"Have you ever met a gambler?"

[aroberuka]

These two fucking kill me.

It’s like--

Here’s two people with so much in common, both of them hopelessly devoted to self-serving cowards who treat them terribly, who can be really nice and loving when things are going well but will leave them to struggle alone as soon as the shit hits the fan; both of them increasingly, painfully aware that these people will never change, yet at the same time unable to let go. And they’re not friends, they’re barely even allies, but it’s very obvious that they recognize a lot of themselves in the other and it moves them, what they see, to treat each other with a respect and understanding they show very few people. They don’t even have that many scenes together, but these scenes do an amazing job of fleshing out both characters, and I think they both end up much more compelling for their shared screentime.

When Xie Wang hears about Qianqiao’s death, he looks surprised, almost disappointed – when he gave her her freedom he really did expect her to make a clean break from her former life, with Yu Qiufeng or on her own, which is... darkly funny, considering that his own conclusion is ‘what if i kept the object of my obsession around :) paralyzed and helpless :) so he can watch as I succeed where he failed :)’.

His mistake, I think, is that unlike him Qianqiao did have ties to people other than Yu Qiufeng, and it’s those ties – to Luo Fumeng, to A-Xiang, even to Wen Kexing – that draw her back to Ghost Valley instead. She chooses the option she refused once, to forget and move on, while Xie Wang traps his father, and ultimately himself, into a twisted parody of what he always wanted, setting the stage for the endgame.

(This is one reason why the finale being such a bloodbath bugs me, tbh. ‘Here are two characters with a lot in common who learn from watching each other face the same problems and end up embracing diametrically opposed solutions to them. They both die at the end so good luck drawing any meaningful conclusion from it tho.’) (I do think Qianqiao’s death being the result of other people’s machinations while Xie Wang’s is 100% his own actions coming back to bite him is significant, but come on.)