Day 9/30 of analyzing sangyang until season 3 comes back on the 23rd. Today I’m analyzing the characters of yajin and mali. I’m analyzing them together rather than separately because there honestly isn’t too much on them to say individually, but their relationship with each other is very interesting.
Yajin and Mali are heir and guardian of the fifth collateral line, the wen, who are collectively nonexistent to the head family essentially. As the fifth collateral line, they are last in the pecking order and therefore only have a house and a small plot of land to their name. They’re more of the simple, artsy types: yajin knowing how to carve and Mali knowing how to tattoo.
Mali is mostly gentle, caring and above all protective of yajin. I also find his family very interesting. Unlike all of the other guardian families, who are descendants of military families, Mali’s family is a line of shamans. I think the reason for this is because again, the fifth collateral line is last in the pecking order so they couldn’t find a military family in the past, so they just chose a line of strong shamans. I also find it very interesting how mali’s grandma mentioned that her son also fell victim to the Zhou family’s curse, which is what she calls each guardian hearing their heirs voice in a time of need.
When we first meet Mali, yajin characterizes him as being very punctual and having a strong routine, to the point of ocd. I find this ironic because yajin also seems to have some sort of hyperfixation on time as well (see the panel of him with the clocks). This of course, is the product of the Zhou family’s ritual, similar to fu Rin.
In yajin’s flashback in season 2, we can see how he became this way. He lived alone in his house up in the mountains as a child as part of the ritual, and only when Mali finds him is he able to feel peace. Not only because of the bond between them, but because Mali tangibly makes his life better (ie fixing the lightbulb) and later provides for him. Yajin is unhealthily attached to Mali in the present (having a wall full of clocks just so he can always tell the time when Mali will be back, waiting out for him in the cold when he’s not going to return for half an hour more, etc), just as the Zhou family intended.
Of course what makes their role in the story even more interesting is their representation of the lengths the head family is willing to go to clean house. Their house was burned down by the Zhou family and they were left for dead by everyone but Lau. In the process, the iron awl (the wen family’s holy ritual artifact) went missing (and later on in chapter 25 & 78 we can see that Lian has it).
Ps I love how cute their dogs are and how well they match their owners.
Day 9/30 of analyzing sangyang until season 3 comes back on the 23rd.
Today I’m analyzing the characters of yajin and mali. I’m analyzing them together rather than separately because there honestly isn’t too much on them to say individually, but their relationship with each other is very interesting.
Yajin and Mali are heir and guardian of the fifth collateral line, the wen, who are collectively nonexistent to the head family essentially. As the fifth collateral line, they are last in the pecking order and therefore only have a house and a small plot of land to their name. They’re more of the simple, artsy types: yajin knowing how to carve and Mali knowing how to tattoo.
Mali is mostly gentle, caring and above all protective of yajin. I also find his family very interesting. Unlike all of the other guardian families, who are descendants of military families, Mali’s family is a line of shamans. I think the reason for this is because again, the fifth collateral line is last in the pecking order so they couldn’t find a military family in the past, so they just chose a line of strong shamans. I also find it very interesting how mali’s grandma mentioned that her son also fell victim to the Zhou family’s curse, which is what she calls each guardian hearing their heirs voice in a time of need.
When we first meet Mali, yajin characterizes him as being very punctual and having a strong routine, to the point of ocd. I find this ironic because yajin also seems to have some sort of hyperfixation on time as well (see the panel of him with the clocks). This of course, is the product of the Zhou family’s ritual, similar to fu Rin.
In yajin’s flashback in season 2, we can see how he became this way. He lived alone in his house up in the mountains as a child as part of the ritual, and only when Mali finds him is he able to feel peace. Not only because of the bond between them, but because Mali tangibly makes his life better (ie fixing the lightbulb) and later provides for him. Yajin is unhealthily attached to Mali in the present (having a wall full of clocks just so he can always tell the time when Mali will be back, waiting out for him in the cold when he’s not going to return for half an hour more, etc), just as the Zhou family intended.
Of course what makes their role in the story even more interesting is their representation of the lengths the head family is willing to go to clean house. Their house was burned down by the Zhou family and they were left for dead by everyone but Lau. In the process, the iron awl (the wen family’s holy ritual artifact) went missing (and later on in chapter 25 & 78 we can see that Lian has it).
Ps I love how cute their dogs are and how well they match their owners.