#Jgy tag

[labyrynth]

seen some misconceptions about where nmj was stashed so I made a handy infographic

[evilhasnever]

I keep seeing people start from the premise that "JGY is heartless" to read all of his actions in the worst possible light, or claim that he was, for example, incapable of loving Lan Xichen... Meanwhile a quick cause-effect analysis of his canonical actions shows that he often chooses mercy when it is NOT beneficial to him, that he repays kindness with kindness when he can, and that he is filial to a fault until he is pushed off the deep end by JGS.

Examples: he did not start playing the evil medley for NMJ until NMJ had actively tried to murder him three times! He did not kill SiSi upon realizing who she was, even though she was a very dangerous loose end. He did not mysteriously get rid of Qin Su or repudiate her, so as not to ruin her reputation. He delayed his departure to Dongying to dig up his mother's remains to take them with him! He waited way too long to kill that horrible father of his (poetic yet horrifying method aside). He got Jin Ling Fairy, and later Fairy led his enemies to Guanyin temple...

Every single one of these choices came back to bite him, and was literally instrumental to his undoing. If he'd been as ruthless as some people think, none of those people would have lived long enough to ruin him. tl;dr: it would have been far easier for Jin Guangyao to truly not have a heart, but alas.

[labyrynth]

i don’t agree with what i think is your main claim, which i think is this

-> Wei Wuxian's assumption that jgy set the suicide up and compelled her somehow is the most logical inference.

but i think that might be in part because some of your information actually contradicts the text, so here’s a mostly unbiased fact check

(i.e. i tried to limit to just things that are pretty straightforward readings of the text and simple logical conclusions, and not get into broader scope or more interpretive things. please don’t take this the wrong way, op!)

most quotes are from the 7s official english translation, vol 2 Chapter 10: The Beguiling Boy, save a few at the end which are from EXR 86, Loyalty 8.

-> If Qin Su was going to commit suicide about the bad news, there would have been hints that this was the direction her thoughts were trending during the preceding scene, where we're introduced to her reactions. And there aren't.

-> Her primary reaction is anger.

“Qin Su had nothing left within her stomach to expel. She crouched on the ground on all fours, sobbing. ‘It’s true, you’ve treated me well… But I… I’d rather I’d never known you! No wonder that, ever since… That ever since, there was never… Rather than do that, you should’ve just killed me!’” (261)

hints of suicidality: she explicitly expresses a preference for death over living in an incestuous marriage. you could argue that it’s hyperbole, but. she DOES ultimately kill herself.

anger: one example, but she’s feeling a lot here—disgust, betrayal, sadness—not just anger.

-> She is contemptuous of his caring almost exclusively about what all these horrors could do to their reputation

-> There is nothing in the scene to suggest she would, given the opportunity to denounce him to the cultivation world, choose instead to escape by knife.

“‘…But if this gets out—you are my wife, what would others say? What would they think of you?’

Qin Su clutched her head. ‘Stop talking! Don’t say any more, stop reminding me!!’”(263)

denounce jgy: there is nothing in the scene to suggest she would want to denounce him to the cultivation world, because…

reputation: qin su is not contemptuous of his concerns. rather, she finds the prospect of others finding out too upsetting to think about. comes up later, but wwx theorizes that she knew that she would be subjected to contempt, mockery, and joy masquerading as false pity, and

wwx expresses contempt at jgy’s concern over hosting their guests (264) but not qin su.

-> The interpretation…that says she Just Did That really annoys me, because it requires ignoring basically every single piece of information about the character other than…Wei Wuxian always thought…she wasn't very bright

ignoring other information: such as? we know very little about her. you acknowledge yourself that she only has one scene, where she’s very clearly in incredible distress.

not very bright: wwx thinks she’s naive (260, 262), innocent (260), ignorant of the world (262), and “even a little foolish at times” (262), but not dumb. i dont know what that has to do with whether or not her suicide was her decision, though.

-> it would be out of character for Jin Guangyao to have knowingly arranged a situation likely to go so badly for him

going badly for him: see above; only if qin su threw herself upon the proverbial knife and spilled the beans, thus also damning herself, something she does not want to do.

paraphrasing the next part, because i had a really hard time parsing it:

->if Jin Guangyao had not been assured of Qin Su’s silence (her death), the sensible thing for him to do would be to make her Disappear, as he did nmj’s head, even if it meant killing her, and pin it on “Mo Xuanyu”

“He couldn’t possibly have moved Qin Su somewhere else in such a short period of time without anyone noticing.” (339)

it’s probably safe to assume either dead or alive. bodies are fairly large, and not terribly cooperative about moving.

killing her: qin su’s death at this point is to jgy’s detriment: the informant is the threat, not her. if he kills her, he will never find out who gave her the letter.

-> If Jin Guangyao had actual mind control powers he definitely would have used them a lot

this is true. his life would have been so much easier if he could control others’ minds. i think he deserves a little mind control. as a treat. unfortunately, the universe said no treats for a-yao.

->he used some technique or drug that would confuse her and suppress her cognition…

“…he moved next to Qin Su, carefully examining her profile. She was still alive and well. Although her expression was wooden, Wei Wuxian was certain there were no evil spells cast upon her, nor any strange poisons affecting her. Her mind was clear.” (340-341)

influenced: by wwx’s own judgement, she is in control of herself, and is not in any way impaired.

-> …then deliberately put 'cursed dagger that preys on your negative feelings and makes you kill yourself' within reach just before everyone entered

also later referred to as

-> evil dagger that [compels] you to kill yourself

here’s everything the book says about the dagger:

“The dagger emitted an eerie, frigid glint, roiling with a murderous aura.” (341)

“‘This dagger was the weapon of an assassin. It has killed countless people and is incomparably sharp. Take a look at the blade. Look closely. You’ll see the reflection is not your own, but sometimes a man, sometimes a woman, sometimes an elder. Each is a soul that died at the assassin’s hand. The blade is heavy with yin energy, so I added drapes to seal it off.’” (341)

which does not include anything about feeding off of resentment or other negative emotions, compulsions to violence, let alone making you kill yourself.

furthermore, wwx’s own conclusions are conflicting.

first:

“Qin Su stood by Jin Guangyao’s side, watching as he fiddled with the dagger. Suddenly, she snatched it from him! Her face started to twist and tremble. The others didn’t understand her expression, but Wei Wuxian, who had just spied on her dispute with Jin Guangyao, could easily read the pain, anger, and humiliation written there.” (342)

the pain, anger, and humiliation were too great.

next:

“Who could’ve imagined that Jin Guangyao wouldn’t just move the head in such a short period of time, but also do or say something that drove Qin Su to kill herself in public and seal her own lips?” (344)

jgy said or did something that drove her to it.

then:

“He immediately fabricated a slew of lies, talked Qin Su into suicide, then purposely cornered me to the lattice shelf where Suibian was stored to tempt me into pulling the sword and exposing my identity.” (348)

jgy talked her into it.

MUCH later:

Wei WuXian smiled, “But have you never thought what a blow it'd be to her after you told her? Or do you really not know? That it's because you went to tell Qin Su of the matter that she killed herself?” (EXR 86, Loyalty 8)

she couldn’t bear the revelation of her incest

and finally:

…“Qin Su was still too fragile."

…"Qin Su was so pitiful."

…"Back then I even envied her[…]But who knew? Tsk, tsk."

…"That's why these seemingly beautiful things are often full of holes beneath the surface. There's nothing to envy at all."

…Perhaps it's precisely because of these people who comment in joy masked as pity that Qin Su decided to take her own life. (EXR 86, Loyalty 8)

she couldn’t bear the humiliation of the public’s (inevitable) delight in her trauma.

uhhh ive spent way too long on this already and i don’t really know how to end it

to leave the text behind a little bit, i think the main, purely emotional reason i don’t like the “she was manipulated/forced/mind controlled/whatever” theory is that it denies her the last little bit of agency she could have had, and she gets so little of that anyway.

in the end, no one gets to make decisions for her anymore, and that was her decision—nobody else’s.

So re: Qin Su's death, one thing I'm absolutely certain of is that she did not just conveniently kill herself due to her high level of distress, at the exact moment most convenient to a person she was super mad at.

Because, frankly, mxtx is not that shitty a writer. She doesn't sweat the details or logistics of things, characters are allowed to coincidentally turn up in the right place to make the plot work and so forth, but these novels are intensely concerned with character motive and internal life. Everyone does things for their own reasons.

People do what the plot requires, but a defining feature of her writing is that everyone is fashioned into the shape of the kind of person who would do that thing in this situation. Sometimes whole scenes or subplots exist mainly to put on display the underlying cognitive patterns that justify as individual choices the kinds of things stock characters routinely do in genre novels, for no reason than that they are The Type Of Character who Does That.

If Qin Su was going to commit suicide about the bad news, there would have been hints that this was the direction her thoughts were trending during the preceding scene, where we're introduced to her reactions. And there aren't.

Her primary reaction is anger. She's scared to death when her husband paralyzes her and puts her on his dismemberment table to interrogate later for the name of her informant. She is contemptuous of his caring almost exclusively about what all these horrors could do to their reputation.

There is nothing in the scene to suggest she would, given the opportunity to denounce him to the cultivation world, choose instead to escape by knife.

The interpretation of this sequence that says she Just Did That really annoys me, because it requires ignoring basically every single piece of information about the character other than the fact that Wei Wuxian always thought since they were kids that she wasn't very bright.

Furthermore, it would be out of character for Jin Guangyao to have knowingly arranged a situation likely to go so badly for him, and wildly unusual for him to get so lucky if he had. This man has shit luck normally.

The sensible thing for him to do, in a universe where Qin Su just conveniently opted for suicide instead of ratting on him, would have been to take the ten to twenty minutes of prep time he had to work with to disappear her the same way he did nmj's head.

This might have required killing her first, since we don't know where he put it, but while I'm sure he didn't want to do that I'm equally sure he was entirely capable. He had a convenient scapegoat handy to blame for her disappearance.

He had no reason to allow her to be visible and capable of independent action when his cavalcade of guests arrived. But there she was, dazed but unrestrained. And then...cursed knife time.

Super convenient! She's dead and can't blab, and lots of important people saw her do it and saw how horrified he was and are disposed to be sympathetic. Works out much better for him than the risk of being blamed if she disappears.

So Wei Wuxian's assumption that jgy set the suicide up and compelled her somehow is the most logical inference. Neither of their characters is really compatible with the other scenario.

If Jin Guangyao had actual mind control powers he definitely would have used them a lot, so the most straightforward version of what happened is he used some technique or drug that would confuse her and suppress her cognition, then deliberately put 'cursed dagger that preys on your negative feelings and makes you kill yourself' within reach just before everyone entered.

I'm sure if it hadn't worked, and she'd just kind of stared into the distance while he talked his way out of the unproveable allegations and weaponized Mo Xuanyu's bad reputation and so forth, he'd have been happy with that outcome too, since it would still have meant a lot of important people saw her alive and not freaking out, and then he'd still have been able to torture her for information later. (Again, something I'm sure he didn't want to do, but absolutely would have.)

But this worked out well and got rid of two exposure threats at once while buying him sympathy points.

Although considering his shit luck, I wouldn't rule out that his plan only went as far as sedating her so she couldn't make trouble and he could show everyone how not paralyzed on his murder table she was, and he'd forgotten he had an evil dagger that compelled you to kill yourself lying around in reach of a woman whose ability to exert force of will he'd just reduced to nothing.

And he wasn't expecting that result at all.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The musical episode.

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[zelkam]

— chuck palahniuk, haunted

[labyrynth]

very quickly: the expectation that jgy needs to be some kind of working class hero is :/ to begin with, and condemning him for “buying into the system of oppression” is really telling when that’s not a criticism made of anyone else

but the idea that jgy personally is refusing to use his power to uplift the common people is mind bogglingly dumb

i cannot emphasize enough that his primary project for the last decade has been trying to figure out how to get all of the other sects to do their fucking jobs—the jobs they were supposed to have been doing the whole time—so that poor people are less likely to be fucking murdered by monsters.

a concept, if you recall, that was so controversial, nobody questioned that a guy would kill his political opponent’s child over it.

this society balked at “do the jobs you signed up to do,” but it’s somehow jgy’s fault that change is going so slowly? fellas he’s the only one doing anything.

[labyrynth]

see also, if:

wei wuxian’s completely theoretical (and never-tested) soul sacrifice ritual simply Did Not Work

nie mingjue’s corpse (which canonically targets people related to jin guangyao) had killed the freshly resurrected wei wuxian in mo xuanyu’s body (who happens to be related to jin guangyao)

everyone: NHS is a MASTERMIND every single thing he did for 16 years was SO calculated

NHS's grand scheme: would have been irrevocably derailed if

wei wuxian hadn't run into jin ling on a random night hunt

lan wangji hadn't had a secret means of unquestionably recognizing wei wuxian (that nhs didn't know about)

lan xichen hadn't made a passing comment about wei wuxian messing up music

lan jingyi hadn't made a passing comment about su she messing up music

anyone else had found and destroyed one of the limbs before he got there

the second siege of the burial mounds or the conversation afterwards lasted an hour longer

[evilhasnever]

Some interpretations of “I never even thought of hurting you” seem to downplay the uniqueness of what Lan xichen is for JGY, at times, or to take it as situational/observational rather than (allow me the term) axiomatic for the way JGY sees himself and his core beliefs.

To me it’s especially important that in context he says the iconic phrase immediately after saying “I killed literally everyone, my wife, my son, my brother etc.” BUT, and here’s the point, never, ever considered hurting you. The emphasis of this juxtaposition seems more than just an observation that LXC was never in any danger from him - it is furious and resentful! He has always held LXC as a unique exception in his life, only to be in the end killed by him as if he were just another of his haters (lol).

Certainly LXC was always on his side, so not ever a threat to him or his well-being, but when he DID become a threat (stabbing him to death, notably) JGY still doesn’t take revenge (which he could, by dragging him with him to get killed by NMJ); he STILL saves him, as if to drive that point home with final clarity.

I guess the debate on whether JGY, whose survival is paramount, would ever kill LXC if LXC became clearly and openly his enemy, is a juicy one and one that doesn’t have an explicit answer in canon. (But! We do have an inkling in canon of what he would do: namely, take him hostage and seal his cultivation, without harming him.)

(also not to be that guy but I wrote a xiyao fic about it ft. Villainous friends if that’s more your speed? Definitely more complete than my meta)

[3cosmicfrogs]

Guy on fire since 5 minutes old: "Stop complaining. Being on fire is fine actually. Why don't you just set yourself on fire."

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

All cards on the table.

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[labyrynth]

i liked @poorlittleyaoyao’s tags

I cannot stress enough how MINOR of a petpeeve this is and how this is an interpretation that i'm comfortable with other people having even if i personally do not but I've noticed in a lot of 3zun fics, if jgy is holding smth back- generally his own feelings because his natural reaction to conflict is to make it Go Away and so if his emotional needs are the potential source conflict he will simply Not Look At Them.- That between nielan Xichen is the one who's worried and presses for comunication and Mingjue is like "Meng Yao is an adult if there was a problem he'd say so."

And I get why this is done, because nieyao's communication is generally atrocious and Xichen is the Gentle One who'd want to make sure a-yao is okay. So I get it. But. Canonically. The person going "I know a-yao, we trust each other, I don't need to ask him, he'll tell me on his own terms." is Lan Xichen and the one going "If Meng Yao doesn't want me to know something he WILL hide it from me and i'll have no idea because he's just that good at lying" is Nie Mingjue. And in a healthier nieyao dynamic, as these fics work under, that knowledge would not lead to automatic distrust but rather a desire to check in, to go: please remember that I value your honesty more than whatever you think you would burden me with by telling me what's going on.

Xichen also wants honesty and open communication ofc but his reaction to conflict is also to make it go away as fast as possible and he feels like saying it constantly feels accusatory so he wouldn't. If he asks if something is ok and a-yao smiles and goes of course er-ge checking again if it's really okay would be implying he was lying the first time!! He's showing his trust in him!! This is really refreshing if you're constantly assumed to be untrustworthy and meng yao appreciates it so much and it works really well 95% of the time but when it doesn't? Oh boy.

[khattikeri]

one of my favorite things about mdzs is that for how heavily its plot involves politics of classism and misogyny... even the characters most directly impacted by it can't and don't free themselves from it. literally the closest exception is mianmian.

meng yao being the "son of a whore" wasn't some sort of commie awakening for him that led him to wanting everyone to be socially equal. he played the political game, climbed the ladders, sucked up to and backstabbed and murdered people, including other prostitutes who actually had nothing to do with how he and his mother were treated at the brothel he grew up in.

he put in so much extra excessive effort for even a fraction of the same respect that members of gentry cultivation clans got. and he did deserve to be treated more humanely! but he feeds into the exact same system that created him, leading to his own undoing.

his efforts were for a fragile upward mobility that was never going to hold up. he never surpassed his origins nor did he empower others in similar stations, because the society he lives in is not one that would accept that.

the second he got caught and all those crimes exposed, he was scapegoated to hell and back, replacing wei wuxian as society's terrible one-sidedly evil boogeyman overnight.

speaking of not-quite male gentry, i think it's interesting that wei wuxian explicitly doesn't try to climb the ladders in BOTH lives, knowing full well that anything he does will be punished just for the sheer fact that he is wei wuxian.

wei wuxian is scolded for giving intelligent and correct answers in school. lan wangji does the same and is praised.

wei wuxian occasionally lounges around with fellow disciples and is punished. jiang cheng does the same and mostly escapes.

wei wuxian refuses to carry his sword around in public (after losing his golden core, which nobody knows) and is scorned as an arrogant upstart. nie huaisang has been doing the EXACT SAME THING for YEARS and nobody bats an eye.

unlike jin guangyao, wei wuxian knew subconsciously from the start that his acceptance was superficial and that he could be cast out any time. when he was 10 and recently taken in by the jiangs, he canonically would not eat or use "too much" food and water because he thought they'd find him a nuisance for "wasting their things" and kick him back out.

now away from just the classism, yu ziyuan is a proud and strong noblewoman in a society that belittles and derides women for everything they do. her strong cultivation doesn't matter. she's victim to the vicious rumors of her husband loving another woman who is strong like her but apparently had a more likeable personality.

it doesn't matter even if jiang fengmian didn't cheat or that wei wuxian is wei changze's son with cangse sanren; yu ziyuan can't bear with the humiliation of herself (and by extension her children) not being "good enough". she's ridiculed for "failing" in that one duty as a wife, mother, and woman.

she lashes out and takes out that anger on everyone present for years, giving her children lasting trauma and also being a key element in how the jiang family and yunmeng jiang sect are effectively wiped out at the hands of the wen clan.

madam jin doesn't even have a name outside of the fact that she's married to jin guangshan. i don't even remember reading anything that indicates if she's a strong or weak cultivator, or what, which in itself proves that to most people, it doesn't matter. she's "just" a woman.

of course she's angry at her husband's affairs and all the bastard children they bring in. but she also can't do anything about them, so she lashes out at the few people she can: servants. non-cultivators, probably. those very same bastard children.

shoutout to meng yao getting shoved down a flight of stairs at age fourteen, because if madam jin tried that move against her husband instead, it would make her lose even more face, which as a noblewoman she'd never do.

and that's not getting into how jiang yanli is consistently sidelined for being physically weak.

that's not getting into how mianmian was actually a good cultivator, but was mocked by everyone around her for trying to stand up for wei wuxian when everyone was turning on him. how everyone scoffed at luo qingyang's words as "just some lovesick woman" who "obviously wants to marry or bed him since he saved her".

luo qingyang is the only one of these characters who HASN'T died. she didn't play society's games like jin guangyao. she didn't dig her heels in confidence of her own abilities like wei wuxian.

she didn't bitterly lash out like yu ziyuan and madam jin. she didn't gently accept it like jiang yanli.

she just LEFT.

she married an ordinary merchant and cultivates separately from mainstream cultivation society, and therein found her own peace and happiness.

mxtx doesn't bother with particularly class conscious or feminist vocabulary to hand-hold readers into understanding these disparities, but that choice highlights them & the deeply entrenched politics of their society even more. i really love it.

[benevolenterrancy]

after yesterday's picture i realised that almost every time i draw jgy he looks like he's about 5 seconds away from a breakdown so i figured i should give him a nap for once

[labyrynth]

a notion that i often see floated is that if jgy had killed jgs sooner--namely, before nmj died--he could have done what nmj wanted, and both parties would be safe--nmj would stop trying to kill jgy, and jgy wouldn't need to kill nmj.

I'm curious about how many of us actually agree with this sentiment.

for the sake of this scenario, let's suppose jgy becomes sect leader just before the incident at the stairs.

[labyrynth]

and the best part is that he was only right because he started treating jgy like a threat, forcing jgy into an ultimatum:

he can prove nmj wrong by letting himself be killed, or kill nmj, and retroactively prove that nmj was “right all along”

will never stop being funny to me that nmj near the end of his life was extremely paranoid and delusional, but he was correctly identifying jgy as a threat, but, like... for wrong reasons only. you'll see ppl going "nmj was right about jgy all along, it's sad no one listened to him😭" but no. jgy isn't inherently evil, nor is he a power-hungry monster. not everything he ever said or did was part of some conniving ploy. when given the opportunity, he generally does try to return kindnesses and help people! but - oh, yeah, no, he's totally gonna murder you dude. no, yeah, he's gonna be so sneaky about it that it'll take a decade for the truth to come out.

it's like making 2 mistakes on a math quiz that just so happen to cancel each other out and give you the correct answer.

[evilhasnever]

some pearls of wisdom from zzj about jgy (from here)