Can We Talk About Ruoye For A Second.

Can we talk about Ruoye for a second.

Like, it’s a sweet, wholesome, playful little spirit that loves Xie Lian to pieces, yet its backstory is so fucked up. It only came to life because of the horrible evil acts it was used to commit, and I’m just thinking that poor baby Ruoye has got to be just as traumatized as Xie Lian. The book notes that in its very first moments, it doesn’t understand the suffering that birthed it, but I hardly think that means Ruoye wasn’t aware of what caused it to gain consciousness. It was a lil baby spirit, so it just didn’t understand the implications yet.

And Ruoye had the misfortune of coming to life during Xie Lian’s worst moments. Of course it wasn’t XL’s fault, but it still hurts that Ruoye, innocent little spirit that it was, just wanted love from the person it saw as its creator and wasn’t able to get it. My guess is Ruoye probably quickly understood the circumstances surrounding its birth because of XL’s initial attitude towards it. I almost imagine it had to feel some sort of guilt for its part, albeit involuntary, in XL’s suffering.

However. As we know, no matter what mistakes Xie Lian made in the past, he ultimately chose kindness. I cannot imagine how painful it must have been for him to see Ruoye for a while, given what it must have reminded him of, yet he welcomed and cared for it regardless. He gave it the love that it so desperately wanted. And I can’t get over that. He realized that no matter how much pain Ruoye had caused him, it wasn’t the little spirit’s fault. In a way, I can draw parallels between that and Xie Lian’s treatment of Hong Hong’er, who he always took care of no matter how much others warned him that he would cause misfortune. Xie Lian ignored the warnings because Hong Hong’er didn’t deserve to be punished for something he had no control over. He deserved to be loved like anyone else.

Now, the scene that really got me thinking about all this? When Jun Wu uses Ruoye to tie up Xie Lian in Quan Yizhen’s palace, Ruoye is distraught. I don’t think that is purely because it has been tied into knots, as is explained in the book, but also because of the resurfacing trauma of again being used to hurt Xie Lian, whom it loves so much. And again, like little ghost fire Hua Cheng, it can do nothing about it.

All this to say, I love precious little Ruoye and I love the relationship it has with Xie Lian even more. Despite the trauma and pain, they found companionship in each other, choosing to love. It’s like, one of, if not the main theme, of TGCF, and I never realized how much Ruoye, with all its parallels to Hua Cheng, embodies that.