Discover Top Posts Tagged with #ch 701

of shiyi niang's peers, fifth madam, wen yiniang, and the fourth sister are probably my favorites. i love that they are smart but also very human. fifth madam's petty revenges against third madam killed me. the fact that she loves fun and goes out in men's dress to experience festivites! she is definitely not a saint but she is realistic and clever. wen yiniang... just a gem all around and i've been sorry to see less of her. she is one of the most skillful talkers in the whole novel. when fourth sister was ready to give her son to seventh sister for adoption, i truly, could not believe it but also! she won my heart as a character from then on. all these women and shiyi niang learn to work together in a friendly neighborly way, and then slowly become closer, but they are also never completely in line with each other, and they know it, and that's ok too!

second madam is a fav, too, but she's almost an elder. madam huang and madam zhuo are likable but not deeply explored. other "peers" - madam lin, the gan sisters, the dowager gan - are much less developed, while some are somewhat unlikable (fifth sister)

i will say i actually like shiniang a lot. like, quite a lot. what a fascinating and proud character. she had a tragic life but she led it well. ditto qiao yiniang and yang yiniang. semi antagonists who make a lot of sense and act quite intelligently

in the younger generation, fang shi is a favorite. so is jiang shi. and of course zhen jie'er. and for the boys, who can beat xu siyu and xu sijie, honest. they are >>>>>> the legitimate sons of xu lingyu, though i acknowledge xu sizhun and jin g'er are both written extremely realistically

i struggle w both shiyi niang and the marquis. i think the fact that shiyi niang is a transmigrator makes her harder for me to take at face value in many ways. i need to understand more deeply how she reconciles herself to the times, and am unsatisfied with merely her thoughts about how you can't get people to change, or how the past must be left in the past. if you take the job of an imperial concubine, the character there basically never lost her calculation - i understood this. or eight treasures trousseau - that FL was a cold-blooded survivalist. but shiyi niang has something unexplored inside her and i keep wanting to see what it is. the snatches of her are not enough for me, and i have ongoing difficulties with the way the text handles her sexual shyness given she was a grown woman in the modern age before transmigtation. and alright im getting the sense she had neglectful parents, but did she really not have any friends? she studied abroad... she founded her own law firm... and? i know it's theoretically all gone, now over 15 years past but... her journey is in many ways about her identity now overwriting who she was, because she can't both live well and fight society and she doesn't want to. and with that overwriting is a moral and ethical overwriting as well, which is interesting to be sure, but maybe i just dont love how it is handled because i feel like she has never looked at who she has become and cometo terms with it, really

for the marquis - quite simply his superlativity is is inseparable from his high-handedness, his arrogance, his privilege, and everything he takes for granted about how society functions. his expressed interiority in the novel is also unfortunately almost entirely concerned with shiyi niang and/or his children. the way he falls for his wife is sweet, but also, unremarkable. who wouldn't? she's only a 35 year old soul in a 16 year old's body, saintly and clever beyond measure. i am happy for him that he has slowly made his way into a different and more intimate form of fatherhood... but yeah. i liked him best that time he stayed up all night thinking about how he was also at fault with yuan niang. perhaps the first? moment he ever questioned the way society functions

the novel is in the end deeply concerned with the complex web of social obligation and maneuvering required to survive in the deeply heirachical and patriarchal ming dynasty. it is interested in the daily goings on of a family under the weight of the structure of the imperial bureacracy and the cultural and religious norms which also uphold it. probably 30% of the novel is just describing in depth the momentary calculations of the novel inhabitants as they attempt to achieve an aim while following propriety and not losing face, but also not offending anyone or becoming a problem in the emperor's eyes. another 30% is just the ebb and flow, the births, engagements, marriages, funerals, spring festivals, autumn festivals, and on and on and on

50 chapters left to go and i will say i have found this book intellectually engaging, historically deep, willing to be complex and a little messy, and very immersive, but rarely emotionally touching. i was moved to tears exactly once

when i finish im sure i will have more to say

#the concubine-born daughter's strategies #庶女攻略 #spoilers #cnovels #ch 701

...Yeah that makes more sense for his position.

#opclb #ch 701

What a great way to introduce a Marine admiral

#ch 701 #opclb

Sanji’s the first person to bring this up which is expected of him but it’s important considering the entire situation they’re in.

#ch 701 #opclb

‘Wow, they sure can’t draw!’

Bepo has paws, I think he did a good job considering!!

#ch 701 #opclb

I also think it’s telling that Law gives this to Nami over everyone else, partly I’m sure because she’s the navigator but I’m guessing he could already guess that Nami would take care of it properly.

#opclb #ch 701