#kfp ping

Kung Fu Panda 1: "You are almost ready to be entrusted with the secret ingredient of my secret ingredient soup. And then you will fulfill your destiny and take over the restaurant [...]" - Ping

"Secret Ingredient of my secret ingredient soup" being an allegory for Dragon scroll and "destiny" being Po becoming the Dragon warrior and "take over the restaurant" as being Oogway's successor.

Then it turns out the scroll is blank. And Ping feels its a good place to tell Po about the secret ingredient. NOTHING. For something to be special, you just have to BELIEVE it's special.

So Po, not needing any secret scroll or any cool powerup, wins against Tai Lung by believeing in himself.

Ping made him believe in himself. And when Po fulfills his destiny of defeating Tai Lung, he's PROUD!

Kung Fu Panda 2: "Po, your life may not have such a happy beginning, but look at how it turned out! You got me, you got kung fu! And you got noodles!" - Ping (and almsot identical quote said by Soothsayer)

And

Po: "I gotta go. I'm the Dragon Warrior, it's kinda my job to save Kung Fu. And if I don't, what am I?"

Ping: "You're my son! ... Right?"

The message is pretty clearcut, but it's repeated very heavily in the movie. Mr Ping may not be his father, but he is his dad. No matter where he came from, Po is Mr Pings son through and through and he very much loves him.

The scene where Po has been knocked into a river and saved by the Soothsayer, she says the same thing that Ping does. He didn't have a happy beginning, but what matters is who he is, and what he chooses to do now.

And the montage plays everything hes done up until now, but also empathizes the moments between Ping and Po. The last thing he sees in his mind is Ping being a dad, because he is Po's dad! Whatever happened before doesn't have bearing for who Po chooses to be. So when he chooses to be the son of a goose and the Dragon Warrior, nothing he finds out can change that.

Because Dragon Warrior or not, Po is Ping's son! Right?

Kung Fu Panda 3: "He's hurt. He's confused. And he still has to save the World! He needs both his dads." - Ping

"I realized that having you in his life doesn't mean less for me. It means more for Po." - Ping

And

"I'm not trying to turn you into me. I'm trying to turn you into you!" - Shifu

(Love how often Shifu and Ping mirror each other's roles btw they're both so important)

So these are a little less on the nose, but again super important. No matter what Po is going through, he still has to fulfill his destiny, and giving him support while he does so is the best they can do. Ping was initially worried of Li Shan stealing Po away, but realizes that bonding with his biological father doesn't take him away from Ping, just more love and support for Po.

But also, Po learning that he doesn't have to change drastically to reach his true potential. When Ping and Li Shan stand on the small platform and tell Po that they can help, along with all other pandas, Po has the realization that he can't turn them into him, just as Shifu can't turn him into Shifu, or Li Shan can't turn him into a typical panda.

Ping doesn't say a direct quote to mirror Shifu's, but he did initiate talking to Li Shan after Po and Li Shan had the liar reveal. Li never had the experience of having an arguement with his child, but Ping obviously does. So he takes it upon himself to keep being the rock that Po can lean on by talking to Li Shan and helping him realize that they have to be there for Po, no matter what happens.

Because again. Po is hurt. Po is confused. But he still has to save the world. He needs both his dads.

So... let's bring up the colour table again, shall we?

As we have already established, Po is yellow, Shen red, Kai and Oogway green, and Tai Lung blu....... right?

The thing is, this simple association of the colour's meaning doesn't leave much room for an interesting, in depth discussion, that's why I wanted to go a little bit deeper into what I've head cannoned as the individual meaning of each primary colour, so that we can expand upon our current colour dynamics.

Just for reminder:

Cyan+Magenta=Blue

Magenta+Yellow=Red

Yellow+Cyan=Green

Just like we said, Yellow is the colour of Po, our heroes, the good side, (the Chameleon) and justice; whenever Yellow is present on the scene, you know that you can put yourself to ease, as nothing bad is probably going to happen;

I believe this to be the most straightforward primary colour, for obvious reasons, but especially because all the other colours gain their meaning when compared to Yellow (Po, our protagonist), therefore it also has to be the one we understand the most.

Indeed,

Po = Yellow

Now, this is where it starts to get interesting:

....I believe cyan to be Oogway's true colour. I think about it. When we first met Oogway, the only lighting present in the room was the cyan light of the Dragon scroll's pond, there was actually very little green accentuated in that scene, it was all mostly mellowed out by the cyan.

It also makes sense when you consider that Tai Lung and Kai had a relationship with Oogway, while Shen didn't because red isn't made out of cyan.

There's also the whole popular belief that "cyan represents patience" which also fits Oogway, but it's not really important to this discussion, so you can think what you want about it.

So,

Oogway = Cyan

Magenta... is particular.

Particular in the sense that it's extremely rare in both the movies and outside material.

Of magenta/purple things that come to mind we have Crane and Tai Lung's clothing, Shen's mother, Feng Huang related things, that weird sexual panda from the third movie... and probably some more.

As you can see, magenta is incredibly hard to pinpoint its meaning due to how infrequently it's used, which makes sense: Magenta and purple have ties to royalty in both China and other countries around the world; it's a sacred colour, so it has to be used sparingly, and I don't think it was ever intended by the writers for a meaning to be extrapolated from it.

....

Yet I tried to anyway.

Now, let it be known that I'm planning to make a post talking about Po's weird relationship birds, as it feels like whenever a bird is on screen the conflict is already more personal for Po.

For now... you could argue that magenta means danger, since it's the closest colour to purple aka yellow's opposite, and both Shen and Tai Lung are a direct threat to Po while Kai is treated as a joke for the entirety of the final movie, but I doubt bad writing has any deeper meaning.

I actually wanted to attribute magenta the meaning of closeness. For me, it was the easiest way to justify his rarity: it can't be Shifu's colour because he lost relevance after the first movie, and no other character is closely associated with it, so it makes sense for it to just be a colour that's taken for granted by Po since his adopted dad shares those tones.

However, I think I came up with a much more interesting idea: it's the colour of pride and approval, as Tai Lung and Shen both sought the approval of their parents to satisfy their ego, while Kai wasn't seeking anybody's approval for his evil actions.

Ultimately, magenta, much like in the movies, is irrelevant to the narrative, so I'm going to ignore it, but for now,

Approval = Magenta

Finally, (a worthy opponent) with all that out of the way, let's talk about everybody's favourite snow leopard!

And the first thing to mention, is the gold.

The Gold.

The GOLD.

It's everywhere. Whenever you look at him, Tai Lung is always chasing the gold, he was welcomed by the gold when he had no one by his side, and said gold was always what he dreamt about when he was in jail, he basked in the gold his entire life, and when that gold rejected him, he had nothing left in his life to cling onto because his entire life was dependent by that gold.

While Shen and Kai have Yellow as part of their secondary colour by nature, Tai Lung doesn't, yet he wants to. But that yellow keeps rejecting him and putting an end to his actions;

When Tai Lung's first rampage is interrupted, the (chi) body block technique that Oogway uses to stop him is yellow; when Po kills him at the end of the movie, the after wave of the Wuxi finger is, again, yellow; TAI LUNG'S EYES ARE YELLOW. BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT'S ALWAYS ON HIS MIND.

... And that makes all the similarities that he shares with Tigress kind of sad (For both).

Like, I already knew that Tigress and Tai Lung were similar and meant to be foil, but it's only after my most recent rewatch the underlying pain and tragedy present in their rivalry really hit me.

If Tigre's pupils weren't red, she would have easily turned out as the next Tai Lung.

And Tai Lung upon seeing how similar he is to Tigress, probably thinks "This is what Shifu replaced me with. A cheap knock-off copy of the real deal".

It hurts him deeply, because it reminds him of how little Shifu really cared for him, despite not being true, and it scares Tigress, who's nervous for their entire interaction, due to now finally seeing Tai Lung in the flesh and not as just some story she overheard.

Tragically, once Tai Lung finally manages to get his paws on the Dragon scroll (yellow), it doesn't fix anything for him, instead, it sends him spiralling one last time before Po can finally put him out of his misery.

And with that, Tai Lung goes out of his miserable existence, only finding peace in the afterlife, and not in death.

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