Li Kaigu and Chulin in #132

[ajk]

This is a little late, but it's been rattling around in my head and I thought somebody should say something about it.

We've had a whole bunch of significant deaths in the last several episodes and they haven't been handled very well by the writers. They seem to be in such a hurry to kill these people off that they're rushing through the storylines and the deaths are just too abrupt. And the deaths of Li Kaigu and Chulin in #132 were the worst examples of this yet.

Most of us were probably anticipating that there would be one spectacular duel between DJY and Kaigu at the end of the series. But some of that anticipation was blown because they kept having little mini-duels that were broken up for one reason or another. And for me at least, the rest of it was blown when Kaigu poked his eye out. What kind of a fair fight would that be? Cover your left eye and see how much of your field of vision you lose. DJY is a good enough swordsman that he'd know how to take advantage of that.

So they had the duel in #132, and even though the eye thing was strangely not a factor (?!?), the duel was a huge disappointment. It was way too short and it wasn't even as good as some of the stuff we saw from other characters in the middles of battle scenes! Frankly, at that point I agreed with Mimosa ("Just put him to death") although you could understand DJY wanting to do the job himself. But to actually have the duel and then short-change us like that, it was very poor planning and poor writing.

And as for Chulin...she's the Khitan princess, for goodness sakes. Wouldn't she be thinking of her own people, and wanting to lead them to a better future within the new state? That whole business about always having loved Kaigu and wanting to run away with him, it just seemed entirely out of character and went against everything I thought she stood for. And her death seemed almost trivial. If they were going to kill her off, they should have written something that would let her go out a hero and die with dignity.

(I did think it was interesting that Chulin had been carrying around poison for so long, only because of the abandoned storyline about DJY's poisoning in front of the Tang emperor. When she was dying I hoped that she might confess to being the poisoner, since she obviously was adept with handling poison. But no, we didn't get that either.)

And then as they're lying there dying, DJY forbids Goem from going to them. Yes, Goem disobeyed orders, but DJY was ridiculously cruel. DJY is the one who's always been tormented by seeing his mother die and not being able to go to her and comfort her. He'd do the same thing to his own son? And remember how desperate he was to find his own father during he battle when he lay dying. And yes, Kaigu was a traitor, but if he was worthy enough for DJY to want to duel one-on-one, he certainly deserved to have his son tend to his body. An ugly scene that wasn't even necessary.

This series has had a lot of memorable moments and episodes and I've enjoyed it, but it isn't exactly going out with a bang.

[bml]

And DJY just stands a watches her drink the poison. What did he think, she was doing a shot of soju?

[mugwump]

I agree.
I've only seen this episode without the English subtitles, but I too thought the death of Chulin was handled very badly. Considerling that DJY was supposed to have loved her for so long, he just leaves her there after she dies? And the viewers don't get to see any sort of mourning on his part (aside from about 10 seconds before Geom appears)? No montage of his memories of her?
And did Chulin really love Li Kaigu that much? You're right that she should have thought about livining on to lead her people. She did leave DJY all those years ago because she put her people first.
Very disappointing ending for her. She deserved better.

[Nalbal]

Li Kaigu's death felt hurried, and it was rather disappointing. DJY, on the last stroke, literally cuts Kiagu's body in two pieces (we were suddenly shown a back view; LK walks forward... squish! Down an inch of height. He takes another step... squish! He's another inch shorter. ). Then Li Kaigu miraculously stays alive long enough to give a long speech, and when he is finished, DJY says "You were a worthy opponent. Farewell." And as if on cue, Li Kaigu collapses dead. That whole section was odd, and I was very disappointed (any way you look at it, it was poor writing).

[pabomandu]

Maybe the writers sensed the audience getting bored with the series

[zorro]

I could have sworn I mentioned that whole depth perception thing right after he poked his eye out weeks ago.

I agree about the face-off. Not only was it anticlimatic, the editing was awful. And at the end DJ's hand is cut so bad he can't hang on to his sword, and is left barely able to stand. Yet minutes later he runs to cradle Chulin and there isn't a drop of blood to be seen anywhere. Lame indeed.

Nabal nails it right on the head though, the worst part of all was Li Kaigu's last words. Totally out of character, as was the aforementioned DJY forbidding Geom to grieve for his parents. "You can visit their graves later." I actually was disgusted when I heard him say that. You're right ajk, that was really ugly.

[ajk]

You’re absolutely right about the depth perception, zorro. But what I was more thinking of was that as soon as DJY moved to Kaigu’s left, he could swing from that side and angle the sword either up, level or down and Kaigu would have no idea where to parry. But none of that came into play, either DJY attacking that way or Kaigu trying to anticipate it.

I agree with you guys, both of those characters deserved better. And yeah, did we really need to see Kaigu convulsing and the blood squirting out in all directions? It wasn’t done for realism, it was done for theater. The Incredible Shrinking Khitan. Yecch.