#fate's analysis

I got bored! Here's the original that I wrote and here's the summary on Xie Lian's character after reading TGCF.

note 1, 隐忍 yǐnrěn resilience — it was very painful but he persisted.

note 2, 勇氣 yǒngqì the art of giving up — he chose to give up the responsibility that he could not take up, and that takes a kind of bravery.

note 3, 点润 diǎnrùn to moisten — in those eight hundred years as a mortal he walked on earth and healed many souls.

note 4, 福泽 fúzé fortune — he was never lucky, but that was because he gave up all that was of his for people to be their own gods, and not for him to be theirs.

note 5, a, 潇洒 xiāosǎ free — he persisted in face of pain, and when everything is over he looks back and smiles.

note 5, b, 桃源 táoyuán to aspire — the world is dark, but in the abyss and the coldness of it all he looks to the peach blossom trees, he looks to eden.

Tolkien didn't make Frodo the protagonist to win the battle against Sauron. Frodo did not cast the ring into Mount Doom, he lost the fight against Morgorth's forces, and Gollum who was so taken by the darkness instead danced to death and by his last steps wrecked it.

Just as how LotR is but a sail in the sea of Eä's saga, Frodo is but one in the grand scheme of the Third Age, yet someone he is indeed, to be chosen as our protagonist of the overarching myth.

Because Tolkien is not celebrating victory. Or rather Victory Frodo did, along with the Fellowship of the Ring, in lauds of honour and chivalry and mighty strength he won it fair and square, in Tolkien's words a soldier unable to give the final blow had not succumbed to foe, for amid the injuries that broke body and mind he went far as he could, by virtue of his tenacious yet humanly will.

But to conquer he didn't, be it out of our author's christianly beliefs or the sighted ravages of war. There are scars in the heart that never can heal, and there are battles on earth too terrible to win that one, when they are over, feels no bliss but the mighty weight of self-recrimination and a cognisance of growth which sees the world through lenses perpetually changed.

Frodo is our protagonist, meekly resilient, humbly noble, yet mortally inadequate, and weak, and loving. He ends but a brief shadow cast in the annals of history, life changed but wounds never closed, darkness touched yet the light of Galadriel ever abiding.

The fellowship is beautiful and they all are, and Tolkien wrote about Hobbits of course because they are loveable, but loveable because they are unassuming, and inadequate, and humanly. In the face of heinous turmoil they see their valiant nobility, and in the depths of darkness hope prevails, fellowship endures.

The fellowship doesn't win. The hobbits weren't ever intended to win. Darkness steeps. But like Frodo he stood tall, he loved, and Samwise stepped in, and that was enough.

i know tolkien disabuses the notion of any allegory but there are things and let it be.

You know how I always said bring him home should not be in les mis, and it is not canon? I mean, it just occurred to me that even though Valjean didn’t save Marius at that time, he did eventually, and he even blessed Cosette and Marius’ marriage despite his unwillingness to do so, going so far as to proclaim his life’s work ended. And he saved Javert at that time, a far greater fear of his own (or was it that his love for Cosette surpassed that fear for his own imprisonment), showing how he has always been about love and redemption. It made me think, and I realise the tone of bring him home has never been wrong. You change some things and shift some timeframes in adaptations, and who am I to complain about one of the best numbers of this masterpiece?

(I didn’t get bring him home that much at the start. But someone close passed away, I looped it, and yeah, at times like those you suddenly see what the song is really about, and it’s beautiful.)

And when JVJ really sings it at the ending, it is so true to the story.

And same goes for the do you hear the people sing reprise at the finale. Because Victor Hugo wanted to write about fading into nihility. He wanted to write about death, about how lives don’t matter a hundred years down the road. Revolutions fade, compassion and genuine love and forgiveness reigns. But he wrote this in the 1850s, in the wake of France's 1848 revolution mess and he himself in self-imposed exile, the glaring failure of the second republic and the irony of napoleon III’s ascension shoved in his face. So he’s disillusioned with uprisings. He wants peace. But above all he still longs for liberty and egalite—at that point in the course of history we don’t even know if he still believes in the possibility of such a future. So instead Hugo writes about the fading of things, he writes about religion and he writes about love and compassion, he chooses to end the story with the fading life of Jean Valjean rather than the conviction of liberty of the ABC’s.

Despite all this, for just a little or a lot, in the heaven faraway and some time in their near future, for at least a brief respite of time, the chorus rings of a la volonte du peuple, and I suppose it will be what he wished for.

The musical is pretty congruent, all things considered.

(recommendation of the day: I was listening to Chris Jacobsen's BHH which made me write all this. So blame him.)

moral obligations yeah but also no I was rereading jean valjean's internal dialogue scene on his way to Arras (if I speak, I am condemned / if I stay silent, I am damned) and yes it is about the factory workers and the people of Montreuil-sur-Mer, it is about "my soul belongs to God I know, I made that bargain long ago", by faith of consequentialism if I could save the lives of a hundred people over one wretched man who is not going to do so, of course I would not condemn myself to life in gaol.

but also no.

he did not freaking want to go to the trial. All his way to Arras by horse he was pulling a Jarndyce and acting fricking like, "the wind blows, ergo Providence decrees I am not to go to Arras". "The court is full and everyone believed in the miserable convicted man. Of course I should just turn back and leave." All the time his heart was literally going "okay I'm just going to get there, take a look, everything's fine and dandy and I'll be headed my way back Montreuil-sur-Mer".

Fellowship is about the fellowship. All nine of them. Then they break, and Two Towers is about Minas Morgul and Isengard, which gives us Frodo and an increasing amount of Sam; Isengard on Merry, Pippin and Treebeard (ents!) then later the rest of the troop; Returning of the King is Aragorn. The Lord of the Rings is, well, Sauron.

None of the titles is about Frodo.

At some point the narrative delves into everything but Hobbits, and the book ends with Sam.

(hbd tolkien!) None of that in the reddit link is my work. I merely discovered the link dated 7 years ago, and I beseech you, if you have yet to, this deserves a read.

https://www.reddit.com/r/tolkienfans/comments/7m3eb6/excerpts_about_jrr_tolkien_from_the_diaries_of/

J as Jack, C. S. Lewis; Tollers as Tolkien and the rest is pretty self-explanatory as the entries evolve.

/ (my thoughts ↡) /

because oh lord this has had me inquisitive and prying at the beginning, laughing out loud in the middle nodding in vehement agreement as the Inklings go through the Hobbit and the Rings. (Referring to Sam as Frodo's squire is now truly my favourite of Sam's titles). But there are tears at the end.

omg this took so long i'll proofread in the morning. written in chinese originally, under "read more". annotations on [google docs] with translations to come because there are too many.

(if you do chinese, skip to the cut! it is way better than the translation cri.)

⟶ tl;dr summary

it is fortunate that their ship name is coined Hualian and not Hua-xie. The flower withers, the petals fall. Yet there is a time for blossoms, a time for withers — if huaxie it really is, still it is befitting of their eight hundred years of separations and reencounters.

仙花垂憐，川城傾謝。

Heavenly flowers empathise and shed mercy; entire rivers and cities bow down in gratitude.

身在無間，心在桃源。

Whence the body dwells incessant the heart thrives beyond, content.

o n e .

He was pierced by a hundred swords. Thereafter, he offered to be pierced again. The nightly terrors that prowl wild in his dreams: he was ready to embrace it once more. The heart pierces, and yet it trembles.

t w o.

A thought experiment: if Wuming didn't die for Xie Lian at the rematerialisation of the hundred swords, would Xie Lian have accepted his second ascension?

The world is a wretched sea. Mortals, misery. Some people carry with them the weight of conscience, atlas or abyss on their shoulders as they edge stepwise towards the heavenly skies, for they know that the higher they go, the more power they wield in their hands to change the course of the stars. Lin Shu stands on the shoulders of legacy and demarcates Conscience on the ground. He steps into the encirclement he has carved: he holds himself hostage and falls into the nether realms of the incessant inferno, subject to an unyielding pursuit for bygone honours and nobility in store. It takes courage, to live like this.

But it also takes another kind of courage, to not live like this. Xie Lian wasn’t like Lin Shu. Dethroned, mortalised, buried and stripped of power and grace, he wandered on earth for eight hundred years. He did not save the destitute mortals, desolate and crying for help. He did not bestow on them the bountiful blessings, as what a god could do. The did-not-do’s — it takes in another courage to be him.

t h r e e.

Had Xie Lian really collected scraps these eight hundred years? To deny would do his memoir a disservice, but there is more to that. He served as the high priest of a kingdom, a general to an army; on the grapevine, the crown prince in white had played many roles on the stage of life, a hundred years here in the role of one, and a hundred from forth in the robes of another. In time, the tales of the one who inspired rose and ebbed, yet the legacies remain. He didn’t protect the people with his deified status, yet what endures is his compassion and mercy. In the rain, the figure clad in white walks past the world in joy and tears and touches the hearts he passes — this was his salvation, and his ascension to godhood.

f o u r.

At his second banishment, Xie Lian implores Jun Wu to assuage him of his merit and luck. Mortals light incense in exchange for blessings in supplication. Xie Lian disperses Fortune to earth instead, and disassembles Divinity for the common people to carve out blessings of their own lives.

The works of one cannot salvage the teetering constructs of a foundering world. The world is a tapestry of woven histories; people save the people as the tales unfurl. The stitches tangling in a sea of light, blessed faces lit up in the night by the millions of lanterns adorning the households of the earth, keeping it bright as stars in the sky. And it was so, what Xie Lian and Hua Cheng did.

f i v e.

The sword nears his neck: he is unfazed. The tenderness and gentleness of the noble spirit endures, staid as the meekness of nephrite jade. In the vicissitudes of temperaments, he sits, blasé; he does not concern himself with the triumphs and setbacks of life.

Clouds and storms wash across the world as he continues, with eased smiles and casual dialogue.

It is the most pitiable thing, of all in the world, gazing upon one who smiles placid in face of abject misery. He laughs in his affliction, yet is there such a thing, to be okay in utter wretchedness?

Fleeting moments of forlornness and joy all condensed in the time of a single gaze: his experiences refine him into a jade of the heart. The days of the ingenuous youth awash in ages past, gone were the luckiest teen of the kingdom, but the pureness in the eyes behind the sheaths of pain remain.

— I’m used to it, it matters no more;

who is there in this race with him but the immutable laws of nature in the crescent moon and wind?

The splendour surges, the crowds fete, the splendour falls — in the desert there is none: there is no glass of water waiting at your salvation. Dust and silt fork at each’s turn of fate; flies shovel across the path towards their better destinies. So long as one has feelings, has desires, how could one be truly free? The flower remains. The vista is unchanged. Yet the splendorous tower — the radiant memories of the past — bygones — and still he says that although the body dwells incessant, the heart thrives content. Where, pray, is the fount of the utopian peach blossom? How so, that the heart is at peace, in face of all this?

Yet he is well. His heart at peace. Where the heart lies, the peach blossoms spring.

+ 1

Xie Lian is this person, as such. Though the spring of the peach blossoms have long since dwindled, he hopes, towards.

Original chinese version below the cut

These are mostly chinese tang shi and song ci poetry quotes, with a great biased amount from Su Shi because OP doesn't know better. Crude, 5-minute english translations below. There are lines I semi-made up or adapted from fandom/cpop songs (that is, most of Xiao Jingyan's lines), ngl OP is rather embarrassed of them because they aren't good at all looking back now but we'll just leave them here or else XJY would end up with zero quotes.

梅长苏 Mei Changsu

想那日束髪从军，想那日霜角辕门，想那日挟剑惊风，想那日横槊凌云。 ——夏完淳

Think to the day I tied back my hair and enlisted. Think to the day the horn rang at the frostbitten tents, think to the day I danced my sword making the sound that deafens the wind. Think to the day I took to the lance, and it pierced through the skies, rising higher than the clouds. — Xia Wanchun

将士百战身名裂。 向河梁、回头万里，故人长绝。 易水萧萧西风冷，满座衣冠似雪，正壮士、悲歌未彻。 ——辛弃疾

The warrior fights a hundred battles, yet what remains is his severed reputation. He looks to the bridge over the river, thousands of miles back, past acquaintances forever gone. In another life, over the howling of the west wind and the cold Yi rivers, the banquet sits, clothes adorned in snowlike white. The courageous man strides through the blizzard, the song of lament never ceasing. — Xin Qiji

零落成泥碾作尘，只有香如故。 ——陆游

The plum blossoms wither and drift to the ground, crushed into earthly soil and dust. The prevailing fragrance is what remains. — Lu You

亦余心之所善兮，虽九死其犹未悔。 ——屈原

So long as this is what my heart longs for and treasures, though I die nine deaths, my heart does not regret. — Qu Yuan

君臣一梦，今古空名。 ——苏轼

Lords and lieges ebb into nothing but a dream; in the river of time transcending present and past vain titles remain, cast into the void. — Su Shi

无波真古井，有节是秋筠。 ——苏轼

The heart is at peace like the ancient well that does not ripple; the integrity is as the autumn bamboos, steadfast and unfaltering. — Su Shi

舳舻千里，旌旗蔽空，酾酒临江，横槊赋诗。 ——苏轼

The warship moves a thousand miles, ensigns enshrouding the sky. He pours out wine by the riverside, holds out his lance, and writes verses as he speaks. — Su Shi

对一张琴，一壶酒，一溪云。 ——苏轼

Facing but a guqin, a jug of wine, a stream of cloud. — Su Shi

江山如画，是我心言。 ——风起时

The rivers and mountains of the kingdom outstretch before me, as moving as in art: this is my heart’s will. — from the song “Feng Qi Shi”, when the wind blows

战骨碎尽志不休，冰心未改血犹殷。 ——改自《赤血长殷》、王昌龄

Bones completely crushed from the battle, yet aspirations unwavering. The heart has not changed; the blood flows red still. — adapted from the song “Chi Xue Chang Yan”, the noble blood flows red, and poet Wang Changling

袖手妙计权倾变，敛眸笑谈意了然。 ——改自《赤血长殷》

With folded arms, he devises labyrinthine strategies. The sceptre of power sways and shifts. He shrouds his gaze modestly, and in conversations of small smiles, he discerns the intention of men. — adapted from the song “Chi Xue Chang Yan”, the noble blood flows red

萧㬌琰 Xiao Jingyan

潜龙一朝御风翔，长歌挽弓射天狼。 ——《长喑》

The submerged dragon rises one day to ride the winds. Singing high and long; the bow is drawn pointed at the invading Sirius. — from the song “Chang Yin”, the Long Darkness found here

挑灯殿阙思悄然，闻钤行宫寝无眠。 ——改自白居易

Awashed in the raised lamps of the imperial palace, thoughts whisper in grievance. The bell rings at the Jiu’an grounds, and he lies abed sleepless. — adapted from The Song of Everlasting Sorrow by Bai Juyi

驰骋沙场繁华梦，谈笑鸿儒君臣纲。 ——改自《致陛下书》、刘禹锡

Dreams soar in the flurrying gallops of the battlefield, flourishing dreams of splendour and joy. In pleasant dialogue with scholars, civility obliges polite smiles into the etiquette of lords and lieges. — adapted from the song “Zhi Bi Xia Shu”, a letter to Your Majesty, and Liu Yuxi

铁马并辔封疆，几回魂梦游；更鼓落夜未央，笔下兴亡断。 ——取自《长喑》、《赤血长殷》

Armoured horses riding in parallel at the borderlands — how many times has the soul wandered to such dreams of the past. The hourly drums sound ceaseless across the long night; under the emperor's brush, the fate of prosperity and declination writes. — adapted from the song “Chang Yin”, the Long Darkness found here, and “Chi Xue Chang Yan”, the noble blood flows red

揽尽山河只手倾，昂冕袖手瞰苍生。 ——改自《长喑》

The future of his kingdom sweeps into a tilt of his hand. With crown upheld, he folds his arms in his sleeves awatching humanity. — adapted from the song “Chang Yin”, the Long Darkness found here

咫尺抚眉峰，万丈叠远峰；梦底枕笑纹，惊风掀水纹。 ——《致陛下书》

Up close, the furrowed brows are smoothed. Ten thousands of feet stretch before him, converging into mountains at a distance. In the deepest dreams, the markings of a smile lie; he stirs up the wind which marks and rips tides in the tumultuous waters. — adapted from the song “Zhi Bi Xia Shu”, a letter to Your Majesty

Two (three) things to note:

My dying obsession with Su Shi, sorry I can’t help it that perhaps over half of the all the poetry I know is from him;

To be really fair, my favourite description of Mei Changsu is 运筹帷幄之中，决胜千里之外, used in describing Zhang Liang in Si Maqian's Records of the Grand Historian. He orchestrates masterplans in the tent of the army; he determines the victory of the battle from afar, thousands of miles from the front.

As for my favourite depiction of Lin Shu, it is definitely Su Shi’s description of Cao Cao: 舳舻千里，旌旗蔽空，酾酒临江，横槊赋诗。 The warship moves a thousand miles, ensigns enshrouding the sky. He pours out wine by the riverside, holds out his lance, and writes verses as he speaks. Xin Qiji’s verse above just fits the entire story of Mei Changsu so much, it deserves a mention.

I was assembling/making these lines up for something back then and so just listed whatever came to mind (for reasons I know not I kept on listing stuff for MCS, but maybe XJY was the typical good emperor kind of person so wasn't as inspiring coming up with quotes for him).