AleksandraSucur

Wasn't Jin the head doc her third bro-in-law, not nephew?

It's difficult to answer your question (what can you expect). For sure, you can expect great and many, many fights, but you won't easily get who is who (many characters/names/sects appear in first eps and not all are relevant for the story) and why all these people fight, or to distinguish between the core conflict (I am watching ep 17 and the three protagonists are still after the clues leading to the core conspiracy and ultimate villain) and the secondary ones.
As Zhan Zhao is one of the protagonists of "Seven Heroes and Five Gallants", a viewer who read and liked that classic expects a mix of wuxia and gong'an, that particular space where jianhu people meets with upright officials, exchange opinions and, sometimes, cross swords before clearing the misunderstandings or nearing their povs, in order to fight the "real enemy" of the both sides or to crash down an illusion, prejudice, superstition or intrigue. Although he was mentioned few times, Justice Bao doesn't appear and the storytelling is only marginally focused on the investigation conducted by Zhan Zhao, depicted as he is almost always "a step behind" the hidden villain (eg. traces and clues get cold, witnesses or minor villains get killed etc.). Not only the typical gong'an elements are missing here, there's also a general lack of suspense one would expect. Finally, although we see Bai Yu Tang and Ding "twins", Zhi Hua - who's also one of the "seven heroes" in the original classics and a great helper of justice Bao - here appears as a great villain, with very different characterial traits, which is very confusing.
Ofc., people who are not familiar with the world of justice Bao (Song dynasty before the Mongolian conquest) won't notice these particular issues, but they'll also feel smth is problematic with the storytelling: the investigation on abductions of girls is dragged for too many eps. with no sufficient clues dropped to hint on what is major conspiracy (behind their abduction and corruption/blackmailing of officials) about, lowering the motivation to continue to watch. I'm still watching but with no particular excitement, expectation or motivation (that's why I'm 2-3 eps behind)

His fear definitely messed with my mindset. I am an islander myself, condemned to live a life on the continent for purposes of work, thus separated from my natural water habitat. In order to alleviate this misery, years ago I've started to volunteer in my local ngo which provides assistance to children and youth with various disabilities. Throughout these years, I've created and carried out courses of tai chi (mixed with some basics of general self-defence techniques and other martial arts. espc. styles involving animal mimicking) in a swimming pools for blind, deaf, autistic etc. kids with many other different underlying pathologies and invalidities to give a meaningful purpose for my own daily need to be in contact with the water, although it's an artificial one. The reason I've done this is because THE WATER IS A SAFE PLACE for "my kids", if they accidentally fall, they fall safely, there's nothing softer than the water and better for proprioception development. And as our lessons all end with a relaxing swimming in a deep-water swimming pool, after a certain time, all of them start to look down on "normal" swimmers (deaf see, blind hear splashing...), bc. in the water, they are silent water animals: dolphins, crocodiles, sharks, fish... totally in control of their movements. I think I've turned them all in "islanders", who feel no fear to jump into it (head down even if they are hydrocephalus), who know the water is not only the safe place where they can do all the things they can't outside but the SPACE they control, love and fully embrace. The space where they can fully express themselves bc they conquered it through movements and own it.

Being an islander afraid of water makes BYT's character even more contraddictory and strange. Maybe he should really be called a "cat", not a "rat", rats are actually excellent swimmers while cats hate water 😂😂😂

While watching the 3rd ep of Zhan Zhao's Adventures (the fight with the venom sect), came here to check certain names and saw your comment... lol, your reference to Alejandro Jodorowsky reminded me immediately of the plot and of what I've liked in the drama. And also of what I've disliked (its distance from the original story), the reason why I've rated it only 8 at the time.
Btw., I see you're also at the ep 3 of ZZA.

You've misunderstood again. I wasn't complaining about your long explanations but of the fact we are all aware of the picture you've correctly illustrated. That picture however didn't address the issues I've pointed out: your explanation was about the "finger", not about the "moon" behind it.

yup, a propos the "evil gene", I found interesting that she didn't acknowledged this Xia as her father, as if she was in a denial (mentally refusing such a terrible fact), it felt very consequential, logical.

tnx for your long explanation, but that much we've all got it. In particular, your "When she can't stand it anymore she goes wild (...)". What I've pointed out is "when she can't stand it anymore?" "when she stops being an obedient student-cultivator?" as a question. Besides, her cultivation didn't crash after she killed those officials and Gui master (whom she fought with Golden Core abilities bc. Gui turned the time to the point when she was at her peak), her power level advanced from 4th Qi to Fundamental Core level.
Therefore, we have no clue what exactly triggers her shift in "mode/mood" nor it is given for granted that her previous advancements crashed because "she intervened in mortal affairs". This is what she says thinking the regression is a sort of "punishment" for her "breaking bad". And even if it is so, how this "punishment" works, what exactly implement it, is it a "divine intervention", is it carried out by a teacher or seniors of the sect or is it self-inflicted, through some sort of inconscious mechanism?
Lack of these elements impede us to have a whole picture of her character, making her inconsistent.

Yes, I agree with your statement. ML said today something about A Sheng being unapproachable or distrustful towards people (with the FL being an exception) but very straightforward in expressing her standings. In casual speech today we would say she is very... no bullshit, no nonsense person and this particular trait is actually... charming, relateable in a different way, we know exactly what to expect from her.
I also agree with you that the FL is way less fascinating, but unlike you, I don't think it's the actress's fault. The root is in the script and the problem isn't in the fact FL's character contains certain contraddictions (Xin Mei actually lamented several times she is confused, asks for directions or explanations for what she perceives as problematic/confusing and is also aware she is not always in a control of her emotions and temper), but in the fact we've seen more than a half of this drama and still a) have no clue what to expect from this character, b) have no clue what triggers her shifting from rational, meek and goodhearted girl to a badass ready to punish and kill while seeking justice for complete strangers, not only without asking for the other side's opinion (as she would do in her "rational mode") but refusing even to hear the name of the person she is to fight, dismissing his/her presentations as "too much talk" and c) what she lamented (confusion etc.) is insufficient to mitigate OUR confusion about her character.
These three facts combined brought me to a logical conclusion: her character is simply inconsistently written (and how the FL is written is not the only flaw in the script). Any other actress in this role would give the same inconsistent vibes. Maybe, before this actress, the role was offered to those who are more experienced in leading roles and they've said: no, thanks, this character isn't properly written.

I don't get why everybody is upset with A Sheng. Her possessive behaviour towards Mei is totally consequential to her persona, abused and traumatised as a child. Yesterday I've noticed there's no normal parent in this drama, almost all characters suffered some form of trauma as children. Yet the only person who behaves consequentially to this fact is A Sheng, who is showing typical symptoms of abandonment syndrome - the thought she could be separated from the only person who gave her warmth and security freaks her out: that's why she went after her in the first place after binding her teacher.
Truly irritating is this swarming horde locusts, pieces of sh*t who think they are stars and heroes. "Immortal cultivators" which - what an irony - destroy cultivation, convinced they have every right to do it. I can't stand them any more, must FF each time they appear on screen. Writers should have mercy on us and send them to hell asap

As "protection providers" of the commoners, sects enjoy high privileges, reputation and payments from taxes. If the commoners regain the knowledge to create sophisticated arms and defences, ie. if they become able to protect themselves without special powers of cultivators, the role of the latter will greatly diminish, that's why they see as their vested interest to prevent the commoners to acquire any further knowledge

Yeah, because that's a separate type of bad parenting and bleak surrounding a (usually narcissist) parent created: the one aimed to create mercilessness, blind obeyance and competiveness espc. in pleasing the parent. Actually, this type is more realistic, while the first one is far from realistic. Once grown-up, traumatized children tend to lack self confidence, as they percieve themselves not worthy of love or responsible for the abuses suffered... not to mention the abandonment syndrome which impedes them to control emotions and manage their daily tasks.
I def. dislike the fondness for this trope and it isn't actually only Chinese, I have a feeling that Asian writers in general are convinced that the harsher is one's childhood, the more extraordinary the child will be once grown up. Even in rare cases when such children succeed to excell in something (eg. sports or arts), the past traumas backlash in form of abuse of substances and disfunctional emotional relations.

Not a single normal parent in this drama. C-drama authors seem to be a little bit too obsessed with the idea that all heroes must have had a horrible childhood, as if their extraordinariety is somehow linked with a past trauma. And to make the trope complete, that traumatic experience will always push them to long for a "normal", quite & peaceful life.

The authors must have reached their exhaustion limits in creation of annoying characters after they've written Jiang Ji and Nangong guy with the flute - their only purpose in the story is to irritate the audience with their self-importance. These two left them with no energy to dedicate to a love rival's trope, lol

When will this drama finally be out?

👍😂😂😂

Heh, repeated push & pulls are also annoying. I imagine the scriptwriters couldn't skip the old sedimented animosity between the war demons and the immortal sects (which we've seen as arrogant hypocrites who don't care about the commoners, a trait typical for the universe built by the original creator), but the particular confrontation between LQQ and Mei should have been toned down, in line with their characters.
It isn't the first inconsistency btw.

yup, completely illogical

That was the lowest dialogue in the entire drama, less believeable than her lecturing sects' chiefs in Chongjing valley. Even the actress's perfect delivery of broken emotions couldn't cover up the lack of logic in her speech and the underlying unoriginal trope ("your clan killed mine, so you're my enemy")

that was a figure of speech, I was ironic. Ofc she didn't advanced tnx for her fight for injustice but the outcome of her fighting was that she advanced although the direct cause was smth else.