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the-monkey-ruler · 1 year ago

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I understand the rules for gods and their hierarchy, but do we know how the hierarchy and rules for demons work? I understand that there are demon kings, and could we say that they have their own territories and subjects? Do demons always walk alone? They have clans or groups? How do female demons differ from male demons? Or do you know articles or people who know more about it? I understand that Wukong was like on a political mission to talk to the demon kings and have a good relationship with them, right?

I would like to know more about how their "society" (their politics?) works in JTTW and other legends and stories.

but do we know how the hierarchy and rules for demons work?

It's hard to pinpoint ranks in Yaoguai society per se, but from what we can tell they follow a similar structure to heaven based on their military ranks. They have Kings, Generals, rear generals, soldiers, servants, and carriers. This is most likely to reflect how the military was structured in the same time period as well.

Royalty or Yaoguai with Princess, Queen, or King in their name are often the heads of their armies, with both soldiers and servants under their command. We see this often in Xiyouji where Demon Kings are in charge of their forces and depending on the demons directly interact with servants or soldiers. It should be noted that for Women Demon Queen/Princess they only had other women servants as that was considered proper in human society as well at the time and it reflected in yaoguai standards of what is 'proper'.

I understand that there are demon kings, and could we say that they have their own territories and subjects?

Each Demon King has their own Cave. As you would notice that many caves owned by Demon King have titles to their names, Wukong for example has the Water Curtain Cave. And with a Cave often as their own Moutain. I can't say if EVERY Demon King has a Mountain, perhaps they have a valley or plains, but every Demon King certainly has a Cave and the surrounding area would be their territory.

Do demons always walk alone?

Are you asking if demons travel in herds? No more than humans do. Demons often group together under a King for both security under their king and said power. But demons can be by themselves, making them more vulnerable to attack but this could be for training purposes, undercover work, or they are trying to integrate into human society. In most cases Demons are alone, they are trying to either cultivate or trying to trick humans, so the fewer people, the better. But in most stories, we see demons either being a King and thus having subjects that follow their command or demons are the subjects of a King. It's similar to why humans form villages or nations, security in number, and organization under a military leader. In stories where a demon is alone they are often trying to tick/attack humans and this can be considered part of them trying to cultivate, perhaps trying to get stronger without being limited by being a subject to a king.

They have clans or groups?

I cannot say if they have clans as most demons cultivate to become what they are. FEW demons are biological families as we see a reoccurring pattern that Sworn Brothers are far more common. We only see two examples of demons having children in Xiyouji, that being DBK and Iron Fac having Red Boy and Yellow Brows Demon taking on a human as a wife. It is far more common for demons to steal both male and female partners to be their wife/husband rather than demons marrying each other. For whatever reason I can assume it is often that demons find humans irresistible whether for a human's life force or beauty (or even that they were in love in a past life, revenge on the human's spouse, power, maybe actually true love, etc.) but we don't see a lot of demon with other demons romantically. And fewer pure demon-born children such as Red Boy. White Snake and her husband are an example of having a half-demon child for example. This makes it harder for 'clans' to form.

A good example of a demon 'family' is that the Nine-Headed Lion Spirit adopted around 8 lion grandsons to be under his protection. Rather than having them as subjects he calls them family. Similar is that Wukong did the same with his entire mountain, adopting 47,000 monkeys and naming them after himself as the Sun Clan. I have never seen another demon do such a thing and would not call it the norm, rather Wukong being the exception to the rule. Wukong has been depicted as more eccentric than most demons with his power and charisma.

It could be that demons have a harder time creating children with one another, and perhaps it is easier to create children with humans or have more human (therefore more life force) in the child. It is VERY hard for demons to reach the form where they have a humanoid state, despite how MANY demons we see in Xiyouji, demons finally reaching the human statue takes thousands and thousands of years, so it could just be hard for demons to both reach that state AND then cultivate a child within their bodies if they do not have enough power to spare to keep their human form. This could be another reason demons are more inclined to have human spouses as they would be given their demon spouse the needed qi naturally rather than having to create so much qi themselves.

A rare example of this is like with Jade Face Princess, she is the daughter of another fox king who was 10,000 years old or so but we never see in the novel. It is hard to say that if she is his bio daughter (most likely) and that is how she inherited her wealth but that she could and would still end up so weak in battle. She shows that her true form is a fox, so it is unlikely she is half-human but also hard to say if he was a born demon as well. We so see an example of adoption in the same like as White-Face Fox was adopted by the White Deer Spirit as his direct daughter, despite them being two different pieces. This is just another thing to consider when it comes to how these demons create bond with one another, their godfather/godmother to their god-son/god-daughter being stronger than alliances.

How do female demons differ from male demons?

Females and male demons are pretty easy to differentiate in that the demon will CHOOSE how their physical form will look like. As a reminder demons are animals, plants, and objects that have gained cultivation and thus their physical forms are illusions. They are allowed to choose how the world sees them and thus once they gain a humanoid form (which takes a very long time) they can choose how to look and thus how they with the world to address them as. Green Snake is a good example of this as she was a male snake in her animal form and was able to choose to present as a woman so that she could stay close to White Snake when they cultivated into humans.

Or do you know articles or people who know more about it?

I can recommend a few books if you wish to read but I cannot say if there are articles about this subject.

A CHINESE BESTIARY Strange Creatures from the GUIDEWAYS THROUGH MOUNTAINS AND SEAS

Fantastic creatures of the mountains and seas : a Chinese classic

Chinese Mythology: An Introduction

Handbook of Chinese Mythology

I understand that Wukong was like on a political mission to talk to the demon kings and have a good relationship with them, right?

Wukong was less taking a 'political mission' and rather Demon Kings came to HIM. When Wukong showed off the power of the staff.

Wukong explored many areas in his time and found a lot of friends but that was for his own sake of having fun, rather than trying to make political connections. Rather Demon Kings understood that Wukong was far more powerful than any of them and all 72 made sure to come and pay respect to him to get on his good side else they would be killed like the Demon King of Havoc. This is why you see in some media Wukong be The King of the Demons, as in he isn't just a Demon King but THE King of all Yaoguai. Out of the 72 demon kings, 6 were able to impress him enough to be his sworn brothers. I personally feel that the demon kings were the ones to refer to Wukong rather than Wukong trying to make alliances himself.

I would like to know more about how their "society" (their politics?) works in JTTW and other legends and stories.

From what we can see it is to be expected that Yaoguai society works similarly to human society. Heaven is to be a reflection of human society with ranks, servants, and duties and Yaoguai appears to be the same. But Heaven is supposed to be the prime of example of a perfect society, and rather Yaoguai rather have the "might is right” methods. to show the flaws of society. Demons that are particularly powerful, such as demons with humanoid forms, are the ones in power. The stronger a demon is, the more powerful and influence they will have. Kings are not born, but rather made when a demon has cultivated enough and gained a large following, and thus they are able to claim a Cave and Mountain of their own and their subjects. From there demons are either terrorizing humans or even being able to form diplomaice relationships with humans. We see this with the Nine-Headed Lion Spirit trading with humans are a regular basis (until his grandsons stole the pilgrims' weapons and ruined their relationship with their neighboring kingdom). Powerful Demons turn into Kings and thus have subjects, so it is fair to think that when demons are on their own and interacting with humans so much they are more likely trying to cultivate to gain more power. Weaker demons are either under a Demon King or interacting with humans to eat them to gain enough power to be a Demon King perhaps.

I don’t see a lot of demons interacting with each other if they are not sworn, I would imagine that there is a lot of postering and a lot of double-edged sword dealings. Demons are always run by their own desires, similar to humans but to the extreme, they don’t consider consequences or express empathy more often than not (there are exceptions to this rule just this is the norm I have seen). Demons can form relations and close bonds but as we have seen with DBK and Wukong these relationships are not concrete, as when Wukong was no longer a warlord and was no longer in a position of power over DBK, DBK saw no reason to help Wukong in his plight. Nor do we see Wukong's other sworn brothers after he loses his warlord status. This can be assumed that these relationships are only as strong as long as individuals are useful, but if any of them lose power or status then the relationship will dissolve when it is no longer profitable to keep them. There can be goodwill and we have seen more genuine care between demons such as White Snake and Green Snake but that seems more of a familial relationship over a political alliance.

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