What if Tripitaka was always meant to be Tripitaka? As in, the Scholar knew exactly who and what she would become.

While it’s not an idea I’d like to see on the show (it would undermine the themes about choice and self-determination) it is interesting enough that I wanted to put it out there, just in light of the first episode. I think it changes the significance of the characters’ actions in interesting ways.

Rewind a bit. 

Lets say that the Scholar is… I don’t know… a god with gift of foresight. We know very little about the Scholar, so this contradicts nothing. Maybe he’s the guy who wrote the prophecy in the first place, throwing in some misleading details about Tripitaka being a monk just to muddy the waters. 

Say that he doesn’t know the exact details either, just that Tripitaka needs to be in a specific time and place to free Monkey. So he arranges for some Resistance fighters to accompany her, just in case shit goes down (which it does, just earlier than he expected). He also arranges for Gaxin, a man he trusts absolutely, to act as her decoy/bodyguard, whose sole purpose in life is to make sure she stays alive. 

The other two Resistance members are kept in the dark. All they know is that the Scholar is insisting that his teenage daughter accompany them, which seems highly irresponsible. Tripitaka has no idea either, because you can’t betray a secret you don’t know, and the plan is that either the Scholar or Gaxin will enlighten her at the appropriate time. 

Then the demon rocks up and the aforementioned shit goes down.

The two nameless Resistance fighters go down first, so Gaxin steps up to the plate, and he knows right from the get go, there’s no walking away from this. All he can do is buy time for the Scholar to hide Tripitaka. This is the whole reason he’s here anyway; this is his job. He throws Monkey’s weapon to her (making it look like he missed the demon, but he got exactly what he was aiming for) and when the demon has him by the throat, he gives the mother of all performances. 

Oh, me? Totally Tripitaka. No need to go looking round for anyone else. You got me. (Hehe, sucker). 

I wrote this purely to get it out of my brain, based on this idea. It goes nowhere and changes nothing, other than making me really wish we’d gotten to see Mentor!Gaxin teaching Tripitaka how to fight and giving Monkey the I’m-watching-you evil eye. 

The girl is not what Gaxin was expecting.

In his correspondence with the Scholar - coded letters passed in the most circumspect and circuitous of ways - Gaxin had been assured that the girl was prepared for her role. Looking at her, he's coming to realise that he and the Scholar have very different ideas of 'prepared'.

He had assumed it meant training in some school of fighting, but if this girl has thrown a punch in her entire life he’ll eat his boots. There's a softness about her, a certain wide-eyed naivety that suggests a life lived, if not in luxury, then safety. 

His inquiries - carefully worded before Patre and Bron - reveal that she's excellently educated in several different languages, rigorously schooled on geography and history, and able to hold her own in philosophical debates. Skills perhaps essential to a monk or nun, but next to useless in the mission they're about to embark on.

When the girl is outside, guiding Patre and Bron to the outhouse, Gaxin turns to the Scholar and asks bluntly: "Does she understand the role she has to play?"

The Scholar spends a few moments unhurriedly stoking the fire before answering. "She is not aware that she has one."

Gaxin is taken aback. "She doesn't know?"

"A child may be discouraged by the weight of destiny, or careless in their certainty of victory."

"True, but she's not a child any longer. How can she make decisions if she doesn't understand their significance?"

"I will enlighten her - when the time is right."

Gaxin privately wonders when the Scholar thinks the time is right. Will he leave the girl in ignorance until they're standing right at the gates of the Monkey King's prison?

"I cannot stand in her place forever," Gaxin says pointedly. "I can call myself Tripitaka all I want, it won't change who she is."

The Scholar's expression shifts subtly. "No," he says softly, sadly, and it occurs to Gaxin that perhaps the Scholar has seen more than he admits. According to the ancient texts, destiny is rarely kind or easy.

That does not change Gaxin's opinion of the girl's ignorance; in fact it makes enlightening her even more urgent. She must be prepared for what is to come. Gaxin for one does not believe the Scholar's insistence that the Monkey King was entirely innocent. She will not be able to afford softness or weakness.

"You will be with her," the Scholar murmurs, almost to himself. "That much I am almost certain of. I see the figure of a monk protecting her; a man or men whose faces I never see. Of myself, I see nothing."

Gaxin is chilled by the implication. That he might die is a risk he'd accepted when he agreed to play decoy. That he would then be replaced by another in the task; logical. The Scholar dying is another matter entirely. Gaxin feels unequal to taking sole responsibility for the Chosen One.

But, looking at his friend’s contemplative expression, he realises it would be cruel to say so. The Scholar cannot control what he sees, and it must be a torment to him, to know that his child must face the world without him. In any case, he himself once told Gaxin, if destiny waited for us to be ready, no one would ever be born.

"Then I will protect her," Gaxin says firmly. "Until she either no longer needs me, or I cannot any longer. Whichever comes first."

The Scholar's mouth curls in a smile, relief in his eyes. "Thank you, my old friend."