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where my 3 Wei fans at. [transparent vers under cut]

I cannot wait until i am done with baochai. She genuinely pisses me off to a degree i cannot put into words. When canto 8 dropped and she went "I'm too cute and charismatic to kill" I immediately wanted her as a bloody pulp on the ground.

End of the Jia Mu fight made me laugh. Whoaa lookie all these big cool cutscenes. Yes, very nice. Then Jia Mu is at the bottom of the screen and genuinely looks like a wet cat

Anyways other than Baochai canto 8 is peak

Now we all know it's not a very good adaptation of dream in the red chamber as a whole (it doesn't even include the dream. In the red chamber). But if you only consider the narrative framing of the novel (the literal story of the stone) then I think it's actually a very interesting, very good adaptation

Like. In the novel, a stone who failed to become a star encounters two immortals (which took me WAY too long to realize are the elders. Like. I had to look up the Chinese name). It asks them to tell it about the world, and to allow it to go explore it, because it thinks this earthly delights buisness looks cool as fuck. The immortals, being Buddhists, initially refuse before finally accepting as a monkey paw kind of deal : they believe attachement to the world only causes suffering and low key curse the stone to be miserable forever?

Anyway the stone then reincarnate into Jia Baoyu, and excessive attachement to people and thing + achieving détachement is his main arc.

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but limbus isn't very Buddhist at all. So when it adapts this story it inverses it. Baoyu is deeply detached from the world from the start, and the jade exist to allow the elders the earthly connections they desire. I thought it was a pretty smart way to play it. I also think the jade eye is overall a really good adaptation of the stone. Like. The stone has the whole ass dream in the red chamber written on it - a window into Baoyu's life. I think making it an evil supernatural camera makes a lot of sense. I also like the implication it give regarding the lord of hongyuan ID. In the book the jade is Baoyu's previous incarnation, a literal piece of his soul, and losing it makes him fall sick. I think it's smart. And good.