#*mynif

Or, “How to survive the first few episodes.”

Nirvana in Fire takes in medias res to a new level, then throws in an ensemble cast in the middle of political machinations to top it all off. It may be one of the best shows you’ll ever watch, but only if you can survive the beginning.

Unless you've read the novel it’s based on, the Confusion is Real. Some viewers may be reliant on subtitles in their native language and have less time to commit faces to memory. The first episodes are central, but very hard to digest. Here’s something for folks who want to give the show a shot but also want to live. 

(Nothing on these graphics or in the accompanying text includes info beyond the first two episodes and the beginning of the third.)

Lin Shu (A.K.A Mei Changsu, Su Zhe): Man on a mission. One-stop-shop for all your hurt/comfort needs. Prodigy, was once a skilled fighter. “Died” in Meiling at 19 years old. Has been plotting and dealing with an as-yet unspecified illness in the 12 years since the massacre of the Chiyan army. Goal: get justice, root out corruption in the court, put his friend ▼ on the throne. Method: get invited to capital by his pal Jingrui and get cracking.

Xiao Jingyan: Very hotheaded if you know which buttons to push. (Everyone knows which buttons to push.) Traits of note: Loyalty, rock-solid moral backbone, occasional leaps before looking, eviscerating snark and a give-no-f***s attitude. Still mourning Lin Shu (and many others). Won't show up until episode 2. (Wait for it, wait for it, wait for it...) Hates strategists, which is too bad for our main character ▲, but also good for him, because while Prince Jing is busy hating him—and MCS purposely makes it easy for Prince Jing to do just that—he won’t find it easy to question his strategist’s motives and uncover his true identity.

And now for a rousing round of...

On first watch, it’s really hard to parse allegiances. Too many shifty folks Doing Secret Stuff. Below are some simple charts to demystify the first two episodes. 

(original post.)

— a Novel by Mei Changsu

I have too many feelings about this send help. I mean, as a teenager, he watched his father and 70,000 loyal men (many under his command) die in a brutal massacre at the hands of people he should have been able to trust. He somehow survived his wounds and a considerable fall only to wake and presumably discover in short order that, back in the capital, his entire family and many relatives were dead, either by execution or by their own hands. His closest friends and living (shell-shocked, grieving) loved ones were on very, very thin ice. He underwent unimaginably agonizing (and permanently disfiguring) treatment and then hatched complex plans for over a decade.

He threw away his appearance, his health and strength, and whatever tenuous ties he still had to the comparatively innocent, happy boy he was before the massacre. He assumed the mantle of a calculating strategist and approached his closest friends as a stranger. Disgusted by the person he perceived himself to have become, he forged onward.

The instigators of the Chiyan massacre killed tens of thousands. The paranoid emperor himself gained his throne through bloodshed.

Revenge, by its very definition, is to “inflict punishment in return for injury or insult.” Not only MCS but our whole primary cast had mountains of reasons to lash out. Honestly I could hardly blame them if they did. MCS/Lin Shu’s goal, though, from the beginning, was to reveal the truth, exonerate the restless souls of the unjustly murdered, and put the country he once loved on the path to a brighter future. As much as was possible in a place where corruption was rampant and the slightest whiff of dissent meant execution, he planned and carried out a bloodless revolution. And... that’s pretty darn cool?

That’s it. Tens of thousands dead, his entire family and his good name and his health and his very identity stripped from him, and he did everything he could to do the opposite of what was done to him: reveal the truth instead of hiding or twisting it, and let the country’s justice system render judgment on the crimes he brought to light.

Agghhhhh yes I do, thanks for asking! (Also, thank you for being wonderful!) These are a bit all over the place…. I feel like I could dive headfirst into headcanons about these two (or any characters in this show, really?) and never return.

MCS likely would have taken Fei Liu in anyway, but Lin Chen definitely encouraged it to give MCS one more reason to stick around and not throw his life at his cause.

If they had met before it all, while MCS was still Lin Shu, they would have hated each other. Both precocious and powerful and quick-witted, they would have been, at the very least, extremely suspicious of each other at the start. (Smart enough, for sure, to be suspicious of people too much like themselves.) Their fathers, according to canon, fought for like three days and were the best of friends after that. They would take a lot longer. It wouldn’t really change anything, though. They would still have become friends; they just would have taken the scenic route.

That said, Lin Chen doesn’t really do friendship. As the young master of Langya Hall, he has spent his entire life set apart from others, and that separation has made it hard for him to form connections. He is a merchant of knowledge, and he knows nearly everything there is to know about anything of worth. He did not know how much caring for someone can hurt.

Lin Chen’s sass is partly genuine. He has no patience for fools. However, it is at least 80% “I really don’t know how to interact with people.” Feelings are the enemy and he doesn’t know how to handle them without hurting himself. The sicker MCS gets, the sharper Lin Chen’s tongue becomes. 

MCS knows this, and it’s all right: his closest of friends seem to be those intensely loyal types whose strongest emotions make them prickly. It feels a little like home, but just enough not like it that he is at peace. He believes—or manages to tell himself—that losing him will not break Lin Chen.

Lin Chen barely spares a word, much less a glance, to anything not worthy of his attention, so the snark is actually a sign of closeness.

Were their paths not fated to diverge, MCS could have seen their friendship being a lifelong thing—a real, full life. With the weight of 70,000 unjustly murdered souls bearing down on him, Mei Changsu did not have the luxury of seriously considering another path, but he thought about it.

Most of the remaining 20% of Lin Chen’s sass is because MCS deserves it. Lin Chen would elbow MCS in the ribs, but Lin Chen worked very freaking hard to make sure all those bones were in the right places, and any physical teasing will ultimately leave Lin Chen with more work to do.

MCS and Lin Chen probably know each other better than anyone else in the entire world. MCS can keep no secrets from his friend, and Lin Chen has never really interacted with another person on the same level.

The Chiyan massacre made Lin Shu, only a teenager at the time, mature quickly. He was already a genius soldier and strategist, mature in ways many of his peers were not (and likewise immature), but the massacre at Meiling changed him, made him spare and hard. 

Lin Chen, of course, was also extremely intelligent and knew—in an intellectual sort of way—the many, many creative cruelties of the human race. Meeting Lin Shu/Mei Changsu, of all things, is what made Lin Chen change. Before, there were very few things he could not overcome with his intellect and his devil-may-care attitude. He is a good doctor—among the best in the world, he would say, and he would not be lying. No matter what he does, though, no matter how much he works and how much knowledge he seeks, his treatments are ultimately palliative. Humility and fear are not feelings that Lin Chen enjoys.

Lin Chen is a match for MCS in stubbornness, so despite his outward pragmatism and resignation, he will not give up. He understands that holding onto hope may only make the eventual end more painful. Still, he pulled Lin Shu from the jaws of death once before. Who’s to say he can’t do it again?

Thank youforasking! Normallywitha show, I have exactly one favorite character and all the rest can gogargle rocks. I’m usually okay with the rest of the cast,and sometimes casually enjoy their presence, but the needle ofobsession doesn’t dip far in either direction beyond, “yeah,okay.” InNIF, I do have a favorite, but I would also donatemy actual right kidney to most of the other primary cast members.I adore them.

The character I love with 100% soul-crushingintensity is—no surprise—MeiChangsu/Lin Shu/Su Zhe (becauseevery good strategist needs at least three layers of identity). Ilove all the things, but I’ll try to list some. Don’t trust me, I’m too full of feelings

Ilove that he’s looking for justice,not revenge, and that despite his belief that he is just aheartless mover and shaker (and he can, indeed, exercise chilly pragmatism), his heart never really does grow hard.

I mean, hesuffered unimaginably for over a decade (and continues to do so),and yet he is adamant that even the men who plotted to have theChiyan army unjustly massacred—and the very man who cut him down on the battlefield—will be dealt with bythe justice system andwill speak their truths. After spending over adecade with the lives and deaths of his own family and 70,000 murdered soldiers on his shoulders, he won’t allow even the villainsto be tried in a court of paranoia or condemned to a vigilante death. That takes a certain amount of strength.

I love the identity porn. I mean, I don’t, but I do. I just want everyone to know, but it’s also amazing and it rips your heart right out and I love it.

Heis a troll. Even though he seems to believe that everything that made Lin Shu good is gone and MCS is just a specter that exists for the purpose of findingjustice for tens of thousands of restless dead, Lin Shu is stillthere. You see him in the way MCS cheerfully munches oranges whilewatching Shit Go Down or the way he smiles when he plays with Fei Liuor talks with Lin Chen or totallyignores Dr. Yan’s recommendations.

Andit’s funny, because Lin Chen says he doesn’t know Lin Shu—MeiChangsu is the friend he is using all the medical knowledge in hisarsenal to keep safe. But I feel like Mei Changsu’s relationship withLin Chen and Fei Liu is really what kept those parts of Lin Shualive. Having those people to support and be supported by (and tradejokes with, and tease relentlessly) was exactly what he needed. LinChen says he doesn’t know Lin Shu, but he is perhaps the one whoknows Lin Shu best right now, since he is in a position to know thetruths MCS feels he must hide from others.

Ilove his unbelievably quick mind and intelligence. He no longer hasthe strength he once had (and clearly hates that), but he knowsexactly what to do with the razor-sharp strategic mind he still has.

Ilove that he is such a hopeless disaster at feelings. He tries so hardto be that chilly strategist. He tries to be what he knows hemust be in order so see everyone’s justice through to the end and puthis best friend—and a truly goodman—on the throne, but he can’t. Not always. Not consistently. Andhis attempts to be distant and cold (and unwillingness to defendhimself against accusations from his friends) are really what get himin the most trouble, most of the time. I mean… yeah, okay, Jingyanis not suspicious of your identity,MCS, but now he thinks you area literal cold-blooded mass murderer, SO.He fails so much at feelings, and at finding that middle ground (andpart of it is because he doesn’t want to form bonds again that hefears he’ll have to break), and it’s just such a wrenching andfascinating part of his character.

Ilove his relationship with all the folks in the Jiangzuo Alliance,who would die for him to the last man, but mostly end up scurryingaround worrying about him and making sure he eats food and takes hismedicine and doesn’t let his own wretched stubbornness take his life.Li Gang and Zhen Ping are truly like the harried mom and dad of theabsolute human disaster that is MCS, Chief of the Jiangzuo Alliance.Props to Dr. Yan for putting up with all of his crap, too.

Ilove how intensely he is loved by the people who know him. (Eventhough he’s a dork and doesn’treally pay attention to that bit, AGHH.)

(And how intensely he loves.)

Ilove MCS and Prince Jing’s dynamic. I love their entire relationship and the heartbreaking flashbacks to that easy, die-for-you friendship, and the playfulness, and the contrast between what they had and what they can have now, and—

Ilove how much he cares about everything. Andeveryone.

Eventhough he thinks he can be a Good Little Icicle.  (Spoiler: hecan’t.) Someone get this boy a gentle whap upside the head and arearrangement of priorities and also some blankets.

I love the fur-lined cloak. I want it.