#I haven't had time yet to watch ep. 5 so I don't know if yi's mother or sisters have shown up again

[visualtaehyun]

What's in a name?

This has been sitting in my drafts for days now and I'm still not 100% on where I'm going but let's say this is an attempt to consolidate 'the names are mythological creatures' with the tiger symbolism surrounding Yi.

Disclaimer: not a native speaker of Thai, still learning 🙏

Let's start with the one everyone who's seen Cutie Pie should be familiar with already:

Lian Kilen Wang เหลียน กิเลน หวัง

กิเลน /gi len/ = Kilen or Qilin (like Kuea's bike) or Kirin (like Kuea's stage name)

- a chimera with the head of a (Chinese) dragon, horns/antlers, and the body of a hoofed mammal, except it's scaled

Makorn Chen มกร เฉิน

มกร /ma gawn/ = dragon; sea monster

- มกร can also be pronounced /ma ga ra/ -> Makara, as pictured next to the screencap of Makorn

- the zodiac sign Capricorn is called ราศีมกร /raa see ma gawn/ or ราศีมังกร /raa see mang gawn/

- both Capricorn and Makara are depicted as hybrid creatures, with a terrestrial front and an aquatic hind part

- มังกร /mang gawn/ is the word used for the Chinese zodiac sign Dragon, which is a Chinese dragon, as pictured on Makorn's tea set in the upper right screencap

Yi Phayak Chatdecha Chen อี้ พยัคฆ์ ฉัตรเดชา เฉิน

(-> more info about his and his sisters' full names here)

พยัคฆ์ /pha yak/ = tiger

In the ep. 1 opening monologue, Diao tells us exactly what the tiger stands for in this show:

It's an apex predator - but a solitary one. It's powerful and elegant - but hides profound sadness.

There's this Thai idiom- (bear with me here)

ชาติเสือต้องไว้ลาย ชาติชายต้องไว้ชื่อ

= Tigers must wear (keep up) their stripes. Men must keep up their name.

-which basically means that to be a man is to be strong, fierce, courageous etc. like a tiger and showing that for the world to see, like a tiger's stripes. A man has to make good on his name and reputation!

Not only is the show full of tiger imagery and tiger sounds for Yi's first name but he constantly mentions the Chen family (ตระกูลเฉิน /dtra guun chen/) and what they're known for:

I guess what I'm trying to get at is that Yi seems to constantly be torn between his tiger nature, the guilt and trauma he's hiding, and the expectations that come with his father's name - please kindly imagine this being highlighted black because I am convinced that Makorn's color is black which would explain why he (black; Yin) clashes with Yi (red; Yang) but not with Diao (yellow*; center, balance).

*this is clearly orange lmao but tumblr mobile doesn't have yellow so I gotta make do

Since I'm talking about colors now, I am legally required to consult the resident expert: @respectthepetty ✨️ (if you've long cracked the code on this show's colors then feel free to ignore this, I am Completely out of the loop for lack of time and a short vacation)

#naughty babe the series #cutie pie the series #max kornthas #zee pruk #thai bl #yidiao #maxnat #I haven't had time yet to watch ep. 5 so I don't know if yi's mother or sisters have shown up again #but i'd be interested to see if his middle name after his mother and her side of the family #contributes to that inner conflict as well! #local woman harps on about linguistics