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Character Analysis - Ye Lingshuang/Bai Lu

BearFightingFanBackAgain

Thinking about the original title of this drama (Princess of the Plateau), some blog posts by Chinese fans, and the concept poster which is 100% the back of Yezi’s wedding dress and I feel like getting the pitchfork out again because this story feels like Yezi should have had a more massive role/more central role.
Like the TruthMasters got glossed over but when they did show up they continuously hinted that she had a role to play in building/securing the future of Da Chao. Even Minister Jie, a master divination specialist, says something to that same affect when tells Yu Xiuming she’ll be an asset to him in the future once she breaks her shield. There’s also her star which has links to YXM and the fact that she and A’Rui have the same birthday.
Thinking about my review that we’ve been given the middle. I believe Yezi’s story was to be told in 3 parts. The deleted beginning would have showed the suffocation of Yebei and the (potentially unhealthy) lifestyle self sacrificing for A’Rui. Tying with the show’s themes on obsession, viewers would have been introduced to hers with A’Rui. The full middle arc should have been Yezi growing up. It should have been her realising the bigger picture- giving up on revenge that would have gotten her nowhere, accepting love from someone other than A’Rui, becoming her own person through her career and unlocking her full potential. This also the arc where she would learn to give up her obsession with A’Rui which would begin to put her at odds with Yi Wuyou who has not gotten over his. Then we would have had the deleted ending, where all the progress she made would have come to fruition. From ending snippets, stills, and deleted scenes we know she has a happy marriage and kids. And we know from the bits and pieces of the ending that she participates in governing the kingdom. In some of the later released stills, there’s one of her supporting YXM and in the voiceover, it mentions him falling ill. Going off the theory that she’s a key player in the continuation of Da Chao it’s likely that she governed in his stead/helped find the cure for his illness during those last episodes. Whatever she does sees the kingdom pass on to her son successfully allowing him to create an even more prosperous Da Chao.
If this is true and the story was intended to be this full-bodied and full of growth, then I wish the editors of the released version a lifetime of instant ramen with no seasoning packs and socks that never stay up.

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BearFightingFanBackAgain

Below is an explanation from a Chinese fan over how Yezi was edited and what the second edit did to the character. Apologies if the English is awkward, it is auto translated. I’ll also put a link to the original post in the discussion thread.

“The plot of the heroine being deleted/tampered by the scissorhands is not completely counted.


Anyway, the show is over, the cast has also withdrawn, and the dust has settled. Then it's not inappropriate for me to come out and open a microphone, right? Writing this is just to make it clear that some of the heroine's misunderstood performances have nothing to do with her. Everything is a masterpiece of great editorial masterwork. As for whether it is for the purpose of passing the trial, or something else, we can't get to the bottom of it and don't bother to ask.

The following is only part, only part. The show party still put some tidbits very thoughtfully, that's why they can come up with such a little bit.

Completely deleted the big emotional scene in the previous plot where she heard the news of A Rui's death in the barracks, called A Rui's name and collapsed and fainted from crying. Later, she witnessed the process of A Rui falling off the cliff through the moiré spell, because she could not make a sound in the magic circle, and she only knew that A Rui was dead when she covered her mouth in pain, tampered with replacement + changed the lines to this scene. The audience who didn't know the truth scolded her for being too calm.

The scene where she attempted to assassinate Emperor Ming in the sky prison was completely deleted. The core of her love-hate entanglement with Emperor Ming has always been the death of A Rui. Earlier, she dealt with Emperor Ming slickly on the bright side, pretending to be an obedient minister, while wrapping her hatred tightly and carefully in her heart. But in the scene of the Heavenly Prison, she probably couldn't fake her feelings anymore, so there was such a dramatic scene. Now she has nothing to cut, and the audience scolded her for not avenging BLALA for her best friend.

Because she fell in love with Emperor Ming and couldn't kill Emperor Ming again, and her belief collapsed (before she used revenge as the driving force for survival), the scene of her emotional outburst and collapse was cut and tampered into the penultimate episode. She died because she misunderstood Emperor Ming. guilt. The original soundtrack in the tidbits clearly stated, "Why do you always give me reasons not to kill you".

In the same way, the drunk scene is also because of the fierce tearing between this belief in revenge and her true emotions, so she asked the little maid "Am I ridiculous?" In the end, she was married to the most popular part of the old saying "misunderstood the hero". Can the emotions in these two states of mind be the same? The consequence of Zhang Guan Li Dai is that the audience scolded the heroine for acting too much and being hypocritical.

Completely cut out the middle of the part about unsealing the seal, and replaced it with the spellcasting scene cut from an unknown episode, then woke up and got angry at Emperor Ming because of the death of Qi Hailian, and was scolded by the audience for being inexplicable and hypocritical. It was originally here that she went out to find the second male lead to unblock her. Maybe she heard about the death of Qi Hailian when she was out, and then when she confronted Emperor Ming, the new hatred (the death of Qi Hailian) and the old hatred (the death of Qi Hairui) came to her heart together. Did not control my emotions. After the collage, only inexplicable impressions remain.

And these big emotional dramas are almost all in the middle and late stages, during the wavering stage of her relationship. Now all of them have been cut and grafted to the last three episodes, and then the marriage is 800 times faster. Can the audience feel that her emotions change too quickly? Originally, her feelings for Emperor Ming had undergone a drastic and natural transformation, from pure hatred to wavering to acceptance, the process was long and painful. As for Arui, from desperately avenging her, to falling in love with Emperor Ming and wanting to go back to the past to revive Arui to find an outlet for her and Emperor Ming's love, to trying everything possible but failing, and finally realizing that she has to pity the person in front of her and let go. This is the original logic.

The scene where she listened to Yi Wuyou's last words and then cried bitterly in the main hall was deleted. Most of the rivalry scenes between the heroine and the male lead are gone, but I don't understand why even the tenderness she gave at the last point has to be cut? Sure enough, he was scolded for being cold-blooded.

There was also a fan story before. Because she foresaw the disaster of the ice lake, she presented a memorial to Emperor Ming, but Fan Ruhui deliberately obstructed it, causing Emperor Ming to not deal with it in time, which made her disappointed and angry with Emperor Ming. Emperor Ming came to explain with her memorial. After being edited and grafted with a line, she asked Emperor Ming to resign and then she refused to go to court for no reason. Emperor Ming came to coax her, and she suddenly became an unreasonable little wife.

Then from TG, the deletion can only be described as "massive".
I'll just talk about two points that I care about. One is that she and the second male are not looking for a free purchasing agent relationship. The two of them have a partnership to do business and make money in order to make up for the ice. Bai Lu handed over the Chi Yuezhu, a gift given to her by Emperor Ming, to the second male lead to exchange for money. It was not like the second male lead wasted money for her like he was being taken advantage of. I asked if the editing was good. One knife turned her into a fishing girl, ha ha.
The second is that her predictive ability is not a decoration at all. It is an important help for her to start her career line. With this ability, she counts it as a gold mine and a disaster. While helping Emperor Ming solve many problems, she also obtained information from Emperor Ming To Qihai Lianyi Wuyou and the others, who leaked information and swindled money. Emperor Ming said that she was "a wolf-hearted dog", and there was nothing wrong with that. What is it cut now? Only the flexible lips remain.

It can be seen that the heroine's highlight scenes, emotional scenes, or parts related to her career are all deleted without exception. Therefore, her character design has changed from a girl with a clear distinction between love and hate, who has her own will and ideas to take revenge scripts, into a silly, sweet tool that most of the time sets off the hero's affection, wisdom, and martial arts. Even if I am a queen, I have to say that the original relationship line is not a hundred times better than it is now?
Fans don't think that every scene can be broadcast. It is normal for a drama to be deleted in the later stage. But what is more terrifying than deletion is tampering! What a flesh-and-blood character Ye Lingshuang was originally, but because of the deletion of the entire line of revenge, and because of these double-creation operations, she not only lost her original brilliance, but also suffered too much harshness that she shouldn't have to bear. The audience didn't know that this story was a second creation with the original plot broken, and they would only stare at these unreasonable places and make complaints about it. As a result, we were paid by the heroine with the most severely deleted characters and the worst cuts.

But as a fan, I can only speak out for her like this. I just hope that Xiaoran's next role will not have such an encounter.”

Another blog by the same blogger with some edits for clarity:


“Ye Lingshuang/Bai Lu's daring to love and dare to hate has never been just talking about it orally, but thinking about it in her heart.
When she hated to the extreme, she could stab Ming Emperor, who came to visit her, regardless of the situation where she was about to be killed by Ga [be heading].
When she loves to the extreme, she can reverse time and space and go back to the past to earn herself a chance to love frankly, and sleep [with] the male lead without saying a word (although she only realized when she woke up the next day that she was pretending to be a pig and eating a tiger instead of being killed by a tiger) eat) [that she who was a tiger pretending to be a pig was eaten by a bigger tiger].
As a result, both of these places were deleted completely.
It's very rare to see such a sentimental heroine in domestic dramas. I really can't just describe this sense of loss with regret, it will probably be a lifetime of regret.”

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BearFightingFanBackAgain

I feel like this explanation supports my theory that the later editors cut the show with the intention of making it a run-of-the-mill male frequency drama. I don’t why they did this. Yu Xiuming can obviously stand up on his own and a rich storyline between all three characters would have only have brought this story to the next level. I guess it worked to some extent seeing that the show has a higher percentage of male viewers domestically but I think it would have done better if they kept the complex storylines.
It could be a decision made due to censorship rules but a shift from a complex 3 way storyline to a male frequency storyline also the explains the deep cuts to Yi Wuyou. Leaving his story intact would have probably caused an AoL situation where fans still argue to this day which male partner was right. Now as it is, there’s little to show for his character let alone argue about. The same goes for Yezi. I think the cut still leaves her with character but I agree with the blogger that the complexity of her character was lost and that affected viewers perception of the character.
This also explains why the show is getting complaints of being old fashioned and stale. The best places to see this are with the earlier battle scenes such as the Wolf God, the Yebei battle, and the assignation attempt. Looking at the final battle scenes, later fight scenes, and some of the BTS, there’s no way the scenes were cut like this originally. The current version screams power fantasy but from the better cut fight scenes you can see how they were supposed to be more of a performance between characters.

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Vico SDL

It’s too bad we can’t give a like because I like your character analysis 

I agree with you that the terrible editing they did ruined the huge potential of the drama.

In my opinion, the drama was already good without the editing ; so I can’t imagine how TERRIFIC it would have been if they hadn’t cut so many scenes (costumes, setting, writing, characters, CGI…). My favorite part is that it didn’t take the direction we expected ; maybe because I heard the novel ended badly, I thought it would end with Bai Lu/Ye Zi eventually killing the emperor for revenge despite her love for him. But unexpectedly, she grew to love, admire and trust him and his unexpected devotion helped her recover from her obsession with Ah Rui. 

I somehow hope they will remake this someday and we’ll get the full potential of the story. 

Bu the way, did you read the novel ? I’ve tried to read but couldn’t understand much ; but what seemed strange is that from what I understood, the novel was actually completely different from the series, because not only it was shorter but also, it only focused on the princess Qi Hai Ruyi’s side of the story. It’s like the drama had actually decided to offer a sequel to the novel 

So I just wondered if I hadn’t misunderstood about the novel

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BearFightingFanBackAgain

This show still upsets me and I often go back to rewatch it lol. I think what makes me so sad about it is that Yezi/Bai Lu had such a good growth story and the editors didn’t keep any of it. It’s so rare to get a female character with a clear positive growth line in Cdrama and even rarer to get a younger actress who can showcase that growth.  While rewatching, I’ve managed to put some scenes into the correct order and there’s definitely a difference. Bai Lu in the later episodes feels less childish and more calm, ready to be a queen, but the editors butchered her storyline so badly that PXR got a lot of criticism for it and the character is considered “bad” by a lot of passerby watchers who don’t know about the edits. 

I also grieve for this show because it’s rare to get a male lead like Yuxiuming- powerful but still good to the woman he loves without being patronising. Viewers always complained about Bai Lu’s styling until she got married but I always thought it was a visual cue that she was still to show that YXM wasn’t interested in Bai Lu’s looks but her brains. 

I think they should have left the show as uncut as possible rather than what they did rearranging everything.  I feel like the audience would have understood it was censorship cuts and been more lenient.

And you’re right about differences in the book. In the book, YXM is absolutely awful. He is much closer to a villain in how he treats everyone, including Bai Lu. I’m actually really glad they cleaned up his character because I think the drama version is a much more nuanced version of his ruthless nature.

I still hope we’ll get a  fuller version. The Korean version still hasn’t been released yet and I heard that the Thai version is a little different.

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