#prince esen

[justanotherclosetednerd]

Bao Waoxiang and Ouyang's plot in He Who Drowned the World in a nutshell

[maria-taiwin]

Baoxiang and Ouyang being devastated about Esen's death would have been predictable, everyone would know it, but what amazed me is their devastation to the knowledge that Esen's death was worthy of nothing, it gave no realization. Maybe just one: that they wasted their chance to tell how much they loved each other out loud. They will no longer be able to fix it, because Esen is dead and he will never come back and there is nothing that can console them because they were the ones who killed him for the belief that revenge would fill the emptiness they had inside. But it didn't. They lost and became mentally unstable because they didn't grasp how much more important love was. They couldn’t believe it or understand it. All of them failed to nurture their true good feelings, in order to adapt into what society ot destiny expected, and they paid for it with agony.

[pinkhair-smoothbrain]

just finished she who became the sun, enjoy my shitty memes

[nosleepyaoi]

“You really are as beautiful as a woman.”

[maria-taiwin]

Sorry but Esen not being there as a ghost is so funny 😭 like Ouyang and Baoxiang have mental breakdown because they thought Esen is haunting them and they struggle all the time, meanwhile Esen has already reached nirvana. Esen "no thoughts head empty" even in death 🤣🤣

(I know there is a profound and symbolic meaning about Esen not being a ghost, and I appreciate it, but I can't help laughing. How did you guys imagine Esen if he was a ghost?)

[maria-taiwin]

Can't stop to think about my tragic gays but damned it's so tragic that Ouyang and Esen could be intimate only just in death. They desired so much to be closer in life but can't help to resist at that attraction and even sabotage it. Only death could let them to embrace each other finally. First when Esen was dying (and here we also have "stabbing as metaphor for love??" trope) and in the end when Zhu would fulfill her promise and bury Ouyang together with Esen. In death they will finally rest in peace and be together.

It's so poetic and so tragic

[maria-taiwin]

Esen and Ouyang both died as they lived.

Esen died by the hand of the man he loved but he couldn't grow a bone of hate or resentment even in dying. He died with acceptance, having no fear and still loving.

Ouyang died with the same self-hate and pain that always followed him. He died agonizing for the chances he wasted, for a love he never consummated, for his neverending regrets and failures.

Of course Esen didn’t become an angry ghost. He stayed true to his light and carefree spirit. He didn’t linger in anger because he accepted his death and not blamed his killer.

Of course Ouyang did become an angry ghost after his death because he couldn’t help to hate himself and being consumed by pain as he always did.

But what a joy ghost!Ouyang could finally let his pain go away for the tiny hope he could start afresh and try to be finally happy in his future reincarnations with the person who had his opposite coping mechanism.

I want to believe that Ouyang and Esen will really meet again and fulfill their true desires because then what was the point.

[maria-taiwin]

We should debate more how Ouyang could be an unreliable narrator. His all life - and thoughts - are shaped by self-sabotage and self-hate, of course something trueful will be missing.

Ouyang is always ready to put the responsability of his destiny, a destiny he hates, on whatever culprit he finds within reach, he always thinks he has no other choices and he reflects his presumed lack of choices in whatever designs of the fate (the horse who finds itself lord Wang in the forest when Ouyang wanted to kill Esen's father, so it must be a sign! Or when he plays chess or something like this with General Shao and in the end he find himself in the corner and has no way out. It must be a sign too that he can't fight his destiny).

Ouyang is so fucked up, and all of his thoughts are so twisted, deliberately twisted! He deliberately wants to push his anger and hate, then he will be convinced he would have no guilt in pursuing his revenge, he wants so much adding fuel to the fire otherwise he has no idea how to going on, but in this way he doesn't acknowledge his truest and whole feelings and not even about the other people, because he's stubborn to just focus in hate and nothing else.

Also, we shouldn't forget that Ouyang is so prideful! Yeah he has also that trait but that sentiment is not the predominant one at the end of book 1, it stopped to be because Ouyang gave up and decided to be drowned in his own pain and hate. I also asked myself many times how such a prideful man could be SO attached (and Ouyang's devotion for Esen was not at all a lie, maybe it was the only good thing in his life) at the son of the man who destroyed his life. His pride should have of course stopped him, but it couldn’t. That because Ouyang's mind is really fucked up as I said, but we shouldn't forget what Ouyang admitted in the early chapters: "It was only ever Esen who thought Ouyang deserving of reward. Who refused to see what everyone else saw." And this could explain why ouyang, who was so used to be seen with disgust, grow affection for him. But in the end Ouyang twists again that feeling, he distorts that presumption because he hates himself, he doesn't feel deserving and he tells himself to put a forced distance between him and Esen otherwise he could go on his revenge, so he deliberately twists their initial relationship in something quite opposite, again to pursue his goal, but it's a goal he does even desire to fulfill to. (No mistake, the fucked up miscommunication is from both sides, both Esen and Ouyang do nothing but resist to their true feelings and to admit the truth, but I'm talking about my favorite meow meow here).

So where does this blabering take us? That we shouldn't trust 100% on Ouyang's pov because Ouyang himself is not honest to himself and he's always there to reflect his hate, misplaced or not.

Who knows, maybe he will admit *some* truth in the final book