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[skygiants]

After more than a year of luxuriously slow viewing, genarti and I have finally finished watching Nirvana in Fire!

For those unfamiliar: Nirvana in Fire is an astoundingly good Chinese drama which I've often seen people compare to Game of Thrones. I understand why people recommended it this way, especially in GoT's heyday -- Nirvana in Fire is also a sweeping, complex historical-political epic with beautiful outfits -- but I respectfully disagree with this comparison; unlike Game of Thrones, Nirvana in Fire is a.) meticulously plotted, b.) focuses far more on extremely sympathetic humans who are motivated by their own deep senses of ethics, loyalty, and justice, and c.) does not feature dragons or indeed any mythological creatures at all (except for a whole lot of nonsense medicines and poisons, and, possibly, a yeti.)

The plot: the court of Da Liang is locked in factional struggle between two putative heirs to the Emperor's throne; Mei Changsu, Our Hero, is a brilliant scholar and strategist who has come to the capital to graciously allow each of the Emperor's favored sons an opportunity to attempt to recruit him.

However, in fact, Mei Changsu has actually come to maneuver the rise of the Emperor's least favorite son, the extremely honest but congenitally un-strategic Jingyan ... because Mei Changsu, unbeknownst to almost anyone very much including Jingyan, is secretly Jingyan's dearest friend, who was presumed massacred along with his entire family twelve years ago in an Unfortunate Treason Incident, but managed to survive thanks to a rare affliction that causes you to be played by a different actor, and has now returned! for REVENGE! that incidentally involves reforming the entire court and replacing it with a more ethical version of itself!

HIJINKS, IDENTITY PORN, AND A TRULY INCREDIBLE AMOUNT OF POLITICAL AND EMOTIONAL MANIPULATION ENSUE.

The cast? The cast!

Mei Changsu: a liar



Prince Jingyan: a perfectly balanced mix of honor, depression, and belligerently repressed intransigence




- Princess Nihuang, who was engaged to be married to Mei Changsu (original flavor) before the Unfortunate Treason Incident and has been effectively dodging other suitors by leading armies on the southern border ever since; righteous, forthright, and yet somehow still perfectly competent at effectively managing court intrigue (yes this is a Jingyan callout post)




- General Meng, Mei Changsu's ally on the inside; a bold and respected warrior who is also a constant source of workplace sitcom energy




- Fei Lu, the world's most skilled martial artist



- Consort Jing, Jingyan's mother, a doctor who came to the palace one day to treat a patient and regrettably was not thereafter allowed to leave; possessed of absolutely incredible levels of chill, even more subtlety than Mei Changsu, and a very useful talent for remembering all her son's friend's allergies



- Jingrui and Yujin, cluelessly genial young lads-about-town manipulated by befriended by Mei Changsu for mysterious reasons of his own. We initially called them the interchangeable Woosters, until Jingrui began to develop a more significant role as a beloved, sheltered, ethical baby unfortunately doomed to discover that his inordinately complex and shady family was intertwined in a series of inordinately complex and shady plots. As a result this began to seem unfair to Jingrui and we switched to calling them Woost and Wooster.




- (Nihuang's baby brother Mu Qing eventually emerged as Woostest.)



- Xia Dong, a virtuous member of the secret police with a tragically dead husband, who is about to come face to face with the shocking fact that some secret police organizations are in fact problematic



- Prince Yu, the Emperor's favorite son and Jingyan's main opponent for most of the show; he tried so hard, and got so far



- Banruo, Prince Yu's chief strategist, absolute best smirk in the cast



- Gong Yu, the Haydée to Mei Changsu's Edmond Dantès but less romantically successful; occasionally gets more to do than pine after Mei Changsu but not as much as one might wish



- Lin Chen, an eccentric medical genius; absent most of the show but sweeps into the final arc with an ABSOLUTE vengeance




Favorite subplots include but are not limited to:
- Mei Changsu manipulates the court and sends an enemy into ruin by playing an enthusiastic round of House Hunters
- Mei Changsu manipulates the court and sends an enemy into ruin by raising a question about the seating charts at a holiday party
- Jingrui Has A Birthday Party
- strategist scavenger hunt!
- "Consort Jing is like a cotton ball that cannot be flattened or broken. There's no way to fight her."
- the stressful round of chicken involving a prison escape attempt
- the hilarious round of chicken involving a deadly poison
- everything related to the yeti

Comments

[caprices]

This sounds like Gormenghast but SO much more fun!

Thank you for the recommendation and outline of enticing themes. I hope it does not end in the bitter tears of eternal despair?

[sophia_sol]

Oh I've read fanfiction about Nihuang and really enjoyed it, I'm glad to hear she comes from a genuinely good tv show!

[nineveh_uk]

I'm 6 episodes in - after an unfortunate incident in which ep 4 was not on the YouTube playlist and I had to watch it then 5 again - and I'm really enjoying it. I love the clothes, the wigs, the story, and the fact that for once the cunning people engaged in complex plots actually have complex plots.

[coffeeandink]

It remains my conviction that Consort Jing is actually the smartest person and best manipulator in the cast. Sorry, Lin Shu.

[lirazel]

That sounds incredible, but why are Asian dramas so loooooong?

[skygiants]

It's SUCH a delight, the characters are wonderful and every complex plot gear clicks so satisfyingly into place over the course of the show!

uh ... define bitter tears of eternal despair. Honestly it's mostly fine! Everyone more or less gets most of what they want! Except for me, who wanted above all else to see Jingyan just once pop his best and most beloved friend right in his lying liar's nose.

[skygiants]

It's SUCH a good TV show and she is so good in it! My only complaint on her score is that she disappears for like 25 episodes in the middle while we kept squinting at plot points hopefully like "maybe THIS is what will bring Nihuang back..."

[skygiants]

The plotting is so genuinely impressive! Say what you will about Mei Changsu, but he builds an absolutely lovely Rube Goldberg machine and it's a pleasure to watch it run.

[sovay]

- Lin Chen, an eccentric medical genius; absent most of the show but sweeps into the final arc with an ABSOLUTE vengeance

Sold.

[skygiants]

Sorry also to Jingyan, who inherited absolutely none of these skills and is even more defenseless against them when they're wielded by his mother than by the ghost of his dead best friend .... a struggle.

[sovay]

Except for me, who wanted above all else to see Jingyan just once pop his best and most beloved friend right in his lying liar's nose.

I appreciate any retelling of Cyrano de Bergerac that lets Roxane do this.

[skygiants]

On the one hand, yes, ok, fifty episodes is a lot ...

... on the other hand the episodes are only 40 minutes, so the actual time elapsed is not that much more than an epic 20-episode kdrama? >.> AND IT'S SO WORTH IT.

[lannamichaels]

NIRVANA IN FIRE

- (Nihuang's baby brother Mu Qing eventually emerged as Woostest.)

*bursts out laughing*

- the hilarious round of chicken involving a deadly poison

Jingyan learns maximum drama, it was so great :D

Or wait, is this in the prison instead? I love how there are many rounds of poison excellence to choose from.

[skygiants]

he's only in like six episodes out of 54 and yet he's the third most popular character on AO3 and there is very good reason for this!

[whimsyful]

Oh, she definitely is, given the astonishing things she accomplishes with practically no power at first. MCS has the backing of the Jiangzhuo Alliance and Langya Hall behind him, Consort Jing just had her medical knowledge, embroidery skills, friendship with fellow downtrodden concubines, and an incredibly cool head.

[brownbetty]

Okay, but also Noble Consort Yue has a very strong smirk.

[skygiants]

oh no, I'm a fool, I can't believe I didn't say "two hilarious rounds of chicken involving deadly poison"! BOTH ARE SO GOOD (but the one in the palace may be slightly better, we're all so proud of Jingyan for finally learning how to strategically and dramatically deploy his belligerent intransigence)

[whimsyful]

I think you would really like this! There's a lot about forming an ethical and responsible government, REALLY awesome women, and lots of tragic pining and incredible gambits. It is a long ep count, but honestly you don't notice because 1) each ep is only 40-45 min instead of a full hour, and 2) there is surprisingly very little filler, so the pace is very fast. I was watching it an ep a day at first and around halfway through I was binging 4-6 eps per day.

[skygiants]

IT'S TRUE, I regretted very much not including the Empress and Noble Consort Yue for both fashion and smirk-related reasons but I ran out of time before chorus practice

[coffeeandink]

I know people think he's an idiot/get mad at him for remaining oblivious for so long, but I just get furious at MCS for lying and gaslighting him.

He does figure out scheming by the time of his father's birthday celebration (with a clear nod to having absorbed MCS' arguments in Ep. 33), so ... better late than never?

Nihuang both lacks Jingyan's particular hang-ups about the imperial court and has an incentive to manage politics in that she has a lot of people and a baby brother to protect. Jingyan, by contrast, is thoroughly unmoored by the death of Prince Qi and the Lins; I think he's kept in line a little by a need to protect his mother, but it's not the same as needing to learn enough to protect an entire province.

I kind of suspect Prince Ji told him about Tingshen in part to get him to stop being quite so passive-aggressively suicidal in court.

[skygiants]

I'm very much hoping that the National Theater Live will eventually put out the recent one which iirc did just that!

(It is VERY Roxane-ish too in that everyone is convinced they're keeping the secret for Jingyan's own good and the unfortunate result is that the closer Jingyan gets to the truth, the more he is gaslit by everyone he knows, which is probably the roughest thing about this drama I love very much.)

[skygiants]

Oh, absolute same; I'm furious at MCS for keeping the secret well past when necessary, if it ever was, and honestly at Consort Jing too for backing him up when she could very, very easily have leaned the other way once Jingyan started to put the pieces together. Do people really get mad at him for that?! I'm only ever mad at everyone else! Jingyan deserved better!

Yeah, there are some ways in which Jingyan is sheltered from needing to learn politics; the fact that he's not favored and everyone knows he's never likely to be favored is a material disadvantage in many ways, but it also means he's very free to go "well screw you all too" and ignore what anyone thinks of him with relatively few consequences for it, because no one thinks of him as a threat to begin with. Nihuang and her power and her province are absolutely a threat in and of themselves, and she's always aware that if she doesn't move very carefully then others will move to keep her in check. (And, of course, the gender element is a factor too, as we sese in the show.)

[brownbetty]

I'm really weak to the really horrible women, Noble Consort Yue top of the list, but not forgetting the Empress. I really wish Banruo could have had, like, two more costume-changes, although she does really manage to work that faux-fur ruff.

[lannamichaels]

You can be yourself, Jingyan! You just have to be yourself in a strategic manner! And it is great to see him grow that way and learn. It makes you wonder what he could have been if Prince Qi hadn't died and Jingyan hadn't spent twelve years in disgrace.

[annotated_em]

I think Jingyan traded all his political savvy in for Really Amazing Cheekbones.

...also Woost, Wooster, and Woostest might be the greatest thing I have ever seen.

The moral of NiF really comes down to this: Don't invite Mei Changsu to your birthday party unless you wish to regret everything.