I've been listening to the Investiture of the Gods series by the Chinese Lore Podcast, and I'm fairly far into it at this point. I got attached to the two young Shang princes in the early chapters, then assumed they'd both died as exiled children, then was delighted when they reappeared.

But in the current storyline I'm busy realising that right, of course, they have to first be invalidated by the will of heaven by breaking oaths to their masters and coming to side with their father the bad emperor after growing to adulthood. They can't just continue to exist as adult princes of the Shang allied with the Zhou, because that would always be a threat to to the new regime. Sigh!

#SophPodlistens

@soph_sol the moral universe of that story is in some ways absolutely baffling, and in other ways, extremely clear and straighforward.

@Betty soooooo true! one of the things I love about engaging with stories from centuries ago is discovering what combo of those universes will be presented for me to encountes

@soph_sol Yeah! The thing I enjoyed about it was trying to suss out the logic underpinning the story's ethics.

Have you got to the part where the king outrages the honour of one of his main general's wives, and, unless there was euphemism going on that I extremely missed, *not* in the way that sounds?

@Betty honestly I'm not sure! it's a bit too easy for me to zone out in all the Cool Dudes Fighting Each Other content and then missing actual developments 😅 especially since I only listen to maybe a couple episodes a week, so I'm always forgetting who's who!

@Betty tell me more about the incident?

@soph_sol Yeah, there are a lot of bits that are "someone tells the king not to do a thing, he heckin' murders them," and the battles are very same-y.

I think the structure is (from memory, and also it's a bit hard to judge, having ingested this from the same podcast) first quarter, Look at these cool guys!, second quarter, the Shang king is bad, various people come to agree to do something about it and then the last half is battles.

@soph_sol The incident I'm thinking of, think, is more toward the back half.

Have you got to concubine Daji? You'd definitely remember her, she's trouble, and I am of the position that other than all the murders, she's done nothing wrong.

@Betty oh yeah I am fully in the back half of the book with just endless battles, Daji is old news. I miss getting to hear about her schemes, those were good times. She's one of the most interesting characters we've met! why is the author sleeping on the potential here!