once again thinking about MDZS' flashback placement, and how we get to see wei wuxian's sadness and regret over how he treated lwj during sunshot before we actually see their first bad fight in the yiling courier station

like, sure we are told even by wwx himself that hgj and the yllz had a feud, but the only "feud" we've seen early on is their silly teenage rivalry, and before we get to the point where their relationship is strained, we already receive bits of pieces of information that point out to lwj being worried about him, lwj trying to reach out and being denied, and finally wei wuxian's lament over what he was already beginning to understand as a misunderstanding

and we haven't even seen that fight yet

(these are just some examples i could think from the top of my head, but there are def more. what i basically mean to say is that i think it matters that we see these right before the xuanwu cave, lotus pier destruction and wwx's return flashbacks)

Heyyyy. I wanted to know how if u know how cql differs from the original story. Which is better? I'm kinda lazy to read and the donghua seemed super rushed to me? The manhua i heard is similar but it doesnt give me the same vibe idk.... maybe it's just me. like even a few pointers about big story changes would help. tyyyyyyy

Heyy,

I wanna start by saying that I do love all adaptations, so I will do my best just to point out the differences without being partial (too much) for certain plot elements.

It's true that the drama is a neat way to experience the story at a slower pace, but it's so because in a TV series scenario it makes perfect sense for everything to be slower and laid out or fed to the viewer. It makes sense to overextend tender and dramatic moments or to take the time and add a bunch of funny hilarious bits.

The donghua however is absolutely amazing and 100% worth watching. The plot advancing quicker than in the drama or the novel actually makes a lot of sense given, well first this is animation. It focuses on what's really important and the way the action scenes are intertwined with the main story elements is absolutely astounding. In an animated medium they did the absolute best to bring this long story to life. Plus the art is absolutely GORGEOUS, down to every frame. I strongly recommend it.

The manhua does follow the novel almost to the letter which is so refreshing to see and it's so rad to read too, plus I like the art style and also no censorship xD

I love them all because they each work in their own way. Bringing the drama slow pace into the donghua wouldn't work at all as well as making CQL shorter and more action packed would look ridiculous.

Personally I think it's rad to watch them all and gain even more knowledge on an amazing story, by consuming the same story in multiple forms of media.I just think it's great to explore all the angles from which the story can be observed.

~

Onto a few major differences. I believe this list is far from complete, but I tried to jolt down what I could from memory:

-> Basically the main difference would be Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji uncovering the mystery of Nie Mingjue's death:

In CQL, this was changed from the novel plotline: dismembered arm(+ putting back the dismembered body) of his spirit, to a spirit sword. It ultimately leads to the same epic conclusion as it does in the novel. The culprit is unchanged, just the means to get there and the characters motivations along the way are altered.

-> Another major divergence would be the entire Yi Iron arc and the hunt for Yi Iron pieces, which takes a vast majority of the CQL flashbacks. This isn't present in the novel. The Yi Iron is only important because it practically explains the already existent and yet unpracticed demonic cultivation, which brings me to my next point.

-> In CQL Wei Wuxian is not the actual founder of demonic cultivation. Wei Wuxian still uses demonic cultivation and all his inventions are there, including of course the Stygian Tiger Amulet. The reasoning behind this is the Yi Iron plot I mentioned above, which was something that was uncovered and worshipped in the past and it's a tremendous source of dark energy and power. This leads to the fact that demonic cultivation already exists, despite no one actually using it except for Wei Wuxian (after finding the first piece in the Xuanwu shell).

-> To emphasize more on this, a big part of WWX's morality is altered in CQL. The necromancy part is also heavily downplayed in CQL. We see the same choices being made which inadvertently lead to the same conclusions, but he is always shown as more of a victim of circumstance or there's always a bigger plot at stake, pointing all the blame towards him.

Without going into a character analysis in this arc (because I absolutely adore WWX and I would talk about him for hours) I wanted to point out a few more things on this:

- In CQL he's shown to be in wrong place at the wrong time type of situations, which is sort of downgrading what the original intent behind his character was about.

- I feel like the novel has built WWX to be very self-aware and more realistic and human. He knows exactly where his stands and what his moral compass is the entire time. He blames himself even for stuff out of his control and every decision he ever made no mater how it was perceived as, was all rooted in and filtered through his absolute sense of justice and selflessness. He's aware of his mistakes and assumes responsibility. He's very absolute about the decisions he sticks to and he's extremely intelligent and calculated.

Then again, I'm not blaming CQL per say for altering this, I know every divergence to his character was solely due to censorship (as morality usually is in cdramas), I just wish he'd been given a lot more credit where credit is due, like in the novel. Because he deserves a lot more validation and recognition. Absolving him of everything he ever did is actually a disservice to all the pain he endured and all the work he put into the cause he believes in and simply striving to survive and in the unfair, judgemental cultivation world.

-> The structure of the story is different. The novel, donghua and manhua jump from flashbacks to present time back and forth, while in CQL, episode 3 to episode 33(halfway) are all flashbacks presenting the entire past story arc to you, before returning to the present fully. Again, to have everything laid out in order, works well in a TV series environment.

-> The relationship between WangXian evolves differently. The novel has Wei Wuxian mistakenly concluding that Lan Wangji doesn’t like him, driving a wedge between them after the Nightless City events. This of course, has a beautiful natural progression into romantic relationship, later on after he resurrects.

CQL on the other hand shows Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji having a very close relationship from the moment they reunite as Wei Wuxian died knowing Lan Wangji cares deeply about him. I believe this to be a bit utopic as, technically without previous explicit romantic affection - censorship -, Wei Wuxian's actions wouldn't normally lead to such an easy transition into them being extremely close, especially for someone as stoic as Lan Wangji. True, Lan Wangji has always believed in Wei Wuxian's sense of integrity and justice and this was prepared beforehand, however it would make even more sense if this was backed, like in the novel, by love as a powerful incentive.

-> Wei Wuxian's reincarnation in Mo Xuanyu's body doesn't cause him to alter his appearance in CQL. This isn't really explained except for subtle hints that Mo Xuanyu took precautions to ensure Wei Wuxian looked like his original self, but ofc we can tell it was done so due to convenience.

In the novel it's clearly stated how Wei Wuxian takes Mo Xuanyu's appearance which makes complete sense to happen after he used the Sacrifice Summon.

This would be about it as main pointers, if you'd like me to go into details for any of them please let me know. Otherwise I feel like this post is already long enough, heheh.

The a-yuan broke my heart, I was crying like the final flashback battle all over again but they were happy tears, ya know? THE LEG HUG!!! Also is it just my dumb self or was his costume slightly different between the walking and then the final playing in those final 30 seconds? Not lying it's perfect either way but oh if it's like a little while later I can't with my child. Also oh my goodness can that boy smile like a sunbeam, my heart has been restored from the PAIN, SO MUCH PAIN.

Also with bby!Nie I literally called it, I knew something was up I was screaming and hollering. Don’t get me wrong there’s enough in the flashback that yeah they’re all dumb together but there’s enough hints there, just enough. It was very well done that section. I’m being extremely vague in case the other anon’s still around. I literally love everyone on the show even though in some cases I really shouldn’t because… jsdjcsd they belong in the garbage can.             

Don’t get me wrong I sympathize with them very deeply in some cases but in other cases like dude I wanna slam dunk them in the garbage where they belong for very good reasons. They seem to have added a lot more gray into the live drama from what I hear, which makes it a bit easier in every case but the consent issues (oh god the consent issues, that’s not going to be fun). I’m glad I might still get to try the AD! Apparently it’s the same voice actors so it’s like a rewatch but more canon ;)            

THE. LEG. HUG. he’s just such a precious baby duckling! and he’s ALIVE! and my god lan zhan fucking RAISED HIS CHILD FOR HIM like that is devotion right there and he did such a good job he turned out so well like even before knowing WHO he was he was ALREADY everyone’s favorite of the juniors.

if you’re talking about between lwj and wwx walking away and then the final thirty seconds with the silence and then the music then yeah it was a different costume. so even after lwj and wwx split to fulfill their own separate duties in the end they still come back together like, lwj tracks him down and finds him again (presumably when his duties are finished and the cultivation world has recovered from that chaos) because they’re fucking cultivation partners and after they do what their honor and goodness demands they finally get their happy ending of just wandering around and doing good together and it makes my heart so full.

nei huisang!!! my little dark horse! yeah i don’t want to spoil it but hot damn.

and yeah i’m not gonna judge you for loving the garbage people like, book jin guangyao is actually one of my favorite characters. (i just find him so fascinating because so much of him is so understandably human that, a few of his crimes aside, i can actually totally understand him. so you end up asking like, what was the tipping point? what number of his mistakes or which of his crimes took him from redeemable to unforgiveable? in a universe a little bit to the left could he have been a force for good or do you side with nie mingjue’s opinion that after his first crime that he could never be anything else?) i like that in most cases the villains in this story are so very human rather than a caricature, like aside from wen ruohan and wen chao they actually have reasons behind the bad things they do besides just ‘oh well they’re an evil character.’

as for the grey morality, the live-action actually took away a lot of that in my opinion (likely due to censorship reasons, so i wouldn’t blame the production for that they very obviously tried as hard as they could to be as faithful as they could) at least as far as the leads go. it’s like they polarized it so like wwx was better and jgy was worse, but at the same time those changes made some of the minor characters a little more gray though i guess because they were minor it was okay? skip these parts if you’re wary of spoilers.

**the villains are more evil, the heroes are more pure. like the show glosses over it but in the book one of jin guangyao’s biggest contributions to the cultivation world is a watchtower project where small groups of cultivators rotate through garrisons spaced out along the countryside in order to make it easier for the people under their protection to get help and to reduce reaction times when they detect surges of resentful energy. like, he fought a lot of the sect leaders on this since setting up garrisons could (and likely was) a first step towards consolidation of power, but at the same time it did protect the commoners and rural areas that a lot of the others deemed unimportant enough to really care about. but because that distracts from his misdeeds the show left it out to make him more explicitly evil. (also the whole NOT MENTIONING THAT HIS SON WAS CONCEIVED BEFORE HE KNEW SHE WAS HIS SISTER AND THEN HE NEVER TOUCHED HER AGAIN, WHY DID THEY HAVE TO TAKE THAT OUT AND MAKE HIM COMMIT INTENTIONAL INCEST??? anyway i’m fine it’s cool whatever) but for the most part everything he does isn’t about power just for power’s sake the way it seemed to be for wen ruohan or jin guangshan, it’s the impulse of someone who was abused and powerless amassing power because maybe if he gets enough he can finally keep himself safe (and the tragic thing is that it will never be enough because he cares so much about what everyone thinks about him that he could never achieve what he would view as “safe”)

and the live-action absolves wei wuxian of…basically all his crimes except maybe having a bit of a temper and a sharp tongue. the whole ancient ancestor of a destroyed clan creating yin metal? the wens already practicing demonic cultivation with xue yang? none of that was in the book. wei wuxian wasn’t just a demonic cultivator, he was the genius who invented it. xue yang didn’t even come in until much later as an imitator. it’s like the difference between someone who uses a gun versus someone who invented the gun and introduced that kind of harm into the world. and no one interfered with his usage of the tiger seal at the pass with jin zixuan or at nightless city. wei wuxian really was just emotionally compromised and he lost control and yeah it wasn’t intentional but it did kill people and it was very much on him.**

so like, there’s a lot more grey in the novel and who you decide to hate and who you decide to forgive is very much of the “when is a monster not a monster? oh, when you love it” variety. so if that’s your bag you might really enjoy that novel.

yeah the consent issues… the consent issues feel in my opinion  like…unnegotiated kink? at least that’s kinda how i interpreted it to get through the sex scenes (and also i’ve read in this series of posts that some of those consent issues are exacerbated by the translation and were not necessarily in the original text). like from POV you can tell that what he says and what he wants are two different things and he definitely wants, but it is not something that would be okay to do in your real life as opposed to in fiction without a pre-scene negotiation and a safe word so the lack of that might be a trouble spot for some people. and if you’re sensitive to that then definitely skip the incense burner extras. if it’s something you’re worried about then i’d say read that series of posts to make an informed decision.

and the voice actor for the AD is the same for wei ying, but different for lan wangji. but the same for some other actors. the live-action took a smattering of different people from the AD and the donghua. but it’s really good and it follows the book canon super closely and the scenes they add are really good.

okay i’ve blabbed on enough at this point i apparently like hearing myself…type? that expression works less well in this context. but yeah, done now lol