[WoH] Timeline Confusion + Ep. 30 Questions

[itwastheband]

Hi everyone, I'm so excited to be here. I've had so many thoughts about WoH since I first watched it but I haven't had anyone to flail with about it, so I was genuinely thrilled when I stumbled acrossed this community I even joined dreamwidth because I was thrilled to see there's an episode rewatch happening, LOL!

That said, I have some questions about the drama that I'm hoping someone can help me with.

Question #1 - So, bearing in mind it's been a bit since I've seen episode 35/36 and the deatils are probably fuzzy, I'm a bit confused about the timeline involving ZZS's father.

Based on what I remember, ZZS tells WKX (and maybe even ZCL, JBY and Wu Xi at one point) that his father had collected all the pieces needed to open the World's Armory only to realize that the contents of the armory weren't what everyone had thought them to be. So he lied to the former Prince Jin about not finding the place and was executed.

Was it ever explained how the pieces of the lock and the key ended up with Rong Xuan's party? Did Long Que get it from ZZS' father?

Question #2 - in episode 30, Prince Jin admits that he burned down Four Seasons Manor because ZZS "couldn't make a decision, so [he] made it for [him]." I was curious if this is a accurate translation of what's actually said in that moment. Because oh my gawd, I have so many theories about this line and the possibility that Prince Jin might have had a hand in forcing ZZS to come to Jin the first time around, too, just a bit more subtly. And maybe without ZZS noticing.

But I also don't want to go bonkers over a line that might be mistranslated or maybe missing connotations that I wouldn't have noticed.

And finally:

Question #3 - Still on episode 30. When ZZS is holding Prince Jin hostage, ZZS says "You fooled me and tried to kill me" and uh, I'm really confused. Out of all people, Prince Jin has had killed, ZZS has never been on that list. Is this a mistranslation? Or referring to a scene that was cut? Or maybe just referring to the fact that the work ZZS did for Window of Heaven and the death of his sect was killing him?

Edit: I hit enter a bit too quickly, I wanted to end this post with a big thank you to whoever helps me tackle these questions. <3

Comments

[velithya]

Regarding question 2, I got the impression that Prince Jin absolutely wheedled ZZS into coming to work for him. There's a flashback scene where ZZS gets a letter from Prince Jin and goes to see him and Prince Jin is all upset and saying he needs ZZS by his side to support him and he can't do it without him etc etc and I always felt that that was some A+ emotional manipulation from Prince Jin to get this powerful young sect leader to bring his (not inconsiderable!) support to ensure Prince Jin could maintain/gain power.

[itwastheband]

Thank you for the comment! <3

I always felt that that was some A+ emotional manipulation from Prince Jin to get this powerful young sect leader to bring his (not inconsiderable!) support to ensure Prince Jin could maintain/gain power.

Oh, definitely. That entire "woe is me" flashback scene with Prince Jin felt so fake when I watched it for the first time that I had been waiting for it to be revealed that Prince Jin had been responsible somehow. Like maybe he had been the one to spread the rumors that made the former Prince Jin decide to execute the poor man.

So there's no disagreements from me that Prince Jin was emotionally manipulative.

I was just curious about the translation of "you couldn't make a decision, so I made it for you" because in that scene the line doesn't make sense. Unless the implication there was that Prince Jin is actually delusional enough to think ZZS was remotely interested in coming back. Or maybe he was trying to gaslight ZZS into believing that.

So it made me wonder if it was a subtle reference to back when ZZS was actually torn between helping his cousin and staying with Four Seasons Manor. That Prince Jin had figuratively "destroyed it" back then by somehow stirring the pot with the jianghu behind the scenes in order to apply pressure to ZZS - to "help him decide."

I could be completely off base, of course. Especially since I have no idea how he'd do it. ^_^; I just know that I spent so much of episode 30 squinting suspiciously at nearly all of Prince Jin's comments because the dude just sets off all the alarm bells. He's just a little too good at spinning a narrative.

[velithya]

> So it made me wonder if it was a subtle reference to back when ZZS was actually torn between helping his cousin and staying with Four Seasons Manor. That Prince Jin had figuratively "destroyed it" back then by somehow stirring the pot with the jianghu behind the scenes in order to apply pressure to ZZS - to "help him decide."

I would say not - because back then if Prince Jin had that kind of influence in Jianghu then he wouldn't have needed Zhou Zishu to come back and work for him / create Tianchuang.

Prince Jin is definitely too good at spin! Good think by that point ZZS has Had It With His Shit and is definitely not playing.

[shadaras]

Welcome! I'm glad you found us. :) Feel free to introduce yourself and jump into the episode rewatch discussion posts, including the older ones!

Q1: The conversation you're thinking of is in ep36, 27:27-29:30 (going by youtube's timestamps).

ZZS tells WKX that QHZ was searching for this place (for the former Prince Jin), and it's heavily implied that ZZS's dad was also part of that search. ZZS's dad died from telling the former Prince Jin that it was just a granary. ZZS surmises that QHZ must've kept the Glazed Armor and handed it to Rong Xuan, who then built the World's Armory with that group.

Q2: This exchange is around 25:50.
Youtube's subs say:
ZZS: "You destroyed the Four Seasons Manor"
Prince Jin: "I destroyed it to offer you a chance. Jin was your actual homeland. You couldn't make a decision, so I made it for you. [你不舍得抉择那就本王替你抉择好了] I was thinking [that] if you came back to me I would forgive all your misdeeds."
(and then the conversation moves onto Prince Jin's belief that ZZS might've been his zhiji.)

From my extremely limited knowledge of chinese, that seems like a pretty accurate translation.

I also think that Prince Jin manipulated ZZS a lot! Whether or not it was ZZS's idea to visit him after QHZ died, Prince Jin had a hand in making him stay and turn Siji Manor into Tianchuang. (And he's trying to manipulate ZZS even more throughout this whole scene, I think; he really wants ZZS back. It just doesn't work, because—as ZZS says—he's not a grieving 16yo anymore.)

Q3: That line is at 29:56.
"All favors and resentment between us are too deeply entangled. You fooled me and tried to kill me. [你对我蒙骗利用赶尽杀绝] I don't care anymore."

This one... harder to tell! I am good at copying down hanzi but I am not in any way fluent in chinese. xD Seeing as a a few lines earlier, Prince Jin said "Even when you turned your back on me, I still couldn't bear to take your life.", I'm inclined to think there's something going on with the translation.

Translator apps are saying that "赶尽杀绝", which is I think what's being translated as "tried to kill me", means something like "exterminate" or "kill to the last one", so I wonder if it should be more like "You deceived me and used me to exterminate people"? That would be more in line with what ZZS has been saying throughout this scene. But I dunno! I am not fluent, so this is all conjecture based on dictionary apps. :)