Return of the Condor Heroes eps 24-29

[meganbmoore]

Ok, honestly.  I get Xiao Long Nu leaving Yang Guo the first time-she thought they’d had sex(which wasn’t the case…it was the monk, but she didn’t know that) and then acting like it changed nothing between them and hadn’t happened.  She was pissed, neither one had enough experience to realize what the other was saying and she left.  The second time was because she(rightly according to the rules of their world) believed it was what was best for him.  But the third time? HONESTLY!

Ok, forget the fact that she KNOWS YG doesn’t like the brat and would never marry her, and that he’ll use that mouth of his to throw off his opponents.  The man has literally torn apart medieval China TWICE looking for her and literally laid down his life and unfailingly defended her countless times, and she hears him taunting the Wu brothers that Huang Rong has already chosen him as a son-in-law, and never mind the fact that the two were obviously mad at him for interrupting their fight(and you know, I like those two…they’re dim, and have HIGHLY questionable taste in women-though one seems to be getting over that-but they’re good guys and pretty nice and sweet at heart, they just let their hero worship for Guo Jing and HR rule them a little too much) XLN just immediately assumes he doesn’t love her and leaves.  (and, BTW, she’s been out and about in the world for at least a year, year and a half at this point…she doesn’t get to claim as much naivette as she did the first time)

Of course, she seems to completely forget about it by the time they’re reunited…probably because it was largely a plot device for her to be on her own when she learned the truth about the rape so she could hunt the monks and then wreak the temple.  Which, you know, was pretty impressive even if it did kinda backfire on her.

And you know, in some ways, watching them you can see why the romantic relationship between master and student was so taboo…her obsession with mending his clothes and the way she scolds him are both distinctly maternal, and his reaction to seeing her is often like a kid seeing mom after being away for a week, and his reactions to insults against her are very similar to that of a young, protective kid.

Of course, the main thing about these episodes is the birth and subsequent adventures of Guo Xiang(and her twin brother, but he’s so unimportant that they forgot to tell us about him until we saw HR with him and thought GX had been magically recovered for a few moments there) and YG losing his arm and the fallout from that.

First of all, having kung fu parents must make wuxia babies immortal, considering the things the poor things survive.  I mean, yeah, if there’s a baby involved(and it seems that it’s almost ALWAYS a girl) it MUST be put in danger and be protected by our hero(parent or otherwise)  and get tossed up in the air to free arms for fighting, but this poor thing was being tossed back and forth by heroes and villains both an hour after being born…she freaking RODE WHIRLING BLADES and was just fine.  She’s immortal I say, immortal(and obviously NOT a newborn, but we won’t dwell on that as no parent is going to go “oh sure, we’ll let your actor tote around our newborn child who can’t even hold her head up yet…oh, and one armed?  That’s fine.”)  Also?  Cute little kung fu babies reform villains.

Speaking of which, I loved the fight between HR and Li Mo Chou over GX…it was obvious who had the upper hand all along, and what she was up to(HR deciding whether to thank LMC for taking care of GX or kill her for kidnapping her) but I don’t think LMC has ever found herself outclassed before…and not just outclassed, but outclassed on every level, and to a point where there was never even a question of it being a contest.

Then there’s YG’s losing his arm because Fu’s a spoiled brat.  I’m sorry, I know she’s supposed to have attacked him because she thought he gave her infant sister to LMC to hurt her parents (not knowing that he knew LMC would take care of her and that he had to stop the Wu brothers from killing each other) but really, she seemed more upset that he wasn’t fawning over her and the baby seemed to be an afterthought.  It’s interesting, though…no matter what, no matter how justified it might be, he really can’t make himself hurt HR or Guo Jing and, as a result, Fu(and during their conversation,  it’s was so obvious that all he could think was “why the *bleep* do you have to be the daughter of people I respect and care about, so I can’t hurt you?” and he just wanted to ignore her so she’d go away)  I mean, he sets out to be all vengeful and the worst he can do is take GX(and make sure they know who has her) and treat her like his own kid.  And, of course, despite what Fu insisted(that he was going to trade her for an antidote) HR knew that he was just mad at them and would take care of her(and honestly, if he hadn’t had to find XLN, they’d probably have her back by now)  Losing his arm also seems to have chased away the last bit of his childishness.  Incidentally, what is it about losing an arm that makes cdrama guys hotter?  It happened in Chinese Paladin, too.  After an episode or two, it also doesn’t seem to really hold them back or be an impediment-heck, he looked like he was carrying XLN with both arms after they were reunited at the monks’ temple(incidentally, I find it funny because there are a few times where you can kinda tell the actor has his arm strapped to him under his clothes)

This also brings out an interesting contrast between Huang Rong and Guo Jing.  The only time GJ puts anything before his family is when it comes to his sense of right and wrong, and the only time HR allows anything to come before her pragmatism and her sense of right and wrong is when it comes to her family.  Just before HR gave birth and the mongolians were attacking, GJ was perfectly willing to sacrifice the city to save HR…he didn’t think of it that way, of course, until HR told him he couldn’t put her first…it was just his instinct to take care of her first, then worry about anything else after.  When Fu attacks YG, however, as far as he’s concerned, she’s a transgressor…she unjustly attacked a guest in his home, one injured aiding him, and there needed to be compensation.  It really didn’t matter who was the victim and who was the transgressor…the identities of both just made it more personal, but he would have reacted the same if it had been a random traveller injured trying to reclaim GX who Fu had attacked.

In contrast, HR knows that Fu was wrong and should be punished, but this is her daughter…right or wrong, no matter what she’s done, she will protect her daughter with her dying breath, no matter who wants to hurt her.  Like she tells Fu, she knows YG was wronged and is perfectly justified in wanting revenge, and GJ in demanding justice, but Fu is her daughter and she’ll always protect her(which seems to finally be drilling some sense into the brat, up until the innkeeper won’t take HR’s money because of her reputation and she’s all smirking and gloating even though HR is embarassed and is all “See? MY mother gets free things and so do I because she’s SPECIAL.”  Gaaah.  And she gets to marry Yi Qelu?  What’d such a sweet guy do o deserve such a fate?)

Mostly unrelated, but I just learned yesterday that in the ’83 version of RoCH-regarded by everyone as the best-they took out the rape plotline.  I mean….HOW?  You either rewrite the entire thing to cover for it or you have this huge, gaping plothole…