Love: A Driving Force (Character Analysis)
In Revenged Love, there are a lot of themes shown and portrayed throughout the show. From the title alone, one can deduce that the most prominent themes are love and revenge. Additionally, the two characters that personify these two themes are Chi Cheng and Guo Cheng Yu. Therefore, I will analyze their characters based on the themes of love, friendship, and found family.
Let’s start by dissecting Chi Cheng as a character. At first glance, he might seem as someone who is guarded, harsh, calculative, and ruthless; while he is all of these things and more, he is also someone who is protective, loving, and genuine. The perfect way to describe him would be “what you see is what you get”. However, one needs to actually SEE him for who he is, not what he would or could represent. For example, he knew Yue Yue saw him as an opportunity to get rich and live the lavish lifestyle she wants. So, he decided to treat her as nothing but a means to an end; she is just someone to appease his parents until he finds a way to get his beloved snakes back. Moreover, he knew that Wu Suo Wei tried to get his attention because he wanted something from him. At first, he was not that invested, but once Wu Suo Wei gave him an ounce of sincerity by trying to connect with him through his interests and love for snacks, Chi Cheng started to act differently; he became more attentive, helpful, and giving. Even though he was generous with Yue Yue, it is different with Wu Suo Wei. Because with Yue Yue, his generosity is a payback for using her. However, with Wu Suo Wei, it is an act of affection. He wants to take care of Wu Suo Wei. One can argue that Chi Cheng started to soften when Wu Suo Wei thanked him for helping him with his snake-hatching business, and when he made the small vivarium for his snake. When Chi Cheng is met with a genuine, or at least what he perceives to be genuine, connection, he starts to open up. Furthermore, in the flashback scenes, we can see that a younger version of Chi Cheng was unguarded and openly affectionate with Wang Shuo; a version that is slowly but surely presenting itself in his current relationship with Wu Suo Wei. Clearly, it is easy to draw the conclusion that this current guarded version of him exists because of Wang Shuo’s betrayal. Thus, he started to resort to manipulative and calculative ways in order to soothe the pain and still hold on to Guo Cheng Yu through their weird and unhealthy games disguised as connection.
All of this brings me to the next point: without all these games and schemes with Guo Cheng Yu, Chi Cheng would have completely lost himself. The only thing that is tethering and keeping him together is Guo Cheng Yu’s distant support, and if it is up to Guo Cheng Yu, he would have been even closer to Chi Cheng. One can argue that it isn’t Guo Cheng Yu and Wang Shou’s betrayal that hurt him, but Wang Shou’s abandonment. This is clearly evident when he keeps constantly asking Wang Shou about the reason he left. He even said it directly that he doesn’t care why Wang Shou betrayed him; he cares more about the reason he left him behind. Because to Chi Chang, Guo Cheng Yu, and Wang Shou are his chosen, found family. His real family, his blood family, are cruel and emotionally unavailable. They don’t care about his wants and needs; they don’t respect his love for his snacks and they used them as a bargaining chip to make him yield to their requests. Also, there is a comparison to be drawn between the scene when Chi Cheng found out his dad is sick and in the hospital, and the scene when Chi Cheng found out Wu Suo Wei’s mom is sick. With the former one, he barely reacted or showed any concern, but with the latter one, he was involved in her treatment, and he tried as hard as possible to be there for her–whether financially or emotionally. He cares about her to the point of claiming her as his real mother. This proves that when Chi Cheng chooses someone as his family, he is all in; he doesn’t hold back, nor does he want to. This is why he was hurt by Wang Shuo’s disappearance because instead of staying and facing the consequences of his actions, he went and left Chi Cheng behind–unable to move on or get any kind of closure. Additionally, there was a huge chance that Chi Cheng would have forgiven Wang Shou if he stayed and put in the work because Chi Cheng rewards any efforts to earn his love, affection, and forgiveness positively. However, by leaving, Wang Shou deprived Chi Chang of his family. This is a contrast to Guo Cheng Yu who stayed and took Chi Cheng’s bitterness and vitriol for what it is: a way to form connection by not showing vulnerability because last time Chi Cheng did this, he was betrayed and left behind. This will lead us to analyze Guo Cheng Yu’s character next.
Guo Cheng Yu is intelligent, cunning, shrewd, and astute. All of the aforementioned traits allow him to be able to read people easily and adapt his ways around them accordingly. After Wang Shuo’s betrayal, he also becomes cold and even more calculative. When we first meet him, he is introduced as Chi Cheng’s rival. Their snakes were literally fighting each other; however, there wasn’t an air of enmity between them–at least not on Guo Cheng Yu’s side. Even when he gave Chi Cheng his boy toy, there wasn’t any hostility. Additionally, in the fight scene in episode 10, when Chi Cheng wasn’t able to hit him, he had a bewildered look on his face; he didn’t look pleased, in fact, he looked a bit upset over it. On the surface, Guo Cheng Yu seems like a very contradictory character. He isn’t easy to read, and the show did this deliberately because as the events and plot kept unfolding, the clearer his character’s progression started to make sense. His motives and schemes started to seem more direct. The show kept giving us the puzzle pieces out of order; it wasn’t until Wang Shou came back that everything fell into its right place. Guo Cheng Yu isn’t Chi Cheng’s current rival and previous best friend; he has always been Chi Cheng’s best friend–whether Chi Cheng wanted him by his side or not. All these mind games and manipulation were just as a decoy in order to be in Chi Cheng’s life in any shape or form. This man loves with his whole heart and gives himself and his devotion freely, and Chi Cheng isn’t blind to that. Chi Cheng knows what Guo Cheng Yu is doing, but he can’t let go of his past hurt or trauma all that easily. So, he accepts all Guo Cheng Yu’s prodding, schemes, and ploys because he sees the intentions behind them: pure love and support. That brings all of this back to the fight scene, which is the turning point, Guo Cheng Yu was able to hit Chi Cheng because he is provoking him as always; however, what is unusual is Chi Cheng’s unwillingness to participate in their game any longer–which later will open a door for healing and more character progression. Chi Cheng always took Guo Cheng Yu’s provocation and gave back ten fold, but this scene is different because now he has someone who loves and supports him. Now, he has Wu Suo Wei to take care of him without any added pain or history. This shook Guo Cheng Yu to the core. Also, it puts the next scene in a different light and context: when Guo Cheng Yu told Chi Cheng that he changed and Chi Cheng taunted him by replying, “Aren’t you glad?”–which shows that he is slowly changing because he is still taunting him–he isn’t neutral or positive about him yet. This moment cemented in Guo Cheng Yu’s mind that the game is changing, and he needs a different approach to stay in the game–he is very adaptable. Again, he is upset because his best friend might be leaving him behind, not because he is healing. All of his actions point to his loyalty and devotion. Funnily enough, the moment Chi Cheng started to move on with Wu Suo Wei, Guo Cheng Yu also started to live for himself by pursuing Jiang Xiao Shuai. At first he wanted to pursue Jiang Xiao Shuai because he wanted to see how Chi Cheng would deal with him after Guo Cheng predictably lose in their game. So, even his pursuit of Jiang Xiao Shuai started from an unhealthy place–as a way to keep his unhealthy connection to Chi Cheng alive. Fortunately, he is also able to grow and heal by pursuing a relationship with Jiang Xiao Shuai simply because he likes him–there isn’t any ulterior motive. As Chi Cheng’s character progresses, Guo Cheng Yu’s character also grows, and he schemes to keep Wu Suo Wei close to Chi Cheng because he knows how precious he is to Chi Cheng, and he can also focus on his own relationship. At the core of Guo Cheng Yu’s character, there is nothing but fierce love, protection, and loyalty to all the people he loves–which now also extends to Jiang Xiao Shuai.
As it has been mentioned by everyone in the show, the moment of the great divide between Chi Cheng and Guo Cheng Yu happened because of Wang Shou; however, it turned out that the cheating didn’t actually happen, which proves Guo Cheng Yu’s loyalty and understanding even more. He could have tried to clear his name, but he knew that deep down that won’t change anything because what hurt Chi Chang wasn’t the cheating, but Wang Shou’s leaving. So, he stayed quiet in this stagnant and toxic connection to Chi Chang so he could take care of him even if it is on the sideline. He is the person who deeply SEES Chi Cheng to a maddening degree, and that’s why Wang Shou wanted to cause a rift between them. The sad part is that Wang Shou neither succeeded nor failed. He kept all of them in this limbo, but by his return, he can set all of them free. Once the truth comes out, Chi Cheng can easily accept Guo Cheng Yu’s love without any pretence or mind games.
In conclusion, this show is very well-written because it understands its characters deeply, which is great because their progression is realistic and reasonable. Every reveal isn’t shocking, but it is enlightening because all the pieces have been laid there; the audience only needs to put them in order. Every new information recontextualizes everything the audience knows. For example, the audience knows that Guo Cheng Yu is calculative and he is doing everything to annoy Chi Cheng and be a hurdle in his way; however, it isn’t until much later that they understand that this is his way of connecting to Chi Cheng. The heart of the show is the consistent character writing, and how everything leads back to their love, devotion, and loyalty to each other, regardless of any past hurt or pain.
(Edit: This was written before episodes 17 and 18.)
