power for the first few times, it's alluded that he will succumb to it, become hungry and greedy for more - but he never does. These episodes (e.g. the Nightmare Demon and the crow attack during the wedding) are supposed to give the audience a glimpse into a possible future of Tantai Jin becoming fully evil, that never realizes. When Tantai Jin comes into power, it’s nothing like the Devil God.
While he feeds excessively off of demons, it's either never shown on screen or framed as a necessity of war. He gains his thrones not in a big battle, but with small acts of power, rather than grand ones - repelling rodents, sharing soup with the court officials, showing humbleness and wit with the scholars and making positive changes to social policy, so that his people won’t have to suffer hunger and hardship the way he used to. On the battlefield, Tantai Jin’s power is grand, there is no opponent that stands a chance against him. However, being king is not just about the power of one man - it's about the lives of the soldiers he leads, about the living conditions of his people, it's about the safety of his home tribe and the happiness of the woman he loves.
Setting on a path of love
“The immortals say, body, heart, and mind are three different parts. When the three parts are unified, the internal elixir is formed. Empty thy heart to unite soul and character. Calm thy body to silent energy and mood. Steady thy mind then all three merge into one. Destroy your desire for romantic love, and then you can understand the universe and all lives. This is the one and only way of the Hearless Way. (LSS in E06)
In the beginning of the story, Tantai Jin is on the opposite path to the Heartless Way. He has no real desire for romantic love, until Li Susu as Ye Xiwu awakens these feelings. Moreover, her kindness set’s root inside his heart, and it’s start to bloom. Quite literary as you can see in the scene below:
Through Li Susu’s acts of care and love as well as her determination to protect his life, Tantai Jin is slowly falling in love with her, while simultaneously growing love-treads. Even without them, he was never cold-hearted. He showed care towards animals, was never unnecessary cruel – at least not on purpose or before being pushed too far. His newly found ability to process emotions and experience love is therefore not limited to Li Susu/Ye Xiwu.
He shows it towards his mother’s tribe, in his negotiation skills with Ye Quingyu, in his relationships with Pianran and Nian Baiyu and in his ability to lead a country. He is a natural lead and a good ruler. Tantai Jins turns out to be persistent and hard-working, loyal, intelligent and even dignified.
This is also where the impact of the Dream arc starts to become tangible. Witnessing Mingye’s life and death has almost as much effect on his character growth as the trauma of his miserable childhood. Both come together in multiple way, such as in certain mannerism or the elaborate way Tantai Jin dresses, now that he has access to suitable clothing. Or in the way he personally leads his army, just like Mingye did. (Mingye’s influence might be the most visible when Tantai Jin becomes Cang Jiumin). It might even have impacted his views of Ye Bingchang. However, most significant is his shared experience of the tragic but deep love between Mingye and Sangjiu. He slowly starts to face and embrace his feelings for Ye Xiwu, trying to win her over – while still learning to process emotions of love, jealousy and rejection. His love of Ye Xiwu grows obsessive and smothering. His insecurity and jealousy become blinding to a degree, that costs Xian Lin his life and Ye Xiwu her freedom.
The fight for Tantai Jin’s heart was always both emotional and magical, since the evil bone resides inside of it, leaving Li Susu no choice but to pierce it with nails manifested from the love the same heart felt for her.
After Ye Xiwu’s death and sacrifice, the grief makes Tantai Jin lose his mind. His morbid obsession with Ye Xiwu makes him to hold onto her corpse, and later it pushes him into taking his own life in an attempted to be reunited. After he fails, Tantai Jin spends the next 500 years single-mindedly searching for his beloved’s soul, while experience excruciating pain for every single day. The tragedy of this event lies in him searching for the wrong soul. He still doesn’t know at what point someone else took over Ye Xiwu’s body or what the flashback, Ye Xiwu showed him in her last moment, really means.
His love for Ye Xiwu has turned him away from (made him blind to) everyone around him: His friends, subordinates and his people. He no longer cares for anything but his dead wife, not even for his own life.
The Heartless Way
There is a misconception about the Heartless Way, especially among international audiences, that lack cultural context. It’s rooted in Buddhist and Daoist ideas, that “Heaven and Earth are heartless” or that “Heaven and Earth aren’t partial.” What this means is, that the Heartless Way is not void of emotions, it’s the opposite: It’ overcoming personal bonds/ties, so one can love and show deep compassion to every living creature. It’s about equality, rather than putting one life above the other. The idea of the path itself is likely linked to the concept of wuxin, which is achieved when a person's mind is free from thoughts of anger, fear, or ego during combat or everyday life.
While it is Li Susu, who has decided to peruse this way in order to seal the evil bone within her body, I think Tantai Jin has, unbeknownst to him, set on the same path – and even if it’s just within the meta story-telling of the drama.
As Cang Jiumin, Tantai Jin’s love grows. At first, he is still focused on reviving his long death wife and therefore tries to stay in the Xiaoyao sect. However, his time there has subtle but far-reaching consequences. The first task, Cang Jiumin is entrusted with, is helping an old, blind women, that is trapped by her inability to accept her only son's death. For this mission, he is given a sword by his Master:
This sword is called South Branch. Forged by my Master when he was still alive. It was transformed from plum blossoms. It has the heart of spring and the soul of the frost. It carries no killing intent. If you see the world with kindness, you’ll have no obsession and see true freedom. I’ll give it to you as a witness. When you can awaken it, you can understand it. (E30, Master Zhao You to TTJ)
Tantai Jin witnesses how one’s obsession, even if it’s the all-consuming love of mother, can destroy someone. The old women’s story mirrors Tantai Jin’s own inability to process Ye Xiwus death. He tells the women about his beloved wife and how she taught him to be a good person, something he is no longer sure he is. His need for Ye Xiwu was inherently selfish, and he has never really spared a thought about what she would have wanted. When the old women ask if he would turn into a bad person in order to get his wife back, he considers it for a moment, the possibility of tapping into the power of the Devil God, but then decided against it, because it’s not what Ye Xiwu would have wanted. Ultimately, Tantai Jin uses a lie to redeem the old woman. He, who never had a mother, hugs her as she dies in his arms. When he returns to his Master, something has been set into motion: Tantai Jin is letting go of his obsessive love for Ye Xiwu.
Most of the following scenes in the third arc, that are not directly related to rebirth of the Devil God or Li Susu, are linked to this theme. For example, the secret technic of Xiaoyao sect, the Xiaoyao Sword-play, requires him to “follow and practice his heart”. From this point on, Cang Jiumin gains power via diligent practice and kindness. Tantai Jin’s ability to love starts to grow, it soon encompasses his Master and sect brothers. Another example is, that the symbolism of food, that to this point always was a symbol of his relationship with Li Susu, is now being used in relation to his sect brothers and Master. Tantai Ji starts to care for the life of other people more and more, as shown when he tries to protect everyone from Si Ying and Jing Mie in Jiang (even a bully like Cen Mi).
When he transforms the heart-guarding scale, he is having a vision, an epiphany. In it, he sees all the important people from his past, living happily in a different reality. I’m still not completely sure, what it means. But at this moment, he understands, that he doesn’t need to fear the power of the Devil God, that he has control over his fate.
Having all the power, while having none
Tantai Jin started out having no power, control or agency over his life. He has gained all of it only to reach a point, where none of it matters, none of it is enough. He is powerless against his fate of becoming the Devil God, but that doesn’t stop him. He goes from accepting his misfortune as a hostage prince, to fighting fate itself.
He tries to trick the Devil God and his henchmen, before using Xiaoyao Sect’s Incarnation-Abandoning Array to trap and kill their army. This technique requires him to sacrifice his own life- and he is willing to do so:
Ultimately he understands, that Cang Jiumin can’t save the world, but Tantai Jin as the Devil God can. So he gives in and surrenders to fate and to the unimaginable powers of the Devil God, which he once feared. This leads him to facing the echo/essence of the Ancient Devil God in a fight for dominance. It’s here, that he finally realizes that there was always been love and kindness surrounding him. He acknowledges the love of his parents, his maids, subordinates, his sect and friends, and most of all of Li Susu. She taught him to love and feel emotions and thereby broke through the darkness that was his life under the thumb of the Devil God. It’s this realization, that not only leads him to fully embraces his fate, but also ascend to godhood.
However, even with the power of the Devil God and his own godly powers, he is still powerless when it comes to the most important thing: Stopping the activated all-in-distress-way from destroying the three realms and very living being in them. All his power is pretty much useless. Tantai Jin went from being powerless, to gaining all the power imaginable, and it’s still not enough. There is only one way to save the world, and that is for Li Susu to ascend into godhood herself, killing him and thereby destroying the all-in-distress-way.
Therefore, Tantai Jin sees no other choice but to free Li Susu from her romantic love towards him, so she can achieve the Heartless Way. In doing so, he himself reinforces his own, embarking on a Heartless Way of his own. As quotes before, “Heaven and Earth are heartless”, in this sense Tantai Jin is trying to be partial to her pain. And while we know that he isn’t, he still is trying to sacrifice is love and remaining obsession for the sake of all, for the greater good. He doesn’t just have to destroy Li Susu’s love for him, he has to kill his own, by acting against his own desires. This is the heartless way.
During these scenes, the two newly ascended Gods are inside Tantai Jin’s mind and heart. We have seen these inner places been symbolized by space and sky before. It visualizes how Tantai Jin has reached inner peace, embraced by light and calmness.
I think, that even as Gods, Tantai Jin and Li Susu were still deeply in love, but they don’t put each other above anyone else. In a final sacrifice, Tantai Jin rejects Li Susu’s wish to be re-incarnated together and destroys is immortal essence and therefore himself for eternity (or so it seems).
In this post, I tried to approach Tantai Jin as a character in TTEOTM through two theme present in the story: The metaphor of the Heartless Way and motive of embracing power and powerlessness. Tantai Jin’s hero's story has led him from being without power and agency, just a pawn of more powerful men and gods, to gaining power and love, before losing it again. He was born without love, appearing heartless, only to achieve the ability to feel emotions before his heart got broken (literally). Finally, he gives up on his worldly obsessions, emotions and ego, while developing a deep compassion for every living creature. In the end, his ultimate power lies in his sacrifice and ability to love.
We have reached the end of this post. I warned you, that it’s going to be excessive… if you made it this far, thank you for your time and patience! I hope, I haven’t made too many spelling mistakes! Originally, I wanted to highlight more of Luo Yunxi’s acting, but I ran out of space. I think I will make a separate post about it.
I want to thank my Twitter friend ~NPY~, with whom I have been discussing this show for weeks now, and who has helped me from many of these thoughts and ideas. Also shout out to reddit user, who explained the misunderstanding of the “heartless” path to me!
excellent analysis 🙏
