Idk if you feel like expanding on it but i read your book review on the recent tgcf book and how you liked the ‘do it yourself’ scene. Do you have any thoughts on that? I think it can and does mean so many things id love to get into black waters head
black water arc and everything about it is probably my favorite part of tgcf except possibly the entirety of book 4 (though I really do love the whole thing, or I wouldn't have read it four times) so sure I can try to marshal my thoughts to something more coherent than "HNHGHGHGHHGHHGHHFHGHH"
okay so first thing is that we know ghosts are, most often, a result of some unfinished business/something from life that a person is hanging onto hard enough that they don't let go with death. hua cheng's reason is explicitly his devotion to xie lian; he xuan's is to get revenge for his family's deaths (and, to a lesser extent, his own). the idea is that once that unfinished business is resolved, ghosts are free to move on.
but he xuan doesn't. ostensibly his purpose is fulfilled. he's killed shi wudu, he's avenged his family. and yet he's still sticking around. available to have a favor called in by hua cheng. and he knows shi qingxuan is there (probably dropped him off there), and brings the (repaired!!!) wind master fan, and then when things are looking really bad and shi qingxuan is begging him for help...
it's just such a move that's so very in line with what I can imagine happening when they were friends. not moving to save shi qingxuan but giving shi qingxuan the tools to do it yourself. granting them back not full divinity (he xuan doesn't have the power to do that) but power nonetheless. after the last time we saw them, with shi qingxuan asking to die and he xuan saying dream on, this is the next time we see them interact, and it's so very different and also so very sideways and indirect. I think that's what drives me insane about it, and probably also what drives shi qingxuan insane about it. what does it mean? good question. it's not forgiveness, and it's not like he xuan sticks around to talk after revealing his identity. but there it is, just the same.
the thing that drives me probably the most insane about he xuan and shi qingxuan is how unfinished their story is. he xuan is just kind of...lurking around, not gone but not quite present. shi qingxuan seems to be resigned to their new life (and indeed, at least trying to thrive in it) but is aware that he xuan is Out There Somewhere and at least circling in their vicinity, which has to be a weird piece of knowledge. they're not done and it haunts me.
