Xian Xia enters the era of chaos

Author|Xie Minghong

Editor|Li Chunhui

In "The Three-Body Problem", the development of the three-body civilization depends on the "constant era" of the stable rise and fall of the sun. Once the sun commutes to work in the "chaotic era", everyone quickly dehydrates and becomes "human dry", waiting for the soaking to recover.

In the development of genre dramas, there are obviously such "constant eras" and "chaotic eras". When the genre is in a stable period, works that follow roughly the same creative routine can achieve good harvests, which is the "constant era" of stable perception; When the type enters the adjustment period, the routine that seems to be drought and flood protection may lose its effectiveness, and the results of innovation cannot be predicted, which is the "chaotic era" of erratic perception.

Today, when the reputation and popularity of national dramas are becoming less and less, Xian Xia may be the last remnant to retain this tradition, and its reputation is always chasing behind the heat. The Douban score of "Ancient Jue Dust" in 2021 is 5.8, and the Douban score of "Agarwood Like Crumbs" in 2022 is 5.9. In the year of the great leap forward in the Douban score, it is already below the average score. This is obviously not commensurate with the number of broadcasts they led all the way during the broadcast.

What kind of mentality does today's audience have for fairy tale dramas, which is really quite playful, is it similar to stinky tofu that can only be eaten behind closed doors?

The two fairy tale dramas that open in the spring of 2023 also show this celestial change. On the one hand, "Heavy Purple", retracing the old path of "Flower Thousand Bones", playing the audience as an old-style fairy with a board and an eye; On the other side is "Starfall into Sugar", which uses funny women to ridicule the inherent narrative mode and tries to give some novelty.

Even inside Xianxia, its popularity and reputation are upside down. Both are difficult to call a masterpiece, "Heavy Purple" has a slightly inferior reputation to "Starfall", but the playback is better than "Starfall". And Xianxia, who used to be a ratings guarantee and had a fixed audience, even lost to the modern love brain "I Heard You Like Me" in terms of popularity, which is simply "shame of the type".

Doesn't it mean that you immortals are the most capable of the three lives and three lives? How to fight is not as good as the two doctors. Of course, we can say that "Heavy Purple" still has the opportunity of real fragrance in the later stage, and "Starfall" will eventually become serious in addition to being funny, but the two fairy tales have lost their established genre appeal, which is probably undoubted.

After the old machine was broken, the new building was not fully built. The current fairy has entered the era of chaos.

Atmospheric Changes: Fundamentalism and Reinterpretation

The difference between the inheritance of "Heavy Purple" and "Starfall into Sugar" to the original canon of Xian Xia is like the relationship between CCTV's version of "Journey to the West" and "Journey to the West" to Wu Chengen's original work.

From the atmosphere of the series, we can clearly feel that "Heavy Purple" is a fundamentalist fairy tale, which gathers all typical fairy elements at a glance:

Shangxian Luoyinfan, who is dressed in white and has abstinence for thousands of years, the demon god Dead Moon who complains about unfair distribution in black, the sister heroine who rushes into the rivers and lakes of Maruzi Chao Transcendence, and there are male classmates Qin Ke who likes him, Sima Miaoyuan, a female classmate who hates him, and Grade Supervisor Venerable who wants to expel the heroine...

Especially on the emotional line, "Heavy Purple" is more like the running account style "Flower Thousand Bones", both of which follow the narrative archetype of the cowherd and weaver girl: restraint - prohibition - resistance punishment. The main contradiction is a feudal ethical bondage, the master cannot think of the apprentice, and the apprentice cannot have disrespectful thoughts towards the master. In the long period of day and night, the relationship between the two has undergone subtle changes.

The apprentice is aware of his own mind earlier, and the master who realizes later can always see his heart clearly after the apprentice is blackened. In the middle of the intimate relationship, it is still the ultimate choice between the individual and society, love and ideals - whether to live with your lover or break off love for the sake of the three worlds?

This is actually a classic motif, but because "Flower Thousand Bones" is in front, and Yang Chao's acting skills are too superficial, it weakens the appeal of the plot. Especially the blackened paragraph, the super surpassing Yue's heavy makeup turned out to be worse than Zhao Liying's back then. It really didn't take the life of Hua Qianbone, but he had the disease of Hua Qianbone.

Contrary to the classic mode of "Heavy Purple", "Starfall into Sugar" is a comedic time-travel atmosphere. The heroine Ye Tan (played by Li Randi) examines Xian Xia from a perspective similar to modern people, creating a lot of contrasting jokes. After learning the age of the male protagonist Xuan Shangjun, she sent out a blind date market and complained to the introducer: "Two thousand seven hundred years old bad old man, are they all so old, and they still learn to marry wives?" ”

The male protagonist is also not satisfied with the arranged marriage, "She is actually my destined person, how can I live my life in the future?" "No one can look at anyone, just be a pair of happy and unhappy people. But Ye Tsune's teasing of Xuan Shangjun after eating the astringent fruit was simply an epic-level disaster. Who wants to watch "fat Wan Qian" teasing "thin Wang Zijian" ah!

We know that the director wants to show the kind of "the drug effect is coming" crazy love, but the too greasy expression management is really not sexually attractive, and I only see two anxious ghosts pushing each other. The last time Hard Candy Jun was so obscene, it was at the Hong Kong film wind and moon god Cao Charlie.

Also, please respect the laws of art and stop using the original sound. Chen Xingxu is also a handsome man, why does his voice look like a calm bull! For us audiences who use fairy tale dramas as radio dramas from time to time, it is extremely unfriendly, as if we are talking about love with Handmade Geng. Returning to the vast land of the North China Plain in a second, let alone absorbing immortal qi, I just want to rub bud rice for him.

Plot reconstruction: a sense of powerlessness between half new and half old

Or is Hard Candy Jun in "How to Love Teachers and Students Not to Respond to People?" The old saying: There are two people in the whole mountain, and if you don't fall in love with each other, you will really be bored to death. And look at "Heavy Purple", although there are many fairies in Qinghua Palace who flutter at Luo Yinfan, after all, they lack the kind of near water building platform of Luo Yin Fan and Zhongzi.

Before Chongzi worshiped the master, the longest accompany Luo Yinfan was the goldfish that he had raised for four hundred years and was finally roasted by Chongzi to eat. My God, it was Koi that killed Koi! In such a socially isolated environment, not to mention the lively and cute super transcendent, even if a boy like Hard Candy Jun is ordinary, the master may feel beautiful after watching it for a long time. This love model really lacks some convincing.

"Heavy Purple" follows the master-apprentice mode of "Flower Thousand Bones", and the main plot is still the confrontation between good and evil and the master-apprentice relationship. The recent contradiction can be turned into a debate in "Strange Words" - for the safety of the sky, should we refine the good people in the magic sword together? Translate it again, it is actually a tram problem that we are familiar with.

Chongzi firmly believed that he could not kill anyone to save Cangsheng, and went against Master Luo Yinfan, and Luo Yinfan gave her a sword when he couldn't persuade her. "Thank you Master, I won't be wrong again this time." On the short video CUT, the popular evaluation is: "Is this kind of highlight so bland?" ”

Not to mention, Hard Candy Jun not only didn't see much resentment and hatred on Yang Chao's face, but also felt that Xu Zhengxi's sword was quite decisive and nostalgic. The very core scenes in the early stage, but it gives people a feeling of going through the scene. Before I could substitute feelings, the heroine was gazed once.

At the same time, "Starfall into Sugar" did not build a clear and powerful main line after breaking the stereotypical narrative, and the gag bulk plot could only be easily embellished, but could not give the audience a reason to "watch it". The relaxed look and feel of hip-hop soon became a kind of "torture". The female No. 1 is funny in the sky and fools the exam strategy Xuan Shangjun. The male number two is funny underground, falls in love with Princess Aoi and takes the concubine by the way.

We can accept the occasional funny, but we can't tolerate several consecutive episodes of the Spring Festival Gala sketch. Especially after the extreme shaping of the characters, it will often dilute the original contradictions of the plot. For example, the eldest prince of the Shen Abyss Realm is a fool, which makes Hard Candy Jun suspect that the mocking strategy is "too much to worry about".

The contradictions in the early stage of the heroine's night are mainly family relationships. The mother is gone, the father is unfair, the father-in-law dislikes her for not being dignified and calm enough, but the mother-in-law feels that it can just make up for her son's character defects, and the husband is eager to "socialize" her. The introduction of delicate family carvings into Xian Xia did bring a fresh breeze to "Starfall". But seven or eight episodes chased down, what is the main line of the story? Not only is the audience not clear, but the creator feels that he does not remember.

The ancient setting of "getting on the wrong sedan to marry the right lang" has not been taken care of for a long time, and the information efficiency of the fairy universe is not as good as that of ancient society. The twin flower setting of Ah Zi and Ah Zhu, with the contradiction between the Heavenly Realm and the Shen Abyss Realm, should also be promising. But the actual situation is that the whole world and the underground are living at home, and a good fairy has been made into TVB's "Love Home".

Between the old and the new, both dramas present a certain sense of narrative powerlessness. "Heavy Purple" is that the audience knows what to expect, but is not interested; "Starfall" is that the audience does not know what to expect, but has been worn off interest.

How does Xian Xia link the mood of the new era?

Xian Xia used his fantasy and magnificent imagination to tell many things in the world. Counting from "The Legend of Sword and Fairy" in 2005, the fairy drama has roughly experienced three stages of iteration in 18 years:

The first stage is the teenage adventure represented by "Immortal Sword", Li Xiaoyao confronts the world and maintains his own stubbornness, which is very easy to resonate with young audiences. That loneliness and longing to be understood is precisely the projection of the growth process of teenagers. Until 2014's "Ancient Sword and Qitan", it was still a return to this faction.

Of course, in the process of breaking into the world, it is also necessary to have an innocent and beautiful love. But Bai Yueguang Zhao Linger and Cinnabar Mole Lin Yueru, after all, are only extra-play CP fans quarrelling, and they are not strong in the plot. It remains to wait until the second stage of the fairy tale drama - the teenage adventure completely disappears, replaced by a bloody dispute in adult families. Whether it is 2017's "Three Lives and Three Lives and Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms" or 2018's "Fragrant Honey Sinks Like Frost", its sadomasochism reflects the emotional vacancy of modern people.

"Xiangmi" contains the classic elements of Mary Sue dramas such as silly white sweet female protagonist, overlord male protagonist, paranoid male second, vicious female match, etc., and plays the Spring Festival Gala-style misunderstanding to the extreme. What can be clearly said in three or two sentences must be held until people are killed; "Three Lives and Three Lives" is the fairy version of "The Temptation to Go Home", and Susu who jumped to Sendai is completely a flee of postpartum depression and indifferent marriage.

If we take the success of the 2022 summer "Canglan Recipe" as a certain sign of the revival of fairy tales, its main feature is to return to fairy tale narratives and explore individual identity. When the grand theme dissipates, Little Orchid's value judgment is no longer that justice destroys evil, but that goodness awakens goodness with goodness. The Demon Venerable, who has captured a large number of fans, has more elements of individualistic awakening. So much so that in the end, the audience shouted in unison "The wise do not fall in love", what is a sweet pet, we just want to watch the villain Bking kill all sides.

Where will the third stage of fairy tales eventually lead? In fact, when we recall "The Legend of Xianxia and Qixia", we will find that there are many mortals in it, and most of the activities are located in the human world. But in the fairy tale dramas of the past decade, human travel is no longer a theme but an embellishment of life in the fairy world. Even if she is as weak as a little orchid, she still has mana and preparation, and she doesn't need to cultivate as hard as Li Xiaoyao.

Dongfang Qingcang attracts fans with his powerful personal charm, which may indicate the return of such an "independent personality" of Xian Xia. The love of the previous stage comes and goes, from "Three Lives and Three Lives" to "Ancient Jue Dust" is also considered exhausted. For example, the narrative of mortal cultivation of immortals in "The Legend of the Swordsman of Shushan". Wang Hou will Xiangning have a feeling, hard candy jun still thinks that Xian Xia should not be too classified, a little shooting of mortal stories may be more grounded.

As for the breakthrough of the human design, it may still have to be solved in the current online text. For example, "Offering Salted Fish to the Master" is a lying flat heroine, and it is a complete betrayal of the "career-type" heroine to the end; "God of Wealth Spring Flower" is a money-making heroine, who is alone in the world and loves money, can project modern people's views on wealth and love, and so on.

Of course, while the image of the female protagonist changes, the hard candy jun also hopes that the male protagonist will become poorer and not be the heir of the heavenly monarch. Everyone started from scratch and went from mortal to immortal, and after eating the hardships of cultivation and becoming immortal social animals, they didn't have much energy to sadomasochism.