Alright, folks, I rewatched the Bo’re Life arc this week, and I have thoughts and a newfound appreciation for it (what? Me? Liking the Bo’re arc?It’s more likely than you’d think). As my mom used to say at the start of road trips or our semi-annual family viewing of The Sound of Music: buckle up, chitlins.
Okay, first off: this arc is a lot easier and more interesting to watch the second time around. I suspect that’s because I’m not chomping at the bit to just get back to Tantai Jin and Susu in the real world, since I already know what happens. This time, I can settle in and appreciate Bo’re Life without the urgency of “when is the actual story going to come back, fuck you writers”. It’s also very fun for me to draw parallels and find foreshadowing I didn’t notice before. And, having done so, I present the following thesis: the Bo’re Life arc strengthened the overall story both as a tragedy, and as a “happy” ending.
Addendum: I have a lot of thoughts about what constitutes a happy ending, and my thoughts on TTEOTM in this regard are complicated. Essentially, I would argue that the ending, while certainly sad, isn’t a “tragedy” in the narrative sense. While the individual happiness of the characters takes a real blow in the end, they do accomplish their ultimate goal. It’s a pyrrhic victory, but a victory nonetheless, and it’s implied that they will get a much happier ending as individuals sometime in the future. That doesn’t mean it was as satisfying as it could have been (it seems clear that TTJ will come back but I'm pissed we didn't get to see it), and I know a lot of viewers will totally disagree with my opinion. But I digress! Let’s get into Bo’re Life.
Bo’re Life threw a LOT of information at both protagonists, and the roles they played in it didn’t correspond neatly with their own destinies, which kind of baffled me the first time around. Ming Ye represented both what Tantai Jin could aspire to be, and the mistakes Susu needed to avoid in neutralizing him. Sang Jiu represented both Susu’s traumas and doomed loveline, and Tantai Jin’s fate if Susu failed as Ming Ye had.
The parallels between Bo’re life and real life perfectly underline the tragedy of the story: both protagonists are shown beforehand the choices they must not make, but because of who they are, they make them anyway.
Susu was an idealistic and traumatized woman with a mission, so she was always going to fail like Ming Ye did by putting the greater good ahead of love and communication. Tantai Jin was a disempowered and naive man falling in love for the first time, so he was always going to be just like Sang Jiu and give his fragile heart too fully, then shatter under the weight of betrayal. Bo’re Life both foretold the tragedy, and failed to prevent it.
It could be argued that Tantai Jin and Susu played the wrong roles in Bo’re Life to avoid tragedy in the Jing arc, but they played the right roles to avoid it in the cultivator arc. In the mortal world, Susu needed Ming Ye’s experience of losing everything because he neglected his heart. And Tantai Jin needed Sang Jiu’s experience of subsuming herself in another person so recklessly that she lost her soul to it. Neither of them got that, and so they repeated the tragedy of 10,000 years ago: Susu by loving and then betraying Tantai Jin, and Tantai Jin by allowing his obsessive love to run unchecked.
But as cultivators, 500 years later, they both ended up relying on the virtues of the roles they played in Bo’re Life. Susu channeled Sang Jiu’s optimistic love and staunch loyalty to repair her relationship with Tantai Jin and become someone he could genuinely rely on. And Tantai Jin needed Ming Ye’s sacrificial love and dedication to the greater good to understand and execute his subversion of destiny.
This time around, they were both where they needed to be, playing the roles fate assigned them… but drastically changing the lines. Susu became a goddess, just like her mother, the only being who could defeat the Devil Lord. And Tantai Jin became the Devil Lord, just as he was born to do. But there was no battle between them, no great war like 10,000 years ago. Just like during their dance at the Jing water festival, Tantai Jin played his part, then surrendered.
And, just as she removed his mask 500 years ago, Susu saw through his act to who he really was, who he’d always been.
They redeemed the very mistakes they made at the end of their story in Jing: Susu, who couldn’t trust him and destroyed him as a result, finally gave him her trust, even as he wore the image of her greatest fears. And Tantai Jin, who was so desperate for her love that he killed her trying to keep her, finally let her go to save the world.
The Jing arc ended with both of them as the worst versions of themselves: Susu vengeful and traumatized, Tantai Jin obsessive and broken. As she died, Susu threw Tantai Jin’s destiny in his face, calling him the greatest curse and rejecting him in this life and the next. In his last days in Jing, Tantai Jin devolved into despair and denial, unable to cope with the grief and betrayal. They didn't learn the correct lessons in Bo're life, not this time around.
By contrast, the cultivator arc ended with both of them as the best versions of themselves: Susu capable of trust and forgiveness and elevated to godhood, Tantai Jin whole and loved and able to overturn his evil destiny. They learned, not just from their own mistakes, but from those of Ming Ye and Sang Jiu. And it helped them win.
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