selenay | The Untamed episode 26 (Reply)

It was Xena watch last night, and the episode we watched (The Royal Couple of Thieves) at least gave me a buffer of joy and fannish glee that I needed as an emotional cushion for this episode.

So, in my previous Untamed post I said this:

The next episodes are going to hurt me, aren't they?

OH NO, WHY DID I PREDICT THAT?

Yes, this episode did hurt. It hurt so much.

hockeybosh got so much pained flailing last night.

I also predicted this:

I have to assume WWX is going to go off on a mission to find [Wen Ning], because he's a good person at heart. I also suspect he'll be hiding Wen Qing (and his mission to find Wen Ning) because of the whole "exterminate the Wens" thing that's currently happening.

I was both right and wrong, all at the same time. Well done me!

On the one hand, WWX did go off and find Wen Ning. But not in the subtle way I expected! Not running off for an adventure with Wen Qing, no, he did it by CONFRONTING THE ENTIRE JIN CLAN IN THE MIDDLE OF A HUGE FEAST. Because of course he did.

And the thing is, he wasn't wrong. Nothing he said was wrong. He called them out on the power grab they're making. He called out the wrongness of slaughtering innocents because they happened to be connected to the Wens. He called out the brutality and wrongness of their campaign. He called out the other clans for letting it happen.

He called out the way the Jins are starting to replace the Wens in ways that are dangerous for everyone.

Except he's standing up to a hugely powerful group, going against what his own clan leader is doing, and there was no way that could end well.

Those moments in the feast hall when it looked like his control was slipping were awful, and it was the fear that other people reacted with that made it worse. He got some of the answers he wanted because people are afraid of him - I'm sure in his less angry moments, he'd be horrified that people are afraid of him. Probably.

At heart, he's still a good person with a kind heart. Everything he did was motivated by the right reasons and trying to do the right thing, but the combination of the world around him and the power he has are turning his right choices into bad ones.

The scenes in the rainy awful place were just...ugh. I am hurting.

And also, worrying more than ever about what the Jins were up to. My subtitles said they were using the Wen cultivators to "test cultivation refinement", which does not sound like a good thing to me. I might not like how he did it, but WWX shutting that down seems like a good thing.

Except he did it with the scary flute music and the shimmery black smoke and the manipulating spirits, and THAT IS NOT A GOOD THING. Or at least, I'm guessing it isn't.

I'm still a little unclear about Wen Ning. He's not dead? But not totally alive either? Something about his spiritual consciousness being gone? I'm confused.

I'm also confused about why WWX was so shocked he couldn't control Wen Ning with his flute magic.

I flailed a lot at

hockeybosh last night and she's as confused as me about that part, but at least we're confused together.

Taking the surviving Wens away really is the only choice, but that final scene between WWX and LWJ was...painful and wonderful and awful all at once. On the one hand, WWX asked LWJ to leave with him! On the other hand, that was never going to happen and they both knew it, but the look between them and the reminder about what they'd promised (eternal ~~love~~ bosom companions and/or soulmates)...wow.

SO MUCH FLAIL.

So much rain.

So much everything.

I'm changing my mind about what I think is going to happen at the cliffs. I'd been assuming for a while that WWX would eventually go dark side and raise an army against the clans for world domination and it would all be a bit Darth Vader-ish. And then he'd be thrown off the cliff because of the whole dark side thing.

I no longer think that.

Now I'm starting to think he never goes dark side, but because of all the things currently happening he still ends up on the wrong end of a battle, but it's one where he's trying to do the right thing to protect people and it all goes terribly wrong for him.

I'm probably still wrong, but I'm no longer as worried that he'll turn into an evil despot. I'm just worried that the combination of being a good person and having extremely powerful potentially-dark flute magic is going to get him into trouble no matter how hard LWJ and co try to keep him safe.

Tomorrow we can all point and laugh at how wrong I was about this, I accept that. For now, I have faith in WWX's essential goodness and nobody is talking me out of that.