YES, all of this rings so true for me, and it's very central to my love of Guardian. I think a number of factors in The Untamed combine to make the relationship between WWX and LWJ come together differently for me.
It's more difficult to establish a visible bond that way, I think.
It certainly seemed that way to me. I love the concept of LWJ as a character, and I knew intellectually what was going on behind LWJ's facade because his circumstances and his actions made it clear - but I couldn't *feel* it the way I could feel it with Shen Wei, as reserved and guarded and introverted as SW also is. And I couldn't feel the intense and immediate fascination, connection and sheer depth of emotion between LWJ and WWX the way I could feel it between SW and ZYL.
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It's more difficult to establish a visible bond that way, I think.
It certainly seemed that way to me. I love the concept of LWJ as a character, and I knew intellectually what was going on behind LWJ's facade because his circumstances and his actions made it clear - but I couldn't *feel* it the way I could feel it with Shen Wei, as reserved and guarded and introverted as SW also is. And I couldn't feel the intense and immediate fascination, connection and sheer depth of emotion between LWJ and WWX the way I could feel it between SW and ZYL.