ameliarating
I’m seeing people irritated by Cao Weining and Gu Xiang’s romance, specifically about the need he feels to protect and defend her and see she comes to no physical harm and that is a pretty tired trope in straight romances, especially straight romances between teens. And it’s totally fair!
But it absolutely works for me. There’s such difference between romances where the straight guy romantic partner is able to be effectively protective of his straight girl romantic partner and functionally guides her throughout the plot making sure she comes to no harm (or, alternatively, fails to dramatically at the last moment) and between romances - especially when the straight girl romantic partner was previously depicted as a strong and capable fighter but she still now needs her partner to protect her…
and between romances where the straight guy romantic partner wants to protect her but isn’t actually able to and has to learn to accept that the ways in which he might protect her aren’t actually through physical defense but the quiet ways in which everybody needs to be protected according to their own needs and vulnerabilities.
In this case, it’s explicitly stated Cao Weining is not a strong cultivator, and we see more than once how he is just not actually capable of protecting Gu Xiang in battle - and also that Gu Xiang actually doesn’t need it and often ends up protecting him. He doesn’t pretend otherwise. He admits it straight up. And that’s hard for him, as it could be for anyone who has to see the ones they care for go out into a dangerous world.
In the ways he does manage to defend and protect Gu Xiang, he acts as a parallel to Zhou Zishu with Wen Kexing, slowly noting the difference between someone who needs to be defended in battle and who needs to be defended to themselves and to others who judge them.
Wen Kexing and Gu Xiang live outside human society to the point that they no longer consider themselves humans. What Zhou Zishu and Cao Weining do is not reform them so that they can become human again, but expand the definition of human so that it would never keep them out in the first place. They don’t return anyone’s humanity. They see it and assert it.
(Spoilers for last two episodes below cut)