qr-sa replied to your post “akinohikari replied to your post : After...”
I think that they intended to make it take a bit longer (and maybe slower too), given the scenes in the trailer that didn't show up yet, so it's really sad. I think another reason for review is that they are doing their best to erase wwx's grey morality; the untamed plays it even safer, but as the donghua rather skirts the line, it might be a bit more strict
*spoilers ahead*
Yes! This too. I’ve just started The Untamed, so I don’t know what WWX’s moral compass looks like in that iteration. But I agree that the anime is definitely trying to soften him up, especially since they seem to want us to think that JGY was the reason that WWX lost control of the Stygian Tiger Seal and was ultimately responsible for the deaths of A-Li and JZX, as well as WWX’s massacre at Nightless City after the Wens’ execution.
But one of my favorite parts of the novel is near the very, very end where Jin Ling is thinking to himself about the reasons that he lost his parents. And he admits that WWX, JZX, Wen Ning, and others all contributed and were all responsible. He can’t bring himself to hate them, though. This little bit of writing is basically the morality of the whole story. WWX is the quintessential exemplar of that old adage that the way to hell is paved with good intentions. And you get some of that in the anime, but it’s been softened. And that’s a shame too, in my opinion, because the compelling thing about the narrative is that you can’t determine whether or not WWX is a good man. But you like him anyway, and you believe in his quest for redemption. That story makes us wrestle with our own morality, and what we demand from other people to deem them “moral.” By making WWX less dark in a sense, the anime takes that choice away from us and says, “He’s not a bad guy and you like him,” thereby removing the possibility of “He is a bad guy and you like him.”
WWX’s style of cultivation is also characterized as much, much darker in the novel. I mean, the scene right before he kills Wen Chao, where he’s basically petting the two ghouls he’s called up? Creepy as fuck. The same with the bit where he’s hanging out and drinking with a bunch of young ghoul women. He’s written as unnatural, and scary as hell in parts. And that, too, was incredibly compelling to me. You get that he’s doing something he’s not supposed to do in the anime as well, but I thought the novel did a much better job of making him terrifying. That said, I thought his first appearance as the Yiling Patriarch in the anime (at Nightless City against the Wens) was very, very well executed. Still, in the novel, you really understand why he becomes the enemy of the cultivation world. You also see how he’s contributed to his own downfall. The latter is missing in the anime, in my opinion.
