|
Snowglobe of Doom posted:Given how easily manipulated he was I guess they figured that he'd risen as high as he could from sheer meatheaded muscle power and was never going to survive long in the cutthroat world of palace politics so he'd be a bad longterm investment. Much better to run a quick 'pump & dump', to borrow a phrase He doesn't seem to be an idiot, we just rarely see him in his element. Enabling access to any of her "big sisters" suggests Maomao thinks he'd be worth it going forward - yeah she needed the favor, but she also loves her sisters and knows how the madam works. It is, despite everything, a vote of confidence in him.
|
#
¿
Dec 1, 2023 00:06
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 17, 2024 21:27 |
|
|
Been reading the LNs as well. Translation's a little stiff sometimes but it's fun to get the extra details. The narration kind of shifts randomly between an objective narrator to something tinged with Maomao's perspective even though it's not specifically her narrating. This ends up making the observation that Jinshi is so pretty he could "bring the country/world to its knees" feel even more like it's coming from Maomao than an objective narration, and it comes up a lot. (Or feels like it does. I'm binging a bit.) Sure, lots of other people are into the very pretty eunuch, but she certainly dwells on it. Makes Maomao feel way more in the LNs like she's got it really bad for Jinshi but is also violently allergic to even acknowledging that train of thought - which, y'know, fair. And puts an amusing perspective on her more... ahem... catty observations about Jinshi early on. She's so fixed on not thinking too deeply about him that it makes her constant inability to put together all the Very Obvious Foreshadowing just another product of the stubbornness that makes her own life messier and harder sometimes.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 1, 2023 07:56
|
|
|
Oh, absolutely. Aside from her general cynicism from growing up in the Pleasure District, Maomao's got lots of very good reasons not to even begin to entertain any thoughts further than "he sure is pretty" because of how aware she is of the differences in station. Poor girl feels like she's in denial more in the LNs than she comes off in the manga or anime thanks to the nature of the presentation. She almost deliberately refuses to be aware she's actually in a number of powerful people's confidences and could get away with being more informal and frank when in private with them... and then she goes and does one of her weird little drug goblin antics, and doesn't understand that she did anything wrong and how much slack she's actually being given. I love it.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 2, 2023 23:50
|
|
|
Mid volume 3, specifically the story getting into the dead former emperor in more detail than just "he liked little girls in the very bad way." So still behind where the manga's at in Japan but a little beyond the latest official English release. (Which I intend on picking up very soon.) Cripes, there are like 14 volumes of the LN, only 9 of which are out in English yet. The anime hasn't left volume 1 yet. I am really looking forward to the volume 2 content hitting just because a certain hilarious rear end in a top hat who features heavily is still my favorite secondary character, and I want to be able to talk about them.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 3, 2023 00:37
|
|
|
sharkmafia posted:My favorite volume of the LN is probably still volume 2, yeah. I have some issues with the later light novels that I'm not going to get into because of spoilers but I love all the material the anime is going to cover in this season, or even in a hypothetical second one of the same length Wikipedia claims it's been set for two cours so we're absolutely getting volume 2 next season.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 3, 2023 18:33
|
|
|
Most of the people involved are operating at a level where salt is much more affordable. And it seems to be here that once you have much of any money, you're very much expected to be profligate with it.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 3, 2023 18:53
|
|
|
She does specifically observe a couple times in the LNs that even her displays of humility must be handled very carefully because if they go too far they end up sounding like she's contradicting the person who's sent for her for a task. Her first clue that she's pushing it is usually the attendants' reactions, if any are around. It's also part of why she almost never volunteers information unless asked, because a truly humble servant shuts the hell up unless called upon.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 4, 2023 18:28
|
|
|
Pan Dulce posted:For anyone who reads the LNs I have a question. How many manga volumes are in one LN? Does it vary? About four manga volumes per LN volume, with a little wiggle room - like part of volume 8 in the manga is actually the first couple chapters of LN volume 3. And yeah I'm keeping my peace about later manga and LN stuff, and really hope everyone else reading ahead does too.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 11, 2023 22:04
|
|
|
Ah-Duo's pretty cool. Would have liked to have spent more time with her. Lishu, I mostly just feel sorry for. What a mess she's been through.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 17, 2023 19:05
|
|
|
Finished book 4 earlier today after getting distracted for a bit. I've got some quibbles but overall pretty good still! A lot of stuff pays off, so much that having started book 5 it feels like I'm in for a lot of "well crap time to set up new plot pieces" for a while. Still a positive recommend on them so far for anyone inclined to check them out.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 18, 2023 04:30
|
|
|
trucutru posted:They look like two peas in a pod in the manga too. I haven't read the books but I suspect that the introduction to Ah Duo is something like "she looks exactly like Jinshi but 2 inches shorter" Not quite that blatant immediately, but it does lean on it pretty hard pretty quickly. You are extremely meant to make the connection this early on.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 18, 2023 07:54
|
|
|
Yeah, I'm pretty sure at the moment any "romance" between them is 100% intentionally unhealthy and unworkable. There's a terrible distance between them that she can't trust can ever be overcome, she's conscious of him but also incredibly jaded about the very idea of love. Hell, there aren't really any healthy relationships in the series thus far - the closest is the Emperor with two of his consorts, and even that's tainted by all the everything around it. Meanwhile Maomao is becoming the unattainable love for the man who is himself so many people's unattainable love. Like not to do the wink-wink-nudge-nudge Totally Not Spoilers thing from having read ahead but things do not get simple for them. And the issues aren't totally on Maomao's end.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 7, 2024 04:48
|
|
|
"No, Maomao, not herpes, herpetology."
|
|
#
¿
Jan 8, 2024 23:40
|
|
|
Maomao's also just incredibly jaded. She comes from a background where women are literally bought and sold under a convenient legal fiction to declare it "not slavery." Pursuing a partner she wants for herself has never been in the cards and she grew up knowing this. And then she ended up in one of the highest places in the realm... where women are still treated functionally the same way even if people are too refined to talk about prices in silver. The story tends to skim over this fact but Jinshi outright bought her to bring her back to the palace after she was dismissed. She obviously does think he's hot, she muses on it a lot, but god drat there's no way she's going to be remotely willing to so much as entertain a personal thought on that any time soon.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 11, 2024 01:01
|
|
|
Nitrousoxide posted:Man, I don't know in world y'all are living in where Maomao is desperately holding herself back from jumping Jinshi just because he's got too much baggage. She's creeped out by him and shivers in disgust every time he gets handsy or close. She can recognize he's physically attractive without wanting to jump his bones in secret. I think if things were (very) different she'd be inclined to give it a shot. She does muse about his beauty a lot and never really does about anyone else. But as far as baggage goes, it's way more her own than anyone else's. The baggage of their respective stations just adds more dimensions to the trouble. Basically there are seeds of potential there and it's fun to speculate about the environment in which they may grow.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 11, 2024 01:59
|
|
|
The series is super into how women live in and navigate this world. How you do what you have to do to get by, how some romanticize it, how some learn to manipulate it. How many are exploited, and some become exploiters in turn. And how men, even eunuchs who are looked down upon by other men, do a lot to construct and limit the women's world around them. Even as a eunuch, Jinshi is too well-off and powerful to not be stepping on a lot of the women around him as he moves, especially Maomao. I think it would actually be a worse - or at least less believable - story if he wasn't loving up like this and overstepping with her. He's still too used to not having to recognize most others' boundaries.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 11, 2024 09:09
|
|
|
Yeah, she's tiny and Lihaku is a huge dude. She's been near to outright malnourished most of her life.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 14, 2024 01:45
|
|
|
That person is a fuckin' rollercoaster.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 21, 2024 01:48
|
|
|
Gaoshun has to anticipate the actions of some very stupid smart people around him, I guess when it comes to Maomao he just turns the propriety filter down about 30% when it comes to predicting how she'll behave.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 21, 2024 18:30
|
|
|
Random thought. The "La" is Lakan's family name. If Maomao was his and they did the same kind of thing with her name then  
|
|
#
¿
Jan 23, 2024 00:49
|
|
|
The seaweed/raw fish mystery will come back, though as a minor piece of the overall scheme that Maomao only sees by picking around the edges.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 28, 2024 04:10
|
|
|
Until someone showed her Fantasy Alchemy and then poison gremlin would become magical poison gremlin.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 7, 2024 22:48
|
|
|
Silver2195 posted:I assumed it wasn’t an actual memory so much as her imagination’s reconstruction of what happened. In the LN, it's more explicitly this. Or at least Maomao assumes it is, musing that she should not have been able to remember it, if it even happened this way.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 12, 2024 18:38
|
|
|
Or else they'd have resorted to a slightly different plan to create a possible disaster. Maybe the job to make the new fittings would have been given to a planned other smith who would have deliberately made them poorly, if Maomao hadn't reconciled the brothers, for example. It also won't be the only such attempt.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 17, 2024 23:33
|
|
|
Things being almost exclusively from Maomao's perspective is both an advantage and disadvantage to this. As an advantage, it helps keep the individual parts obscure from the reader so she looks smarter when she pieces them together, and braver when she decides to take the chance that she's actually right despite the consequences of being wrong. As a disadvantage, it does mean we only see what she brushes up against, and so it's got the appearance of a string of isolated incidents that turn into the Rube Goldberg murder machine instead of seeing the full system of little schemes creating opportunities to exploit for bigger schemes. On a broader level, there's a balance between being able to pull stuff out your rear end early on in a story and have it just be setting the scene, versus an asspull later in the story that's more obviously an asspull. And how that balance becomes incredibly wobbly in a longer series, because something that's an asspull later within a single story could still count as part of the set-up phase of the broader series. Like I love this arc, but it does wobble on that balance enough to draw me out of it a little bit too, but that wobble comes from doing double-duty telling a contained story that's also setting the scene for later.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 18, 2024 02:01
|
|
|
Nitrousoxide posted:As a LN reader I really enjoy everyone's speculation. Extremely. Like not to sound... smug? about it, but it's pretty neat seeing everyone else going through the, "Okay, what the gently caress is his game?" I had on first reading this stuff. Lakan's one of my favorite characters because he's such an interesting mess like this.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 19, 2024 18:24
|
|
|
We at least get the occasional sight of Jinshi handling piles of paperwork and managing problems in the inner palace. The latter of which regularly gives him an excuse to mess with Maomao, of course.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 20, 2024 08:23
|
|
|
Maomao also has just enough tact to not overtly show her disdain for someone more powerful than her (which is everyone), at least not in an obviously disrespectful way. Anyone provoking an open response of disgust or even just dislike is someone who has deeply bothered her.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 21, 2024 18:15
|
|
|
Her antics are pretty funny if you don't have to deal with them directly. She must be hilarious to him.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 10, 2024 19:09
|
|
|
Haystack posted:but they never even hint at what the consequences of failure are "Lakan will remember this."
|
|
#
¿
Mar 10, 2024 23:50
|
|
|
Winning this sort of little game is a good way for people at this level to distinguish themselves and buff up their reputations without getting anyone killed, too. Get a reputation for delivering the impossible or even just showing how to use your subordinates and other resources in clever, flexible ways. Ideally your generals and their men can be good for something other than violence, especially when it's peacetime.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 11, 2024 01:26
|
|
|
AnoHito posted:I think she's also just really bad with the administrative/bureaucratic stuff in general. She's only really good at physical sciences and logic. Basically if she went to a modern university she'd be the darling of the chemistry, bio, and pre-med departments, on track for early graduation and with different advisors trying to coax her into different doctorate programs... and then founders so hard on her first required gen-ed classes it tanks her average.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 12, 2024 19:33
|
|
|
Lakan is my favorite character in this arc for a reason. I think he really does intentionally present things so as to make Jinshi think he was referring to rape when he first brings up lowering a courtesan's price. Mostly because, when he even cares about how his actions are being received, he seems to like just loving with people and putting them off. We know Jinshi's a person of consequence, so for Lakan it's a power move to screw with him. And for fun, because he can get away with doing it just as easily as screwing with a commoner. Plus, it's probably to his advantage to seem just that ruthless. But then he's still vulnerable, he still has people he cares about and loves, he's just... really bad at it. Terrible, really. He's an awful person but definitely an interesting character.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 17, 2024 16:17
|
|
|
AtomikKrab posted:Correct, if he had seen what she meant, he could have bought her on the way out of town and taken her with him on campaign, nobody would have batted a drat eye at it Well, except he explicitly couldn't afford her, and claiming she was pregnant way before she showed would be seen as a naked attempt to mess with her price. And then he'd be gone by the time she did show and not yet powerful enough in his family or the army to make the necessary arrangements, as well as anticipating being back soon anyway.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 17, 2024 19:51
|
|
|
EDIT: haha posting while someone else is editing their thing, revealing I'm behind on the show too
|
|
#
¿
Mar 23, 2024 21:20
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 17, 2024 21:27 |
|
|
this allusion meant posted:finished up the show. good stuff. am i incorrect that some of the parental relationships in this are much less obvious in non-anime formats? because it kinda felt like at least two connections that are treated as ambiguous were actually really loudly signaled I'm assuming you mean Ah-Duo and Jinshi, and Maomao and Lakan? At least for the former, the immediately visible resemblance does give things away faster in anime and manga both, but not that much sooner than in the LN. It's not really meant to be a secret from the viewer/reader. It's pretty classic dramatic irony, at least to my understanding of the term - we know stuff that many characters don't and it casts a different light on everything they do.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 7, 2024 07:26
|
|