The Untamed Meme... Day 20
20. Favorite character moments
There are lots, but I've picked five...
The smackdown of the whole series, handed out like a verbal sledgehammer by the normally meek and shy Wen Ning to Jiang Wanyin in episode 46. Diffident he may be, but he's also one of the two most stubborn people in their world, and when he decides that someone needs emotionally eviscerating and that a long-held promise of silence should be blown to bloody smithereens, nothing and nobody is going to stop him. You have no idea how loudly I cheered him on there :)
(click to enlarge all photos)
Nie Huaisang's various, dramatic, fabulous, and one and all craftily calculated (as you only realise on rewatching :) fainting fits, every one of them.
Wei Wuxian going all protective scoutmaster to the juniors in the Coffin Town arc, and the way they all accept this and follow him and his instructions like ducklings, even when he unblushingly pranks them (the chilli, what he sees out of the window), and that lovely bit where the thought that although he's not needed in the fighting (his personal protection squad of two have this covered, thank you), he is needed by the kids he already adores makes him happy...
(The screencaps are through the mist and fog that these places always have, so aren't the best)
The entire 'drunken Lan Wangji' part of episode 36 (he's the ancient world's lightest lightweight, this took one tiny cup of wine, y'know). His addled dignity, his insistence on giving Wei Wuxian stolen chickens and carving graffiti, it's all wonderful but best of all for me is the way he snaps into lethal 'protect Wei Ying!' fighting mode and wins a duel with the Mysterious Masked Evil while still completely soused is just so... Hanguang Jun .
Lan Xichen - despite his doubts and palpable, so deeply wishing that what they are telling him about his surviving sworn brother is not true - offering Wei Wuxian refuge and concealment in Cloud Recesses, and a chance to keep searching for the proof they need that it is true. He has flaws, just like all of them, but both of the Twin Jades do try so hard to live up to their impossible reputations, and this is a moment where he simply does.
(The fact that, despite the tension and high emotion, I love that he is clearly waiting outside the room for Wei Wuxian to realise "Cloud Recesses, you're hiding me at Cloud Recesses, what if your brother finds out..." to cap it with "I'm here and I knew all along." In his quiet way, this Sect Leader is a huge troll with a flair for the elegantly dramatic :)