"Take your love, take your life,
Take my hand, take tonight"
Take Tonight - The Family Crest
Full image under the cut
I felt it didn't convey what I wanted buuut idk maybe you want to look at the full thing. I did the composition in a frenzy of listening to Take Tonight on repeat. I haven't completed a full on painting like this in a hot while (Like, we're talking YEARS). It's a miracle I've improved as much as I did lmao. I posted part of the sketch and some progress months ago because I kept putting off painting Wukong. Mac went by in a breeze but I fought tooth and nail with Wukong.
DTIYS! Um this is really just for fun so there’s no restrictions really just draw the monkies sleeping 😴 and there’s no dead line! Pls tag me if you do draw it 🙇♀️
If you’re still doing redraws how about some classic Shadowpeach. (I’m still mad at knock off male Medusa)
oooo classics indeed 👌
lore wise mac is supposed to only have one set of ears in these, but he already looks so bald without his scar and beard i couldn't bring myself to also take his ears away 😔
Hey, beautiful JttW fans! Remember when I asked how often everyone thought Sun Wukong got whammied with the migraine spell? 74% of respondents selected a number higher than the one in the novel, which I find fascinating. So, let's explore the many (and valid) reasons for the difference between canon and popular perception!
But first, the actual numbers from the book:
Tripitaka used the golden fillet to punish Wukong (drumroll please)... eight times.
He also used it twice more, once at Wukong's request, to differentiate between doppelgängers. Guanyin also recited it once, making a total of eleven. I have posted the details of each incident here. (Once again: if Tripitaka recited the spell multiple times without stopping, I am counting that as One Incident, in the same way that being stabbed more deeply on one occasion than on another still counts as One Stab.)
A full half of respondents felt that Wukong was probably punished with the fillet fifty times or more. A quarter felt it was 100+. That would be a Monkey Migraine happening at least every 2-3 weeks, for 14 years.
So why do so many of us JttW fans believe the number is so high?? And what effect does this have on our characterization--and mischaracterization--of Sun Wukong? I have THEORIES!
1) All eight times Wukong is punished occur in the first half of the pilgrimage. This somewhat mundane and depressing theory also explains why adaptations and abridgments are way more likely to cover, say, Lady Bone Demon or the Ginseng Fruit than Jupiter’s Rival. Namely: quite a lot of people never make it all the way through this very long book. If you haven’t personally read through the final forty-two chapters of westward travel in which Tripitaka never once recites the spell… yeah, of course your perception would be a bit skewed.
Further, if all the adaptations are focusing on arcs from the first half of the journey, you’re going to get the impression of Many Migraines even if you have read the whole thing!
2) The scenes in which the fillet gets used are extremely memorable. First, they’re just straight-up shocking: we’ve gotten used to the Monkey King being nigh-invulnerable, shrugging off axes and armies with equal ease, so the fact that something is hurting him at all is jarring, both on a power-scaling/logistical level (wait, the merely mortal monk can hurt him?) and on a gut-sympathy level (someone is hurting my favorite character! I don’t like this!).
But most importantly, there’s the element of injustice. Nothing will lodge in an audience’s mind more firmly and annoyingly than injustice. It is the popcorn kernel in the molars of your thinking.
I have written a bit on the Lady Bone Demon arc, which is one of the most famous and oft-adapted arcs in JttW—in part because it’s got some of the strongest emotional stakes, and in part because it takes place fairly early on in the Journey (see Theory 1). But I would argue that this arc sticks in people’s heads most strongly because it isn’t fair. Tripitaka did have some valid reasoning behind his mistake, but that nuance gets forgotten in the reader’s indignation that he hurt Wukong, both physically and emotionally, when Wukong was genuinely trying to help him. The takeaway for many readers is not only, “hey, screw that guy,” it’s also, “wow, the monk is a fundamentally unjust person.” It is an extremely easy leap from there to the assumption that he would probably do this kind of thing all the time.
Basically: “he committed an unjust act” —> “he is an unjust person” —> “he is a trigger-happy hypocrite and Monkey regularly suffers for it.”
2.5) Cultural dissonance contributes to the aforementioned shock. You all know the oft-repeated defense of Tripitaka: “corporal punishment was the norm in that time/ culture; Wukong himself believes in corporal punishment of his underlings.” Since this is both clearly true and explored better in other essays, I won’t get into it here. What I want to point out instead is the way that this cultural disconnect makes the scenes where the fillet is used more memorable.
The author/ compiler of JttW clearly thought Sun Wukong getting his skull bent into gourd-shape was hilarious. Probably he expected that his audience would also find it funny. But modern readers reflexively recoil. The disconnect sticks out, because we're abruptly alienated from the author/ text: “I don’t agree with you here. Actually I kinda disagree with you on a fundamental moral level, and that feels isolating.”
So yeah, that’s gonna make the fillet scenes more memorable, too.
3). The popular LEGO show making some time-saving choices in their depiction of Heaven/ the Journey. Certain complex arcs are altered/ simplified by necessity in this fast-paced adaptation, including Wukong earning the circlet. @itsabouttimex2 explained all of this much more insightfully than I could, here. Also the (very smart) decision to make Wukong still flawed instead of an enlightened Buddha interacting with MK has the unfortunate side effect of suggesting that the circlet didn't really accomplish much. Since the show makes him very likable and sympathetic pre-mountain, and not significantly more enlightened post-journey... yeah, we're back to the "memorable injustice" problem: he got his skull squeezed for what, exactly? Funsies?
4). A Gap in Character Likability. Oof, this one. I have…probably several essays’ worth of thoughts on this topic, but quite a lot can be summed up in these two fascinating TVTropes articles. Highly worth reading, but the gist of ‘em is that fans have a tendency to exaggerate existing flaws in characters they already dislike, and ignore canonical wrongdoing from characters they love (or think are hot). This is on full display in the fans’ responses to Wukong and Tripitaka. Wukong is competent, funny, uninhibited, and drives the journey--and more crucially, the narrative--forward by overcoming any problems that arise. This makes him enjoyable to read about/ watch, regardless of his flaws, and our own enjoyment colors the way we judge his actions.
The inverse is often true for Tripitaka: in the place of combat skills, he has a stick up his butt. Plus, he frequently stalls narrative progress by being kidnapped. Where Wukong is a power fantasy, Tripitaka is the opposite: he reacts to violence and trauma in the way we, non-super-powered readers, would probably also react: ie, freezing up, crying, yelling, and needing rescue.
None of this makes him Bad, but it does mean that many frustrated readers are inclined to be extra annoyed by his flaws and mistakes.
It doesn’t help that, although this story advertises itself as a journey to religious enlightenment that happens to incidentally be an action-adventure road trip, we don’t actually see the bits where Tripitaka is teaching his disciples Buddhism. So Tripitaka’s primary contribution to the Pilgrimage, being a teacher—the reason any of his disciples signed on with him in the first place—gets overlooked and forgotten.
(I have further Thoughts about the way Tripitaka is given some very feminine coding/ roles by the standards of fiction (repeatedly referred to as beautiful, serves as the “moral compass” and the “damsel,” is framed as delicate and emotional and pure, gets subjected to S.A.), and how there might be some buried misogyny showing up in the way people react so strongly against having a guy like that exist as a main character, never mind one with--gasp--authority over the more masculine-coded disciples. But that is an essay for another time.)
5). C’mon, angst like that is a goldmine. I almost don’t need to elaborate here. I draw fanart and write fic myself, guys; I get it. Sun Wukong is so incredibly powerful that we are inherently interested in anything that can bring him down. If the fillet is not being actively explored in the adaptation/fan work at hand, it’s a useful point of past angst to be referenced. See, for instance, all the gorgeous art of Wukong with scars around his brow, or the stories in which a sympathetic love interest defends Wukong from his unjust Master. Pain points in fiction are fascinating; it makes sense there’d be a fannish tendency to explore this one. But because so many people’s primary interaction with/ exposure to JttW is via these fan works instead of novel canon, the perspective ends up skewed—and furthermore, skewed in a self-accelerating loop.
Why Any Of This Matters
So I guess all the above is to say: I get it. It does make sense, on multiple levels, why so many people come away with this same perspective on the fillet. And it honestly wouldn’t bother me an inch, if it weren’t for one thing:
People use this incorrect idea to support rampant mischaracterization of BOTH main characters in JttW.
Tripitaka's the obvious one. And listen, you will not hear me make any claims that Tripitaka is perfect. He ain’t. He is…a long way from perfect. He honestly embodies a fussy Confucian bureaucrat a lot more than the ideal Buddhist holy man the text tries to present him as.
But if you take your (wrong) idea that Tripitaka was punishing Wukong every other week, and use that to fuel some (extremely wrong) characterization of Wukong’s beloved Master as a cruel abusive stupid hypocrite who jumps on any excuse to hurt his student…
…Well, there’s nothing I can do about it. Sometimes one interpretation just speaks to you. But it makes me sad, because you are then:
(1) missing out on so much fascinating nuance and symbolism in your enjoyment of JttW, honestly, the whole mind-heart dynamic is brilliant.
(2) missing out on fantastic story potential (a flawed and misguided character who is trying to be good but screws up is 100% more interesting than A Big Meanie, always, and I will die on that hill).
(3) also mischaracterizing Sun Wukong.
The first and obvious layer of mischaracterization: Sun Wukong is profoundly devoted to Tripitaka. He may get annoyed with him, especially early in the journey, but c’mon: Wukong is the guy who randomly stops flying to look down at the monk and compose poems about how admirable he is. Portraying Tripitaka as abusive not only warps/ belittles Wukong’s love and sacrifice on his behalf, it also, more crucially, misses the whole point and impact of Wukong’s arc.
At the time Buddha sealed him under the mountain, Wukong was a genuinely selfish, arrogant person, with no impulse control and little to no compassion. But at the point Guanyin finds him, Wukong has had 500 years to think. He freely admits he was wrong and wants to do better. So he is delighted to have a Master to rescue him, not just from the mountain, but from being stuck in his old ways. (Allegory!)
…but then he throws a tantrum and storms off the very first time he’s told he acted wrongly. He comes back on his own, because he really does want to achieve enlightenment and the dragon king points out to him the genuine nobility and honor to be found in discipleship, but as soon as he understands there are going to be actual consequences for his actions going forward, he tries to murder his Master.
Which makes sense, because until the Buddha arrived, Sun Wukong never once, in his entire long life, made the connection that his actions had consequences…or at least, consequences he couldn’t just hit very hard with a stick.
It is Tripitaka’s job to teach Wukong that he is not above consequences. And Wukong needs--and wants--that growth. He hits a point where he realizes he needs to start listening to his Heart in order to be a whole person.
And it works! Despite all of Tripitaka’s blundering and foolishness and fear, he understands things Wukong does not (see @ryin-silverfish ’s fantastic essay on this topic), and so is able to curb the worst of Wukong’s terrible impulses. This culminates in Wukong’s personal midpoint—the Macaque arc—when he kills off the part of himself that wants to have it all without sacrifice or compassion. (I’ve got a post on that here!) The fillet is never used again after that.
And at the end of the story, the fillet disappears of its own accord. Because he doesn’t need it.
I get so mad at adaptations that frame the fillet as some kind of shock collar that got removed by Authority once Wukong proved he was Obedient, but could be buckled back on if ever he strays. (Looking at you, Black Myth. You're gorgeous, but...Argh.) That misses the entire point. The fillet represents discipline, the disciplining of one’s mind that is crucial to being a good person, and Wukong proved that he could discipline himself. At which point the fillet (external discipline) naturally ceased to exist.
And Wukong didn’t even notice it had gone until Tripitaka pointed it out to him.
(The allegory is so freaking perfect, ugh, I love this book SO MUCH.)
Sun Wukong needs his Master in order to succeed, just as much as Tripitaka needs his disciple. That is literally the point of the book. Both of them screw up and hurt each other. But you shouldn’t cut out your heart because it hurts, anymore than you should stop thinking because you sometimes think terrible thoughts. You can’t yell at your own feelings and claim they’re bullying you and still expect to be a healthy person. You have to accept that your own heart will hurt you, sometimes wrongly or illogically, and learn to be a better, more compassionate person because of the hurt you’ve gone through.
Which is what Wukong does. It's what he actively wants and pursues. And that is admirable as all hells. Reducing Tripitaka to a trigger-happy abuser with nothing to offer the Journey is also a reduction of Wukong’s agency and hard-won humility and genuine desire to improve himself.
Finally finished drawing my own lil take on Sun Wukong. Took some inspiration from several different iterations but I'm quiet happy with how he looks drawing monkey feet is a nightmare I've learned.
Now I just gotta figure out how to draw the other deciples along with my JttW OC, Wren lol
The Hero and the Warrior were like the Sun and the Moon. Their light, a protective glow, shining upon the world. Together, there was nothing that could stop the two of them. Either in the Celestial Realms or on Earth. As time went on, the Hero attained power beyond comprehension. As the Hero's light grew, so too did his shadow. And soon, the Warrior was cast in that shadow. In the darkness, the Warrior was forgotten by the Hero.
"Time to be a Warrior."
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Artfight attack 2026! For my friend (and also creator of the AU i made this attack for)
semi-samadhi fire Wukong vs Macaque except Mac is the fully possessed guy... (lbd sigh) Twists and tumbles AU teehee MY FRIEND IS SO AWESOME BRO I LOVE THEIR AU (Magmadzy on Artfight!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! pls go check them out their art is awesome)
My Artfight: heavenlygreatsage
I prioritize revenges, so attack me if youd like art in return!
