iayal’s Reviews > 女将军和长公主 [Nǚ Jiāngjūn Hé Zhǎng Gōngzhǔ] > Status Update

i’m a little dubious that this baihe is actually going to focus on the political themes of this deeply - especially since this baihe is praised as being very political. yet, since it contains pretty heavy topics, i need more depth. i’m waiting to see if the huns are just represented as “barbarians” or if the author shows something more… also, need these characters to get a reality check. some anti-war messaging here and now would be appreciated, thanks.

another issue i have is that the crossdressing/hidden identity trope isn’t being done that well. the main character’s apparent appearance of masculinity is being said to be due to her deeply tanned skin and scarred body. in every single character description, it’s always talking about how tanned and scarred she is and how she isn’t like other people at all. i find it so idiotic because she’s literally on the frontlines, do you really think anyone with a crumb of sense is expecting her to be unscarred and super fair (this, because of them fighting under the open sun for many years)? she’s not holding a parasol 24/7… i see many instances of colourism in cnovels but, this somehow goes even beyond the normal scenarios. it just ignores the fact that the main character operates on a different social class and position than the female lead to instead stress their physical differences to really emphasize the crossdressing trope and their eventual roles as a lesbian couple.

more on the last thing (i was thinking about this when i was trying to sleep), there a bunch of scenes when the main character’s normally-covered areas get uncovered and characters find out she’s pale but, just got tanned because of her being a soldier and everyone is shocked… saying she’s so pale that her crossdressing-as-man self could actually be a woman… are we ignoring the millions of women toiling away in your country that have more darker complexions solely because of them having to work outside for a living? not even that but, the women naturally born with more melanin to them. why are we acting like pale-skinned men don’t exist? why are we acting like her being tanned is why we all think she’s a guy? if you want to create a character with a darker complexion, go ahead but, make it make sense… there’s colourism in every culture, again, but, this is just stupidity of a writer combined with that.