Showing posts tagged chinese headgear
The Dai Li - Real Life References If you compare the Dai Li and the Jinyi Wei, you’ll notice several compelling parallels: The Dai Li are based on the Jinyi Wei Founded in 1368 the Jinyi Wei started out as the Hong Wu Emperor’s body guards, but... View high resolution

The Dai Li - Real Life References

If you compare the Dai Li and the Jinyi Wei, you’ll notice several compelling parallels:

The Dai Li are based on the Jinyi Wei

Founded in 1368 the Jinyi Wei started out as the Hong Wu Emperor’s body guards, but quickly seized power. Just one year later they were authorized to overrule courts, and had the permission to arrest, interrogate and punish literally anyone, including royalty.

The Hong Wu Emperor is the founder of the Ming Dynasty.

After he conquered what is now Beijing and founded the Ming Dynasty the Hongwu Emperor doubted his subjects’ loyalties towards him and was constantly on guard against possible rebellions and assassinations.

One of the early duties of the Jinyi Wei was to help the emperor spy on his subjects, the Inyi Wei started out with just 500 members, but grew in size to over 14,000 within the next three years. They lasted 262 years as an organization.

Name

Their name (possibly) comes from 戴笠 - Dai Li i.e. the head of the Kuomintang (KMT) Army secret service in China during the Chinese Civil War.

Notes:

Kuei is based on the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty: Puyi

Please also note that the hats the Dai Li are wearing are not dai li hats (I know it sounds plausible), but are called Qing Guanmao 清代官帽.

This is a dai li hat:

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Image source: One, two

Ozai’s Court Warlocks At the end of the episode ‘the Northern Air Temple’ the Fire Nation recovers the hot-air balloon from the forest. We see three officials present. Two of them are wearing 术士冠 shu shi guan. Guan are headgear (usually for men) that... View high resolution

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Ozai’s Court Warlocks

At the end of the episode ‘the Northern Air Temple’ the Fire Nation recovers the hot-air balloon from the forest. We see three officials present. Two of them are wearing 术士冠 shu shi guan.

Guan are headgear (usually for men) that used to denote station or rank in China.

术士冠 are worn by warlocks/alchemists. Yeah, yeah, alchemists is probably the better translation, but let’s be honest, is having court warlocks really OOC for someone who declares himself Phoenix King? See! Don’t judge, warlocks are awesome :P

Source: One, two

The man the Gaang meets before entering Aunt Wu’s village is wearing a framed: “ Jin Jin are caps of civilian usage. Jin with the use of frames can also be called Ze (幘), and are deemed more formal than the unframed ones. ” This means he is not a... View high resolution

The man the Gaang meets before entering Aunt Wu’s village is wearing a framed:

Jin

Jin are caps of civilian usage. Jin with the use of frames can also be called Ze (幘), and are deemed more formal than the unframed ones.

This means he is not a government official, i.e. he is not the village leader.