Episode 35, the "Dream" and Fengyin feelings

And I'll continue adding mini-essays because I want to record my thoughts. Right now I'm writing a small one about the four faces of Feng Yin and her journey. #YesImABitObsessed

Warning: This is a super-long post blahblah-ing about psychological ruminations.

The Four Faces of Ah Yin

There is a prevalent theme of the search for Self in Ah Yin/Feng Yin's story. Summing up quickly, Feng Yin the new Fire Phoenix is accidentally killed in her "baby" stage and one of her soul pieces merges with an ancient magical water beast egg and she is reborn as Ah Yin.  The young Ah Yin meets her fated one and is yet again accidentally killed off (geez, Gu Jin, can you stop doing that....) and she is then Ghost Ah Yin going through her reincarnations. Finally, Ghost Ah Yin achieves nirvana/final rebirth and comes back full circle as Feng Yin, born full-adult and demigoddess too, natch.

1) GHOST AH YIN

We see her first, walking on the way to another reincarnation. She is the bridge to all the Ah Yins (including the incarnations we don't get to see). We know it's been a thousand years since her "first" death and she seems very accepting of her fate of repeatedly dying young in her reincarnations. Yet, she still retains some curiosity about her own fate and that of the immortal (Yuan Qi) in the mirror. Remember this MIRROR imagery.

In psychological term, I would say that Ghost-AhYin represents the EGO. She represents the sense of SELF, the part that encompasses all the experiences in one's life, good and bad. Ghost-AhYin internalizes each of her reincarnations as an experience that would move her toward nirvana/final rebirth.

In this drama, Ghost-AhYin's reincarnations all have bad endings, which puzzled the Lord of the Underworld who is in charge of these things. His motivation has always been to "strengthen" Ah Yin's soul because her prime death (from Yuan Qi's Yuan Shen Sword) was so injurious to her primordial spirit, that bringing her back from the spirit world to the immortal realm is an almost-impossible task (the theme of the lost Self).

This SELF learns to question motives, to be detached from emotions, and to be self-sufficient. We see Ghost-AhYin only a few times, but we can see this change in her as every reincarnation changes her. The last act, telling the three (yes, THREE) men in her life she would do as pleased, is her most important--she will choose her own ending, she will face her own fate without help and she will not let emotions pull her one way or another. This decision is exactly the turning point to her suffering. Ah Yin's soul has to die to release Feng Yin's last soul piece and in that sense, by releasing the past, the SELF can be whole again.

2) AH YIN the HATCHLING and 3) YOUNG IMMORTAL AH YIN/VERY YOUNG FENG YIN

She represents the ID, the part of the unconscious that encapsulates all the impulses and urges of the soul. Ah Yin bursts out full of life and laughter, all innocence and self-centered (in a good way). Her instincts are very basic, taking on lessons of friendship, love, jealousy and finally, loss and pain. She acts and reacts with each learned emotion, driven by pure need. Being a magical healer, her need to be generous, to give of herself, to take care of and protect those she cared for becomes a primary focus.  Thus we see her quickly saving Hong Li the fox, unquestioningly trying to transfer energy to Xiu Yan, and finally, sacrificing half her lifespan to save Yuan Qi (and Xiu Yan).

The openness that is Ah Yin causes her a lot of loss and heart pain. Everyone (who is good) around her senses how vulnerable she is and moves to protect her, from Master Dong Hua to Gu Jin/Yuan Qi to Xiu Yan to Ao Ge to Hong Li, Yan Shuang, Lan Feng, Three Stones...the list just goes on. Yet, they failed in the end. The Self cannot protect itself if the ID/instinct is not balanced with self-preservation, of which Ah Yin has none. She rushes headlong into situations to get things done right, confronting the sophisticated and manipulative Hua Shu and releasing Hong Li from his magical imprisonment. 

Fierce as she is and much as we love Ah Yin, her journey cannot be completed without the wisdom of adulthood. After her death, her reincarnations appear to reinforce this, as if trying to find a balance for her soul. The EGO that is Ghost-Ah Yin walks in search of this balance. She had had plenty of guileless zest and whimsical love as Ah Yin and her search is an unending cycle of mortal pain.

We see Ah Yin gives up in the end, choosing death, choosing a release from her instinct to be with Yuan Qi. But she still held on to one piece of herself, coming back over and over to maybe look at that Magic Mirror (again, YUAN QI). She finally gives up a second time--ID and EGO are at last in agreeance and that last piece of her soul was freed.

4) FENG YIN DEMIGODDESS AND PHOENIX QUEEN

The return of Feng Yin, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-deliberate, is representation of the SUPEREGO. The superego seeks perfection, balance of  ID and EGO through conscience. Feng Yin, "home" at last, is aware of everything. She retains all the memories of her past experiences and seeks justice through idealism and moral judgement. 

She remembers her SELF and the experiences of the ID and sought to avoid the past. The SUPEREGO isn't complete without balance either and we can see Feng Yin struggling with past affections as she tries to maintain her moral indignation of the past injustices.  SUPEREGO deals with pride and punishment, codes and commands. The new Feng Yin is the personification of this and she is seen as cold, detached and cruel, even, when it comes to the way she treats Yuan Qi.

Yet, we see she cannot find her happiness either. She cannot forget herself as Ah Yin and her love for Gu Jin. She keeps asking herself how she could move on and just be Feng Yin. 

The final answer comes from Feng Yin's final choice to release her anger and her past. In short, she needs to give up one last time. The embrace of all things in her past completes the journey toward nirvana, which is, in this case the completion of the EGO.

EGO = ID + SUPEREGO

As she reveals her past to each of the important people in her life, as she opens up to them again and accepts how they were a part of her past, Feng Yin is finally at the end of her journey. Her last scenes show her taking in humanity in her travels and pulling in the spiritual power of life itself to bring back her lover. Gu Jin/Yuan Qi here, with Feng Yin on the other side of the coin, represents the Duality of the Mind and Spirit. When she looked in the mirror the first time, he is HER looking for herself.  His final appearance is the Self reawakened. There is now no mirror. They stare at each other and smile because they recognize each other and are united at last.

TADA! ***Grin

Keeping track of our parallels in here.

I love the parallels. I loved how A Yin never gave up on Gu Jin although his love threads were removed. She kept chasing him until she died. Everyone kept saying she didn't deserve him. Likewise with Yuan Qi. Feng Yin's  love threads were removed through her many lifetimes over the thousand years yet Yuan Qi never gave up on her either. He kept shamelessly chasing her and even crashed her wedding. ?? It was him, now, who people said didn't deserve her. They both just hopelessly love each other.❤️❤️

Copying here for our future reference:

THE LAST COUPLE OF SCENES (not epilogue, heh heh)

It’s a mirror of the prologue, which was 1000 years before the main story. This last scene was 1000 years AFTER the main arc. 1000 years ago, AhYin was the ghost with one piece of soul left. One thousand years later, YuanQi was the ghost with one piece of soul left. 1000 years ago, YuanQi looked for AhYin in all the realms to get her back. 1000 years later FengYin waited for YuanQi as she collected spiritual powers in all the realms to get him back. 1000 years ago, YuanQi was the one with the puppy dog eyes, and 1000 now…. bwahaha. I can go on and on studying the prologue with the final scenes. I just wish they had given me the epilogue.