This was an art request so I had an excuse, but honestly, it was inevitable that I would eventually put my money where my mouth is and actually start drawing my deranged niche ships
my favorite narrative long-con in 2ha is the way its pretty obvious something is up with shi mei from early on but he feels so clumsily utilized for so long that i was worried there was no way the payoff could be satisfying, but once you have all the context the way he’s used early on makes the reveal hit even harder. the fact that pretty much all of our knowledge of shi mei as a person is delivered via mo ran’s blatantly skewed perception and shi mei just straight up Doesnt Fucken Do Anything for like 2/3 of the novel but be beautiful and desired. the way shi mei is physically separated from the rest of the cast for large portions of the story due to his different skillset. the way he’s flat out disregarded sometimes like when he tries to give us a rare moment of insight to what’s going on in his head when he says he’d never leave the dream illusion of his family but chu wanning talks over him and uses him to lie to mo ran about the truth of the blood hourglass.
he’s a beautiful cardboard cutout, an object for mo ran to obsess over, a plot device to sew conflict between chu wanning and mo ran, an often sidelined member of the central sisheng quartet because his cultivation methods alienate him from the action in a way. the most impactful thing he does for the narrative at first is die for the sake of mo ran’s character regression into taxian-jun. when he’s finally uniquely situated to save the day by killing the heart drill insects, he’s immediately turned into a hostage and whisked right back out of the narrative – but not before giving an ominous little speech about how he deliberately let everyone believe things about him that weren’t true because they never really knew him beyond the surface level.
there’s this sense of the narrative itself commodifying his gentle kindness and beauty, never allowing him to have much depth but letting other characters use him as a tool to meet their own needs and tucking him away when he’s not useful. and it turns out this shallow dehumanizing treatment is exactly what he’s trying to escape from.
The name of Dr Ratio's warp event is connected to this and, incidentally, Aventurine
Disclaimer: 1) I'm not normal or rational about Dr Ratio. 2) The conclusion is supported only by the English translation as far as I know. 3) Maybe the conclusion is a bit of a leap but I'm serious about everything else.
Let's go!
The conversation Aventurine and Acheron had towards the end is probably up there with End of Evangelion for me in terms of comforting. There's something comforting about Acheron's Nihility because there's still a drop of colour in there and she thinks it's enough. It's the kind of emptiness that accepts anything and don't we all need a little black hole to chuck all our worries into? 🥲
Before the 'grand finale', Aventurine says that sleep is a rehearsal of death. After his death, Acheron agrees and adds that we sleep in order to prepare for the real thing.
And then Aventurine asks her a question:
And Acheron's answer is: this isn't true and Aventurine knows this himself. We don't get born to die. There's no reason for being born, just like there is no meaning in life.
(There's only chance. In stories, things happen for a reason but life isn't story-shaped.)
So: there is no meaning in life. But the way we live our lives gives meaning to our deaths.
Then she tells him to look at his pocket because his friend has already given him the answer.
And I was like 'Finally !! I've been waiting for this reveal!' because what can be said at this moment that could help Aventurine?
There are 2 phases in his plan:
1) Prove that death is possible in the dreamland. Since all the visitors in Penacony are protected by Harmony, this is pretty hard to do but not impossible. We know other people have done it before. Aventurine uses Acheron the emanator of Nihility to cut through the Harmony protection and finish him off.
And Aventurine wins his wager! But the plan doesn’t end there.
2) Move forward to the Real Penacony somehow and investigate the truth about the Watchmaker. And then figure out how to come back. Which honestly sounds like a tall order, but what else can Aventurine do?
Well, he can stop at phase 1.
Acheron says that the conclusion of phase 1 is a win-win situation for the IPC, which is true. Aventurine's death will give the IPC a reason to investigate Penacony and the Family. We know Jade and the others aren't even allowed to go into the dreamscape, but with the death of the IPC envoy, they'll have the right to make some demands from the Family.
If Aventurine stops here, he still would have won.
We know from his conversation with his future self that he's tired and ready to stop. He wants to come home and be with his family.
Aventurine is pretty much a mess: he's a child blessed by Gaiathra Triclops, which gives him godly luck. This luck has prevented him from dying countless times before (even the times when he was actually fine with it). He wants to die but also he's terrified of... dying?
Truly embodying the 'Why is it so hard to die, so impossible to live?'* vibe.
(*From Tanith Lee's The Secret Books of Paradys 1, if you're interested)
Or maybe more accurately, he's terrified of losing everything just like he did in Sigonia. You can look at it in 2 ways: without Mama Fenge's blessing, Kakavasha would have died with the rest of the Avgin. Or Kakavasha's luck came at the expense of literally everything he holds dear.
With Acheron's help, he has finally achieved the death his own luck has been protecting him from. So why should he move forward?
Well, let's see what Acheron meant when she said Aventurine's friend has the answer.
And I... have no idea.
The underlying message here is easy enough to understand: Acheron has already answered Aventurine's question. He can move forward and keep living because that's what will give his eventual death more meaning. But hearing this from Acheron is a bit of a cold comfort: she accepts everything and also views everything impartially.
Ratio's note is a reminder to Aventurine that someone in the waking world is personally invested in Aventurine's well-being. Not because of what Aventurine can do for the IPC (as a consultant, I assume Ratio gets paid whether Aventurine succeeds or not, but also Aventurine has already succeeded with Phase 1).
And not because Ratio gets anything out of it... well, the Stellaron files maybe? But he already has that. Or whatever it is he went to Penacony for, because the two of them are being cagey about it.
Whatever it is, Ratio has already gotten what he wanted. This note is an extra then, something that he gave Aventurine because he wanted to.
I'll come back to what I think he meant, but I need to talk about the Jp translation (sorry I know I should check the original Cn instead but I don't know Cn at all 😭 it's hard enough for me to catch the nuance in Jp let alone a language I can't parse at all), because the word used is different and this is why I'm unsure.
Post by a Jp user about Ratio's note. I can't post a screencap because there's no more space 🥹 But here's the text:
「処方箋」
夢の中で不可能なのは「死」ぬことではなく、「熟睡」することだ。 生きろ。幸運を祈る。
In this note, Ratio uses 熟睡 (jukusui), which means deep sleep. This is deep uninterrupted sleep, the kind that you wake up from feeling refreshed. Or the kind that you have when you take sleep meds. Or the kind that you have when you're contented with your life and not burdened with ambition or anxieties or curiosity.
I don't know.
We know that it's possible to sleep in the dreamscape because Ratio wakes Aventurine up in the beginning of the quest. At the very least, he seemed to be dreaming so I assume he was asleep? And they seem to be in the dreamscape because there's an origami bird tail behind him... except Dr Blues also appears in reality so maybe we can't rule anything out just yet.
I'm not 100% sure what Ratio means about 熟睡. But what about 'Dormancy'?
This is easier. The disclaimer here is I'm not a big fan of the English translation in general (especially the way Dr Ratio was translated in English) but I'll let myself have this.
Dormancy is (thank you wiki) a period in an organism's life cycle when growth, development, and (in animals) physical activity are temporarily stopped. It's also connected to 'deep sleep'. Hey, we're getting somewhere!
Basically, hibernation. Ratio seems to be confirming what we already know: the dream is falling apart because everything in the universe will succumb to Nihility in the end. Maybe the dream was created to preserve a memory (just like how the IPC was preserving Chadwick's memory in Penacony), but the dream is also starting to crumble.
Maybe this isn't the most comforting thing to tell Aventurine, but it does confirm what he probably already suspected (about the truth behind Penacony) and it also tells him that change is constant. Moving forward means he could potentially get out of a situation he doesn't like.
And he does move forward. He tells his past self that there will come a time in the future when he'll come home to his family, but not now. For now he can keep changing and making his own meaning.
Dr Ratio's warp banner is called Panta rhei. 'Everything flows', which says that things are always in a state of flux (change). For example, you can't step into the same river twice because the water is moving and is constantly getting replaced (thanks again, wiki). This is the same about humans: we are always changing both physically and mentally. We both are and are not (wiki again).
Doesn’t it sound like what he said in his doctor's prescription?
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