From about Episode 11-17 (the dream)
24. In the novel, the Clam Princess actually had spent a least a hundred years in the heavenly palace before she left. Unlike the drama, the hundred years of being married to Ming Yen (the dragon) was an extremely lonely one with everyone acting like she had shamelessly forced their God of War into marrying her. The dream opens with the Clam Princess finding out that in order to help the still unconscious Tian Huan (the very annoying and evil goddess) to recover faster, Ming Yen had decided to not loan her the treasure her father desperately needed every ten years in order to avoid disaster in the river her clan inhabits. As the show had portrayed, Ming Yen had absorbed the clam clan’s treasure that calms their river. To atone for bringing this disaster onto her clan, the Clam Princess had taken out her divine essence to replace the treasure. However, in the novel, the divine essence could only calm the river for tens years at a time. Disaster can then only be averted by the Clam Princess borrowing a certain treasure from Ming Yen for her clan. Ming Yen’s refusal to loan her the treasure for Tian Huan’s sake was the last straw that finally broke the Clam Princess…and made her decide to throw caution to the wind. (This is where we get the steamy bed scene in the show) Now, in the novel, it really doesn’t sound like the Clam Princess actually carried through with the deed. All the Clam Princess really did was kiss her husband’s face, neck…and hmm… put a hand on his private part briefly to confirm he didn’t dislike her as much as his words seemed to indicate.
25. One big important difference in the novel is also that Sixth Prince wasn’t the Clam Princess’ brother in the novel but he actually became a wolf spirit that was saved by the Clam Princess (here, the word spirit could also be translated as demon but spirits are not evil necessarily. A wolf spirit is simply a wolf who has cultivated enough to become a spirit and has embarked on the path of cultivation with the chance to become immortal) The wolf spirit broke the Clam Princess out of her prison in the heavenly palace after she became a demon and severely wounded Tian Huan. The wolf spirit loved the Clam Princess unconditionally and was the one who faithfully accompanied her as she painstakingly tried to bring her clam clan back to life. (That whole thing with Tian Huan’s clan presenting a treasure that could bring back the Clam clan back to life never happened in the novel). While all of our leads knew logically that their dream world experiences were not of their own (since they were reliving someone else’s past memory) but they all still remembered vividly what the emotions were like. That meant as rational of a person Sixth Prince was, he was still affected by the deep abiding love the wolf spirit felt towards the Clam Princess whenever he saw our heroine. To the Sixth Prince’s credit though, once he observed the change in his own attitude toward our heroine, he didn’t try to force himself to change his new feelings towards our heroine but simply kept his distance from her and re-committed himself to his wife.
26. Elaborating a bit about how each of our leads became their character in the dream. Each of the four characters in the dream apparently chose the one they wanted to represent them. The dragon chose Tantai Jin because he wanted to know what someone who doesn’t know the emotion of love would do. The Clam Princess chose our heroine because she admired Li Su Su’s commitment to saving the world and her loved ones no matter where her heart is… something she really wished for herself. The wolf spirit chose the Sixth Prince because he had many of the same admirable traits as the prince. As for why Tian Huan chose the older sister…that’s something our other three leads all wondered about but did not verbalize. The novel never did say if the Sixth Prince knew what his wife is really like, but you get the feeling that as smart as he was, the Sixth Prince probably started to get an inkling after the dream.
27. The Ruo River water that burns the skin in the show is actually a lot scarier in the novel. The Ruo River can kill even a god so when Ming Yen had fallen into it, the Clam Princess paid a hefty price for saving him. In the novel, the Clam Princess had told Ming Yen the pain of having her clam shell broken is more painful than a human having every bone in his body shattered. In order to save Ming Yen from the river, the Clam Princess’ shell was corroded and eaten away as she dragged him up to the surface, sobbing in pain all the way. The reason she couldn’t survive the lightning strikes was because she no longer had a shell to protect her after that Ruo River ordeal. Lest you think the princess is the only one who suffered, Ming Yen is actually the one who brought out the Clam Princess’ brother from the abyss, losing half of his essence in the process.
28. One thing the novel stressed more than the show did was that the Clam Princess really didn’t love Ming Yen towards the end. The guilt and pain of causing the destruction of her whole clan were so overwhelming that the Clam Princess would’ve gladly wiped out her own existence if that meant she could’ve restored everything. One never got the feeling the Princess hated Ming Yen even to the very end, but any love that was once there had long been replaced by grief, regret, and hatred towards herself.
29. The Ye clan didn’t move to Jin Empire in the novel. Their situation in Sheng Empire was of course dire and will eventually be sent into exile. Worried that her grandmother would die in exile, our heroine will end up falling into Tantai Jin’s hand when he promises to keep her grandmother alive if she obediently does as he says…which is to stay by him. By this point in the novel, Taintai Jin is fairly obsessed with keeping our heroine close to him. I am really enjoying how the drama is keeping this part fun in the show but it does kinda blur how tense the situation really is. (Ep. 19)
30. The three conditions that were listed in the drama (The dream, a tear, the love thread) did not exist in the novel. The only requirement in the novel was that a pendent the heroine was wearing would form 9 nails that would allow our heroine to use them to pierce Tantai Jin’s heart.
31. There are quite a few things the drama changed from the novel that I love such as Second brother’s romance with the fox demon but one thing I wished the drama kept is how resourceful and formidable our heroine was in the novel. Our heroine, in her real life as Li Su Su was an immortal who was not only very talented in her own right but had the help of her bracelet that had existed since ancient times and thus had a vast amount of knowledge. By this point in the story, Tantai Jin and his guards had learned through many experiences that they can never underestimate our heroine because she will always manage to outwit Tantai Jin. Every time Tantai Jin thinks he has the upper hand, he always ended up getting beaten (usually literally) by our heroine.
32. As I mention, the lovey-dovey parts in the drama were not in the novel. Our two leads’ relationship started spiraling downward after Tantai Jin became the emperor. Our hero will first use Ye Xiwu’s grandmother to threaten her, then use her to kill the Sixth Prince, and finally break her mentally by locking her up. Ye Xiwu’s grandmother wasn’t poisoned but was kidnapped by Tantai Jin’s younger brother (unlike the drama, the older brother didn’t have a powerful trusted woman to save him) who also wanted the throne. While the grandmother didn’t die by Tantai Jin’s hand but our heroine blamed him for not keeping his word of making sure her grandmother stayed safe.
The death of Sixth Prince was especially heartbreaking in the novel. Like the drama portrayed, Ye Xiwu had unknowingly fallen victim to the puppet spell and ended up stabbing Sixth Prince while she was with him. Unlike the drama, Sixth Prince was alone with her when it happened. Figuring out right away what had happened, Sixth Prince comforted the shell-shocked Ye Xiwu and took some magic pill that would keep him “alive” for a period of time even though his body had already died. In fact, Sixth Prince even assured Ye Xiwu that all is fair in war so he doesn’t blame anyone for his death. The novel never spelled it out but does make it pretty obvious that Sixth Prince was very affected by the dragon’s dream where he spent that life as the wolf spirit, completely in love and devoted to the princess. Once he was out of the dream, Sixth Prince resolutely put away his dream feelings and devoted himself to his wife but his devotion and instinct to protect our heroine came right back the moment he realized he is at death’s door. Thanks to the magic pill, Sixth Prince was able to act normally around his soldiers until he could “die” during a battle with no one the wiser about the part Ye Xiwu played in his death. Sixth Prince’s death was something our heroine cannot forgive Tantai Jin for. I personally think she could’ve forgiven him for killing Sixth Prince since they are in a war after all. Moreover, our heroine had known from the beginning that Sixth Prince would die eventually since she had figured out that the sixth prince-look alike she knew as Li Su Su was Sixth Prince’s next life. What our heroine could not forgive was that Tantai Jin had chosen the cruelest way of using her to kill the Sixth Prince.
The imprisonment scene (ep. 26) in the show looked fairly mild compared to what happened in the novel. Li Su Su is a bird spirit which means she craves the sky and the freedom to move around. When Tantai Jin imprisoned our heroine, he locked her in a place where there is no light and no sound, slowly breaking her down mentally. Like the drama portrayed, this is also the time when the flower in our heroine’s eye began to hurt and torture her with nightmares. In the novel, Tantai Jin had by chance obtained a treasure that would work to heal Ye Xiwu’s eyes. So broken down by the excruciating pain, our heroine finally gives in and asks Tantai Jin for the treasure. Discovering this, the evil older sister orders Sixth Prince’s men to make an assassination attempt on Tantai Jin so she could be hurt in the process of protecting our hero. Tantai Jin ends up giving the treasure to the evil older sister when he is informed that she is close to death from her wounds. (Sixth Prince never did find out what kind of woman his wife was so he had given her his guards for protection after his death…dooming them to death since she just used them for her own goals without caring about their lives at all.)
33. In the novel, neither of Li Su Su’s parents survived. In fact, Ye Xiwu’s evil older sister’ extra love thread actually belonged to Li Su Su’s mother (the Pheonix goddess) and the dying person who asked the older sister to take the love thread back was Li Su Su’s father- the king of the spirits.
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What a treat to have more on the comparison between novel and show! Thank you, Ninja!! xx
Ok so I’m caught up through episode 24 and I honestly am not sure if I can continue. I don’t know if it’s the drama or actually in the book but basically the heroine, after spending sooooo much time trying to gain TJ’s trust and KNOWING that literally everyone in his life he has ever cared about has betrayed him, decides to make the decisions she made to get the prisoner out ( I’m trying to be vague in case someone else hasn’t gotten there yet) and be secretive and lie. And I can’t figure out why. She doesn’t seem stupid ( although she was fairly obtuse at the beginning)
I just have to know- is this in the novel? Or is this stupid plot creating tension from drama writers? It just doesn’t even make sense why she did all that knowing that her ultimate goal is gaining TJ’s trust and love for her purpose.
It’s killing me. If the drama writers are taking liberties just to twist the knife for no other reason than just “because” I may be done.
Thoughts?
I have good news and bad news for you. The good news is that whole part you are talking about is not in the novel at all. However, I actually think her action makes sense…well, other than she really should know better to think she could do it without Tantai Jin finding out. The Sixth Prince has a very special meaning to our heroine since he is like a brother to her in her real life (the previous one where she is Li Su Su) AND he was her brother again in the dream life as well. While there are no romantic feelings on our heroine’s side, but Sixth Prince is probably more of a family to her than anyone else in that world.
The bad news? All that lovey-dovey parts we saw in ep 23-24? Those are not in the novel at all. What happened in the novel instead is much more heartbreaking…which I am hoping the drama won’t go that route…but on the other hand, it was so emotional scarring it almost seem like a waste to not use it in the drama. I will be adding what happened in the novel once I am certain we are past that point in the drama.
In the 2 previous adaptations, Tantai Jin had two loyal Nian siblings, the other was Baiyu older sister Muning. She was often watched over Xiwu during her confinement. I actually prefer her over Baiyu cause she was much more optimistic with the situation & witnessed Xiwu presence taming Tantai Jin violent outbursts. Muning was devastating seeing Xiwu died which lead her lord decent into endless grief and madness then take her revenge with him torturing BingChang for what she had done (Baiyu died in the OG story because of the bitch too).
Another important note from the original story is the acacia flowers representation in their relationship. Tantai Jin, at first, hated its presence on sight while Susu/Xiwu often carried its scent on her. After the Bo’Re dream, Tantai Jin began tolerating its scent as his desire for Xiwu grew. After the tower sequence, the flowers became a constant reminder of her presence for him as he looked at them longingly whenever he sees them.
Now that you mentioned it, I remembered I actually found it quite funny that Tantai Jin had disliked Ye Xiwu’s fragrance at first. It was then sad and funny at the same time when that same fragrance turned into the thing he can’t forget.