Lyson

I can't help it bro, you know I can't ignore certain types of comments.

Okay, I finished my third The Spirealm FMV. I think I'm done...for now. If anyone likes FMVs maybe you can watch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUocnuHHGEk
This video is not an emotional one! It's more focused on the action/horror theme of the show with a fun song that I felt matched TS really well!

✌🏻

So basically: the fans in these fandoms have major mental issues, and they are given way too much power over Cn celebs careers (because of the money they're willing to spend on their latest obsession), and that the industry know this, and the industry may or may not let it happen just to see how it plays out, and then they'll blame the actors if their sh*tty shows tank because it's an easy out for them.

There are different interpretations of the end.

1. Jiushi entered the game world reality, all the events occurred, the game was cleansed, Lanzhu and the game world ceases to exist and Jiushi wakes up in his world where all the parallel people of the game world don't know him. He spends 50 years recreating the game so he can see everyone again.

2. All the events occur, only for Jiushi to wake up from a coma and realise nothing that happened was real. It was just his own elaborate dream world, a world he wished to be a part of again. So he spends his life recreating that game world he dreamt of and succeeded before he died.

3. All the events that occurred happened inside the game world and only at the end, once the game is cleansed, does Jiushi return to the real world, where everyone who was inside the doors is alive, but they don't remember anything from being in the game world and have returned to their lives from before they entered the game world. Jiushi spends 50 years recreating the connection to that world and succeeds in returning. (I'll suggest you wait for LordFengCui to post a full explanation as this is their theory, not mine)

These are the three main theories circulating right now.

Np, happy to answer any novel related questions.
So, the ending is VERY different.
The entire 11th door is much, much longer and more detailed. It's the same in that Nanzhu and Qiushu go back to a few years earlier in their pasts and have to face previous enemies, NPC's and Door Gods, also encountering former 'good acquaintances and friends' to help them survive. But the series cuts it short and changes the events drastically, but in the novel it's much longer and the outcome is different;

In the novel, after they 'clear' their respective levels they become totally separated and stuck inside the Door World where everything seems 'perfect' because everyone who was killed is alive, but it's all fake.
After a short-ish while stuck in there, Qiushi manages to figure out the key to get out first, because he's smort like that, and he does get out, eagerly choosing to return to the real world (where people really died), because even though many people were lost, he wants to be with Nanzhu (their relationship is already established by that point in the novel, so they are a couple). But when he gets back Nanzhu is not in the real world, and no one seems to know who he was or that he existed and Qiushi is confused but he can't do anything about it, so he goes on with life as much as he can, going through a bit of a hard time because he doesn't know what happened to Nanzhu.

Nanzhu on the other hand, is still stuck in the Door World because he is gradually regaining his memory, which he wiped just in order to meet Qiushi. So, Nanzhu is not a human. And he knew of Qiushi before because Nanzhu is a God of the Door Realm realm, and years before he'd been watching Qiushi cross the doors for some time and he fell in love with him and chose to leave his place as a God, take on a corporeal humanoid form and enter Qiushi's world to meet, interact with, get to know him and eventually be with him. But in order to do that 'naturally', he wiped his memory of being a God so he could be as human-esque as possible.

Stuck in the Door World for a long while (about a year), Nanzhu, having remembered what and who he is and why he did what he did, he finds the key and leaves the Door World (his realm) and chooses to go back to Qiushi's world.
Upon returning, (and as per the rules of his realm, if someone doesn't make it out of he 11th door they are forgotten) he'd been forgotten, until he turned up again, then everyone who had forgotten him remembered him. He turns up at Obsidian, and the new leader of Obsidian (a character not included in the series) contacts Qiushi to let him know Nanzhu has returned.

Qiushi is, of course, feeling feels of shock and relief and happiness and he goes straight to Obsidian. He and Nanzhu are reunited then and as they were already an established couple prior to all that happened, they pick up where they left off and continue to be together, very HAPPILY. The extras from the novel include some great Nanzhu and Qiushi couple scenes. If you ever want to read them, there are links I've posted on the Discussion Board here to read the novel. You can even start from chapter 139 to skip the final door's horror and read them being reunited and getting back together, and the extras that follow. They're sassy and loving and domestic all at once!

Hope this is detailed enough. ✌️😁

It just occurred to me, regarding the novel, that Nanzhu originally used Qiushi's human form as a template for his own corporeal body, and then purposely made his humanoid form taller than Qiushi and...hung . (as Nanzhu mentions quite a few times) 🤣 🤣
Somehow, it isn't too difficult for me to imagine those scenes happening in the series because Lanzhu is such a little sh*t sometimes🤣

Without spoilers, there are two major changes, one is the premise of the door world and the other is the ending. These two things are VERY different and changes many other things in the show's story by extension.

Smaller differences include some doors and door events left out and/or altered.

Some characters left out, added and /or altered.

The story in the show is more emotional and contains less intense horror and violence as well as focusing less on door world details and more on extra character relationships and development.

Ruan Baijie is featured much less and also not featured visually besides one photo reference.

The ML's non platonic relationship is, obviously, censored, so there is no overt physical or verbal confirmation of it but it's still quite obvious.

The show is different but great in it's own new and clever way. It doesn't suffer for the changes and the pacing is consistent and doesn't feel rushed right up until the end.

✌️😁

Ep 36 at 34.05. During the confrontation between Lanzhu and Jiushi about him being an NPC. There's double audio on Lanzhu's voice at 34.05, highlighting that he is not human. It was an interesting touch.

It's common in China to use voice dubs for different reasons, in TS it's because Xia Zhiguang's (Lanzhu) voice probably isn't as deep or authoritative as was needed for the character, Zhiguang sounds deeper when he sings (like in the intro song of the show) but his speaking voice is softer and a little raspy, not clear enough for Lanzhu. And HJJ (Jiushi) has a countryside accent, which is actually a common reason for voice dubbing in China, due to it's varied accents throughout the country and the need for consistency.

So yeah, they're dubbed, and HJJ's voice actor was just very extra 😂 if you wanna hear some clips of how Zhiguang sounds undubbed, let me know, I'll drop you link.

And yes, that's what entertainment media fiction is all about. You kind of think like a writer, not sure if you are, but your way of thinking feels familiar to me.

PS: HJJ isn't a singer, but he did sing for The Spirealm outro and he didn't do half bad.

Haha! I noticed his audio was amplified, it even gave me some interesting impressions to think of when rereading certain scenes in the novel, because bro's every breath was loud and a little distracting. But to be real, I just think it's his voice actor. We hear the other actors make excess sounds quieter, even Lanzhu sighs a few times, but his voice actor does it more quietly, naturally, and doesn't try to fill in sounds for every mouth movement, like Jiushi's voice actor did. Use Wuqi for example, he is 'real', but his voice actor isn't over amplified.

That said, I like the abstract way you're thinking with regards to the show.

For sure, to each their own ✌️😁 it's all good!

Yep! They were stepping around the topic for a while in the novel even though they were so close already. And then Zaozao died and Qiushi was hit hard emotionally, Nanzhu expects it and calls him, then goes to him and they talk and express feels and have their first proper kiss.

When you watch again, you'll notice the subtle differences in their behaviour in the series after that, it's like the showrunners were subtly letting us know.

This show is an instant gem, and even with the unnecessary ending, it's still became my second fave BL after watching it. The ending did not hurt the quality of the show at all.

It's always great when a show can provoke questions in the audience, as well as different perspectives from people. The Spirealm presented many points of interest to think about, you've mentioned some, and there are so many more as well. And I also think the other interpretations are interesting too, but ultimately the ending remains unchanged in my opinion. because Lanzhu said he will cease to exist, which means he was gone. There's not misinterpreting that.

That's my problem with the ending, is that they made it so closed off. So final. Instead of ending it before that unnecessary 50 year year time lapse, which would have been an ambiguous enough ending that viewers could imagine Lanzhu and Jiushi found their way back to each other SOMEHOW, they cut that right out and decided to show us Jiushi old and alone, having clung to creating a virtual reality he could escape into before he died.

That ending was overkill imo.

I agree with this take, as this is close to what I perceived of the ending after I completed watching it after it came out. It wasn't real and Jiushi spent his life trying to make it 'real'.

Additional points: it's mentioned, but then not elaborated on at all in the show, that Jiushi has a previous medical problem (this is not in the novel). That inner ear issue could have caused his hallucinations, both auditory and visual. Also, working as a programmer is exhausting and many gamers have pseudo hallucinatory-like experiences, especially when exhausted.

Agreed, he possibly knew some names from around where he lived, but also, when he approached Cheng Qianli and his brother by name, the brothers never actually confirmed that to be their names. And Qianli said he found Jiushi familiar, but that's not surprising either since Jiushi has been going to that internet cafe for years, as is stated in the first episode. Also, Jiushi didn't confirm the names of anyone else besides Chen Fei, who was a doctor in a local hospital and he could even have heard that name while in the coma. Even Qiong Xi doesn't say "How do you know my name?" when Jiushi says that name while lying on the road, he just seems shocked Jiushi addresses him randomly like they know each other.

An important point is that in episode 36, Lanzhu very plainly states that he will 'cease to exist'. After the purification of the game, he's gone, he stops being. He is a program and the program was essentially wiped clean. Jiushi basically goes on to make a virtual world and recreates programs of everyone all together. As far as I watched, he did it so he could find some happiness before he died of old age.

This interpretation made the most sense to me. Censorship tied their hands and death of one half of a paring is a common cop-out in Cn BL's, so making Lanzhu not exist was the closest thing they could get to killing him off.
It's a sad ending, the show deserved better, but that's what we got because of censorship. Still, the show is amazing.

For me it's absolutely a hit! My 2nd fave BL series, it's amazing even with the censorship.

I think they hoped making Lanzhu not real and cease to exist in the end, and having Jiushi waste his WHOLE life recreating the virtual world and programs just to see them all again would be a way to please China's no-homo government policy, but the show was still too obviously BL.

If they'd known it'd still fail to pass censorship, maybe we might have gotten a better ending in the series.

Yeah, the ending of the series was a downer in many ways. I agree.

The show wasn't approved though, and still isn't. It was released initially through some clever loopholes the show producers took advantage of, but China still took it down two hours after it aired, and it still isn't on iQiyi because it's not censored enough. The international re-release on Viki and Viu came later. The non platonic relationship between the ML's is too obvious right from episode 1 so China hasn't approved it.

Basically, we're lucky to have it. Fully and completely released.

The book is quite different, and the ending of the book is totally different, 11/10.
Both the series and book are great in the own ways actually, but unfortunately the ending of the series is to be blamed on censorship in China. I usually advise people to skip the last 8 minutes of episode 38 and instead read the novel from chapter 130 until the end, where Qiushi (Jiushi) enters the 11th door, and take that as the over all ending. That's what I did.
The novel ending ties in very well with the series if you stop watching there.