#fx.p

compare the arc of wwx's first life to the choices made by the majority of the key characters in lotr throughout their stories. the impossibility of the road, the knowledge that the odds are stacked so high against you that to make the attempt is to walk alone in the dark with no hope of ever seeing light again -- and the knowledge that you will do it anyway, because you must. because that's who you are. because you can't bear to see this need (this injustice, this final desperate chance, this plea for help from the innocents of the world) and turn away.

but we will meet them in battle nonetheless.

i'll walk my single-plank bridge into the night.

of course, in lotr the fate of the world rests on these choices, and they make it past those odds (not all of them, and not unchanged!) to the impossible achievement of their quest. in mdzs wei wuxian's borrowed time eventually runs out, and only a-yuan survives.

(but a-yuan survives! one soul lives who would otherwise have been lost! and of course, wei wuxian gets his second chance in the end)

but that's the only difference really. the arc of one story ends more explicitly in tragedy than the other, but the choices are of the same cloth.

idk it's about sticking to who you are and what you know is right even when you know you'll most probably fail. that it's worth it, to hold back the darkness for just a few more days or weeks. to know that you did everything you could.