Actually quite good people skills

[branchandroot]

Brief Guardian meta, because I keep tripping over mentions, here and there, interpreting Shen Wei as having bad people skills, sometimes phrased as “how do human?”. And it’s just so opposite my own reading of the character that it trips me up in the middle of writing, and then I sit there for a few minutes staring into space and blinking in befuddlement.

I mean. Shen Wei is a teacher. And while it’s quite possible to get a job teaching with bad people skills (especially, alas, at university level), you do not get to be a popular professor with bad people skills. All the professional interactions we see are him being welcoming and encouraging to his students and sympathetic to people Having Emotions (eg Li Qian and Zhang Ruonan). And then there’s his reaction to being brought in for questioning, early on, which is to play every questioner like a violin—and he only has unfair prior knowledge of one. He also has that effortless non-verbal communication with Zhao Yunlan even when they’re fighting. And while it’s romantic to say that’s because they love each other, True Love does not automatically make a person able to pick up non-verbal cues. (Be nice if it did, but alas, no.)

The only moment I can see that truly demonstrates interpersonal awkwardness is when Zhao Yunlan prompts him to comfort a distraught woman, at which point Shen Wei takes a hasty step back and shoves Zhao Yunlan himself into the breach. And, really, that read far more strongly to me of “You want me to do what with a woman?”. Considering how fast Zhao Yunlan beats a parallel retreat on being confronted with a woman trying to confess her love, I really hesitate to take such behavior as a general indicator of low people skills.

Shen Wei is habitually autocratic, when he’s in Official Mode. He’s intensely reserved about personal things, unless of course he’s talking to Zhao Yunlan. He’s easily flustered when presented with hope where he thought there was none. But bad at people, or even at silly humans and their rules? I just don’t see it.

Comments

[xparrot]

Hmmm. I agree that Shen Wei has decent interpersonal skills -- he's quite reserved and formal and doesn't have much (any?) of a social life beyond work (until/except for Zhao Yunlan), but he's very functional professionally (both as the professor and as the BCE). And he is reasonably good at reading people and playing them when needed.

On the other hand, his intrapersonal skills are...limited, in that he doesn't seem to have a personal life until he meets Zhao Yunlan; he doesn't seem to have hobbies, he doesn't put a lot of value on his own life but is very willing to sacrifice himself to his causes. Most of the decisions he makes for himself are in the name of restraint, of denying and ignoring his own wants and needs as much as he can (except again when it comes to Zhao Yunlan). Most of the comments I've seen referring to Shen Wei's inability to "people" were more referring to this side of him -- not that he's bad with other people, but that he's bad at treating himself like a person.

ETA: also at least for me, I also am thinking about novel!Shen Wei, who literally isn't close to human and is erratic about how successfully he pretends to be one!

[kimboo_york]

I've seen referring to Shen Wei's inability to "people" were more referring to this side of him -- not that he's bad with other people, but that he's bad at treating himself like a person.

THIS! This is what I trying to formulate as a response to this post. Agree 100%.

My headcanon is that it's a result of his "power" of learning. He has seen a LOT of how other people treat each other and so he analyzes how they successfully interact and can replicate it. That is, his "how do human" is performative. He can play people like a violin b/c he is a strategist with the learned skills to pull it off. The Dixing autocratic side is no less so -- we see in YOHE that he's still coming into his role as a leader, it's something he's figuring out as he goes.

But he doesn't know how or hasn't thought it necessary to treat himself like a person. His intrapersonal skills are thus...lacking. IMHO.

(and now I'm bunnied for more of The Lost Primces series, oh no)

[branchandroot]

Ah, now that makes more sense, yes. I recall when Lys and I were first drowning in Nirvana in Fire and she mentioned that Jingyan is made of self-sacrifice and good cheekbones, which seems even more true of Shen Wei.

And that’s is absolutely why I’m holding off on the novel until I have the current arc of stories finished, because I /know/ it’s going to shift my sense of the characters!

[xparrot]

Jingyan and Shen Wei definitely have things in common...though Shen Wei's damage is more (if not entirely) self-inflicted, while Jingyan had no real escape from his responsibilities. But yeah...those Wuhan boys with their giant luminous eyes and glass-cutting cheekbones! (both Wang Kai and Zhu Yilong are from the same city ^^)

The novel is...different? It's both more of a comedy and more of a melodrama than the show. And there are some fans who strongly feel the characterizations are so different that they should basically be treated like separate characters, which is not how I see it; to me the book and drama versions of WeiLan are more like AUs of each other, with different worldbuilding that emphasizes different aspects of their characters. I tend to write and meta for the drama (I don't know Chinese, have only read translations, so I don't feel like I have as firm a handle on the novelverse), but places where the drama characterization runs thin, I tend to default to the novel characterizations.