This is going to be long and rambly (but not spoilery for leaked eps) but I was thinking about PoJ falling apart in the last third and a couple of things.
First is I think the reason this hits hard is while it is common enough for dramas to fall apart at some point since consistent quality is a rarity (a) it is unusual for a drama to be this perfect for so long and then dive off a cliff. For example, I thought Love in the Clouds ended up not with a bang but with a whimper, but I was having issues with it from the start - I loved a middle angsty portion a LOT but the beginning had all sorts of issues so when it fell back in quality, it was hardly a surprise. It's hard to feel super disappointed when you weren't 'appointed' at the start. (b) While a lot of dramas are uneven, it hits harder when it goes downhill in the final stretch. If you look at something like The Princess Gambit, for me it had a great beginning, then kinda fell off a cliff but then recovered and the last portion was great. A blip in the middle is a lot more acceptable.
Second is - I am not a super plot driven person. I can forgive anything to a story, however wonky the plot or even battle logistics (I love minis for a reason) if the characters and dynamics work for me (see The Princess Gambit as an example; even during the boring portion I did not go 'wtf' at the dynamics; The Prisoner of Beauty is another good example - the story became too wholesome for me in the second half but I still loved watching the ship separately and together so while it wouldn't be my n1 drama for the year, it was a good watch.) But here, both the plot and the main dynamic fell off the cliff together, Thelma and Louise style. I can enjoy a narrative with characters I dislike where the story is fascinating or a wonky plot with nifty main characters but when both are messed up?
And third - my frustration with this stems so much from the fact that doing this well was NOT an insurmountable task. The novel is right there, but also all the potential excuses for why it got fucked up: (1) ep count limits (2) censors not liking feral mains (3) secondaries stealing too much time NO NOT MAKE SENSE IN LIGHT OF OTHER DRAMAS.
(1) Ep Count Limits
I am no fan of the stupid ep count limit rule (which is now finally dead) but it's a cop-out to blame it on that. If you are bad at pacing, you will struggle no matter how many eps you have. There is a drama called Legend of the Dragon Pearl: The Indistinguishable Road which was 90 (!!!) eps long and it still didn't manage to complete its story because it dawdled and waffled. This screenwriter always had pacing issues - Love Like the Galaxy felt like it did speed in the last stretch and it was 56 eps (and some issues were not speed but narrative choices, as in here.)
Also, I am sorry, but 40 episodes is plenty when you know what you are doing. Legend of the Magnate managed to tell a very epic story in 40 eps and so did Legend of Zang Hai. Vendetta of An was an insanely paced (but not feeling rushed) character study and vengeance plot with less than 30 (!) eps which actually managed to flesh out a sizable cast with amazing economy without shortchanging its mains.
I'd rather the story was not complete but had a proper pace and exploration than crumple everything up (Joy of Life 1/2, Ever Night 1, Eternal Brotherhood 1/2, Tribes and Empires etc) but this isn't even it here - it's not the pace, it's the character and narrative messes and flaws that don't super make sense. Which brings me to (2) and (3)
(2) Censors not liking feral mains
I've seen that comment now and again as an explanation as to why poor Xie Zheng got so sidelined and massacred as a character (with the corollary that Qi Min was allowed to take more space because he could be unhinged as secondary.)
But that doesn't make much sense even if we limit ourselves to costume idol romances post the big censorship tightening in 2021. This screenwriter's own Ling Buyi was a total amazing psycho who brought a massacre as a present to his uncle's birthday banquet and liked to hang out in the torture chamber. And if we talk about more recent dramas, this very year gave us Xiaohou Dan in How Dare You and Mu Qingyan in Generation to Generation (also think of When Destiny Brings the Demon, The Story of Kunning Palace, Fated Hearts, Blossom, The Princess Gambit or A Journey to Love in recent years.) Heck, Ren Jialun's protagonist in Love of Nirvana would make even novel Xie Zheng seem like the hingiest man in history (not to mention, he got to kill the emperor.)
If you want to have your ML be unhinged in a 2026 drama, you can.
(3) Secondaries/secondary romances ate into the mains' time.
I mean yes, but it's the problem with the screenwriter not knowing how to allocate time and how to write interesting characters within that time. I already mentioned how the 28 ep (!) Vendetta of An managed to give development to a large cast, but I think a better comparison (because it's the same costume idol genre) is My Journey to You, which clocks in at a slim 24 episodes, 60% of PoJ runtime. MJTY was another drama starring Zhang Linghe where I remember his fans complaining that he got sidelined in favor of secondaries and secondary OTP but the thing is - I never felt it. I found Cheng Lei and the rest fascinating and having great development, relationships etc etc but it never took away from ZLH and Esther. They were interesting and their development was interesting and consistent and they never felt abandoned by the narrative - whether you preferred them or Cheng Lei x LYX or something else was a personal preference thing but it never felt the narrative shoved them into a corner.
I can name a gazillion dramas that have a bunch of cool secondary OTPs that still somehow manage to develop the main couple just fine - if we leave out dramas like Listening Snow Tower, Love In Between at al because it was before the 40 ep limit, Sword and Fairy 6 gave me an epic secondary couple while making me love the mains, so did Legend of the Magnate (while telling a huge epic to boot) and The Ingenuous One gave us three (!!!) secondary OTPs while making me rabid about the main one and not shortchanging them, within the 40 ep limit. Heck, Love in the Desert managed to make me love the main and secondary couple within 26 ep limit. Eternal Brotherhood gave me three OTPs in 24 eps!!! The director's own Butterflied Lovers did main/secondary OTPs thing just fine in mini format!
You can do that if you try.
But the writer did not try and there is nothing you can do with that.
Finished Pursuit of Jade. Thoughts that are not quite as ranty as I expected below.
Honestly, I think it was okay from ep 34-40 but it was still a mess. To be fair, I also skipped a bunch of the political stuff.
The most egregious episodes are 29 to most of 33 (I say most of 33 because I liked their kiss!).
They put hinges on Xie Zheng and didn't know what to do with him. They sidelined him (and I cannot believe I am arguing for more screen time for a ML). The first 2/3rds he had his own plans and motivations, all stemming from his father's death and uncle's betrayal. This was completely forgotten and he was mostly making heart eyes at Changyu and just there. Plus nobody seemed to appreciate all he did as Marquis behind the scenes. He was better as a hidden Marquis in the village. The let the hinges off here and there but it was not enough.
Changyu was by far worse. Her arc made no sense. Does she actually love Xie Zheng because it didn't seem like it for a while there. She didn't leave so she could earn merit to be with him as an equal. She left to find QianQain. And then when she found her by accident, it was all about going home. If Xie Zheng was there, whatever. Her rise to general and commander didn't make sense. And they made her stupid. She may be ignorant but she is not stupid.
Changyu and Xie Zheng mostly work for me after they reunite in 34 (I do think she loves him) BUT, and this is a big but, it is unearned. All their obstacles just kinda went POOF! and they were back together smoothly. Their pasts are intertwined and complex, as are their motivations and feelings but it's all brushed aside. It should have been fully explored. Even Xie Zheng getting whipped seemed to happen at the wrong time (and I know it is different in the book). Plus they don't change or develop further. It's just disappointing.
Their first real kiss in front of the window, with the shadows, was so good. The bath scene completely steamy. The tired "I can't do it anymore" with Xie Zheng collapsing on her was top tier.
This was also super cute:
But it is all wasted. Xie Zheng and Changyu's relationship was stellar for first 2/3rds of the drama. Then they gloss over all their issues and they were just together with no problems.
All the development went to Qi Min and QianQian's relationship. That relationship may have been toxic and twisted but was fully developed and complex the entire time.
It all comes down to pacing, and the writer not knowing what to do with Xie Zheng or Changyu after the village and the reveal.
Overall, the first 2/3rds are top tier. Five or so garbage episodes and then it somewhat recovers to the end but is horribly messy.
I weep for the lost potential of what we could have had. If the quality had held up, it would have hit near LBFAD levels for me.
One thing - it has made me actually seek out the book to read. I've never do that but I want to see what we missed.
Like many on this site, I fell hard for Pursuit of Jade, only to go cold on it after about episode 28. I have been trying to figure out where it went wrong, and yes, the pacing, jumbled plot threads are all factors. But in reading the novel, I think there is something else going on too.
All the caveats that I do not read/understand Chinese, so I am working off translations of both!
There is a lot of discussion on how the back half of the show really flattened Fan Changyu into a 2D character, especially in relation to her military honors. In the novel, she works her way through military ranks, gaining knowledge, and skills so that she can stand equal to Xie Zheng, and truly earns her title and military rank. In the end, she achieves this: earns her own glory, and can fly beside him without needing his support (to use her own metaphor).
The drama … does not go in that direction. At first glance this appears to be the fault of the abysmal pacing of the back half, the rushed and sometimes incoherent political backstory, dropped or spontaneously appearing plot lines, and too much attention paid to side characters. However, I would argue that while these are all true points of contention, the real issue is a change in Fan Changyu's character motivations, resulting in a character who is moving through a narrative which is increasingly at odds with her character arc, coupled with a screenwriter who was unwilling/unable to deviate enough from the source material to do proper justice to those new motivations.
The major change in the drama adaptation is to make Fan Changyu's character arc in the first act about moving from outcast to accepted member of the community (@romchat has a really nice analysis of how the show visually depicts Fan Changyu's mended relationships with her neighbors.) On a pure storytelling level this makes sense: we the audience need to understand how devastating the attack on Lin'an is, and the easiest way to go about that is to make the main character, and by extension us, care about these bystanders. All the cinematography, lighting, directorial choices make us witness how Fan Changyu's world brightens amongst her community. Aside from these visual queues, there are narrative changes as well: unlike in the novel, Fan Changyu is close to, and feels affection for, her grandfather; Mrs Chen is actively friendly to Fan Changyu rather than an acquaintance (making her wedding undergarments and officiating her wedding). And finally, when Fan Changyu returns to Lin'an after the raid, she helps bury the dead herself. In the novel, the loss is more limited in scope: we do not get any scenes of grief for the town that was destroyed, any lingering on the dead neighbors. The drama takes the time to show us how deeply important this community is to our main character.
The drama narrative continues to center Lin'an and Fan Changyu's ties home through the following arc: she meets the Debt Collector gang while working on the dam. She literally carries mementos of the Lin'an dead with her to their kin, in addition to her saying that she is going to bring all of the conscripted villagers home to rebuild. And when she sets off to Yixian Pass she has a literal presence of Lin'an at her side, through the Pig Butcher Squad. Drama!Fan Changyu is a Sheepdog whose flock has been scattered, and by hook or crook, she is going to bring all of them home.
These ties and motivations put her on a collision course with novel!Fan Changyu's motivations when it comes to joining the army post battle of Yixian Pass (post episode 28). And, it is from here, as most viewers agree, that the cracks within the show start to appear. And I think a lot of those cracks stem from these irreconcilable motivations.
Novel!Fan Changyu up until the battle Yixian Pass is motivated by looking for and protecting her sister and her husband: personal, familial ties. When she discovers Xie Zheng's identity, it is the differences between their statuses that takes over as the primary driver of Fan Changyu's next actions. She wants to be strong enough to stand beside him, get her own revenge, and not be someone who needs to be protected. These motivations all make sense for the novel since her relationships with Lin'an were not continuously centered the way the drama does. There is a smooth transition as her new motivation takes over: she has found her sister, her husband does not need her to protect him, but rather she must gain strength and status to match him: joining the army is the logical next step.
However, if at this point, drama!Fan Changyu followed the exact same path as the novel with nary a thought for her friend QianQian, Bao'er, or the other Lin'an survivors, we would have been left scratching our heads and deriding the drama for terrible characterization: Lin'an holds too much space in the narrative at this point for it to be brushed aside so easily. But at the same time, the screenwriter is unable to greatly deviate from novel: she needs Fan Changyu to become the Flower Crowned General because she needs Fan Changyu to be Xie Zheng's equal because she needs them as a pair during the revelations of the massacre 17 years ago, and so Fan Changyu must join the army, meet General He, win a massive battle - despite these things not making sense for the character we have followed for 28 episodes!
Thus we get episodes 29-30 which frantically try to resolve the Lin'an plot arc and shove Fan Changyu on the next step of her journey: Fan Changyu leaves the army with her Pig Butcher Squad (who as the Living Representation of Lin'an, must accompany her), she must encounter Qianqian (who is her first and most precious friend, Symbol of her Acceptance in Lin'an), she must bring Uncle Zhao and the others back to Lin'an (metaphor for restoring the town and healing the harm inflicted upon it). But the plot also has needs, so we get Fan Changyu leaving Qianqian on the road to Lin'an in order to rejoin the war (but even here Lin'an cannot be left behind: her Squad follows her). It is clear that the revenge and clearing her father's name post battle were meant to take over as Fan Changyu's primary motivations, but these beats feel shoehorned in precisely because they are. These points were always secondary to getting the survivors of Lin'an home, so for them to suddenly be foremost in Fan Changyu's mind is jarring. The Fan Changyu as has been developed up until this point doesn't make sense for the remaining episodes - and so she must diminish into the 2D character we received.
The screenwriter attempts to return to Fan Changyu's primary touch point in the final scenes of the drama: returning to Lin'an, bringing the Pig Butcher Squad home, reuniting with Aunt and Uncle Zhao (completely ignoring the political reality that was just established). However, since that plot line was abandoned 12 episodes prior and never touched upon again (there is barely a reaction to Qianqian being re-kidnapped by Qi Min and not even a blink for the missing Bao'er), the ending feels hollow for how impactful it should have been.
There absolutely was a graceful way to reconcile Fan Changyu's primary focus of saving the people of Lin'an with the needs of the novel plot, but we do not live in a world where we get nice things!
In conclusion: I love the choice the narration made to make Fan Changyu more connected with her community and to make their loss have a long term impact on her. That single choice sent shock waves out to the rest of the story, and I am frustrated and sad that the show runners didn't have the space/creative control to carry those changes through to their more interesting conclusions and instead had to try and force things back into the path of the novel.
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