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

[branchandroot]

*clinks glasses*

I definitely do think that scene should be held a little outside any estimation of the characters, if only because it was pushed to comic relief and to do that often means tilting the characters a bit. Then, too, Shen Wei’s comfort tends to be quiet—more a matter of being there than performing consolation. I read that as the exact opposite of Zhao Yunlan’s approach, which is to flawlessly perform social expectations while always holding the deepest part of himself apart (I blame Zhao Xinci so very much). So that whole scene also feels to me like Zhao Yunlan expecting Shen Wei to do what he would, and Shen Wei being completely unprepared to do any such thing.

And, as I wound up pondering above, I really feel like Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan are about equivalent in both their capabilities and their difficulties in re interpersonal relations—just in ways that are unfortunately complementary. They’re both wearing masks most of the time, and they both have a real problem relying on other people. So it’s fascinating to watch how readily they rely on each other, while still wearing those masks so much of the time.

[trobadora]

Shen Wei’s comfort tends to be quiet—more a matter of being there than performing consolation. I read that as the exact opposite of Zhao Yunlan’s approach, which is to flawlessly perform social expectations while always holding the deepest part of himself apart

Oooh, what a great observation!

I really feel like Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan are about equivalent in both their capabilities and their difficulties in re interpersonal relations—just in ways that are unfortunately complementary. They’re both wearing masks most of the time, and they both have a real problem relying on other people. So it’s fascinating to watch how readily they rely on each other, while still wearing those masks so much of the time.

Yeah, I completely agree with this, too. They're both hiding so much about themselves, in very different ways, it's amazing they come together and fit together and work together so well. ♥

(I do wonder how much of that is a function of the time loop, and the fact that they both first encounter a version of the other who's already in love with them. It would all probably be much harder for them if they first met in a more linear way!)

Btw, totally friending you now. :)

[branchandroot]

The time loop does make for a really wonderful circuit of /both/ of them being the first to say ‘yes, of course I trust you with my life’... precisely because the other one did it first!

[solo]

which is to flawlessly perform social expectations

Or of course to flawlessly smash his way all through the social expectations - he's a master manipulator of social expectations to suit his aims. :)

[branchandroot]

Yes! I gotta say, I love the first handful of eps, because he’s really walking that line of not wanting to reveal his actual (dangerous) identity, but /definitely/ wanting to draw Zhao Yunlan’s interest, and I love the way he so deliberately does flout “mild-mannered professor” expectations.