Post-Canon
Sep. 5th, 2008 04:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
contract_starAs of today, Hei has moved past the end of his canon. This means several major changes, both in his lifestyle and in his personality. So, to sort it out (both for myself and everyone else) I've decided to write down just what exactly I think those changes are. This is, admittedly, a lot of headcanon, but it's all been influenced by a couple of clues left for us at the end of the show in terms of what Hei's future is going to be like.
MAJOR SPOILER WARNING.
Here first is a quick summary of what happens to Hei in the last episode.
Hei goes into the Gate along with Mao and Yin to face Amber once and for all. At this point he doesn't want to kill her anymore--he just wants answers. Plus the Syndicate is trying to kill him, so he doesn't really have anywhere else to go.
Along the way, Mao essentially dies when the link to the computer that keeps his human mind alive is severed. Yin and Hei reach the center of the Gate to find Amber, who has used her power enough that she now looks like a four-year-old girl. Amber explains that slowly and steadily over the years, Contractors began to question their position as tools and weapons, and that some of them began to learn the true intentions of the Syndicate--that the Syndicate wanted to wipe out the Contractors completely. Bai was the first to figure out their true intentions, but she didn't want to get Hei involved. Meanwhile, at PANDORA, the scientists are preparing to fire a beam that will destroy the Gate and the Contractors once and for all.
Amber tells Hei that he has to choose between humans and Contractors, and tells him that all along, Bai has been inside him--which is why he mysteriously got her powers after the Heaven's Gate incident. She asks him to release Bai's ultimate power, which will render the Gate and all of Japan unapproachable, as happened in South America. Hei tells her that he can't do it.
PANDORA starts the countdown, and at the last second, Amber pushes the Meteor Fragment against Hei's chest and forces him to release his powers. Japan disappears in a burst of white light. Hei finds himself alone in a yellow realm, the stars and moon above him--but this wasn't what he wanted. He is confronted by Bai, as well as his dead friends, who tell him that if he can't choose between humans and Contractors, he might as well choose both. Amber finally agrees, and turns back time, releasing Hei back into the Gate where Yin is waiting for him, only minutes before PANDORA launches the beam.
Hei makes it to the Saturn Ring system and releases Bai's power. Instead of making the Gate vanish, he changes the anti-Gate particles on an atomic level, rendering them completely ineffective. The PANDORA facility explodes under the stress. Hei then confronts the Chief of Police, who had planned the whole thing, along with Misaki. Chief of Police Hourai is trying to kill Misaki, who knows too much, but Hei stops him and then disappears, leaving Misaki with the cryptic words "The man known as Li is dead."
LOL NOT AS QUICK AS I WAS HOPING. Sorry, I'm over-thorough.
Anyway, it's stated in the show that by choosing both Contractors and humans, Hei is ushering a new future for everyone, and also that he has made himself public enemy number one where the Syndicate is concerned. This means that Hei has to take Yin (and Mao, who is now completely cattified) and go on the run.
Now, it's not as easy to go on the run as the movies would have you believe. I mean, it's easy to run away, but figuring out where you're going next is a problem. Hei canonly sticks around in Tokyo for at least a week, and I figure he'll spend maybe a month in Tokyo, maybe more, until things die down--at which point he would leave Tokyo and perhaps Japan altogether (probably both, really). He's going to be traveling with Yin and a rather unruly cat, so it could take awhile. And there'll be all the real-world issues of going on the run along with it--getting fake IDs, passports, transportation, lodging, and getting a mundane job to tide them all over until they can get out of the country.
So, that's generally what I think will be happening to Hei afterwards. That, on top of the post-canon deviance described by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
chasingstars201. You can look up the details on her profile, but essentially a year after the Hell's Gate events, Contractor incidents are only getting more frequent, the Syndicate has largely fused with the governments and UN itself, the police and government actively uses Contractors, Contractors are trying to claim their rights and identity, and PANDORA has been rebuilt. I'm going to feed all of that into Hei's post-canon once his world starts merging with Misaki's (which should be soon, maybe).
That's the course Hei's life will take post-canon, but what about his personality?
Well, he made several rather startling realizations during the Hell's Gate events. The first is that he is somewhere between human and Contractor. He always sort of knew this, but this was the first time he was forced to acknowledge it and come to terms with it. Second is that Bai is sort of partially maybe alive inside Hei, in that her powers live on in him. You could say, at least in metaphorical terms, that while her body is dead her spirit lives on inside Hei.
Yeah, it's a confusing canon.
Third is that Contractors can be more than just killing machines. You could argue that this was the whole point of the series--that these people who are portrayed as nothing but weapons can actually act human from time to time. Hei meets quite a few Contractors who don't really fit the Contractor bill. The fourth is the realization and open admission that not only does Hei not really want to kill people at all, he also rather likes people, humans and Contractors alike--hence his inability to choose between him.
Lastly, there are his final words of the series: "The man named Li is dead."
Even fandom admits that this is one of the bigger What-the-Fuck Moments in the last episode (which Bones is famous for). "The man named Li is dead." What the hell does that mean? Does it mean that Hei is going all Contractor from now on? Does it mean he's abandoned the idea of pretending? Does it mean that all along, the Li persona was a lie and he's going to "be himself" from now on? Does it mean that his two personas, Hei and Li, have sort of combined into a conglomeration of the two? (I just wanted to use that word XD).
Nobody knows. I've watched this episode about six times now and I still don't really know.
But, honestly, I think it's actually a combination of all of those. I think that the persona of Li was indeed a lie, but so was the persona of Hei--they're opposite ends of a spectrum and both are too extreme for the Hei-Li person that we all know and love. The whole point is that Hei is not human (Li) and not Contractor (Hei) but a sort of combination of the two. He was unable to choose between them, so he chose both. So, if you think of it that way, it means that essentially he has abandoned both Li and Hei and chosen something in between, which is more natural to the actual person that he is. Of course, that begs the question, who is that person? I don't think even Hei knows. He's going to have to do some soul-searching for awhile.
Now, this doesn't mean that the two personas are completely abandoned. He'll still fall into the Li persona when he has to hide out in Tokyo and such, and he'll still fall into the Hei persona when he has to kill the Syndicate assholes that will inevitably come after him. But around Yin and any other canon friends (there aren't many) he'll be much more neutral, a combination of the two--quiet, dark, somewhat angsty, but also generally a nicer person all around, and a bit more at home in his identity.
And what does this mean for the Plane?
Basically the same thing--quiet, dark and mysterious, but also nicer, friendlier and, again, more at home with who he is. No more ANNNGSTing, no more klutzing--though he'll still angst in a normal sense because that's just part of who he is, and he'll still be cute and awkward and dork out about stars. He's also likely going to ask that people there call him Hei. In fact he will probably wholly abandon the name "Li Shengshun." He'll be more willing to act human around people who already knew what he was, and more like a Contractor around those who didn't know. He's also going to be more honest, at least to some degree--he'll still certainly have issues with trust, so complete honesty will take awhile, but at least he'll be trying. The best word to describe it would be "freer."
Conglomeration!
Anyway, those are my theories on the end of the show, and on how Hei is going to be now that he's post-canon. Teal deer, I know. But thanks for reading and listening to my rambling!
MAJOR SPOILER WARNING.
Here first is a quick summary of what happens to Hei in the last episode.
Hei goes into the Gate along with Mao and Yin to face Amber once and for all. At this point he doesn't want to kill her anymore--he just wants answers. Plus the Syndicate is trying to kill him, so he doesn't really have anywhere else to go.
Along the way, Mao essentially dies when the link to the computer that keeps his human mind alive is severed. Yin and Hei reach the center of the Gate to find Amber, who has used her power enough that she now looks like a four-year-old girl. Amber explains that slowly and steadily over the years, Contractors began to question their position as tools and weapons, and that some of them began to learn the true intentions of the Syndicate--that the Syndicate wanted to wipe out the Contractors completely. Bai was the first to figure out their true intentions, but she didn't want to get Hei involved. Meanwhile, at PANDORA, the scientists are preparing to fire a beam that will destroy the Gate and the Contractors once and for all.
Amber tells Hei that he has to choose between humans and Contractors, and tells him that all along, Bai has been inside him--which is why he mysteriously got her powers after the Heaven's Gate incident. She asks him to release Bai's ultimate power, which will render the Gate and all of Japan unapproachable, as happened in South America. Hei tells her that he can't do it.
PANDORA starts the countdown, and at the last second, Amber pushes the Meteor Fragment against Hei's chest and forces him to release his powers. Japan disappears in a burst of white light. Hei finds himself alone in a yellow realm, the stars and moon above him--but this wasn't what he wanted. He is confronted by Bai, as well as his dead friends, who tell him that if he can't choose between humans and Contractors, he might as well choose both. Amber finally agrees, and turns back time, releasing Hei back into the Gate where Yin is waiting for him, only minutes before PANDORA launches the beam.
Hei makes it to the Saturn Ring system and releases Bai's power. Instead of making the Gate vanish, he changes the anti-Gate particles on an atomic level, rendering them completely ineffective. The PANDORA facility explodes under the stress. Hei then confronts the Chief of Police, who had planned the whole thing, along with Misaki. Chief of Police Hourai is trying to kill Misaki, who knows too much, but Hei stops him and then disappears, leaving Misaki with the cryptic words "The man known as Li is dead."
LOL NOT AS QUICK AS I WAS HOPING. Sorry, I'm over-thorough.
Anyway, it's stated in the show that by choosing both Contractors and humans, Hei is ushering a new future for everyone, and also that he has made himself public enemy number one where the Syndicate is concerned. This means that Hei has to take Yin (and Mao, who is now completely cattified) and go on the run.
Now, it's not as easy to go on the run as the movies would have you believe. I mean, it's easy to run away, but figuring out where you're going next is a problem. Hei canonly sticks around in Tokyo for at least a week, and I figure he'll spend maybe a month in Tokyo, maybe more, until things die down--at which point he would leave Tokyo and perhaps Japan altogether (probably both, really). He's going to be traveling with Yin and a rather unruly cat, so it could take awhile. And there'll be all the real-world issues of going on the run along with it--getting fake IDs, passports, transportation, lodging, and getting a mundane job to tide them all over until they can get out of the country.
So, that's generally what I think will be happening to Hei afterwards. That, on top of the post-canon deviance described by
chasingstars201. You can look up the details on her profile, but essentially a year after the Hell's Gate events, Contractor incidents are only getting more frequent, the Syndicate has largely fused with the governments and UN itself, the police and government actively uses Contractors, Contractors are trying to claim their rights and identity, and PANDORA has been rebuilt. I'm going to feed all of that into Hei's post-canon once his world starts merging with Misaki's (which should be soon, maybe).That's the course Hei's life will take post-canon, but what about his personality?
Well, he made several rather startling realizations during the Hell's Gate events. The first is that he is somewhere between human and Contractor. He always sort of knew this, but this was the first time he was forced to acknowledge it and come to terms with it. Second is that Bai is sort of partially maybe alive inside Hei, in that her powers live on in him. You could say, at least in metaphorical terms, that while her body is dead her spirit lives on inside Hei.
Yeah, it's a confusing canon.
Third is that Contractors can be more than just killing machines. You could argue that this was the whole point of the series--that these people who are portrayed as nothing but weapons can actually act human from time to time. Hei meets quite a few Contractors who don't really fit the Contractor bill. The fourth is the realization and open admission that not only does Hei not really want to kill people at all, he also rather likes people, humans and Contractors alike--hence his inability to choose between him.
Lastly, there are his final words of the series: "The man named Li is dead."
Even fandom admits that this is one of the bigger What-the-Fuck Moments in the last episode (which Bones is famous for). "The man named Li is dead." What the hell does that mean? Does it mean that Hei is going all Contractor from now on? Does it mean he's abandoned the idea of pretending? Does it mean that all along, the Li persona was a lie and he's going to "be himself" from now on? Does it mean that his two personas, Hei and Li, have sort of combined into a conglomeration of the two? (I just wanted to use that word XD).
Nobody knows. I've watched this episode about six times now and I still don't really know.
But, honestly, I think it's actually a combination of all of those. I think that the persona of Li was indeed a lie, but so was the persona of Hei--they're opposite ends of a spectrum and both are too extreme for the Hei-Li person that we all know and love. The whole point is that Hei is not human (Li) and not Contractor (Hei) but a sort of combination of the two. He was unable to choose between them, so he chose both. So, if you think of it that way, it means that essentially he has abandoned both Li and Hei and chosen something in between, which is more natural to the actual person that he is. Of course, that begs the question, who is that person? I don't think even Hei knows. He's going to have to do some soul-searching for awhile.
Now, this doesn't mean that the two personas are completely abandoned. He'll still fall into the Li persona when he has to hide out in Tokyo and such, and he'll still fall into the Hei persona when he has to kill the Syndicate assholes that will inevitably come after him. But around Yin and any other canon friends (there aren't many) he'll be much more neutral, a combination of the two--quiet, dark, somewhat angsty, but also generally a nicer person all around, and a bit more at home in his identity.
And what does this mean for the Plane?
Basically the same thing--quiet, dark and mysterious, but also nicer, friendlier and, again, more at home with who he is. No more ANNNGSTing, no more klutzing--though he'll still angst in a normal sense because that's just part of who he is, and he'll still be cute and awkward and dork out about stars. He's also likely going to ask that people there call him Hei. In fact he will probably wholly abandon the name "Li Shengshun." He'll be more willing to act human around people who already knew what he was, and more like a Contractor around those who didn't know. He's also going to be more honest, at least to some degree--he'll still certainly have issues with trust, so complete honesty will take awhile, but at least he'll be trying. The best word to describe it would be "freer."
Conglomeration!
Anyway, those are my theories on the end of the show, and on how Hei is going to be now that he's post-canon. Teal deer, I know. But thanks for reading and listening to my rambling!
