I wasn't sure if we'd get team lines for every version of Dan Heng with Mortenax Blade but we did and I really like them!!
I wouldn't quite call their dynamic reversed, because it's no longer so much hostile as just tense, but their roles have sort of swapped within it. Blade is, generally speaking, much more comfortable with Dan Heng, heck, maybe even pushing friendly. I think it's in part to the voice direction; he's much more soft-spoken with everyone now, but the lines themselves definitely contribute to what looks like Blade trying for peace between them.
Of course it's still Blade and Dan Heng, so anything that could reasonably be construed as a compliment is framed as a taunt or a threat, with Blade's reaction to Hunt Dan Heng being the clearest example:
That he draws attention to Dan Heng's identity as a Nameless, like in the anniversary event, is in my opinion both a jab at Dan Heng's prior attempts to cut himself of from the past, but also an acknowledgement that a Nameless is simply who he is now. The one thing all three of Blade's lines have in common is a genuine understanding of how Dan Heng has changed, speaking of which:
That's a pretty explicit "I recognise you've grown as a person" and a pretty implicit "I've decided I don't hate you anymore because you've grown as a person." It's also the most validating thing he could possibly say to Dan Heng and part of me wonders if, as much as this is genuine, he wants to get a reaction.
And then the one for PT is not just recognition of Dan Heng, it's recognition of himself.
They are alike, and that's something they've only very recently come to be able to acknowledge. It's a very simple acknowledgement, too, compared to how deep their similarities actually run, but the fact that it's there is very meaningful when there was a time when Blade couldn't bring himself to see past their history for either of them.
Then we get to Dan Heng who, in a very pleasant surprise, seems to be the more aggressive of the two. All of his lines have this slight cadence of 'fight me, I dare you'. Even now, he can't bring himself to let his guard down fully with Blade, can't help but feel threatened even when there's little reason to, and so for lack of a better phrase he tries to assert dominance in return.
His acknowledgement of their similarities is much more precise, I think, and there's an element of almost disbelief to it? Like part of him isn't quite ready to accept that they could fight side-by-side after everything.
And for Dan Heng it's not just about their similarities, but also their differences. How they fight for the same things but for different people, though Dan Heng hasn't found out yet that the Trailblazer is a former Stellaron Hunter. But where Blade is more passive, Dan Heng does push, seemingly in both directions. He pushes Blade away, but also pushes himself towards Blade, and you get the general sense that he doesn't know if he's quite ready for them to be something other than enemies. He also likens their growth in his other line about Blade-
-which parallels another line that he says ostensibly about Cloud-Piercer but actually about himself-
"rebirth" and "reforged" are very similar things in his eyes, and he recognises that Blade has been reborn in a similar manner to him.
A brief tangent: In 4.3 he calls Blade his 'old friend-and-foe'. Not friend-turned-foe or foe-turned-friend, both at once. Yingxing, and the man who hunted him across galaxies, and the one who he fought alongside against Fulwish- they don't cancel each other out in his eyes.
Anyways, on to probably his most confusing line:
My first thought was that this feels like a thinly-veiled threat, since Blade is using fire- but hey, that's definitely progress from the explicit threat happens when you pair him with base Blade. My second thought, though, is that this is Dan Heng offering help in the most roundabout way his pride will allow: water is just as much part of the forging process as fire, and one of Blade's comments on Furbobocom explains that his ult form is actually meant to reference the colour of metal that's cooled quickly-
-though Dan Heng also suggests it's the colour of a flame that's burned itself out.
My final and more tentative guess about this line is that it's meant to contrast Blade's; Blade is conceding that Dan Heng is not Dan Feng anymore, and Dan Heng is conceding that he's not completely separate either.
Finally, DHPT, who arguably does not even talk about Blade that much.
This is what I mean about Dan Heng pushing towards Blade. He almost expects Blade to lash out, deny who he's become, and so rather than draw attention to Blade he draws attention to himself in a way he knows Blade can't ignore. But there's kind of a double meaning to it too- Dan Heng has, in reforging Cloud-Piercer, done exactly as Yingxing had always tried to do; given it a new meaning when the old one was no longer compatible with him. The line "waste not the bounty of the world, but perfect it through craft" is especially true here.
There's also this underlying message between Blade's flashbacks of both the Stellaron Hunters and Dan Heng that Cloud-Piercer is utterly irreplaceable. Blade tells Silver Wolf and Kafka that using a weapon that doesn't suit you is just a better way to die, and then he says that he will kill Dan Heng if the latter doesn't have Cloud-Piercer with him. Partly in that he doesn't want Dan Heng to abandon their past, but also in that no other weapon would be enough for Dan Heng to defeat him.
Overall, there is still this underlying tension in their relationship, which I'm glad about. One Trailblaze Mission shouldn't be enough to mend centuries of regret and guilt, not to mention their hunt that lasted something like a decade. They acknowledge the possibility of healing- maybe the desire for it too- through mutual understanding, without being outright comfortable with each other. They're both plot-relevant enough for the writers to be able to take their reconciliation one agonising step at a time and I'm so happy this is the direction they chose.
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