Rude. >:/
OH GOD I LOVE THIS SCENE. Shifu’s such an onery old bastard. It does seem a little impertinent of him, doesn’t it, but if you take into account that Oogway was very obviously trolling Shifu, it adds an interesting dimension to their relationship. An interesting pushback on Shifu’s part. Sort of, “Okay, Master, I respect you and you can fuck with me, but there is a limit to how long I’ll put up with it.”
I imagine when Shifu was younger he was very much in thrall to Oogway and hung on his every word. I imagine that Oogway probably teased and trolled Shifu a lot, using his own uptight nature against him. He probably would have never blown out those candles before the stage of their relationship where Oogway calls him “old friend” (which I imagine started after Shifu lost Tai Lung.)
If you look at things from Shifu’s point of view, it might seem to him that he keeps getting fucked over by Oogway’s capricious nature. First Shifu thought HE was the Dragon Warrior, no go from Oogway. Raises Tai Lung to be Dragon Warrior, no go from Oogway, and he essentially suffers the death of a child due to Oogway’s choices. I think something perhaps changed at that point. Shifu would of course obey Oogway till the ends of the earth but he must, MUST, deep down, harbor a big old lump of resentment towards Oogway for curating the two biggest heartbreaks of his life (three counting Po).
This scene is very telling in that respect. There’s a force, a resentment, behind his blowing out the candles, a NO, don’t FUCK with me, STOP It. And also interesting that Oogway doesn’t scold or tease him once the candles are blown out. He looks at the wisp of smoke with a sort of resignation, and some respect - he knows there are limits to how far he can push Shifu. He knows that plug of resentment is there and I think he is sorry for it - he did what needed to be done, of course, and so did Shifu, but in the end it was Oogway’s choice that killed Shifu’s baby and shattered his heart. That stuff doesn’t heal easily.
In short, there’s just enough irreverent “Okay, enough of this bullshit, old man! FUCK OFF!” in Shifu’s blowing out of the candles to make him interesting. It’s a quality of his I hope he never loses - I don’t think he’d be nearly as fun without it.
I love this meta.
<3 Shifu