This review may contain spoilers
INTELLECTUAL FEAST WITH MORAL POISON - PART 1/2
Let me share the booty of a theme-hunting trek to the bottom of the C-drama “Lost You Forever.”
TODAY’S CIVILISATIONAL CRISIS AS THE KEY
A possible key to understanding this drama comes from today’s civilisational crisis. The war is not evil vs good. It is evil against non-evil. Evil is offensive, uses good as a disguise. Non-evil is in self-defence, without masks. Fascination with evil is characteristic of inexperienced persons who have yet to learn the hard way how foul the evil actually is. Once you experience the pain of physical or mental torture, you cannot imagine embracing it willingly. No matter if the person inflicting the pain evinces positive traits, noble objectives, kinship.
From EP1, this series was bound to divide viewers into opposing camps: those who got captivated by the nine-headed snake demon & those who appreciated the nine-tailed deity fox. In Chinese mythology, the snake brings flood, mire, infertility; the fox – life & family; it turns female (refined from the roughness of masculinity) after 15 years.
When Xiao Yao prefers to drown rather than let Xiang Liu kiss her, this rejection works on her subconscious layer. When she stands alone at the altar, vowing eternal love to the missing Tushan Jing, her consciousness has consolidated the decision.
Cang Xuan’s attempt to draw her away from that altar is like bereaving her of her maturity, ripping out of her the essence of her lifelong experience, acquired through blood & tears. Separating her from her icon of non-evil would be like killing them. Indulging in obsession, the young king develops resemblance to Chenrong Xin Yue…
ATROCITY – DEPICTION OR GLORIFICATION?
Brutality is evident in this drama. It permeates not only throne disputes, but also love, friendship, leisure, evident even in the awfully graphic depiction of meat dishes. I acknowledge that the story has impressive depth & you can bask in subtlety with no detriment to dignity, but there is also this gloomy side that covers the bright one.
It is decisive if the aim is to show to what extent atrocity is potentially present in life, or to glorify it to bewilder the viewers, stimulate crudest instincts, intimidate the non-evil. The intention is crucial.
The story did influence us morally. It tore a cleft between a few quiet observers (e.g. Hyperborea) & many acknowledged reviewers virtually devouring Tushan Jing (& the innocent actor), teaming up to find a fault on him, to mob him, to bereave him of his merit, exploiting his desolate state, wounds, damaged meridians. Moreover, though it was expressed explicitly that his renunciation of vengeance is deliberate, with awareness of the risk & price, it has obstinately been misinterpreted as one more weakness, to hit him yet harder & directly compromise Xiao Yao’s core wisdom.
I feel exasperated among so many Tushan Hous & Fangfeng Yi Yings…
My rewatch value will be 5: arithmetic average of 10 for the intellectual value but 0 for the misuse of violence.
Down with the glorification & relativisation of evil, justification of abuse, trivialisation of hurt!
TAOISM VS FREUDIANISM
On one hand, this work is rich in references to the Chinese heritage. There are quotations or phrases that follow the spirit of Taoism (naturalness), Confucianism (human coexistence), Buddhism (suffering vs desire).
Examples:
- “What is gained cannot make up for what is lost” from the ancient “Records of the Three Kingdoms,”
- Xiao Yao on maturing – “The broader the sky, the narrower the paths people can take,”
- Grand King on empathy – “My pain makes me relate to others who are in pain,”
- Xiang Liu on self-knowledge – “People need to evaluate their happiness or misery only by comparison with others” (similar to the proverb “Comparisons among men often kill those who compare”),
- Xiang Liu on love – “Parasol trees grow old together,”
- Tushan Jing on talent – “A tall tree is bound to attract phoenixes” (as in proverb: “When a tree is tall, phoenixes will come,”
- Xiao Yao on endurance – “Waiting is like putting the heart on top of a knife” – the Chinese word for patience is made of two elements: heart & knife. Xiao Yao is young but feels as if she were approaching the end of her life. Moving forward is her strategy of survival. She admits we cannot control two most important things: life & death.
On the other hand, the drama’s cosmology is marred with analogies to the Freudian vision. Id, ego, superego – respectively: Xiang Liu, Cang Xuan, Tushan Jing – are the drives here. The first one subconscious, unspoken, beastly. The second – self-assured & self-promoting, conscious of the reality, utilitarian. The last one – the wisest, transcending them all, self-sacrificing. Reactions of both orphans are Freudian too: they are haunted by alleged betrayal by mothers who died. Xiao Yao remembers feeling abandoned. For her, heroism is irresponsibility. Cang Xuan feels jealous that his mother chose to live for his father, not for him.
The creators evidently have a solid knowledge of modern psychology. Unfortunately, they seem to be focusing on aberrations rather that processes & mechanisms. We witness results of the unresolved trauma, sado-masochism, cannibalism, schizophrenia, depression, self-mutilation, suicidal tendencies, extreme introversion, Stockholm syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder for numbers (15, 37, 300, 400), germs (early A Nian) or flower-eating.
Dissociative identity disorder manifests itself in the lacking or shifting face: Xiao Yao, Xiang Liu, the nine-tailed fox, Xiling Heng (face burnt & replicated as A Nian’s mother), Tushan Hou’s warriors, Zuo Er (ear), Cang Xuan (visit to Haoling during war). Dyed hair, impersonation or changing names are also sources or signs of instability of identity.
Proclivity to incest: in ancient China marriages between cousins were discouraged, esp. when the fathers were brothers. During the Ming dynasty they were even banned (but judging from the hanfus & insistence on Confucian world-view, this drama is a fantasy on the Song times). Regardless of the gender of the parents who are siblings, marriages between cousins are likely to give offspring prone to congenital defects, esp. in families with the history of such close marriages. Cang Xuan’s obsession with his cousin may reflect his inner desire to have everything in this world available to him, under his control. Also Xiang Liu has an unclear relationship with Chi Cheng: he pays respect at that demon’s grave, Li Rong Ji mistakes the one for the other. I was expecting Xiang Liu to turn out to be Xiao Yao’s half-brother.
ARE EVIL & NON-EVIL REALLY SEPARATE?
We might be satisfied with a clean division of characters into evil & non-evil ones. Yet this drama features mostly complex characters with inner fight. Xiang Liu has nine heads but only one heart. He takes without consent, boosts misery, misinterprets fearful obedience as willing participation. If you try to assume that his blood-sucking act is symbolic of a yearning for the physical closeness, I must disappoint you – watch him discard her casually each time after that act is complete. But then that look…
To evaluate the Machiavellian Cang Xuan’s decision to raid neighbouring countries, including his Master’s, we need an answer to the question: does the country need a war? In China’s history, consolidation was seen necessary to bring favourable development. But Cang Xuan’s employment of propagandists & calculated crypto-altruistic help to the civilians to deal with the flood are reminiscent of globalisation & ‘peace missions.’ Cang Xuan sees war as na ‘effort,’ human losses as justifiable. Calculating approach to life is also a post-trauma life strategy.
Tushan Jing says his heart is too small to contain the whole world, only one person. He has an inner strength of forgiving, a discerning eye which knows whom to love & support. He stands for the civilisation-making force that gets cast away by brute force. Many viewers have been tricked into believing that this paragon of meekness has no dark side. Yet his vice is demonstrated explicitly. Even Xiao Yao fails to notice it, though Xiang Liu takes her twice to a place…
At the underground arena where gladiators kill to survive, Xiao Yao is overjoyed when Zuo Er wins. But she does not take a larger perspective: Zuo Er’s victory equals the death of 40+ gladiators. It is the Tushan family who rents the casino & the perfectly likeable Li Rong Chang is the one who runs it. If you have any hope that only Tushan Hou knows about the den, in S2 we see his brother calmly observe the illegal underground business he profits from. The glass is like a TV screen; Jing is as indifferent as a Sunday Netflix watcher.
His shipping agency is also shady. He delivers any shipment to or from Xiang Liu without inquiring what is inside. Let alone his populistic military advice.
The careless ‘woof-woof’ pronounced by Xiao Yao during both visits to the casino is her subconscious denial of the fact that though Tushan Jing is her private harbour of mildness, he is responsible for exploitation & loss of many innocent lives traded for sadistic fun of his clients.
Tushan Jing & Xiao Yao change identities & devote themselves to medicine. However, by leaving Tian as the family chief, they ruin the chance of saving the orphan from inheriting the infamous casino.
So where is the dividing line between characters lovable & those worth contempt? It lies in their readiness for introspection & remorse. Observe that everybody who matters for the plot feels bad about him/herself: guilty, unfulfilled, limited. Both siblings admit having an overall negative personality. Xiang Liu will not contain any notion of not being ‘a villain.’ Tushan Jing expresses himself as an ‘unfaithful scoundrel’ & ‘rogue.’ Conversely, inveterate villains, like the 5th & 7th uncles, the Matroness Tushan, Fangfeng Yi Ying or Tushan Hou, do not feel a need for self-evaluation.
End of Part 1. Please follow Part 2 (published under Season 2).
TODAY’S CIVILISATIONAL CRISIS AS THE KEY
A possible key to understanding this drama comes from today’s civilisational crisis. The war is not evil vs good. It is evil against non-evil. Evil is offensive, uses good as a disguise. Non-evil is in self-defence, without masks. Fascination with evil is characteristic of inexperienced persons who have yet to learn the hard way how foul the evil actually is. Once you experience the pain of physical or mental torture, you cannot imagine embracing it willingly. No matter if the person inflicting the pain evinces positive traits, noble objectives, kinship.
From EP1, this series was bound to divide viewers into opposing camps: those who got captivated by the nine-headed snake demon & those who appreciated the nine-tailed deity fox. In Chinese mythology, the snake brings flood, mire, infertility; the fox – life & family; it turns female (refined from the roughness of masculinity) after 15 years.
When Xiao Yao prefers to drown rather than let Xiang Liu kiss her, this rejection works on her subconscious layer. When she stands alone at the altar, vowing eternal love to the missing Tushan Jing, her consciousness has consolidated the decision.
Cang Xuan’s attempt to draw her away from that altar is like bereaving her of her maturity, ripping out of her the essence of her lifelong experience, acquired through blood & tears. Separating her from her icon of non-evil would be like killing them. Indulging in obsession, the young king develops resemblance to Chenrong Xin Yue…
ATROCITY – DEPICTION OR GLORIFICATION?
Brutality is evident in this drama. It permeates not only throne disputes, but also love, friendship, leisure, evident even in the awfully graphic depiction of meat dishes. I acknowledge that the story has impressive depth & you can bask in subtlety with no detriment to dignity, but there is also this gloomy side that covers the bright one.
It is decisive if the aim is to show to what extent atrocity is potentially present in life, or to glorify it to bewilder the viewers, stimulate crudest instincts, intimidate the non-evil. The intention is crucial.
The story did influence us morally. It tore a cleft between a few quiet observers (e.g. Hyperborea) & many acknowledged reviewers virtually devouring Tushan Jing (& the innocent actor), teaming up to find a fault on him, to mob him, to bereave him of his merit, exploiting his desolate state, wounds, damaged meridians. Moreover, though it was expressed explicitly that his renunciation of vengeance is deliberate, with awareness of the risk & price, it has obstinately been misinterpreted as one more weakness, to hit him yet harder & directly compromise Xiao Yao’s core wisdom.
I feel exasperated among so many Tushan Hous & Fangfeng Yi Yings…
My rewatch value will be 5: arithmetic average of 10 for the intellectual value but 0 for the misuse of violence.
Down with the glorification & relativisation of evil, justification of abuse, trivialisation of hurt!
TAOISM VS FREUDIANISM
On one hand, this work is rich in references to the Chinese heritage. There are quotations or phrases that follow the spirit of Taoism (naturalness), Confucianism (human coexistence), Buddhism (suffering vs desire).
Examples:
- “What is gained cannot make up for what is lost” from the ancient “Records of the Three Kingdoms,”
- Xiao Yao on maturing – “The broader the sky, the narrower the paths people can take,”
- Grand King on empathy – “My pain makes me relate to others who are in pain,”
- Xiang Liu on self-knowledge – “People need to evaluate their happiness or misery only by comparison with others” (similar to the proverb “Comparisons among men often kill those who compare”),
- Xiang Liu on love – “Parasol trees grow old together,”
- Tushan Jing on talent – “A tall tree is bound to attract phoenixes” (as in proverb: “When a tree is tall, phoenixes will come,”
- Xiao Yao on endurance – “Waiting is like putting the heart on top of a knife” – the Chinese word for patience is made of two elements: heart & knife. Xiao Yao is young but feels as if she were approaching the end of her life. Moving forward is her strategy of survival. She admits we cannot control two most important things: life & death.
On the other hand, the drama’s cosmology is marred with analogies to the Freudian vision. Id, ego, superego – respectively: Xiang Liu, Cang Xuan, Tushan Jing – are the drives here. The first one subconscious, unspoken, beastly. The second – self-assured & self-promoting, conscious of the reality, utilitarian. The last one – the wisest, transcending them all, self-sacrificing. Reactions of both orphans are Freudian too: they are haunted by alleged betrayal by mothers who died. Xiao Yao remembers feeling abandoned. For her, heroism is irresponsibility. Cang Xuan feels jealous that his mother chose to live for his father, not for him.
The creators evidently have a solid knowledge of modern psychology. Unfortunately, they seem to be focusing on aberrations rather that processes & mechanisms. We witness results of the unresolved trauma, sado-masochism, cannibalism, schizophrenia, depression, self-mutilation, suicidal tendencies, extreme introversion, Stockholm syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder for numbers (15, 37, 300, 400), germs (early A Nian) or flower-eating.
Dissociative identity disorder manifests itself in the lacking or shifting face: Xiao Yao, Xiang Liu, the nine-tailed fox, Xiling Heng (face burnt & replicated as A Nian’s mother), Tushan Hou’s warriors, Zuo Er (ear), Cang Xuan (visit to Haoling during war). Dyed hair, impersonation or changing names are also sources or signs of instability of identity.
Proclivity to incest: in ancient China marriages between cousins were discouraged, esp. when the fathers were brothers. During the Ming dynasty they were even banned (but judging from the hanfus & insistence on Confucian world-view, this drama is a fantasy on the Song times). Regardless of the gender of the parents who are siblings, marriages between cousins are likely to give offspring prone to congenital defects, esp. in families with the history of such close marriages. Cang Xuan’s obsession with his cousin may reflect his inner desire to have everything in this world available to him, under his control. Also Xiang Liu has an unclear relationship with Chi Cheng: he pays respect at that demon’s grave, Li Rong Ji mistakes the one for the other. I was expecting Xiang Liu to turn out to be Xiao Yao’s half-brother.
ARE EVIL & NON-EVIL REALLY SEPARATE?
We might be satisfied with a clean division of characters into evil & non-evil ones. Yet this drama features mostly complex characters with inner fight. Xiang Liu has nine heads but only one heart. He takes without consent, boosts misery, misinterprets fearful obedience as willing participation. If you try to assume that his blood-sucking act is symbolic of a yearning for the physical closeness, I must disappoint you – watch him discard her casually each time after that act is complete. But then that look…
To evaluate the Machiavellian Cang Xuan’s decision to raid neighbouring countries, including his Master’s, we need an answer to the question: does the country need a war? In China’s history, consolidation was seen necessary to bring favourable development. But Cang Xuan’s employment of propagandists & calculated crypto-altruistic help to the civilians to deal with the flood are reminiscent of globalisation & ‘peace missions.’ Cang Xuan sees war as na ‘effort,’ human losses as justifiable. Calculating approach to life is also a post-trauma life strategy.
Tushan Jing says his heart is too small to contain the whole world, only one person. He has an inner strength of forgiving, a discerning eye which knows whom to love & support. He stands for the civilisation-making force that gets cast away by brute force. Many viewers have been tricked into believing that this paragon of meekness has no dark side. Yet his vice is demonstrated explicitly. Even Xiao Yao fails to notice it, though Xiang Liu takes her twice to a place…
At the underground arena where gladiators kill to survive, Xiao Yao is overjoyed when Zuo Er wins. But she does not take a larger perspective: Zuo Er’s victory equals the death of 40+ gladiators. It is the Tushan family who rents the casino & the perfectly likeable Li Rong Chang is the one who runs it. If you have any hope that only Tushan Hou knows about the den, in S2 we see his brother calmly observe the illegal underground business he profits from. The glass is like a TV screen; Jing is as indifferent as a Sunday Netflix watcher.
His shipping agency is also shady. He delivers any shipment to or from Xiang Liu without inquiring what is inside. Let alone his populistic military advice.
The careless ‘woof-woof’ pronounced by Xiao Yao during both visits to the casino is her subconscious denial of the fact that though Tushan Jing is her private harbour of mildness, he is responsible for exploitation & loss of many innocent lives traded for sadistic fun of his clients.
Tushan Jing & Xiao Yao change identities & devote themselves to medicine. However, by leaving Tian as the family chief, they ruin the chance of saving the orphan from inheriting the infamous casino.
So where is the dividing line between characters lovable & those worth contempt? It lies in their readiness for introspection & remorse. Observe that everybody who matters for the plot feels bad about him/herself: guilty, unfulfilled, limited. Both siblings admit having an overall negative personality. Xiang Liu will not contain any notion of not being ‘a villain.’ Tushan Jing expresses himself as an ‘unfaithful scoundrel’ & ‘rogue.’ Conversely, inveterate villains, like the 5th & 7th uncles, the Matroness Tushan, Fangfeng Yi Ying or Tushan Hou, do not feel a need for self-evaluation.
End of Part 1. Please follow Part 2 (published under Season 2).
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