SailUncharted

C.S. Pacat really knows how to twist the knife. This whole final scene with James in DR is gut wrenching:

Will felt the flickering of the past, old selves like shadows. It was difficult to breathe, the air heavy. “You said you didn’t remember that life.”

“I don’t,” said James. “But sometimes there’s—”

“—a feeling,” Will said. [...] James didn’t hear the admission in his voice. Instead the words seemed to draw them closer, as if they were in a bubble, the only two people in the world. “My whole life, all anyone’s ever wanted was to possess me,” said James. “The only one who ever set me free was you.”

And if that wasn't bad enough, it gets exponentially worse:

“I may not carry his brand, but he . . . He’s burned into me.” James’s eyes were very dark. “He branded himself on my soul. They called him the Dark King, but he was a bright flame, and everyone else, everything else is just his pale shadow. I was Reborn, but I lived a half life. It’s like this world was a blur. No one else was in focus. Until you.”

Building to this final gut kick:

“You made me believe he could be beaten. You make me believe—” James broke off. “The boy savior. I didn’t think you’d save me.” James’s smile was painful. “I thought Simon would bring the Dark King back. I thought the collar would close around my throat. I never thought I’d be free to choose my future. But I am.” In the quiet of the room, his words seemed to twine themselves around the beats of Will’s heart. “Simon and his father . . . they had a dream of ruling a dark world, and they told me there was a place for me at their side. But I don’t want to follow them,” said James. “I’m here to follow you.” His eyes were bright, his lips smiling, his hair gold in the shifting light from the fire.

Will said, “Of course you are.”

The atmosphere is both enticing, frigthening, and so so sad. You can feel Will's self loathing. That he hates himself for his desire for James. Because he knows he's decieving James. That what is happening here is exactly the opposite of what James has been struggling for years to obtain. But he can't turn James away. He simply cannot make himself do that.

And James? James really thinks he's free. He thinks he's broken the pattern, that he is finally making his own fate. Ugh. It hurts so beautifully.

What happened? I... I just saw san-ge— no, I mean... I saw Clan Leader Jin's hand reaching behind. I wasn't sure if he was going to... if he was going to...

at the beginning of the nmj empathy sequence we get an impression of him as someone who does sincerely care for the common people even if he's not exactly capable of interacting with them himself. the fact that meng yao also cares for them (and is good at interacting with them) brings him to nmj's notice. he repeatedly sees people as equal to the point that it becomes a problem when he refuses to take into account that others might find themselves with significantly limited options, that he's sort of "class-blind" and therefore can't make exceptions for jgy, that he helps him in ways that could have backfired, that he doesn't notice that when he makes meng yao serve tea he's exposing him to constant reminders that he's considered "unclean", that he finds the wen siblings culpable because they didn't try to *checks notes* die uselessly, &c &c. even the conflict with jgy that he just can't let go of is based on his suspicion that jgy thinks that his and nmj's lives are more valuable than those of the nie cultivators jgy killed to save them both, and in the lead-up to the stairs kick he accuses him of thinking he's more noble than them, that he's different from them, and takes jgy's confirmation of specifically the latter as evidence, though what jgy actually means by this is left ambiguous. that nmj's combined strength and flaw is to see equality even when it's not there is 100% lxc's view. for a long time i think jgy believes it also, or at least wants to believe it. maybe his faith in it starts to slip when nmj repeatedly slides back into calling him meng yao. but either way the turning point imo is that when he's pushed far enough, when he's lost enough self-control, what does nmj do but kick jgy down the stairs and ask him what else he should have expected from the son of a whore. that's the statement of someone who, somewhere in his heart, always thought of jgy as lesser. and that's when jgy decides there is no longer any reason to try to help or reconcile with nmj. the only way forward is to kill him.

the stairs kick is also significant on its own imo. this is the third time that this has happened to jgy--the second time obviously being on his father's orders, and the first, revealed only at the end of the novel, when a john who is a client of his mother's who got violent with her when she tried to get him to pay more than he thought she was worth, fights him off when he tries to intervene in her defense. in both of those cases there's a clear pattern, which is that an abusive person with significant power over him uses violence to put him back in his place, to literally push him beneath them. the third time is the incident with nmj, and i think that at the very least this is telling us how jgy sees this incident. nmj = father = violent john = the thing that will always try to prevent him from rising up in the world or asserting his own value--or, for that matter, his mother's. it's also worth noting that if we go off the timeline established in the villainous friends extra, this happens shortly after jgy also gives up on and resolves to kill his father. nmj and jgs slide together into the same category as the john when jgy gives up hope that they can fulfill his only other model of "man with power over him" which is the fantasized image of his father from his childhood, who would truly see his value and elevate him, a role which at different times both nmj and jgs promised to fulfill. (mayyybe lxc avoids fully falling out of this category into the former one?? though his inclusion within the latter category is. obviously damaged.) now is this FAIR to nmj? obviously not. he's not in his right mind when he does it and the person he is when he is more in control of himself is so much better than jgs and the other guy it almost renders the comparison absurd. i'd bet that jgy knows this on some level. but that it would feel terrible to him i don't think i need to defend. to him, this is nmj showing his true colors. that much i don't think is subjective interpretation i think it's pretty intentional and obvious. the part that is subjective and controversial and that i don't think everyone needs to agree with is that i think that even though nmj is better than the others we are supposed to read jgy as pretty much right, to read a kernel of truth into the comparison. he is better, but when it comes to jgy, he's not really different.

episode 4 // episode 23 // episode 40

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