Word of Honor

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Name: 山河令, Shānhé lìng, Word of Honor
Abbreviation(s): SHL, WOH
Creator: Priest
Date(s): Feb. 22, 2021 - March 23, 2021 (show); May 3-4, 2021 (concert)
Medium: TV
Country of Origin: China
External Links:
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Word of Honor, previously titled A Tale of the Wanderers (天涯客), is a 2021 Chinese costume wuxia streaming television drama. It is notable in portraying a male homo-romantic relationship in a much more obvious fashion than is typically allowed by Chinese censors. The show has a large domestic and international fan following, and is part of a wave of adaptations of BL novels into mainstream media.

Canon Background

Word of Honor is a wuxia costume drama adapted from the danmei novel Faraway Wanderers (天涯客) by Priest, a popular web novel writer with works already adapted for television (Guardian (webseries), Legend of Fei). Faraway Wanderers was originally published on Jinjiang Literature City (晋江文学城), a popular Chinese fiction website with a pay-to-read business model. This website is also where the author Mo Xiang Tong Xiu published Mo Dao Zu Shi, the source of The Untamed TV series.

The original story was expanded on by the screenwriters to include more palace drama. The show has 36 regular episodes and one mini episode finale.[1][2]

The main character is Zhou Zishu (played by Zhang Zhehan), the former leader of the assassin organization "The Window of Heaven". Due to the rules about retiring from the Window of Heaven, Zhou Zishu has seven nails embedded in his meridians that will kill him after three years. During his travels, he meets Wen Kexing (played by Gong Jun), who is secretly the Master of Ghost Valley and on a revenge quest. After rescuing a teenage boy, Zhang Chengling, they become involved in the martial arts world (jianghu), where various sects try to gain control of the Glazed Armor, which will unlock a fabled storehouse said to contain knowledge of an unbeatable martial arts technique. Meanwhile, the other "ghosts" leave Ghost Valley and sow chaos.

After the show aired, the cast also performed in a live concert that was well received by fandom and included a lot of shippy material, including a wedding for Cao Weining/Gu Xiang.

Fandom

Fanart of the main characters wielding their preferred weapons, by lofter user Apocripha-0. Fans posted a lot of fanart for the show on Chinese and international social media platforms. (March 21, 2021)

Chinese Fandom

Chinese fans refer to themselves as Mountain people (山人), likely because the first character in the name of the show is mountain, and the main characters end up on a mountain by the end of the show. The show was popular enough to have a live concert (in spite of the pandemic), and fan commentary could easily be found on Chinese websites such as BiliBili.[3][4]

Chinese fans noticed that some dialogue had been altered after filming for the dubbing process; the original uncensored dialogue was reconstructed via lip reading and shared on social media.

International Fandom

The show became legally available with English subs on YouTube soon after the original Chinese premiere, and Netflix picked up the show in late May 2021. The Netflix version has only 36 episodes, with a sad ending, while the version on Viki has 37 episodes, including the happy ending. The YouTube version has episode 37 as a members-only bonus clip.

More international fans had become interested in new cdramas, especially cdramas based on a boys love novel, due to The Untamed's fame, so Word of Honor quickly gained an international following. It has a growing number of fan works including numerous fan videos on Youtube, fanworks on Archive of our own, and gifsets on Tumblr.

Word of Honor was the first wuxia fandom for many English-speaking fans, leading to some confusion about wuxia tropes and resulting in more English-language meta on wuxia by those with more familiarity. Many people thought the ghosts of Ghost Valley were literal ghosts and not a society of outcasts and criminals.[5]

Some bilingual fans have shared translations of some of the original dialogue reconstructed via lip reading. Here is a youtube video series by Drunk Rabbit.

Shipping

By far the most popular ship is Wen Kexing/Zhou Zishu, a canon m/m ship in the original novel, but censored in the tv adaptation. Its RPF counterpart, Zhang Zhehan/Gong Jun, is also popular. The most popular het ship is Cao Weining/Gu Xiang, also a canon ship. Because side characters and relationships were changed and expanded on, Word of Honor fandom also became interested in several ships that were nonexistent or less popular for the novel fandom. Xie Wang (Scorpion King) is much younger and has a dysfunctional parent/child relationship with Zhao Jing; fans make the (intentional!) subtext into text, either shipping them or using the ship as tramautic backstory for Xie Wang. Luo Fumeng (Tragicomic Ghost) is a sympathetic female character created for the drama (her title was borrowed from a male ghost character in the novel), and Liu Qianqiao was rewritten as her protege, giving fans a reason to ship them. The novel character Helian Yi was changed to Jin Wang (Prince Jin) in the show; his relationship to Zhou Zishu changed as well, resulting in a greater interest in shipping them. Han Ying is a drama-only character sometimes shipped with Zhou Zishu or both Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing.

AO3 ships in descending order of popularity (as of September 2023):[6]

There is also a small amount of femslash for female ghosts (Liu Qianqiao/Luo Fumeng), assassins (Du Pu Sa/Qiao Luo Han), and ghost/assassin (Du Pu Sa/Liu Qianqiao) pairings, plus a trend of Rule 63 femslash for the main ship, Wen Kexing/Zhou Zishu.

Popular gen relationships include Gu Xiang with Wen Kexing and Zhang Chengling with Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu.

813

Main page: 813.

On August 13, 2021, serious accusations against Zhang Zhehan, the lead actor in Word of Honor, went viral on Chinese social media. This incident became known to fans as 813 and had severe and ongoing repercussions for Zhang Zhehan, but also impacted his fanbase. Word of Honor was taken offline for Chinese audiences.

Example Fanworks

Fanfiction

Fanart

digital illustration by lofter user zaoyanfujinhe of the main characters, April 2021. Left to right: Ye Baiyi (background), Zhang Chengling, Zhou Zishu, Wen Kexing, Gu Xiang, Cao Weining.

Fanvids

Zines

Meta

Resources

Fanwork Challenges

Notes

  1. ^ AO3 tags related to Helian Yi and Jin Wang were originally not separated, so many fanworks about the show character are tagged with the book character.

References

  1. ^ Word of Honor Wikipedia Page
  2. ^ AvenueX Final review
  3. ^ Chinese humor reviewer, WOH ep 6
  4. ^ AvenueX Concert Livestream.
  5. ^ Example: Re: Cnovels etc - Word of Honor, Archived version, anonymous comment thread, fail_fandomanon, 2023-03-30.
  6. ^ 山河令 | Word of Honor (TV 2021) - Works, Archived version, AO3 fandom tag page, accessed 15 September 2023.
  7. ^ happy WenZhou is best WenZhou 💞 by koujaaku, Archived version
  8. ^ Word of honor WenZhou by Mad-Hatter----X, Archived version
  9. ^ Dragon kiss (AU) by Cudzinec, Archived version
  10. ^ WEN KEXING II HORNS by Lune Blake, Archived version
  11. ^ Zhou Zishu x Wen Kexing: A Thousand Yearsby wangwujixian, Archived version
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