I can't even understand how people are so amazed by such a flawed scenario... If I wasn't looking at the whole context I would say it's dramatic and quite good, but with the whole context, Wu sacrificing herself is too forced. First, we saw Titan Giant Ape and Sky Blue Bull Python getting frozen by Gui Mei and Yue Guan's Spirit Fusion, then weirdly enough low-quality members of Spirit Hall catches up with San and Wu (while it shouldn't be possible) then San gots damaged a lot, and weirdly enough they face with 30.000 years old man faced demon spider... Seriously? And then thanks to all these things of the actual spirit hall goons catch up with San and Wu and things end up with Wu sacrificing herself... I guess writing something good, different, and unique instead of cliche and not a copy of San's father and mother's story was hard for writers... Sure we saw how powerfull their love is, but the way things happened is flawed AF. I wish at least they included Bibi Dong to the party, so we would have logical explanation about Titan Giant Ape and Sky Blue Bull Python not being able to beat the Spirit Hall Party.
I don't know if you'll ever read this reply, but I wanted to give my two cents on this topic.
Maybe it's because I read the novel, but I didn't feel it was as flawed as you say.
I'll first start by addressing the "copy paste" scenario where Tang San and Xiao Wu repeat what happened with his father; I think the whole point of this scene was that "history repeats itself", at least that is what I felt when reading the novel. Yes, it was predicable, but I think that was kind of the point.
Next you talk about how everything feels so forced. I think part of the problem is how the adaptation team has made modifications to how the plot is presented that this issue cropped up. The Douluo Dalu adaptation applies many of the techniques adaptation use to better tell a story using a visual format, and that is plot shuffling and plot modification. Plot shuffling, or moving around of plot points, can help better tell the story in a visual format, unlike what might be better for novels, by moving later plot revelations forward in order to keep audiences more engaged. Plot modification are changes made to the plot by the adaptation to add more detail for events only briefly described, patching plot holes, or even cut less important exposition. These changes can be both good and bad; some can enhance the work while other can end up disrupting what the novel portrays. All these end up creating the more flawed situation you describe.
How so? Well, first off, Gui Mei and Yue Guan's spirit fusion was supposed to be one of the most classified secrets of Spirit Hall and one of the reasons they had such high status in Spirit Hall. Their spirits were even used as symbols for the Pontiff Seal, which shows how important they are. In the novel, this was the first time this ability was revealed and no one knew about it; however, we had already seen this at least one time in Tang Hao's flashback to Tang Yin's sacrifice. In reality, while the Tang Hao fight's was great and exciting, the details of the fight were unknown to us and we only knew that Tang Hao forced the two back, seriously injured the then Pontiff and left with serious injuries of his own. This lessened the shock factor of their spirit fusion (which I repeat, basically no one knew of).
Now about the Ape and Python, they can 100% defeat the entire Spirit Hall party, the Spirit Fusion was meant to delay the two so the goons (army) they brought could complete the objective, which was to capture Xiao Wu.
So after the Ape and Python get frozen, the "low-quality members" who caught up aren't actually all that low quality. I don't think they showed it off very well, but they are all rank 70+ agility (speed) type spirit masters (7 in total I believe), which means 2 less than rank 60 spirit masters are fighting off 7 70+ agility masters. While Tang San and Xiao Wu are faster than regular spirit masters of similar rank due to his domain, flight, and sensing ability, the agility spirit masters are able to follow and track the two due to their specialty in speed. So Tang San needs to either shake them off or kill them to lose the Sprit Hall goons (army) in the area. They do succeed and kill all 7. The two needles at the end basically drains all of Tang San's spirit power, because it requires a special technique to use those poisonous needles (and not get poisoned himself).
The Man-Faced Demon Spider's ecology is better explained in the novel (or maybe the explained it once back when it first appeared, I don't remember), but it can consume other beasts or spirit masters to raise its cultivation. It had been following the Spirit Hall army in hopes of hunting and thus attacked Tang San and Xiao Wu at their weakest. This delay allowed the others to locate them (because the scouts got killed) and delayed the two enough for the others to catch up.
Anyway, that's just my view on this matter.
TLDR, the adaptation changed how the plot was presented and because of some lack of details, the situation feels more flawed in the donghua than in the novel. |