#@akitania i regret that i was unable to either make these rhyme or set them to music

[gurguliare]

OK SO ... this is, roughly, the jia family + important attendants/in-laws in the first half of the novel. I’ve left out a couple of more remote cousins who ARE plot-relevant but who I couldn’t find an elegant way to cram in, and who also don’t appear until far enough along in the story that readers have (hopefully) had time to assimilate the pre-existing morass.

detailed, mostly non-spoilery comments under cut

OUR HEROES/THE MAIN SBURB SESSION:

Baoyu (WG: Pao-yu) is a reincarnated chunk of jade and the oldest surviving ‘legitimate’ male grandchild of the all-powerful Lady Dowager, meaning, oldest child of a wife rather than a concubine. As such, he’s spoiled rotten by everyone but his father, Jia Zheng, who evens out the mixture by just occasionally terrorizing Baoyu in front of major public figures. Noted for vine trivia and what a fairy calls the “lust of the mind,” which is 1/2 lust for cuddles, 1/2 lust for, uh, well, uh, it might be regular lust, actually.

Baoyu is in love with

Lin Daiyu (WG: Tai-yu), a reincarnated flower whom the chunk of jade watered... with... its dew? I guess large rocks in gardens collect dew, that’s sort of fair? and who thereby incurred a Spiritual Debt, which she seeks to repay in this world by crying A Fuckton. Daiyu is proud, insecure, vindictive, and as PRICKLY as she is SICKLY: jealous attachment to Baoyu aside, her dismal orphaned loneliness/desperation for someone to nag her also makes her roll belly-up at the very first high-minded lecture she gets from

Baochai (WG: Pao-chai), a genuinely considerate person who is probably not ready for the responsibility of becoming Daiyu’s surrogate mom. She alternates between admiring Daiyu’s giant evil brain and worrying about whether she or Daiyu might be fated to marry Baoyu---both possibilities seem to kind of horrify her. She lives in a bare room with no traces of personality in the decorations and has vast unexplained pockets of practical knowledge about, say, paint-making. Once she chased a butterfly across half a chapter, and it was symbolic. I love her.

I can’t find a cool segue to bring in

Wang Xifeng (WG: Hsi-Feng), who btw is Lady Wang’s niece(?) but there was no fucking way I was getting that in on the chart, and who together with Baoyu is supposed to like, lead the next generation to victory! by taking care of byzantine household management while Baoyu goes out there and Wins at the imperial examinations. She’s good at household management! and bitterly angry and impotent in the context of her own awful marriage to Jia Lian. Renowned for her jokes and self-effacing, OTT clowning; at one point the servants rig a drinking game JUST so that she will be picked as the one to recite, because they are so eager to hear her Wit, and she... invents the shaggy dog story.

NOTES ON SECONDARY CHARACTERS I FOUND ESPECIALLY HARD TO TELL APART:

Lady Dowager/Granny Zhia is a niceish old lady who prides herself on having been A Terror in her time but who onscreen mostly compels other people to throw card games to flatter her. Head of the Rongguo branch of the Jia Family.

Jia Zheng (WG: Chia Cheng) is a rigid, brutal old man but doesn’t seem to be actively sexually abusing anyone in the novel’s timeframe, which puts him a notch above every other adult male in the book!

Jia She (WG: Chia Sheh) is Jia Zheng’s older and more lecherous brother. Not too bright, but has a temper.

Lady Xing is Jia She’s official wife, Yingchun’s mother and Jia Lian’s stepmother. Reluctant to go out of her way to ‘manage’ Jia She, to everyone else’s righteous disgust; acts as his procurer instead.

Jia Lian (WG: Chia Lien) is a serial philanderer with a rudimentary sense of humor/sporadic conscience, which must have come from his unnamed concubine mother, under the circumstances. Not even the worst husband in the book, despite everything.

Jia Zhen (WG: Chia Chen) is the head of the Ningguo branch after his father, Jia Jing, abdicates. Involved in a possibly-consensual affair with Qin Keqing (WG: Ch’in Ko-ching), his daughter-in-law. For the record, I was unable to figure out the details of this on my first readthrough, but apparently the clues are in the doctor’s diagnosis of Keqing’s late period and in the servant Chiao Ta’s outburst early on, where he accuses the Jia family as “scratching in the ashes,” which idiomatically refers to... uh... the fact that it was the daughter-in-law’s duty to clean the stove, and so the archetypal father-in-law/daughter-in-law affair would be initiated via messages written in the ashes. Source: my mother, so feel free to correct me/add info if you know anything else about this phrase.

Xichun (WG: Hsi-chun), Yingchun, and Tanchun are (in early chapters) basically notable for filling out the ranks of the poetry club, but if you want tips for differentiating: Xichun is a good painter, Tanchun is a good poet and manager, Yingchun is really, really over her flamboyant nerd cousins. 

Xiangyun (WG: Hsiang-yun) is not on my genealogy but I realized I should actually spend a little time on her, since she has brief bewildering appearances early on: she’s the Lady Dowager’s grandniece, Baoyu’s second cousin, a poetry nerd on par with Daiyu and Baochai, also boyish, cheerful, and a frequent crossdresser. Neglected at Home.

Pinger is Xifeng’s chief maid and aaalso Jia Lian’s concubine, I think, Xifeng’s primary aid in all administrative matters, and the punching bag of Xifeng and Jia Lian’s marriage. I have a lot of Pinger emotions which are probably best saved for another post or buried, but, yeah! Don’t confuse her with Yinger, Yinger is someone else’s maid, haven’t figured out whose yet!

Xiren is Baoyu’s chief maid and unofficial concubine after he hits puberty; probably has the most common sense of his three maids, also the most self-conscious about the prospects and risks of her position.

Qingwen is Baoyu’s feistiest maid. Bears an uncanny resemblance to Daiyu, has a special talent for embroidery.

Of Baoyu’s maids, Sheyue is most talented at argumentation.