Yehua (夜华)- Strong Male Lead?

Yehua is the beloved (or not, depends on how you look at him) character from the story Eternal Love (aka Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms) brought to life by actor Mark Zhao in the drama of the same name. In this analysis, we’ll put him through a series of 10 questions, look at his character traits and development to determine whether he is a strong male lead.

In this post, we will examine Yehua’s character with ten questions that cover flaws, consistency, development, etc. To each question, the answer would be either Yes (1 point), No (0 point), or Kind of (0.5 point).

Rule of Thumb: ‘strong’ does NOT equal ‘strength’

*Our analysis is based strictly on the character Yehua as seen in the drama Eternal Love, not his counterpart in the novel.

WARNING: this analysis 1) contains spoilers 2) is humor-free

1. Does he have a story to tell besides romance? No (+0) 

Not really. Yehua is basically told to live his life a certain way by his family and he has to submit to their system without question. He doesn’t try to change or improve his situation. He doesn’t take on any challenges. We don’t see Yehua showing passion for anything and there’s nothing he actively works towards either as a person or as a Crown Prince, not even a negative thing (because that would have worked too).

He only decides to do something after he’s fallen in love with Susu, and it’s not because Susu inspires him to do something different. He simply wants to be with Susu.

0/10

2. Does he make things happen or do things happen TO him? Yes (+1) / 3. Does he take action to accomplish his goals? Yes (+1)

There’s no doubt about this, Yehua takes action for the most part of the drama. Good or bad, he’s the one who moves the story forward. He knows what he wants, and he goes for it.

However, what Yehua undoubtedly lacks is a goal that does not have to do with Bai Qian. Everything he does seems to go towards his desperate wish to be with Bai Qian. This will be explained more in detail in question 10.

1.5/10

4. Does he have an interest? No (+0)

It’s seen in the drama that Yehua can cook and paint. But the problem is: he doesn’t exactly enjoy doing these things. He only does them FOR Bai Qian, or whenever Bai Qian is around. He never expresses any appreciation for those arts.

He also reads a lot, but that’s mainly for his job and because he was basically forced into this habit by his family.

So these things are not really interests, they’re more like abilities. And yes, Yehua is a man of many, many abilities. But that’s not what we’re looking for.

5. Does he act in accordance with his beliefs? No (+0)

We don’t see much of Yehua’s beliefs aside from the fact that he loves Bai Qian very much. He doesn’t have a clear stand on either politics, family, or society. Whatever Yehua does is for the sake of Bai Qian’s happiness and convenience only.

Even when he decides to leave Susu in the palace alone and go do his job, it’s mainly because that’s part of his plan to take the attention away from Susu, and therefore to protect her better. It absolutely isn’t because he has an opinion to express about current disputes between kingdoms.

6. Does he develop throughout the story? Yes (+1)

Whether Yehua has development or not depends on how you look at him. He starts out as a cold and pretty much unmotivated prince. After he meets Susu, he becomes more goal-oriented.

Later on, when he meets Bai Qian again, it seems he has become more cautious with his approach (though it’s hard to say whether that’s because he’s learned his lesson with Susu or because Bai Qian is already a woman of status and power at this point, therefore she earns his respect).

As the story progresses, Yehua sinks deeper in love with Bai Qian. He loves himself less and less and becomes more reckless. This is certainly not positive development, but it IS development.

7. Does he have a flaw? No (+0)

Yehua has a truck full of flaws, and that’s one good point about his character

His inability to communicate is the cause of all suffering. His secrecy. His extremely low regard for his own life. Ect.

8. Does he have meaningful relationships with other characters besides his love interest? Kind of (+0.5)

The most notable relationship Yehua has is with his grandfather. The Sky Lord’s tyranny has a negative influence on Yehua, and it reflects on the way he treats Susu, on his general behavior without him knowing about it. And throughout the story, Yehua’s decisions are hindered by his fear of his grandfather. He also has a good friendship with his uncle with the fan.

These relationship, however, are not developed much throughout the story. Not to the point that we can call them “relationships.” These characters are used more for the plot than to shape Yehua’s growth.

9. Is he consistent? Kind of (+0.5)

As far as we can see, Yehua’s personality is fairly consistent. He’s very passionate in love, reckless and impulsive in his behavior when it concerns Bai Qian, and a pretty terrible strategist.

These things remain true through the whole drama.

What is not consistent, however, is Yehua’s skill(s). He is said to be powerful and we just have to believe it.

Other people temporarily lose their powers when they step foot in the Ghost Land, Yehua doesn’t. Other people get punished for using magic in the Mortal World, Yehua doesn’t.

He’s strong enough to take on the four beasts of Yingzhou Island but not strong enough to shield himself against the Golden Lion in the beginning of the drama (leading to his severe injuries and encounter with Susu). But then, we don’t even know how strong these beasts are.

After he revives Moyuan, Yehua is said to have lost plenty of energy – enough to make Bai Qian want to hug him to sleep – but in the end, Yehua is still the one to defeat the Demon Lord, who is so powerful that he managed to put a curse on Bai Qian while he was still INSIDE the bell. So… is Yehua really strong or is Bai Qian (who is 90,000 years older than Yehua) just useless?

Long story short: it’s all over the place, and Yehua does extraordinary things when the plot needs him to.

10. Can you define his character by his personality? No (+0)

Unfortunately, no. You can’t talk about Yehua without talking about Bai Qian and his love for Bai Qian. We don’t know how he would deal with a situation that does NOT concern Bai Qian.

It’s extremely difficult to pin down his personality because we simply can’t seperate his personality from Bai Qian’s existence.

Yehua doesn’t make an effort to control his own destiny until he feels he wants to be with Bai Qian. He starts a war with the Mermaid clan not because it’s the best solution for peace, not because it’s his duty, but because it ultimately enables him to be with Bai Qian (Susu) sooner.

He sets out to get the magical grass (or mushrooms… depends on how you look at them) and revives Moyuan not because he thinks the world needs Moyuan, but because that’s what Bai Qian wants.

He’s given the privilege of being a Crown Prince but he doesn’t care to use his power for anything more than doing what he’s told to do, and protecting Bai Qian. Therefore, you also can’t define him by his actions.

He is self-sacrificing (for Bai Qian), he is kind of noble (toward Bai Qian). But he can’t have this point.

SO HOW WELL WRITTEN IS YEHUA?

4.5/10

Conclusion: Throughout the whole drama, Yehua’s only purpose is to pursue a romance, to do everything he can to please Bai Qian. And that’s basically what this story is about, it’s about Yehua making amends to Bai Qian after having screwed up the first time.

All the subplots are essentially unimportant and all other characters have absolutely no influence on Yehua’s development.

Now, let’s have a brief discussion of the romance itself.

We see numerous people trying to meddle with Yehua and Bai Qian’s love, but all the trouble ultimately come from Yehua and Bai Qian themselves. If you take away all the magical elements and the side love story and the weird age system (that makes it look like Fengjiu is dating her granddad’s friend), this is what we have left: two people with a lot of time in their hands, but never communicate properly.

That’s it, that’s all we have. It’s not about finding love (because love has been found on day one and is followed by a generous number of bed scenes) or building trust, it’s not about sacrifices. It’s mainly about relationship problems. And the thing is, these problems never get resolved in the end, because Yehua decides to go out with a big bang and is immediately forgiven by Bai Qian when he comes back. And Yehua and Bai Qian still manage to avoid the very thing their relationship lacks in the first place: communication.

You can argue that because this is a romance, the main character’s purpose has to be a romantic one. YES, we know it’s a romance, that’s why we’re not asking for much. What we’re looking for is maybe just a few instances where Yehua could have shown that he’s interested in something other than Bai Qian. Maybe a little bit of thought process about Moyuan because Moyuan is, after all, someone who took care of Yehua almost all his life. Or maybe some solid emotional struggle about what his fake death would do to his mother, or what his sacrifice (to the bell) would do to his son.

We don’t care if Yehua makes mistakes (as big as digging someone’s eyes out). We don’t care if he enjoys watching operas (like Bai Qian), stands around gossiping (like Chengyu and the star lord), dreams about building another explosive bell (like his big brother), or is just out there spreading rumors about his friend for fun (like Donghua). We need diversity in his thoughts and actions to determine the layers of his character. But there is NONE.

Everything Yehua does, every decision he makes is either FOR or BECAUSE OF Bai Qian. He has no strong belief beyond Bai Qian. And that is reflected by the number of times we have to write ‘Bai Qian’ in this analysis.

It’s exciting to watch a male lead who knows what he wants and strives to achieve what he wants, and in that respect the drama did well. But the strong focus on romance with no diversity in various character relationships yields a lead character who’s extremely lacking in other aspects.

There we have it: Yehua is not strong in terms of characterization. But he is an incredibly active character, and this we give him full credit for.