Guardian drama timeline: the past

[xparrot]

I've seen and done a lot of speculation about what the Guardian drama shows us about the Kunlun story, in particular, how long was he really back there, and finally decided to sit down and try to work it out to my (dis)satisfaction.


For all its prominence in the show's storyline, the actual screentime Zhao Yunlan spends in the past is quite short. Putting aside Shen Wei's earlier flashbacks (all to moments we actually see on-screen later) Zhao Yunlan's entire trip back in time, from when he drops out of the wormhole to when he's sucked back into it, runs less than the length of a single episode. There are also two brief flashbacks in ep 37, totaling about 3 minutes (we'll get back to those).

But that's just the runtime of the show; obviously far more time can pass in-show than what we actually see, since most of Guardian isn't in realtime. So how long in the show's timeline was Zhao Yunlan actually back there for?

What we see seems to indicate it was a brief trip. Much of the action appears to take place within a 24-hour period -- if an implausibly busy one. The sequence of scenes is as follows:

ep 34:

• 27:12-28:30: Zhao Yunlan falls onto a mountainside, sees Shen Wei and crew fighting rebels, shoots the rebels and saves Shen Wei and his men, only to gawk as Shen Wei just walks off
• (brief break for Zhao Yunlan to make it to the bottom of the hill -- Shen Wei is gone by the time he gets down there, but it's still daylight)
• 28:31-31:30 Zhao Yunlan meets Da Qing, who has a picture of "Kunlun"
• (Zhao Yunlan & Da Qing walk to the alliance's cave HQ; it's still light when they get there (unless the trip took multiple days?))
• 31:31-35:50 Zhao Yunlan and Da Qing meet Fu You and Ma Gui, who explain Zhao Yunlan has to become Kunlun to preserve the timeline
• (Now night outside the cave, presumably the same night)
• 35:50-38:28 Zhao Yunlan is showing off his fancy Kunlun duds (and a wig? magically lengthened hair?); Shen Wei turns up and meets his benefactor. The scene ends with Zhao Yunlan walking off and Shen Wei seeming to follow him
• (next scene is outside, at night; presumably it's the same night?)
• 38:29-41:53 Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei start to talk. Zhao Yunlan takes Shen Wei's mask, gives him a lollipop, and introduces himself as Kunlun; Shen Wei vows to repay Zhao Yunlan for saving his life, which Zhao Yunlan assures him he's already done many times over (<333)
• 41:54-42:37 Brief interlude back in the cave wherein Fu You and Ma Gui discuss whether they're in a mutable or fixed timeline and Ma Gui does a way worse job of flirting than Zhao Yunlan outside.
• 42:38-42:53 Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei have sat down again; Shen Wei's mask is still off and he's holding it. Zhao Yunlan asks Shen Wei's name and the ep ends literally mid-sentence (oh cdrama), picks up with:

ep 35

• 2:09-5:41 Shen Wei gives his name, Zhao Yunlan gives him a better one; Shen Wei explains his backstory and Zhao Yunlan asks about his brother.
• (somewhere else, also at night)
• 5:42-10:59 Ye Zun is offering the Hallows to the rebel chief; ends up eating the chief and taking control.
• (cuts back to Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei, still night)
• 11:00-12:57 Shen Wei thanks Zhao Yunlan for caring, breaks Zhao Yunlan's heart into that many more pieces; Zhao Yunlan says he'll one day go but will be back. Da Qing runs in to report the rebel boss has sent a declaration of war and brought the Hallows; they go off to fight, after Shen Wei picks up a dropped lollipop wrapper.
• (daytime, elsewhere)
• 12:58-13:43 Ye Zun and his merry band are trudging through the forest with the Hallows; Shen Wei, Zhao Yunlan, and Da Qing attack them and reclaim the Hallows.
• (after running an indeterminate length of time -- it's still daylight)
• 13:44- 20:53 Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan stop on top of a cliff to check out the Hallows. Zhao Yunlan tries to open the wormhole to go home, Da Qing comes running up from...somewhere...to protest, clearly speaking Shen Wei's heart for him while Shen Wei is struck speechless. Da Qing does the bell exchange with Zhao Yunlan, then Ye Zun attacks; Ye Zun and Shen Wei have a sibling reunion that could've gone better, and the Hallows open the wormhole and suck Zhao Yunlan back into it.

All the main scenes in this list are in "real time"; they seem to happen at about the same rate as we're watching them. The italicized parentheticals are the gaps between. The trick here is that the dialog doesn't establish how long any of these gaps are, so they're open to interpretation.

By visual cues, they're all short periods. Everyone wears the same outfits throughout. Shen Wei & Zhao Yunlan's clifftop conversation, while broken over three scenes, includes multiple shots of the three-quarters moon, which barely moves, putting their whole exchange at less than an hour. (Though the moon also wanders back and forth a bit. So maybe it's actually a satellite?!)



Plus Shen Wei picks up the lollipop wrapper at the end of the scene and it's intact and not dirty, making it likely Zhao Yunlan had only just dropped it.

The biggest time skips are the transitions between day and night. Zhao Yunlan apparently took at least an hour to get dressed up as "Kunlun" given that the sun completely sets in that time. Then there's the jump between Shen Wei, Zhao Yunlan, and Da Qing hearing about the declaration of war and confronting Ye Zun's band in the woods. It theoretically could have taken days or weeks for Team Kunlun to find the rebels. However, with no hint in the dialog as to how long it's been, the impression we get as viewers is that it's the next day. In Zhao Yunlan's final scene Da Qing also protests to Zhao Yunlan that "you just got here!" implying he really hasn't been here for long.

At the same time, this abbreviated timeline doesn't quite make sense. For one thing, in terms of character development, it can be unsatisfying that Shen Wei's 10K years of devotion is predicated on meeting a random guy for 24 hours, most of which was spent running around in the woods. And Da Qing deciding that Zhao Yunlan is his master is even less plausible -- Shen Wei at least likes Kunlun from the start, being saved by him; Da Qing goes from thinking Zhao Yunlan's an idiot to giving him his bells with no explanation. It's because of this that a lot of us fans assume what we see is misleading, and Zhao Yunlan was really in the past for far longer than it seemed.

One thing sometimes cited as evidence of this is in episode 37, when Zhao Yunlan briefly flashbacks to his time as Kunlun.There are two flashbacks:

• Zhao Yunlan talks with Ma Gui about the Yashou magic seed and encourages Ma Gui to go for Fu You
• Ma Gui uses alcohol on Zhao Yunlan's advice to grow the magic seed.

In the second scene, Ma Gui mentions his surprise that alcohol is a thing. From this it's been extrapolated that the alliance didn't have alcohol and the wine used to grow the seed was made according to Zhao Yunlan's instructions, meaning he had to have been back in time long enough to brew it. Alcohol can be brewed in anywhere from a couple weeks to several months, depending on what kind it is (while the translations say "wine" the Chinese is just "酒（jiu)," which can refer to either rice wine or any alcohol) so it's sometimes stated as "canon" that Zhao Yunlan was back in the past for at least that long.

However, there is nothing in the dialog here that mentions brewing. Moreover, every indication is that rather than separated by weeks or months, the two scenes only a few minutes apart -- the candles haven't even burned down, and what's more, Zhao Yunlan is sucking on the same red lollipop in both scenes.



It makes more sense that Zhao Yunlan, rather than brewing alcohol from scratch, got it from another more immediate source. Maybe, even if Ma Gui didn't know about alcohol, others in the alliance did (the Flower tribe, perhaps, as medicine?) and Zhao Yunlan cadged some off them. Or else Zhao Yunlan just had a flask on him (Ma Gui pours from a little ceramic bottle, but maybe that was to water the drink down to avoid shocking the seed with whatever rotgut Zhao Yunlan is partial to).

(It's also unclear when this scene takes place. In it Zhao Yunlan says he's only known Ma Gui and Fu You for a few hours, so it's definitely the day he arrived. However, he's dressed as Kunlun, and we see him meet Shen Wei immediately after getting in his Kunlun outfit. So it must happen between the time he meets Shen Wei in the cave and their talk outside (Shen Wei went to get his injuries healed, maybe?) Which makes it odd that Ma Gui and Fu You, in their conversation re: the timeline a little later, don't mention this success?)

But while this scene doesn't definitively break the 24-hour timeline, there are other points in the show that seem to contradict what we see of Zhao Yunlan's excellent adventure. For instance, after they get back, Zhao Yunlan says they were "only" gone two days in the wormhole -- if he was back in time for less than that, wouldn't he be more surprised that so much time had passed?

Then there's all the earlier references to the past that don't quite fit with what we see. In ep 22 Da Qing has a flashback of calling for Kunlun and meeting Ye Zun, which never happens (Ye Zun gets banished by the Hallows before Da Qing wakes up). Maybe that's just Da Qing confabulating from his vague memories of Ye Zun?

In episode 21 Shen Wei reacts unusually strongly to Zhao Yunlan calling him "Xiao Wei" -- the implication is that it's what Kunlun once called him, but we never see that in the past. Episode 21 also references the ancient historical text that mentions Kunlun, saying he was considered equal to the BCE and that he wrote a memorial about the Hallows, which he had the power to seal. Da Qing does tell Zhao Yunlan that this text isn't totally accurate, but where did any of it come from, if Kunlun was only around for a single night? Ma Gui and Fu You spinning the story after the fact? Or are some of those legends actually about the original General Kunlun, whoever he was?

Ye Zun's storyline is another major point of confusion. It's unclear when Ye Zun actually took power (or how; there's no hint of how he stole the Hallows to begin with). The scene we see of him voring the chief is placed in the show such that it appears to be happening concurrently with Shen Wei & Zhao Yunlan's conversation -- it's also at night, and the clouded, starless sky looks the same. However, the moon isn't visible, and it's possible this scene actually took place some time previously. That would explain how Ye Zun had time to get a declaration of war to the alliance in what appears to be a matter of minutes after taking control (the rebels were camping on the next ridge over from the alliance?) (It's also really unclear how a "declaration of war" leads to a scuffle in the woods rather than the whole alliance army marching against the rebels; what are Ma Gui and Fu You even doing? Why did it matter if Zhao Yunlan took General Kunlun's identity, if he never so much as saw any of the alliance except Shen Wei and Da Qing?)

What baffles me most about all this is why. From a storytelling perspective, why did the show creators choose to make the time travel trip (appear) so short? Even if the show was constrained by filming schedules and and budget to limit the past sequences, why didn't they even try to imply Zhao Yunlan was back there for longer? Why not show Shen Wei & Zhao Yunlan's conversation as progressing over time -- it wouldn't have been hard; just avoid shooting the moon, maybe change the outfits slightly, and throw in a line about "last time". Or the Ye Zun claiming power scene -- if that was meant to be a flashback to an earlier point, why set that at night, so it looks simultaneous? Why not just film it in the daytime (all those actors were already out in the daylight for the first battle scene) and make it clear it was at a different point? It's needlessly confusing storytelling.

On the other hand, given the contradictions and gaps within the show canon, that it's already necessary to imagine more happening than what we see to make any sense of certain elements (like Zhao Yunlan winning over Da Qing and "Xiao Wei") -- it extends license to us fans to imagine even more than that. And the show, by not giving any definitive time markers, generously leaves room for such speculation. Maybe Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan's conversation played out over weeks or months. Maybe Zhao Yunlan did brew wine from scratch to grow the twig. Maybe Da Qing was only gradually won over. The show doesn't directly deny any such suppositions; Guardian's "canon" is fluid, not frozen solid certainty, so it can be poured into the diverse shapes of endless headcanons and fics.

Comments

[naye]

(It's also unclear when this scene takes place. In it Zhao Yunlan says he's only known Ma Gui and Fu You for a few hours, so it's definitely the day he arrived. However, he's dressed as Kunlun, and we see him meet Shen Wei immediately after getting in his Kunlun outfit.

Oh! I never even thought about that! That's... yes. Indeed. When is it supposed to be happening? I didn't realize looking closer would make the bit set in the past even more incoherent and confusing.

(Though the moon also wanders back and forth a bit. So maybe it's actually a satellite?!)
You know what, that makes more sense than most other stuff so why not. XD

(It's also really unclear how a "declaration of war" leads to a scuffle in the woods rather than the whole alliance army marching against the rebels; what are Ma Gui and Fu You even doing? Why did it matter if Zhao Yunlan took General Kunlun's identity, if he never so much as saw any of the alliance except Shen Wei and Da Qing?)
These are terribly good questions. Um. They were scouting ahead? For... reasons of Shen Wei not wanting to risk more of his people?? He did say he didn't want anyone else to die. But that does seem like something Ma Gui and Fu You would maybe find in poor tactical spirit, if the entire Rebel army (all eight of them - oh this poor show and its nonexistent budget) was coming to get them?

And the identity bit, with how he looks like the original Kunlun and is supposed to be a renowned General but does no Generalling:



Yeah.

The two things I have the most BUT I WANTED THIS reaction to (other than half a dozen episodes of slowburn UST!) is the Da Qing thing - Da Qing goes from thinking Zhao Yunlan's an idiot to giving him his bells with no explanation YES WHAT IS UP WITH THAT and the whole... Ye Zun stealing the Hallows.

Which.

He had no powers?? And wasn't a fighter??? And like. Suffered anime wasting disease the boy was coughing up blood? And somehow he just. Steals the entire Hallows. And the Alliance can't track him or anything?? He just shows up with them in camp and the Alliance didn't have any scouts or spies (Crows! Snakes! ACTUAL PLANTS really being a bush is great camoflague) or anything there to report back to the Alliance saying "oh yeah so we found the missing Hallows".

I. I need to do some calming breathing exercises. And maybe re-read parts of my own fic because at least some of us (looking at you, Guardian writers!) bothered to figure out how that could have actually happened.

[xparrot]

Ye Zun stealing the Hallows I think wins the award for "The Most Nonsensical Thing That Happens in Guardian That You Can Totally Understand Why the Writers Handwaved it"...because yeah. It makes no sense and I totally feel like it was 3 AM and the writers needed to get the final draft of the script in yesterday and just decided to start with YZ having the Hallows. There is no way to explain it that doesn't make the Alliance look like complete idiots...they couldn't even stick them under glass? Or is Ye Zun just that clever?

(making him That Clever and also terrible does go a long way! *looks longingly at Kaleidoscope!YZ*)

I didn't go into the Kunlun identity antics in much detail because it would've been another 2K words. But yes, why does ZYL look like the original Kunlun? And Ma Gui and Fu You talk like ZYL taking that identity is crucial for preserving the timeline -- but then when ZYL Hallows-Skypes them in the future, there's no mention of Kunlun. So either ZYL explained it to them off-screen (there is time for it, at least), or Ma Gui and Fu You were totally bullshitting because they were panicked about losing General Kunlun? (WHOEVER HE IS?!)

Um. They were scouting ahead? For... reasons of Shen Wei not wanting to risk more of his people?? He did say he didn't want anyone else to die.

Well, when Shen Wei actually sinks down into the earth, a few of his men come running in out of nowhere to shout for him. So they were...either really far behind, or they saw Ye Zun's half-dozen rebels and were like "no too scary we'll just stay back and let Hei Pao Shi and General Kunlun take care of it!"
(but the rest of the Alliance army is nowhere in sight...)

[kimboo_york]

Guardian's "canon" is fluid, not frozen solid certainty, so it can be poured into the diverse shapes of endless headcanons and fics

Your excellent deep dive here just reaffirms this statement for me. I am very used to fandoms with meticulous breakdowns of times/places/events so Guardian has been, ahhhhh, a bit of a challenge. But once I gave up on it and accepted "fluidity" as reality, it's been easier. LOL

[xparrot]

In all honesty Guardian's fluidity is one of its selling points to me -- it gives us so much freedom to do what we like with it! But at the same time it drives my inner pedant more than a little nuts...

[kimboo_york]

the struggle is REAL, yo'! ahahahaa

[demitas]

Guardian's "canon" is fluid, not frozen solid certainty, so it can be poured into the diverse shapes of endless headcanons and fics.

This has actually been a really good lesson for me - I generally prefer to work within canon, or at least be canon-adjacent, and Guardian is forcing me to think outside of the box because there are so many things that are left as an exercise for the reader (or writer lol). I love that with this post it's obvious that even things that are shown directly on-screen aren't necessarily fixed canon, lol.

[xparrot]

Yeah, I used to be really canon-focused myself, but the more I've been in fandom the more I prefer to see canon as a springboard, as least for my Type B fandoms that I'm into fic for -- a foundation, not a box, and you only have to build on the parts you're interested in. And Guardian is great for that!

[trobadora]

Thank you for compiling all this!

I've been wondering why they made it look so very much like a single night, too. And why there's no "Xiao-Wei" in the time travel sequence. I've even wondered if perhaps there was an additional scene that got cut for some reason ...

[xparrot]

Hee, well, I was doing it for my own edification anyway, figured I should inflict--er, share it with all of us!

I've kind of wondered if a lot of the last part of the show was significantly cut or rewritten at near the last minute; there's a lot that feels like they knew where they wanted to go but maybe didn't have the time to work out all the details...

[umadoshi]

This post hurts my head and also I appreciate it immensely. ^_^

[xparrot]

Ahahah this is the whole Guardian experience, really, isn't it! XD

[jo_lasalle]

This is a really useful breakdown, thank you!

My general takeaway from the timeloop plot has always been "he was there for a day", but I've rewatched the earlier episodes much more often, and I find trying to coherently puzzle out Guardian timeline things brain-breaking. So I find this interesting and helpful, just for some order in my brain!

In Zhao Yunlan's final scene Da Qing also protests to Zhao Yunlan that "you just got here!" implying he really hasn't been here for long.

I had totally forgotten about that!

One thing that's always been a factor for me on the "it was a short trip" side of the scale is also Zhao Yunlan's attitude when he comes back. He gives me no impression when he's back in the present that he was gone long enough to either be worried he might never get back, or long enough that the present would feel "alien" to him and take some getting used to again.

The thing that actually gives me the most trouble with the 24-hour-version is Ye Zun. Until I read the wine theories that put Zhao Yunlan's stay at more like a month, it hadn't actually occurred to me that it might have been longer, because for me the general vibe of the flashbacks as a great one day adventure always gelled - I didn't go away from it going "something is weird here, must be spackled". But for Ye Zun, if this really is all concurrent with the Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan scenes, the timeline makes no sense - the idea that he was basically on some 24-hour joyride (rather than an established rebel leader who had time to do both some planning and some damage) doesn't fit IMO with how he seems to see himself and the pillar punishment and how the Dixing leadership sees him.

And I also definitely agree there are enough hints and gaps (oh Guardian <3) that one can play with and construct alternate scenarios!

[xparrot]

Hee, I'm glad my slight breakdown over trying to make sense of things can help make sense for others, at least! XD

At least for me, I balked at Zhao Yunlan's trip being so short mainly for the relationship; I'm fascinated by Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan having a moebius relationship, with both of them falling in love first but separately, and one day just isn't long enough for me to believe that Shen Wei actually fell in love. To me it seemed like from the first ep that Shen Wei knew Zhao Yunlan, knew him well; so he'd need time to get to know him.

I don't have a problem with Zhao Yunlan acting like it was no big deal after getting back, however long he was really gone -- for one, we don't see him settling back in his regular life anyway, it's all emergencies after he returns with everything turned upside down; and also this is Zhao Yunlan, who manages to act like everything is simpatico when he's struck blind, so I think he'd be able to cover any temporal culture shock reasonably well!

But yeah, I think the show does (for the most part!) present it as a one-day jaunt -- that Zhao Yunlan coincidentally happened to jump back on the same day that Ye Zun took control and/or revealed himself. (For that matter -- why then?? It would make more sense if Zhao Yunlan had actually appeared the same moment Ye Zun took power, as the Hallows were activated then?) But as far as Ye Zun's storyline goes, it makes sense if he had been in power for a while...so I think the best way to go is to assume that scene of him taking power was a flashback in the flashback, and by the time Zhao Yunlan appeared back in time, Ye Zun had been in charge of the rebels for at least a few days/weeks/months...

...oh Guardian! I love it, I really do! <3

[sakana17]

I agree 100% about a longer stay in YOHE making more sense for the relationship. There's the Xiao Wei and all the other little clues dropped about how Shen Wei knows Zhao Yunlan from the past. I just don't buy that that all happened in a day or less.

An idea I had for justifying a longer stay in YOHE was that Ye Zun does come into his power around the same time as Zhao Yunlan arrives and it takes time for him to build up his strength/amass his forces -- time that Zhao Yunlan spends with the Alliance as Kunlun and building a relationship with Shen Wei. Either way, whether Ye Zun taking control was a flashback-within-a-flashback (that makes a lot of sense!) or whether it happens concurrently with Zhao Yunlan's arrival, I think there has to be time passage before their big battle.

[xparrot]

Yeah, the easiest place to insert time into what we see is between Da Qing finding them on the clifftop to announce the rebel's declaration of war and Team Kunlun confronting Ye Zun in the woods. It's possible to stick weeks or even months into there without contradicting anything in particular that I can think of...maybe Ye Zun declared war and then immediately realized his mistake and went back into hiding to marshal his forces? It's not like Ye Zun is especially known for sound tactical decisions...

[sakana17]

maybe Ye Zun declared war and then immediately realized his mistake and went back into hiding to marshal his forces? It's not like Ye Zun is especially known for sound tactical decisions...

I can believe just about anything of Ye Zun. :D

I wondered if the declaration of war actually came from the Rebel Chieftain before Ye Zun ate him. The chieftain was so convinced of himself and maybe when he saw Ye Zun approaching with the box of Hallows he sent a minion off with the declaration of war because he was sure nothing could stop him. Then stuff happens, and Ye Zun finds himself with a bunch of minions under his control (Ye Zun: yay) and an open declaration of war against the alliance (Ye Zun: not so yay?). So he does spend the next weeks/months gathering forces, committing acts which the Hallows decide warrant locking him up in a pillar for, etc.

[extrapenguin]

I wondered if the declaration of war actually came from the Rebel Chieftain before Ye Zun ate him. The chieftain was so convinced of himself and maybe when he saw Ye Zun approaching with the box of Hallows he sent a minion off with the declaration of war because he was sure nothing could stop him.
I find this a very plausible option!

(Also, IIRC Shen Wei addresses his brother as "Ye Zun" in the clifftop scene, so he must've somehow known that Ye Zun was referred to as Ye Zun, and unless it's a childhood nickname, there's no way Shen Wei would've known it, so ... over 24h so that Ye Zun can commit acts and attach his name to them?)

[sakana17]

IIRC Shen Wei addresses his brother as "Ye Zun" in the clifftop scene

I checked and he calls him "brother." They both call each other "brother" in these scenes. For once in the YOHE scenes, I think there is continuity happening! XD and the script remembered that each should not know the other's post-childhood-separation name yet.

over 24h so that Ye Zun can commit acts and attach his name to them

That's a good point, anyway, regardless of what Shen Wei addresses him as. Because if Ye Zun is the terror that the Hallows have deemed worthy of pillar-imprisonment he has to have committed heinous acts under his own name and not as "the rebel leader." IMO, he needs more than a day or two to build up such a reputation.

[extrapenguin]

I checked and he calls him "brother." They both call each other "brother" in these scenes.
Huh, the first subs definitely had a few Ye Zuns, but yes, you're right! He only ever calls Ye Zun "didi" (and Ye Zun says "ge"; in episode 40 he says the more cutesy "gege" a few times).

[jo_lasalle]

To me it seemed like from the first ep that Shen Wei knew Zhao Yunlan, knew him well; so he'd need time to get to know him.

I do totally get that! I'm honestly a little surprised it's not an issue for me. I logically get the argument that this is too short, and in general I'm all about the slow burn and a relationship developing from a lot getting-to-know-each-other. Guardian has some elements that are not at all my usual cake, and this is one of them. I watched the ep in question and went, "OKAY! That happened!" and it slotted into place for me.

I did find the wine theory quite convincing, and in terms of fic etc. I can take anything from between a day to a month as "logical enough based on what we see" that I don't need to be explicitly guided there.

But as far as Ye Zun's storyline goes, it makes sense if he had been in power for a while...so I think the best way to go is to assume that scene of him taking power was a flashback in the flashback, and by the time Zhao Yunlan appeared back in time, Ye Zun had been in charge of the rebels for at least a few days/weeks/months...

This is basically how I intend to spackle it in my head - take the earlier scene as a flashback! My current rewatch stopped just before the timeloop episodes so I look forward to seeing this again with some mental "spackle testing", and also with your untangling of the timeline in my head.

[xparrot]

--It was pointed out below that Zhao Yunlan actually faces off with the original rebel chief when he first appears. So either the conversation with Shen Wei takes place over more than one day, or Ye Zun does in fact take power the same night Zhao Yunlan arrives (maybe a couple hours before we see it happen)...

[jo_lasalle]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHrgh.

Oh, Guardian. </3 <3

[ranalore]

I don't know why more of an effort wasn't made in the script to indicate Zhao Yunlan was in YOHE longer than 24 hours, but I figured the filming everything at once was probably because it's cheaper to do that than to pause even for tiny adjustments of wardrobe, etc. And since it's wartime 10K years ago, following an extinction event that somehow miraculously did not cause the extinction of the Haixingren, Dixingren, or Yashouren, I find it easy enough to wave away same clothes and hair. I mean, it would be nice to get a little more help from the props department (like changing out Zhao Yunlan's lollipop and letting the candles burn down--or swapping them out--to show the passage of time), but I've always been good at spackling on the fly, so sometimes I don't even catch what's missing until a few rewatches in.

I do rather like the freedom we have to build our own headcanons of what happened, and to build completely different headcanons for different stories. The contradictions can be frustrating, but they can also be opportunities for creative interpretation (I never take Da Qing's "you just got here" literally, for instance; now that he's warmed up to Zhao Yunlan, of course no amount of time is long enough to spend together), and what we see on-screen can be separated out in myriad ways.

[xparrot]

The most annoying thing for me, writing up this post, was seeing all the signs that it's not just the filming that makes it seem like it was a 24-hour trip; the script was written that way. But at the same time -- there are so many random details that are off (the landscape really does not look like it's only a few years after an apocalyptic meteor strike!) it's easy to just thumb one's metaphorical nose at the overt story and, as with everything else in Guardian, focus on the subtext. And yes, enjoy the opportunities for all kinds of different stories! (Though I doubt I'll ever write one myself that Zhao Yunlan was only in the past 24 hours, that just spoils too much of what I find most interesting about their moebius relationship :P)

...Okay but it does bug me that the past wardrobes are consistent when they do so bad at that continuity at other points. With one of the most egregious being during the time loop -- when Zhao Yunlan enters the wormhole from the lab, he's wearing his navy denim jacket. Then when he's sucked back into the wormhole in the past, he goes from wearing the Kunlun costume, to wearing...a green jacket that is NOT what he was wearing before. So did the timeline get changed? Or did the wormhole just like playing dress-up??? What is going on!

[sakana17]

Thank you so much for compiling this! I just rewatched the tail end of the series and have been thinking a lot about this very question. On first watch I pretty much accepted the "24-hour window" appearance and was extremely frustrated by it. On rewatch, 24 hours seemed nonsensical. It would be too short a time for all of that to happen and to have such lasting repercussions (especially Da Qing accepting Zhao Yunlan as his master! My cats took over a month to accept me and they were kittens and I was feeding them!). I feel that interpreting his time in YOHE as lasting rather longer is -- if not canon-compliant (though who can really say, with canon like this?) -- at least not canon-contradiction.

LOL! I had the idea to go and check the moon in the night scenes - thank you for sparing me from that. If we assume Haixing moons work the same way, another way of viewing it is that it's not the same night, but a night exactly one moon cycle later. (Okay, the position wouldn't be exactly the same but... *handwaves*)

For the clothes, I assumed they are more or less in troops-on-the-move mode.
For Zhao Yunlan's Kunlun hair -- because I have a thing for hair -- my headcanon is that Lady Fu You and Ma Gui cooked up a miracle hair-growing potion. They could've had it already prepared since they knew he would arrive with short hair.

I've gone back and forth about whether the Record of Ancient Secret Tales refers to the real General Kunlun or Zhao Yunlan's Kunlun. I feel like the mention of the Hallows makes it Zhao Yunlan -- and suggests he was there long enough to make an impression on others that they would write about him. But it could be propaganda written after the fact. Hmmm. Given that it was Zhang Shi who left the book in the library for Zhao Yunlan to find, was it Zhang Shi himself who wrote it? If Ma Gui was his teacher, Ma Gui would've told him about Kunlun. A mystery open for multiple interpretations!

For what it's worth, on rewatch I felt like Da Qing's hypnosis memory of Ye Zun in episode 22 was actually Ye Zun in present day sending out mind-whammy feelers to Haixing and getting lucky: inserting himself into Da Qing's memory because Da Qing is under hypnosis and in a suggestible state. It's partly the way Ye Zun reacts to him. He just smiles and approaches and emits dark energy, without saying anything. He doesn't quite behave the way he did in YOHE. Though, it could just be Da Qing's messed up memories.

[xparrot]

I'm glad my breakdown...in every sense...was helpful! ^^ I had the same reaction to the 24-hour thing -- frustration followed by confusion, and eventually concluding it couldn't be the case, whatever "canon" wants to tell us. "Canon" also wants to tell us that Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan are just good socialist brothers, so, yeah, it needs to be taken with a grain of salt...!

Heee, glad I'm not the only one who thought of looking at the moon! That the conversations were a month apart but at almost the same time so the moon was in the same place, hah, I like it! (am going to ignore how the plants on the cliffside are also identical over those months...)

Zhang Shi writing about Kunlun, hmmm, that might explain things (...kind of. How did Ma Gui know much about Kunlun anyway, when he barely had any time to talk to him!? When we see Zhao Yunlan talk to Ma Gui and Fu You in the past, he doesn't even mention Kunlun, so I'm not sure how they knew that was supposed to be his identity anyway...)

Ahh, Ye Zun inserting himself into Da Qing's memories to make trouble, that makes sense! (I should do another post on all the things in the show that may just be Ye Zun screwing with people's minds. E.g. I'm convinced myself that Zhu Jiu's memory of Shen Wei attacking him was either distorted or entirely invented by Ye Zun...)

[sakana17]

When we see Zhao Yunlan talk to Ma Gui and Fu You in the past, he doesn't even mention Kunlun, so I'm not sure how they knew that was supposed to be his identity anyway...

Time travel makes my head hurt a lot. Ugh. What if it's:
* Zhao Yunlan talks to them in the past, tells them he will travel back in time and will take on their mantle so they will succeed
* while they are waiting for him, they hear about the great general Kunlun and they intend to bring him into the alliance
* Kunlun is unexpectedly killed; morale threatens the alliance; Ma Gui and Fu You know someone is coming to help
* they decide they will give their time traveler visitor the Kunlun identity to (a) explain his sudden presence and (b) to hide the real Kunlun's death from the troops and keep morale up

Da Qing says they've "long heard of" Kunlun, but who knows what that actually means in this context.

E.g. I'm convinced myself that Zhu Jiu's memory of Shen Wei attacking him was either distorted or entirely invented by Ye Zun...

Oh! That makes so much sense! I would be there for a post about Ye Zun's mind games.

[xparrot]

This timeline makes as good as sense as any! ...so then when they tell Zhao Yunlan that he has to become Kunlun "to preserve the timeline" it's really just "to cover our asses!"

...I still want to know why the original Kunlun actually looked like Zhao Yunlan (like, he appears to be played by Bai Yu?) Was the show trying to sneak reincarnation in on the sly?

[extrapenguin]

The scene we see of him voring the chief is placed in the show such that it appears to be happening concurrently with Shen Wei & Zhao Yunlan's conversation -- it's also at night, and the clouded, starless sky looks the same. However, the moon isn't visible, and it's possible this scene actually took place some time previously.
Actually, Ye Zun's voring must happen during the night of the conversation or afterwards, since the rebel chieftain he vores was present when Zhao Yunlan tumbled out of the wormhole.

I also don't think that clothes should be used as that much of a contextual clue for day changes, since it's perfectly reasonable that they all only own one set of outerwear. (And the Hallows sealing away Ye Zun has no real justification and upsets my sense of justice if the only things he actually did were vore his abuser and then do some grandstanding and fighting. Like, come on. The entire lifetime of the planet in sensory deprivation and solitary confinement?!) In general, I do think that canon evidence does suggest that Zhao Yunlan was in the past for over 48 hours (so that Da Qing has time to meet Ye Zun on a scouting mission, frex), but that they were hitting into censorship or budget constraints and had to do some emergency rewriting of scripts. (Or they originally wrote to a larger episode count and suddenly had 2+ episodes yanked from beneath them.)

[sakana17]

And the Hallows sealing away Ye Zun has no real justification and upsets my sense of justice if the only things he actually did were vore his abuser and then do some grandstanding and fighting.

This! I feel he must have done much more in YOHE than what we saw for that to be their "solution." The Hallows can be jerks and have their own agenda, but this felt like an overreaction even for the Hallows.

[extrapenguin]

Yeah, it's ... idk. The more I think, the more I come to the conclusion that the real villain of the show was the Hallows. They very obviously have an agenda of their own and are grooming Zhao Yunlan into becoming the wick.

[xparrot]

Actually, Ye Zun's voring must happen during the night of the conversation or afterwards, since the rebel chieftain he vores was present when Zhao Yunlan tumbled out of the wormhole.

Ah, you're right! (and Zhao Yunlan shoots the chief...and then he's fine??? somehow??) I still think that it has to happen at least an hour or two before where the flashback is actually placed, because otherwise Ye Zun somehow gets word that he's declaring war to the alliance in a matter of minutes?! Or else the rebel chief had already sent word...before he got the Hallows active...seems unlikely...

At any rate, no, the punishment does not seem to fit the crime for Ye Zun, unless he does a lot more bad things that we don't see. Or else the Hallows are right bastards, which, maybe...

[extrapenguin]

Zhao Yunlan shoots the chief...and then he's fine??? somehow??
The dark energy bullets' effectiveness seems to depend on where they hit and the target's ... energy strength? So I guess the rebel chief was sturdy, strong, and not hit in a vital region. There's also the chance that it'd have been more noticeable over time, like with Zhu Jiu, but Ye Zun ate him before we could see anything.

Or else the rebel chief had already sent word...before he got the Hallows active...seems unlikely...
Given the rebel chief's personality, I'd be 100% willing to believe that he sent word the moment the Hallows were in his hands. After all, he was very confident that the Hallows would yield to him immediately.

Or else the Hallows are right bastards, which, maybe...
The more I think about it, the more I want fic in which the Hallows are evil. At the very least they seem to be operating outside of human morality.

[solo]

This is an excellent post and so much food for thought! I always thought (until I came across the wine argument) that he was there for maybe 3 days (on what I generally saw of him) or maybe a bit longer (because of how I interpreted the Ye Zun situation and Da Qing's attachment). But then I never tracked the moon!

I must mull all this over when I have more time.

Just one little thing to keep in mind, not that I think it'll make any difference to your argument: people at the stage of civilization which YOHE seems to portray didn't tend to have much by way of changes of clothes, so if a guy is wearing the same tunic as he did in a previous scene, that might still be a day, a week, or even a month later. :D

[xparrot]

When I first saw it, I thought it looked like it was a couple days. But that seemed ridiculous to me, so I looked for possible arguments to the contrary -- the wine argument always seemed a good one to me, but it's pretty clearly not what was intended by the show itself. But then, Guardian is all about the subtext anyway, so I'm fine with reading against canon for this!

--And yeah, I should've made it clearer, I don't take the lack of change of clothes as proof that no time passed; that's the easiest thing to explain by simply saying they didn't have other options. It's more that if the show had wanted to show time passing, changing the outfits would've been a quick and easy shorthand (not even changing the whole outfit; Kunlun with the fur off and then on again could've implied a temperature change indicating a different night?) Changing clothes is a common TV symbol for it being a new day, so that they didn't use that symbol is one more indication that they didn't intend for a lot of time to have passed.

[powwie]

The Kunlun timeline to me is the worst in term of contradictions and gaps. While I often blame plotholes and gaps to cheap production (short time to film scenes) and censorship, they final editing of the show it's just too confusing about Kunlun.

The first time I watched the show, when I knew nothing, I was extremely suprised by the revelation that Kunlun was present time Zhao Yunlan; only on rewatched I picked up the many contradictions.

Besides what you've pointed out, my main "why" is why Shen Wei is so concerned about Zhao Yunlan reading about Kunlun then.
If Zhao Yunlan stayed for rougly a day in the past, even if their meeting was truly eventful for Shen Wei (and the rebellion), what could there possibly be in books that Zhao Yunlan shouldn't learn?

[xparrot]

Yeah, even given the constraints of the production, I still just don't get why the Kunlun storyline was portrayed as it was...

my main "why" is why Shen Wei is so concerned about Zhao Yunlan reading about Kunlun then.
If Zhao Yunlan stayed for rougly a day in the past, even if their meeting was truly eventful for Shen Wei (and the rebellion), what could there possibly be in books that Zhao Yunlan shouldn't learn?

That is a really good question!! I feel like in general much of what Shen Wei hints at with Zhao Yunlan and their past doesn't quite make sense with what we actually see of the past. Like, even his "we have always been friends" is sort of weird if they only knew each other for a day. And I swear he has some other lines that imply something bad might've happened to Kunlun, other than him just vanishing...

[clevermanka]

I have nothing to add to the excellent commentary here, but thank you SO MUCH for this. I'm adding it to my Guardian Resources post.

[xparrot]

Ahhh, so glad to have provided research! I figured if I were going to be obsessing anyway, might as well share it!

[qikiqtarjuaq]

This is such an interesting and detailed analysis! I never would have thought to use the moon as a reference for time passing. Or lollipops! Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan would both be proud.

My entirely biased view is that it makes no sense from an internal characterization POV for him to be there for such a short period of time, so I'm willing to ignore the lollipops and phases of the moon to say he stayed in YOHE for a significant amount of time.

Your post also brings up something I had never properly headcanoned to my satisfaction: why the hell did the rebel chieftain send the only person in his camp without any powers to steal the Hallows, when he was in such a hurry and they were so important? I had written into a fic that it was a reconnaissance and theft job, but it still really calls into question the rebel leadership's ability to utilize people. As well as the Alliance's shoddy security.

[xparrot]

Ignoring-canon solidarity! I wrote up this whole post and then looked at and basically went Nope. :P

The moon I only noticed because I caught it back when I watched the clifftop conversation a dozen times while writing my past!fic. It really annoyed me because that conversation can work as spread out over time, but the visual cues try to deny this.

But then there are so many terribad special f/x and things in Guardian that you just have to pretend are realistic...so I think it's perfectly reasonable to suspend disbelief for this too!

And YES how did Ye Zun get the Hallows?? And why did the rebel chief trust him with the job? Maybe Ye Zun not having powers made the chief think he would be more likely to come back with the Hallows rather than steal them for himself? But that he was successful...either Ye Zun is a mastermind spy or the alliance's security makes the SID's look good! :P

[qikiqtarjuaq]

It would have been such gorgeous imagery to have them both sitting on that same cliff-top talking to each other as the moon/stars/sky moved behind them to signal the passage of time! I now reject reality and substitute yours in.

BUT LIKE NOT EVEN THE REBEL CHIEF KNEW HOW TO USE THOSE HALLOWS! Ugh, I guess he didn't know that ahead of time. BUT STILL. If it was that important he should have gone himself. Ye Zun could have easily sold it to someone else or betrayed him or anything! Those Hallows are big bargaining tools! Dumb Rebel Chief.

[xparrot]

Oh man, that would've been so lovely, the stars moving behind them...whyyyyyy show, deny us that too!?

Maybe the rebel chief was really sure of his mind control over Ye Zun? Ugggh I don't know...in conversations above it's come up that it makes more sense if the chief is the one who sent the declaration of war to the alliance (as Ye Zun really didn't have time to!?) but why would he do that before he even had the Hallows?! (how many things in Guardian can only be explained by "this character is dumb and/or crazy?" XD)

[schneefink]

Thanks for the write-up! Yeah, it didn't make sense to me that he was only in the past for such a short time (and I'd be even more surprised of Da Qing warming up to him so quickly than Shen Wei doing it); fortunately there is some flexibility.