From now on, he is my man: Gu Yun’s process of falling in love
So I feel like there are some misconceptions people have about Sha Po Lang, partially via some well-intentioned attempts to explain why the ‘yifu’ thing is unproblematic. However, I feel like some of these explanations attempt to portray changgu in a squeaky-clean way (Because priest doesn’t write explicit car, there’s plausible deniability of them having sex before Chang Geng is 25! Gu Yun doesn’t really fall in love until he gets the letter of train schematics! Maybe Chang Geng isn’t even Yuan He’s son!) which just doesn’t do the characters or canon justice.
And I get it!
Sha Po Lang is a really special novel–It’s expansive! It transcends genre! It resists so many tropes that would translate to abuse in a real-life relationship! The characters actually feel like real people with realistic emotions! CHANGGU!!!!!!!!
But ultimately, one has to acknowledge that Sha Po Lang is a work of fiction. Both Chang Geng and Gu Yun are exceptional characters in exceptional circumstances. In Shen Yi’s words, To be like Yan Wang and Gu Yun, it was truly rare (Ch.95).
Anyway, to dispel some of these misconceptions, I’m going to make a timeline of changgu’s relationship in canon up until the point when they get together (ie. Ch.73), with a focus on Gu Yun’s mental blocks and changing feelings.
I won’t delve as deeply into themes and symbolism as in my other two metas–this one will primarily summarize important milestones in their relationship (including stuff that’s written between the lines, with a rant or two on the side), but hopefully people find it useful.
The timeline I reference here parallels this more comprehensive timeline of the story’s events.
One more note before diving in: assuming traditional age reckoning, which starts the count off with one at birth, the ages stated in Sha Po Lang are likely one year off from how we would think of them (which sort of makes sense, since the invasion of the Northern Tribes happens 14 years before the beginning of the story, at which point Chang Geng is nominally 14 years old–but it would take 9 months after the goddess becomes the Royal Consort for Chang Geng to be born.
Spoilers ahoy!
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