To be fair, I think they were kinda following the cues of the original material. The books pretty much lead them that way. In the Guardian novel there's also an immediate fascination between the characters, SW becauses he knows who ZYL is and what he is to him and ZYL because SW is kind of hot and interesting. That becomes complicated with the identity porn and eventually solves when ZYL "remembers" who he is. In the drama they potentiate all that and introduce the time traveling fuckery that makes all the reactions logical because the moment they meet is different for each of them and one of them is already utterly in love with the other one in each instance but has to hide it. It's a thing of beauty because the actors really took their job seriously and the creators decided to put a lot of focus on the character's feelings and reactions, since it was the only way they could keep the BL without crossing the line and getting censored. It was very well done and resolved. And the particular style of the actors meshed perfectly well with the characterization of the, well, characters. It really worked for me.
The Untamed is a bit different because also in the Mo Dao Zu Shi novel the dynamics are different. It's an excruciatingly slow burn for WWX and we can only guess about LWJ's feelings because he has the expressivity of a dead salmon. Which is part of his appeal, but well, the audience can't get into their relationship as easily because there's actually no relationship to speak of until WWX realizes his feelings, which is so close to the moment he also realizes LWJ's that that's basically at the end. Which works for me in the novel because the adventure telling and the intrigue is fantastically done and even their friendship and the way their morality aligns even though their methods clash is enough to keep my interest and to empathize with both of them. But in the drama, since the storytelling is a bit stiff, there's nothing to distract me from the fact that the chemistry is not really there. Also, I'm not totally sure about LGJ's actor, I can't totally envision him as the character (whereas WWX's is pretty much perfect for the role).
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Date: 2019-12-18 11:52 am (UTC)The Untamed is a bit different because also in the Mo Dao Zu Shi novel the dynamics are different. It's an excruciatingly slow burn for WWX and we can only guess about LWJ's feelings because he has the expressivity of a dead salmon. Which is part of his appeal, but well, the audience can't get into their relationship as easily because there's actually no relationship to speak of until WWX realizes his feelings, which is so close to the moment he also realizes LWJ's that that's basically at the end. Which works for me in the novel because the adventure telling and the intrigue is fantastically done and even their friendship and the way their morality aligns even though their methods clash is enough to keep my interest and to empathize with both of them. But in the drama, since the storytelling is a bit stiff, there's nothing to distract me from the fact that the chemistry is not really there. Also, I'm not totally sure about LGJ's actor, I can't totally envision him as the character (whereas WWX's is pretty much perfect for the role).
Okay, end of the essay. Sorry for the rambling.