random NiF rewatch thoughts
Apr. 21st, 2019 04:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
glass_icarusPalace/court life in NiF is one of the things I find endlessly fascinating about it. I continue to want More Ladies and More Jingyan at basically all times, but on this rewatch I also found myself getting stuck on Prince Ji, who is pretty intriguing in his own right!
In the show we aren't led to think very much of him because he's a well settled, harmless elder, and clearly uninterested in politics when he could be out there enjoying life's entertainments. His extremely strong sense of family loyalty, regardless of the actions of any particular family member, also doesn't particularly inspire sympathy upon first glance- best exemplified by poor Cai Quan's frustrated face when he speaks up for Prince Yu and Prince Xian, lol. The emperor is well aware of Prince Ji's character and lack of political ambition, and is quite willing to indulge his younger brother as a result, so maybe we find him a little bit unlikable/irrelevant by proxy.
At the same time, Prince Ji has a deeper understanding of the emperor than I think anyone gives him credit for. He might not be as clear on the big political-picture things as the strategic geniuses MCS, Xie Yu, Xia Jiang, Qin Banruo, the emperor himself, etc., but when it comes to the imperial family, does anyone know the emperor's blind spots better? If Prince Ji wasn't so sharp-eyed, how could he save Tingsheng- his one true act of political disloyalty- right under the emperor's nose? I don't think it's just that he's politically harmless; I think he leveraged his family sentiments in a way the emperor didn't anticipate, because the emperor sees his responsibilities toward the next generations as much less important than their responsibilities toward him.
What if everything Prince Ji does in the show is out of family loyalty? Maybe he can see full well what his brother's "parenting" is like. Maybe his indiscriminate soft-heartedness is his attempt to make up for the emperor's various fatherhood-fails, even if his approach doesn't work for Prince Yu and Prince Xian. That conversation he has with MCS towards the end of the series is pretty shattering when I think about it. I kind of wish I could see him interact with Consort Jing. *___*
In the show we aren't led to think very much of him because he's a well settled, harmless elder, and clearly uninterested in politics when he could be out there enjoying life's entertainments. His extremely strong sense of family loyalty, regardless of the actions of any particular family member, also doesn't particularly inspire sympathy upon first glance- best exemplified by poor Cai Quan's frustrated face when he speaks up for Prince Yu and Prince Xian, lol. The emperor is well aware of Prince Ji's character and lack of political ambition, and is quite willing to indulge his younger brother as a result, so maybe we find him a little bit unlikable/irrelevant by proxy.
At the same time, Prince Ji has a deeper understanding of the emperor than I think anyone gives him credit for. He might not be as clear on the big political-picture things as the strategic geniuses MCS, Xie Yu, Xia Jiang, Qin Banruo, the emperor himself, etc., but when it comes to the imperial family, does anyone know the emperor's blind spots better? If Prince Ji wasn't so sharp-eyed, how could he save Tingsheng- his one true act of political disloyalty- right under the emperor's nose? I don't think it's just that he's politically harmless; I think he leveraged his family sentiments in a way the emperor didn't anticipate, because the emperor sees his responsibilities toward the next generations as much less important than their responsibilities toward him.
What if everything Prince Ji does in the show is out of family loyalty? Maybe he can see full well what his brother's "parenting" is like. Maybe his indiscriminate soft-heartedness is his attempt to make up for the emperor's various fatherhood-fails, even if his approach doesn't work for Prince Yu and Prince Xian. That conversation he has with MCS towards the end of the series is pretty shattering when I think about it. I kind of wish I could see him interact with Consort Jing. *___*
