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suddenlystolen · 3 years ago

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A Piece of a Filial Pious Heart: Jin Guangyao through the Lens of Filial Piety

“The Jin Guangyao in my eyes and the Jin Guangyao in your eyes – as well as the Jin Guangyao in the eyes of the world – are all completely different people.”

Lan Xichen says these fateful words in episode 43 of CQL. And honestly, I think it's really interesting to see the varied “Jin Guangyaos” in the eyes of different people in fandom!

Everyone weighs differently — how much Jin Guangyao’s varied motivations (from ambition to the search for dignity) contributes to the choices he ultimately makes; and even the choices available to him in the first place!

But in the English-speaking part of the fandom, I think what’s less explored is how much of a hold the traditional Chinese virtue of filial piety (孝 xiào) (deference to one’s elders, usually parents) had over Jin Guangyao’s motivations and choices available to him.

I suspect that an appreciation for how deeply entrenched the virtue of filial piety is in Chinese culture might make one more likely to be sympathetic to Jin Guangyao as a character. After all, the many self-defeating decisions that we see Jin Guangyao make regarding his father and mother — so much of it feels startlingly similar to stories of filial piety celebrated in Chinese culture. In countless other parables and proverbs about filial piety, Jin Guangyao would be valorised. But in MDZS, what we have is a tragedy.

In this post, I’m going to try to get at this, through exploring how filial piety might have influenced Jin Guangyao, namely through two of his fateful decisions — to continue serving his father even as he was being abused and going back for Meng Shi’s remains. I’d like to suggest that both can be read as a deconstruction of filial piety, as part of MXTX’s broader deconstruction of traditional family values as a modern author. But caveat as always that this is heavily coloured by my own experiences with the value of filial piety :P And this post is going to be long….

The Importance of Filial Piety

Filial piety is central to morality in Chinese culture. It is heavily emphasised throughout its major schools of thought, but most prominently in Confucianism.

For instance, there is the common saying: 百善孝为先 — of a hundred good deeds, filial piety is foremost. Indeed, filial piety is seen as a basic expression of one’s humanity. If you cannot even be filial to your parents, then are you even capable of any kind of meaningful connections in human relationships? There’s another saying about filial piety that goes: 羊有跪乳之恩，鸦有反哺之义 — the lamb kneels as it suckles milk in gratitude, the crow feeds its parents out of honour. This implies that if even animals know how to return their parents’ love, then all the more humans should know how to repay their parents! If you cannot, then you are worse than the birds and beasts — 禽兽不如! Thus, one of the most stinging rebukes you can shoot at someone is buxiaozi 不孝子! Unfilial child!

All in all, as Aris Teon describes, “Filial piety, as it is inculcated in children and as it is viewed by the society, is a key social indicator of a person’s sense of responsibility, maturity and reliability…Children who display filial devotion properly are regarded by the whole community as trustworthy, honourable and respectable. Being unfilial, on the contrary, can result not only in a sense of shame, but also in a bad reputation.”

Filial piety is thus an inextricable part of how you are taught to be a good person in Chinese culture. It can lend a deeper appreciation of the value of familial ties and the effort it takes to continually nurture them, especially for families where however flawed everyone may be, they’re still trying their best in their own way.

Why did he Stay: Jin Guangyao in Jinlintai

But what if…...your parents are abusive or are horrible people?

Towards Abusive Parents

This is where filial piety can understandably be hard to practice. Especially under Confucian thought, you are still supposed to be filial to them. In general, the nature of the relationship between parent and child is not conditional or contractual— where a parent has to be good to their child, for a child to have the duty to be good to their parent and vice versa. If a parent is neglectful or abusive, the moral duty of a child to be filial to them remains. There genuinely is no answer drawn from traditional Chinese philosophy that goes: “oh you can just cut your toxic and abusive parents off.” The failure of the parent to do their duty does not mean that the child can fail them in turn.

In fact, there are certain cultural works that set a very high bar for how much children can endure against neglectful or abusive parents. This can be seen from the Twenty Four Filial Exemplars (二十四孝). Composed in the Yuan Dynasty, it’s a collection of 24 stories of filial piety that is often taught to children even today. Some stories are very wholesome, like the story of Huang Xiang cooling his father’s pillow with his fan in the summer, and warming his blanket in the winter — so his father can sleep better at night.

But some would definitely be frowned upon if they happened in real life. Here’s a sampling of the more ‘messed up’ stories:

卧冰求鲤 — to lie on ice seeking carp🐟 A boy named Wang Xiang lives with an abusive stepmother. But when his stepmother craves for carp in the winter, he undresses and lies naked on the surface of a frozen river until it cracks so he’s able to catch carp for her. This moves his stepmother who turns over a new leaf.

芦衣顺母 — wearing reed clothes, obeying one’s mother 🥼 A boy named Min Zi Qian is bullied by his stepmother who favours her two biological sons. For instance, while his stepmother gives her two biological sons winter clothes padded with cotton, she instead pads his clothes instead with the fluff from reed flowers. Zi Qian shivers so badly from the poorly made cloak that he accidentally drives his family’s carriage into a ditch. Angered, Zi Qian’s dad beats him until his clothes tear and the reed fluff comes out. Realising that his son was being mistreated, Zi Qian’s father wants to expel the stepmother. But Zi Qian pleads for his stepmother to stay saying that if his stepmother stays, only he suffers, but if she’s sent away, both he and his stepbrothers will suffer. His stepmother then has a change of heart.

孝感动天 — filial piety moves the heavens ⚡️ Shun’s biological father, his stepmother and stepbrother, all try to kill him. While he’s repairing the roof of a barn, they set it on fire. When he’s digging a well, they try to close up the well while he’s still inside. Even after surviving their murder attempts, Shun still loves and respects his parents and his stepbrother. The heavens, moved by his filial piety, send animals to help him complete his arduous chores. His family repents. The Emperor Yao, hearing of his filial piety, makes him the next Emperor in the Xia Dynasty — a mythical golden age in China.

Lest y’all think that these are old fashioned stories, the 24 Filial Exemplars is still quite often used in education today. I myself know these stories from being sincerely taught them by teachers in some classes (and having teachers in other classes rag on some of these stories as ridiculous). To emphasise, the 24 Filial Exemplars and the Analects is by no means the only point of reference for filial piety in Chinese culture. Across history and to this day, there have been critiques and challenges of these representations of filial piety. There is the term 愚孝 yu chun for instance. Meaning foolish piety, it is used to describe acts of filial piety that seem excessive or pointless. Nonetheless, the 24 Filial Exemplars continues to be taught today to children.

Therefore, when Jin Guangyao was willing to stay in Jinlintai despite his father’s and stepmother’s abuse, it’s not because he’s stupid. You can read one of the reasons he stays in Jinlintai as that he’s doing what a filial child is supposed to do in the face of parents that mistreat you — at least according to a prominent frame of reference in Chinese culture. A filial child must be a positive influence upon their parents, and reform them through unwavering acts of love, respect and service.

Towards Parents that have Done Wrong

Again, filial piety can be extremely difficult to practice for a child if their parents are doing evil deeds. Under certain understandings of filial piety, the child cannot bring in the criminal justice system, and must instead take on the duty of reforming their parents themselves.

This is evident from the very controversial saying 13-8 in Confucius’ Analects. In it, the governor of She proudly tells Confucius: “In our village there is an upright person named Gong. He bears witness against his father stealing a sheep.” Confucius responded: “In my village, an upright person is different: father does not disclose son’s wrongdoing, and son does not disclose father’s wrongdoing, and the uprightness lies in it.” To this day, people still debate what Confucius’ reasoning was and whether he was right. But the gist of the idea is that the father or son of the sheep stealer is meant to gently guide them onto the right path. This is easier accomplished by maintaining familial bonds, which would otherwise be broken if you send them off to be punished by an impersonal system of justice. So broadly, if a parent commits a crime, then under Confucian philosophy, the child is supposed to remonstrate with their parents, urging them to reform, rather than just handing them off to be punished.

Thus, according to this understanding of filial piety, when Jin Guangshan orders Jin Guangyao to do something evil, what realistically are his options if he wants to be a filial son? He’s not supposed to betray his father by exposing his evil deeds. He’s supposed to stay by his father’s side to look for openings to guide him back onto the right path.

But what must he do to stay?

In light of the massive power imbalance between father and son, Jin Guangshan and Jin Guangyao, is this idea even realistic? Who is more likely to influence the other in the direction of good and evil?

Here, I think it’s very interesting to contrast Jin Guangyao’s tragic story arc in MDZS with that of Zuko’s from Avatar: The Last Airbender (ALTA) — one of the most iconic redemption arcs in popular culture. It illustrates well how culture can shape stories told of confronting parents who are abusers (but feel free to skip the rest of this section if you’re not familiar with ALTA).

There are many similarities between the stories told of Jin Guangyao and Zuko. Both are sons who are trying to earn the acknowledgement of their fathers, despite a history of being abused by them. Their fathers are also rulers — Jin Guangshan is the Jin Sect Leader, Ozai is the Firelord of the Fire Nation. Thus both Jin Guangyao and Zuko are in the position of owing not only filial piety to their fathers, but also loyalty as subjects to their fathers who are also their lords. MDZS is set in a xianxia version of ancient China, whilst the Fire Nation in ALTA is an East Asian inspired setting.

The crucial choices that Zuko makes are very different from that of Jin Guangyao’s. As the culmination of his character development across multiple seasons, Zuko supports the effort of the Avatar to defeat his father, the Firelord, in a climactic battle. He acknowledges that it is the Avatar’s destiny to defeat his father and restore peace to the world, and that his destiny lies instead in training the Avatar to do so. By the end of the original series, Zuko also imprisons his father in a dungeon to neutralise him as a threat to the world.

Zuko’s story is emotional and powerful: in taking viewers through his journey, of learning how to break free from his need for his abusive father’s approval, and mounting a challenge to his father’s warmongering way of rulership.

However, CoolHistoryBros has an interesting video suggesting that there is a “cultural uncanny valley” that Asian audiences might feel while watching Zuko’s redemption arc. Specifically, while ALTA’s aesthetics may be Eastern-inspired, but its underlying philosophies are more Western/modern.

After all, the actions Zuko takes as part of his journey violates filial piety and loyalty between the lord and subject. These are seen as the foundational relationships in society under Confucianism, which has embedded itself in the cultural consciousness of most East Asian societies. As CoolHistoryBros describes it, under Confucianism, Zuko “betraying his father is a massive no-no, especially when his father is also his lord. So that’s a double whammy. Not only had he disregarded the ethics of filial piety, but he also betrayed his country……Zuko should have taken an active part in reforming his father, instead of leaving him to the Avatar to deal with [according to Confucian values].”

So if ALTA had wanted to be more period-accurate to an ancient East Asian setting, then Zuko would be shown struggling more with filial piety: with the questions of whether he is allowed to cut his father off, whether he is allowed to be disloyal to his nation — or will doing so make him a bad person? He would also have to deal with social stigma heaped upon him for his “unfilial” and “disloyal” choices. Such a story would have been one way to deconstruct the notion of the filial duties a child feels towards abusive and malicious parents, as the child slowly figures out how to let go of it.

The other way to do so is to make the child stay by their parents’ side in the story, and from there, give weight to the consequences of expecting a child to be responsible for toxic parents through the story told. This, I would suggest, is the direction taken with Jin Guangyao’s storyline.

Jin Guangyao and Jin Guangshan: A Deconstruction of Filial Piety?

Hence, for an audience who has absorbed filial piety into their value system, I would suggest that there’s an additional layer of tragedy to Jin Guangyao’s decision to stay. Jin Guangyao was acting in such a way that’s recognisable as being faithful to one ideal of what filial piety is like. He remained in Jinlintai much longer than most people would because of his strength of character, and not because of weakness. But unlike in countless other stories of filial piety where the protagonist is rewarded for persisting in their filial piety towards bad parents…...it was never going to turn out well for Jin Guangyao, because his father is Jin Guangshan. So when Jin Guangyao snaps and murders his father — the most heinous crimes through the lens of filial piety — it’s because he’s been pushed past human limits — for how long anyone can hold out for even a crumb of love. It is dramatic because it is sympathetic. To borrow a turn of phrase, it is a moment of 爱之深, 恨之切 — the deeper the love, the more thoroughly it turns to hate. How horribly Jin Guangyao wanted his father to die is inextricable with how filial he was, before he heard his father insult his mother (at least that’s how I read it).

It then raises an interesting question for those who read filial piety into the character arc of Jin Guangyao — is there such a thing as being too filial? Is it possible to be a good person to others if you never repaired your relationship with your parent? And thus never learnt how to treat others well through them? At what point is it necessary to give up on being filial? Can being too filial actually make you worse as a person?

In such an interpretation that brings in filial piety (孝), Jin Guangyao’s story becomes part of MXTX’s deconstruction of familial bonds. It would then add to a broader cultural debate over what exactly filial piety is, how it should be practised, and how it fits in with other cherished cultural values.

Why did he Stay: Jin Guangyao in Guanyin Miao

Likewise, I think you can read into the things Jin Guangyao does for his mother Meng Shi as being influenced by the cultural value of filial piety.

As part of the worldview of filial piety — to be able to finally repay one’s parents by caring for them — it’s often seen as an essential part to having lived a complete life. It’s why in popular media you’ll often have a scene of a child beating themselves up and scolding themselves with the phrase 孩儿不孝 — this child is unfilial — as they stand before their parents’ grave or kneel before them, apologising for not being able to give their parents a better life and letting them suffer for so long. Like in the WWII war movie The Eight Hundred, one of the most moving moments is how this character, before he suicide bombs some Japanese soldiers, he shouts: “mother, this child is unfilial” — “娘，孩儿不孝了”. This line is meant to tap into the depths to which a certain Chinese audience might keenly feel the loss of a chance to finally repay one’s parents.

Relatedly, there’s a famous saying that goes: 树欲静而风不止，子欲养而亲不待. It means: “the tree longs for silence still the wind blows, the child yearns to care for the parent who could not wait”. Especially that latter half of the saying, it's used to describe the intense feeling of grief and regret when one’s parent passes away before you have a chance to properly be filial to them, by giving them a good life in their final years. It’s this agonising feeling that I think is evoked for instance in the ending of Ken Liu’s short story The Paper Menagerie, when the main character finally hears what his mother wrote to him in her last letter to him before she passed away.

So regarding Jin Guangyao’s grief and guilt over his mother’s death while he was still an adolescent — if you’ve been instilled with the cultural value of filial piety it's easier to imagine how intense it must be. In fact, in other stories of filial piety, the intensity of Jin Guangyao’s grief would be valorised.

And when Jin Guangyao risks everything to go back for Meng Shi’s remains — it's not out of some silly sentimentality. He’s acting exactly according to the script of what a filial son should do.

One of the few remaining ways you can be filial to a parent who has passed away is to consistently pay your respects to them. It’s taken very seriously as a sign that you love that person and honour their memory. It’s also part of a broader cultural tradition of ancestor veneration. For instance, there is an entire festival emphasising it — Qingming (清明), where traditionally, all return to sweep the graves of their parents and ancestors and to pay their respects.

bring boyfriend to pay respects to dead adoptive parents

In any other story, Jin Guangyao’s decision to go back for his mothers’ remains would also be valorised as a sign of the strength of his moral character as a filial son. In MDZS though, it sets up the circumstances for his brutal death.

Meng Yao and Meng Shi: A Deconstruction of Filial Piety and Parental Expectations?

“A-Yao, your hat musn’t be slanted when you wear it”

Another way in which you can repay your parents even after they have passed on under the paradigm of filial piety is to make something of yourself. Through your exemplary behaviour, people will remember, honour and praise your parents for what a good job they did raising you. This is perhaps most evident through the story of possibly the most famous mother in Chinese culture — Mother Meng. She’s most prominently featured in the story of Mother Meng Moves Thrice (孟母三迁). In it, a single mother uproots her and her son’s life, to move to three different locations, just to find the right environment to put her son on the path to become a scholar. When her son does not take his studies seriously, she famously tears the cloth she had been weaving for a very long time, to impress upon him that to do things by half-measures is useless. She is venerated to this day precisely for how she pushed her son to do better — until he eventually became Mencius, the second most famous thinker in Confucianism after Confucius himself.

CQLfeels has a really good post explaining how fans that blame Meng Shi for pushing Meng Yao too hard to climb up the social ladder and seeking a place by his fathers’ side are missing the point. Meng Shi, especially by ancient Chinese standards — is nailing it in following in Mother Meng’s footsteps, and pushing her son to strive for more (it has a lot more details than what I’m covering here). (And yep it’s the same surname Meng 孟 that both women have).

The story of mother and son is a tragedy precisely because Meng Shi did everything right according to the standards of her culture, and because Meng Yao also did everything he could to meet the expectations bestowed upon him by his mother as a filial son. But unlike in the story of Mother Meng Moves Thrice, Meng Yao moves thrice, from Qinghe, to Qishan and Lanling — alone. He is also thrown down flights of stairs three times in repudiation, rather than recognition of his worth as a person.

There’s a famous saying 望子成龙 — to wish for one’s children to become dragons. It’s used to describe the universal desire that all parents have to see their children succeed, and explain to children why their parents are pushing them so hard. But read through a particular lens, the story of Meng Shi and Meng Yao may prompt the question — but what if parents push their children hard to succeed in life, when life is fundamentally rigged against them? What kind of a toll might such a drive to succeed take upon a child? It’s a similar dynamic with Madam Yu and Jiang Cheng. She pushes him hard out of love. As you do as a good parent according to her cultural milieu. But it is also true that this gives Jiang Cheng a number of complexes.

Of course, had Meng Shi and Madam Yu lived, it’s entirely plausible that they might have adjusted the way they parented and advised their children upon seeing the effects it was having upon them. But it is an unfortunate fact of life that we never know which moment might be the last we have with our loved ones. All the parents in MDZS die too soon and their children never get a chance to resolve various issues they may have had with them.

But there’s an interesting contrast to Meng Shi and even Madam Yu’s parenting in this aspect. It is the parenting of Wei Wuxian’s parents. There isn’t much we know about Wei Changze and Cangse Sanren. But we know that they gave their child the name Wei Ying (魏婴). 婴 Ying means ‘child’ or even ‘baby’. Which seems bizarre as a name. Until you realise what it conveys: that all his parents ever wanted or expected of him is to be as happy and innocent as a child. It’s not clear whether it’s Wei Ying’s parents or Jiang Fengmian who later gives him his courtesy name. Nonetheless, it complements his personal name. The idea of 无羡 wuxian — no envies — is a concept that suggests keeping away from the petty competition for status in society.

Altogether it's a completely different strategy for survival passed from parent to child on how to navigate a society that seeks to exploit those lower on the hierarchy. For Wei Ying/Wei Wuxian, his names convey to him that he should keep some distance from cultivation society — which the novel proves time and time again is treacherous. His filial duty to his parents is merely that he should be as innocent and happy as a child even in the face of societal pressures, and keep out of the struggle for social status. Which makes sense as Wei Wuxian’s parents were rogue cultivators. Meanwhile, the wisdom Meng Shi imparts to her son is that if he has to work twice as hard to get half as far as others — then he must — to stay on top of cultivation society. So, a rise in social station — until he is in a position where he is treated with respect and dignity — is what she wants for her son. And for that she would need him to manage his image and reputation. Which makes sense because Meng Shi had wished for her son to one day stand by the side of a Sect Leader.

I think these two different parenting styles can reflect different schools of thought in ancient Chinese culture — philosophical Daoism and Confucianism. Under philosophical Daoism, the stories told are of being able to escape the trappings of society — to try to discover the natural self apart from all of society’s constructs. Hence the title of Cangse Sanren or Baoshan Sanren — which means scattered people. It’s the idea of eschewing organised society. It is the Wangxian happy ending where the two just get to wander about the world together as rogue cultivators, away from the struggles of Sects. But under Confucianism, the stories told are of those of humble origins rising to become a scholar/official, that in turn strengthens the state and builds a more virtuous society. For a while that is what Jin Guangyao does as the Chief Cultivator, in establishing the watchtower system.

Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with either parenting style. It is just that Jin Guangyao’s attempt to be a filial son given Meng Shi’s parenting style ends up sending him on a very thorny and bloody path — not because of Meng Shi’s unreasonableness — but because of the intensity of societal discrimination against him.

All in all, you could read one of Jin Guangyao’s motivations for striving so hard to climb to the top of cultivation society as trying to give Meng Shi a place of honour in society through his accomplishments. So one day she might be respected — like how Mother Meng is so honoured for raising a son as outstanding as Mencius. So society will finally stop heaping stigma upon her memory just because she earned a living through sex work. It is one of the few ways Jin Guangyao can repay Meng Shi as a filial son now that she has passed on.

Final Thoughts about Filial Piety and Jin Guangyao

All in all, I hope this doesn’t give anyone an exaggerated impression of the impact of filial piety on the way Chinese people think, or worse, think of filial piety as “exotic”. I think every culture has its own dearly held values that can lead to unintentional consequences, and these are subsequently explored in their cultural works. An example from the West I suppose is the American dream. Anyone who’s been exposed to American culture has encountered it, and can identify when others are pursuing it at immense personal cost or gratifying reward. But certainly everyone has different opinions on it, and is influenced by it to varying extents. Understanding the allure of the American dream also makes you more prepared to sympathise with characters such as Jay Gatsby from The Great Gatsby, rather than dismissing their actions as just greediness. (Though I do wonder about the extent to which MXTX intended to write Jin Guangyao as a subversion of what a filial son is). Regardless, these kinds of stories allow readers to achieve a sort of transcendence. To ask themselves if they are able to imagine choices and possibilities beyond the value systems that their society has raised them within. Or if they can uncover other traditions within their own culture — that allows them to act with true agency in the face of their unique circumstances where the answers they have been taught do not seem to work.

But also ultimately, I don’t think it's that important to factor filial piety into a reading of Jin Guangyao. In Chinese, we have a saying that we misattribute to Shakespeare, that goes: 一千个人眼里有一千个哈姆��特 — in a thousand people’s eyes, there are a thousand different Hamlets.

The last memory of Su Minshan and Nie Mingjue respectively

Like many tragic figures in literature, Jin Guangyao is a complex character that is supposed to keep people guessing as to what his motivations ultimately are, and where it all went wrong with him. So I think it's great that people interpret his motivations through the lens of their own personal and even cultural experiences. That act of interpretation is where all the fun is, especially in fandom! I think it’s not necessary to bring in Chinese cultural references if it does not resonate with you. After all, whether Jin Guangyao acts out of filial piety does nothing to diminish the harm that Jin Guangyao has inflicted, or the good that he has accomplished. But at least for me, I do enjoy interpreting and writing about a Jin Guangyao whose thoughts, actions and values stem to an extent from a piece of a filial pious heart — 一片孝心。

Special thanks to Crykey, Atsubushi and Tiffillustrates for looking through earlier drafts of this post! Also feel free to disagree with this post :3

#MDZS cultural meta #mdzs meta #mdzs metas #jin guangyao #jgy #finally expelling this brainworm of mine

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the-butterwitch · 3 years ago

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There's something deeply wrong with mdzs fandom lately

I have the impression that many of you are losing the deep meaning of mdzs (and, yes, cql) in order to follow wholesome headcanons and fanon conceptions of characters.

Let me explain.

There's a reason for all this hate against Wei Wuxian, wangxian, even the concept of "yep they're all equally flawed" or "Wei Wuxian is morally grey" (and i would appreciated it if it was true, but it simply isn't). The reason is to depict Jiang Cheng as a better person, belittling his mistakes or, at least, placing him (morally) on the same level of Wei Wuxian, through the protagonist bashing or wrong interpretations of his character.

It's not that I hate Jiang Cheng so much I couldn't stand a wholesome headcanon in which he's a cute tsundere protective brother. I could *write* an entire Fanfiction in which he's the best friend of Wei Wuxian, a supportive brother and so on. I don't need you to point out, every two minutes, that the canon is different and Jiang Cheng would not behave like this in the novel.

the problem is: maybe, some of *you* need a reality check. Because when you write metas based on a completely errate vision of a cute, supportive, tsundere Jiang Cheng, when you talk about your headcanon like it was just canon "behind the scenes", when, suddenly, people has to EXPLAIN that Wei Wuxian was morally right all along and the cultivation wold is corrupted (which is the meaning of the novel) like it was a hot take, when, also suddenly, you become the bad guy because you answer those delusions about Jiang Cheng pointing out the FACTS... Like it was morally wrong of you to talk about canon Jiang Cheng, well. There's a problem.

I repeat. I don't mind headcanons that are treated like headcanons.

I don't mind even some critical view on the novel, or canon complaint. A sane "I'm sorry mxtx, I know that your values are these, but I have some other values and I think..." Which at least TAKE IN ACCOUNT what the writer want and this is positive.

What bothers me is that: lately, many of you don't talk about actual mdzs, or even the drama. You talk about some other thing, a thing in which Wei Wuxian is morally grey (or a shit) and in which Jiang Cheng is a tsundere character. Even wangxian shippers, who are not Wei Wuxian haters, depict Jiang Cheng like he was well intentioned. And they act all offended when you say: no.

No, Jiang Cheng was not willing to help Wei Wuxian with the Wen remnants at all, it's not like he had no money or something like that. He tried to kill Wen Ning. He led the siege against burial mounds.

No, the thing about Jiang Cheng torturing random people is not a rumor. He tortured Mo Xuanyu even if Zidian proved he was not Wei Wuxian. Jin Ling freed Mo Xuanyu because he knew that his uncle did to that people.

No, Jiang Cheng didn't hug Jin Ling when no one was watching. Because it would have been ooc, and because it doesn't make sense to Jin Ling character. Jin Ling struggles because he has no family figure to help him grew emotionally.

No, Lan Qiren would not like Jiang Cheng, they would not get along well just in name of their mutual hate for Wei Wuxian. Maybe Jiang Cheng stans are not ready to hear this, but there are things called values, that Lan Qiren has and of which Jiang Cheng lacks. Lan Qiren maybe cannot exactly love Wei Wuxian, but, for his righteousness, he would totally like him better than Jiang Cheng. Jiang Cheng doesn't incarnate at all Lan Qiren's values. Not all people are toxic and comfortable in bonding on the basis of hatred for someone else. Some people have moral standards.

These are all cold takes I actually read about mdzs world. And they're really an absurdity, and the fact that you can't even answer back with facts, like it was rude or something... These people even answer with other even more delusional and stupid headcanons, shitting on the novel like the metaphorical pigeon on the chessboard.

Maybe some of you brag about being woke, cultural relativity, open minded, social justice or something. Yet here you are, disrespecting an author and the values of her people, because (I repeat, I think it's important because some of you can't read properly) the fact it's not that you're CRITICAL of her thinking, which is a honest confrontation between two people (or two cultures). You're not even acknowledging her values and her culture, you appropriate her work. You're awful people and it's not a surprise that you stan an awful person.

Buon anno, stronzi.

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jiangwanyinscatmom · 2 years ago

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Honestly it baffles me to see people trying to make Hua Cheng's love for Xie Lian completely unexistent. Come on, dude fought 33 gods and burned down their temples, lit up 3 THOUSAND LANTERNS FOR XIE LIAN. Died like, 3 times for him, waited 800 years for him, you can't even TRY to argue that Hua Cheng isn't a simp and doesn't love Xie Lian. Now, say that Xie Lian is boring... Anon dearie, you either didn't read the fucking books or your reading comprehension is absolutely flawed. Sure you don't have to love the main character (tho why even like the story if you don't like the protagonist or smt), but at least you gotta respect others and stop trying to push an agenda only you are seeing. Besides, Xie Lian is awesome and I don't know how you can say he isn't. Anyways, Sorry abt the rant Ava, I'm just getting absolutely fed up with this anon and I'm about to throw hands, Calamity style - 🐉🦋

By all means I encourage it!

As you said, you don't have to have a deep attachment for it by any means, but at least understand the basics of the plot that are textual information as comprehension. I spoke of something similar just earlier with @ladypfenix, she said something that is very apt in regards to the fandom (at least the western side of it):

"And probably because they want to treat her (MXTX's) works like marvel fandom where people get shoved together on a whim and a decent author can create more chemistry than the movies do and it just doesn’t work that way."

And this has a lot of truth to it, mainstream western media is given almost nameless slates for fans to project on to garner further revenue, the fans are what are made to fuel and funnel that interest themselves and when others of course join, they are met with something honestly lackluster and you are left there going "this is what was so hyped?". It's an interesting phenomenon that is pretty unique to the western sphere of fandoms. They are made to fill holes that very few creators want to bother with and don't care about character inconsistencies when they're are 20 others also writing a plot. Ironically with many not even actually meeting each other to really discuss the scripting.

This is also why the usual love of "crossovers" doesn't quiet feel so easy to do with MXTX's works, there are rules of her being worlds, that are not interchangeable, nor are the characters interchangeable to fit anything and everyone. They are on such different spheres of experience and personality, I dare say most would not interact with each other of their own choosing. When characters are that deeply explored by the author, there really isn't anything to make "better" or fix without it being a horribly shallow mediocre rendition that loses the charm of the original.

Really one major theme that can be shared by the love interests of her works is their devotion to who they love with their all. And as I have said before, it is not about if that love is deserved, because they don't want to feel as a burden or troublesome to that beloved. It is meant to be a very unselfish romantic love despite all the traumas they may have faced, it is not because of who they loved and they will never see it as such.

Hua Cheng wanted others to stop placing unbelievable expectations on Xie Lian, since saving a nobody at the time that nobody else cared about, was able to save that life. Lan Wangji wanted others to realize that Wei Wuxian was always good and placed the burden of protection of others on his shoulders despite the harm it ultimately did to Wei Wuxian, it wasn't about being right, but being human and caring. Luo Binghe wanted someone to see him at his most awkward and real, to be able to be seen as vulnerable without being tossed away for showing that side of himself and being looked on with the usual disgust if he did fall.

It's an endearing theme for them to be able to finally find someone to have that with and be virginal because you simply are waiting for someone to share that with. Thinking of love as something precious as well as sex isn't something to scoff at, given how much of media tells is the opposite while also degrading those that are casual.

#mdzs #mo dao zu shi #tgcf #heaven official's blessing #svsss #scum villain

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plan-d-to-i · 3 years ago

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1-people forget that in the universe MXTX created it is stated that YZY's situation is not normal, it is a patriarcal society so wives don't keept their names nor do whatever the fuck they want and they certainly don't humiliate their husband without even being told off, she's uniquely horrible and JFM is uniquely spineless. i always think JFM did love and worried about WWX but that last interaction he threw him under the bus to appease JC so his last memory would cement that he did love him

2- bc he didn't have more time to keep trying to make him understand and i always wonder how things with JC could have been fixed, easiest would be having had the balls to get rid off YZY early but if he divorced her (or got her killed lol) would JC have been different? or would he resent him even more for not protecting his mother? idk i feel like JFM was cursed from the moment he accepted to marry her and i can't help feeling bad for him

LOVE THIS. So I agree w like 99.9999% only my feelings over JFM change every five minutes. I never hate him but I vacillate wildly between i feel like he could've done more and ig he was himself a trapped in that situation so it's unfair to hold him fully accountable.

Madam Yu is an undeniably violently abusive woman who has married a kind, non-confrontational man. Most of JFM's flaws are only seen as 'flaws' instead of qualities because they framed as ineffective against someone as rank as her. I wouldn't even say he's spineless, because he does cancel YanLi's engagement for fear that it will make her as unhappy as his own marriage made him & effectively stands against his wife's demand on top of also passing on a very beneficial alliance w Jin Clan. (In fact Jin GuangShan is way more reluctant at the thought of taking this news to Madam Jin.)

Abusive relationships have their own dynamics so it's hard watching from the outside how JFM's resignation to his circumstances and avoidance are ineffective against, someone like YZY who materializes like a storm cloud to rain her venom down on everyone, especially WWX. Because WWX is not only bearing the scars piled on his back from YZY's whippings/'discipline' but he's trapped in a perpetual balancing act between JFM, YZY, jc and to an extent Yanli. He has to make JFM proud/see the value in keeping him around & at least in the beginning of his stay with the Jiangs we know he always tries to eat/take less than he needs, but he can't be so good & talented that jc feels threatened or set Madam Yu off. At the same time Yanli rewards him with soup and affection when he takes the fall for jc his first day there. This definitely establishes a pattern wherein WWX sees his usefulness within the Jiang sect in diverting punishment for the failings of those around him, especially jc, to himself. She also repeatedly asks him to just accept jc’s shifty behavior as a representative of his affection... bc she's a huge fucking enabler, which probably doesn’t bode well for how she’s come to interpret affection.

As for YZY she's the only one who paints herself a victim, when it's clear she's the instigator of the conflicts!!!! She’s literally the bad guy, boss, fly in the ointment etc. There's a lot of gaslighting in her interactions with JFM so I'm confused as to why people think that of everyone she's the reliable narrator or some poor sad victim of an uninterested husband??? She clearly does as she pleases in Lotus Pier, yells at JFM in front of Servants, accuses him of fathering a child with his friend's wife, she whips the head disciple for imagined infractions with a spiritual weapon! and pretty much just chills w her ladies when she isn't busy spewing venom wherever she goes. WITH NO REPRECUSSIONS. If JFM had been a woman and YZY the man I'm sure all her cringe stans would be frothing at the mouth to drag her(yzy) to hell by the balls.

People love to accuse JFM of favoritism towards WWX or showing him more affection. To me it's clear that for JMF, WWX is simply an extension of his father/friend & ultimately a subordinate in the Jiang household. JFM clearly cares about jc, it's not his fault that jc doesn't get it, and it's not his fault that YZY is always poisoning their relationship. JFM for his part is still trying to guide jc towards how he's meant to occupy his future position as Clan leader, quite gently too considering jiang cheng was berating WWX for saving their allies... I’m sure if anything JFM hoped WWX’s morality and sense of right and wrong would rub off a bit on jc & why wouldn't you want someone immensely talented and loyal and devoted to the well being of your son and family around?? JFM did a nice thing getting WWX off the streets but that doesn’t mean he also didn’t think WWX could be a good friend to jc who when WWX is first brought to Lotus Pier has ZERO friends, and was likely to remain with zero friends considering his personality. Only someone like WWX who is forced by circumstances, & his kind nature & gratitude to the Jiangs would be in a position to befriend him. So I think it's laughable to say JFM favors WWS when WWX was the sacrificial lamb friend/pet JFM gifted his son. Not to mention that the only person who says JFM doesn't properly value jc is again YZY. Ofc jc takes to like a duck to water because he's cut from the same cloth as his rancid mother and it's much easier to blame WWX for all his failings and misfortunes than to take a good hard look at himself or ever take responsibility for anything. jc doesn't do self reflection. There isn't any scenario where jc would have been a good person. He's lacking basic human empathy. His view of the world has him as its center. He can only relate to things as they concern and affect him and he doesn't even possess a modicum of honor that might keep such selfish impulses at bay.

To conclude, I totally agree. JFM cursed himself the moment he let himself be coerced by YZY and her Clan into marrying a person whose character and values he knew ran so deeply counter to his and his Clan's own. Sure enough under the control of jiang cheng, the original spirit in which Jiang clan was established is gone. It's a place devoid of warmth that people are scared to visit lest they be confronted w the screams of people being flayed alive.

#mdzs #jiang cheng #jiang family #yu ziyuan #madam yu #jiang yanli #the jiangs suck #WHY DID I MAKE THIS SO LONG FFFFF #I tried to edit it down 138431 times #this was edited 2000 times #I obviously consider YZY to be the shittiest shit to ever be shit on the face of the earth #and I think this is v JFM favorable at least it's meant to be but as always I cast a lot of shade all the way around

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winepresswrath · 4 years ago

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A lot of the time I just try to pretend Discourse doesn't exist because there's no need to raise my blood pressure over bad opinions about fictional war criminals, but some of it is VERY funny. Like what I just saw about even the CQL staff knew that JC is an irredeemable asshole and always hated and resented his brother based on WZC's performance, as if the man was not out here spending half his screentime on the brink of tears, trying to full body meld in hugs, and blowing kisses to bunnies

I’m going to be honest and say I fundamentally do not understand why the people who seem most invested in appeals to authority based on authorial intent also seem to be persistently wrong about what the various creators have to say about the characters, which is, courtesy of some very generous fan translators, easily accessible information. I personally do not care very much about authorial intent; I think it can be useful and interesting context for a given work but ultimately come down pretty hard on team art is inherently subjective and sometimes artists don’t actually pull off conveying their intended meaning. I am fairly confident that Ian Fleming and I disagree very strongly on the character of Pussy Galore and her relationship with James Bond, and also that my opinion is better than his. In terms of MDZS, MXTX says "Jiang Cheng is deeply and seriously flawed but not an evil person" and I nod along, thinking that is a thing she conveyed pretty successfully to me, but you’re never going to catch me arguing that that means no one is allowed to say he’s evil on the internet because fundamentally I don’t think that’s a useful or interesting way to approach either art or fandom.

But with CQL specifically, you have the bunny kisses and the octopus hug and Yanli pausing the momentum of the third episode to explain to the audience that Jiang Cheng has difficulty expressing concern and care directly and the moment where he looks directly into the camera while promising that he will never let another disaster befall his recently massacred people and the sad little smile when he insists to Jin Guangshan that it’s just Wei Wuxian’s character to be unrestrained and free rather than deliberate disrespect and just. I really do not feel like they were making an attempt at subtlety, but even if they were there are like a million interviews featuring Wang Zhuocheng’s opinions on the character.

What does Wang Zhuocheng think of Yunmeng Bros? I wonder! If only someone had asked him what he would like to say to Wei Wuxian oh wait-

What does he think about how Jiang Cheng communicates?

You don’t have to care about any of this but it’s so easy to look it up if it’s an aspect of the creative process you find interesting or important to your understanding of the characters!

#jiang cheng #like I do think both the cql and donghua team #are interested in Jiang Cheng and go out of their way to make him sympathetic #and it would certainly be possible to make an adaptation that leans in the other direction #and focuses more on both him as an antagonist and him as a person who did Bad Things #but I also think that would be a fundamentally more boring and less engaging story #so I get why they don't!#and maintaining the novel's ambiguity is going to be difficult any time you move more in an ensemble direction

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tonyglowheart · 3 years ago

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I mean, even mxtx herself said that jc isn't an evil person. Deeply flawed for sure, but not bad. It's like any and all nuance is thrown to the wind in pursuit of the next "jc hot-take"

yeah exactly, and like the whole point of Jiang Cheng's story and reveal, as other people have said before, is that mxtx wants to play with your perception of your certainty on how you judged a character/person or a situation. It's a big theme in MDZS in general, the idea that like the "certain" reading or the most popular reading isn't always the "truest" reading, but that even a "true" reading is subject to personal perspective/context. And that, sometimes there is no "true" reading of a situation, because there's always going to be someone's context and truth that you miss, or are not able to reconcile against someone else's.

sidebar: MXTX literally does this with Wei Wuxian early on, she starts off by portraying Wei Wuxian in a way that he can be read as a typically "evil" villain character (e.g. when he mentioned going to Dafan Mtn to look for evil spirits, the more evil the better! <- paraphrased she might have used a softer word than "evil" but the point is that line is supposed to make you think you're reading a book where the MC is the "villain" of the story, until you learn more about the backstory/history and get more insight into his perspective)

I'm not saying that Jiang Cheng isn't a flawed character, because yeah, he very much is. But at the same time. Like the Jiang Cheng reveal is supposed to operate a bit more like a "Gift of the Magi" situation, as well as shedding light more on Jiang Cheng's perspective and adding context to how he's come across and how he has been shown to act/react. All of these do in fact have contextual influences on how Jiang Cheng is, imo, intended to be used in the narrative & as a narrative foil.

re: lack of nuance- that's something that's definitely frustrating me a lot recently in the tone of some posts I see in the tags lol. Even now with my recent posts, the reaction(s) I've seen seem to have boiled down to "we just want canon JC characterization; why are you using culture as an excuse for the bad shit he did lol," which like... fine maybe it's not a bad faith reading of what I said, maybe I didn't convey what I was trying to convey well enough, about there being nuances to analysis that I think are being omitted or ignored, some of which imo are culturally-influenced that people seem to discount in favor of an "objective imperative" kind of standard (which imo is generally not as "objective" or "contextless" as people think, they're just not seeing how their own contexts are still acting as a lens thru which they view things).

I don't think I took it to that extreme of "I'm using culture to excuse Jiang Cheng of wrongdoing," but then again does it matter what I think I was doing if the other party is perceiving their truth of the situation a certain way? The ideal is that one's intent can be reconciled with the other party's perception, and that both parties act in good faith to try to find that overlap in understanding, but I can't force other people to engage with me in good faith or be open to interrogating their own self-evident truths or things they've taken for granted which may serve to be examined. I'm fairly cognizant that I'm probably not going to be changing the minds of people who are already made up on this subject. Experience tells me that's not how arguments on the internet tend to play out, and if I do end up swaying anyone it's usually people who are watching as opposed to the people actively arguing with me on a given topic.

Anyway, I do think a lot of this arguments of "canon Jiang Cheng" are reductive in general, but also not the whole picture as far as canon goes if we do try to take that seriously or on face value. For example, what IS Jiang Cheng's "canon" characterization? The story isn't told largely from Jiang Cheng's perspective - whatever you come up with will still largely be based on outsider perspectives (each of whom have their own interpretations and agendas which color their views). So then, are you playing with Jiang Cheng's reputation vs characterization? If that's the case, that's fine, I can't control what other people do, but then to claim a moral high ground of having a "purer" or more "complete" or "true" reading because you eschew certain nuance points (which are also canonical) or take a more cynical reading of certain aspects of a text, comes across as arrogant and narrow to me. The opposite extreme of a thing isn't more correct than the extreme one is reacting to.

#asks answered #Anonymous #trying to come up with what to tag this for ppl who might want to filter it out lmao...#fandom negativity tag #mdzs #last random thought: lowkey I think some of the 'jiang cheng stans' that ppl say they're reacting against... may have been reacting against #a cycle of jiang cheng hate too lmao. it's been a hot second since I've been deeply in touch with the trends but I feel like some of the #bigger jc accounts on twitter for example that I remember were like. specifically pushing back against certain jc villain narratives as wel #I mean the whole cyclical thing in fandom is fairly common - this whole push & pull of 'prevailing' narratives #and as often happens we get to a point where people don't know or forget or are not aware of where certain things arise from #and so they assume it exists outside of context and to them it's 'ridiculous'#but I mean also as a general principle... who is it hurting for ppl to like a certain character. why should someone have to apologize for #liking a character just because you dislike them.#my ultimate thesis for fandom in general tends to be: there is no one sole arbiter of 'truth.' sometimes pervailing views hold certain #amounts of weight but nothing says that people HAVE to comply with those #like mxtx says: ultimately the point of fandom is to have fun. don't go overboard

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egelantier · 4 years ago

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Tian Guan Ci Fu

where is it and what is it

it’s a chinese webnovel by mxtx, the same author who did untamed; it exists as a webnovel, finished and kindly translated here, the manhwa, the donghua (animated adaptation) happening right now, and there’s a live action adaptation in plans, directed by the same guy who did untamed. the donghua is gorgeous, the adaptation i’m unsure about but prepared to be hopeful, the manhwa seems to be very pretty. but all the adaptations only cover the very beginning of the novel for now, so i went ahead and read the novel, and i have no regrets. it helps that the translation is very good - not without awkward translatorese, but it has consistent and engaging flow and style, and it’s also pretty good at conveying mxtx’s humor without awkwardness. it reads pretty well.

what’s it about?

the world is split into two parts: mortals and various ghosts and demons and entities share the land, while ‘heaven officials’, aka gods, live in the heavenly kingdom in the sky. pretty much anybody can become a god if they do something really heroic or memorable and/or cultivate (meditation, training, virtuous behavior) really hard. when above, the gods rule their domains and fulfill their believers’ wishes; they work sort of like pratchettian gods, dependent on their followers’ beliefs and getting influenced by them. heavens are strictly hierarchical, with their own economy and pecking order, and the gods aren’t particularly sinless or benevolent; mostly it’s a question of scale.

our hero, xie lian, is a prince of a prosperous kingdom who’s been on a fast track to ascension for most of his very short life; he’s talented, he’s virtuous, he’s kind, he’s strong, and his only peculiar flaw is (somehow naive, but well-meaning) obsession with equality and value of human lives and so on. he becomes a god, unexpectedly, at seventeen, after slaying one especially dangerous god, and rises in heaven at the peak of his faith, influence and happiness.

…and then he finds out about drought and incipient trouble in his own kingdom, and, being a young and righteous god too close to his mortality, eschews heavens and returns to save everybody. it, to put it lightly, does not go well. at all. in fact, it goes catastrophically wrong, and, having lost everything, xie lian ascends again, only to get into a fight with the heavenly emperor, and get banished again, this time for good. he roams the mortal lands for next eight hundred of very lonely, luckless and hard years, technically immortal but not invincible, with his powers and his luck stripped away, and leans to make do, eking out a living as a scrap collector. his temples are desecrated, his name is forgotten, his kingdom is long gone, and - well. so it goes.

so it goes! until one day, to everybody’s great surprise, he ascends once again: a humble, gentle, immune to embarrassment, unflappable man, an embarrassment to heavens, a 'laughingstock of three realms’ who just wants to be left well enough alone. he’s Tired.

instead of rest, he gets sent to investigate a dangerous ghost stealing brides who pass through its mountain, and there, during the course of the interrogation, has his first (he thinks) meeting with a terrifying, old-powerful and vengeful ghost king named hua cheng, who likes to terrorize heavens from time to time. but said ghost king seems to be very benevolent and very interested in helping xie lian, and xie lian is pretty instantly smitten… with knowing what’s the cause of such interest.

…and meanwhile, in the beginning, there'was an unlucky boy, born under the worst stars, whom xie lian saved from falling once, while still mortal, and promptly lost track of. a lot of things happened to this boy, who wanted to be the most devoted worshipper to xie lian the god of the sword and the flower. as one does, you know.

that’s the beginning! from there on: investigations, heavenly secrets, old friends and enemies and acquaintances, thematic parallels, old tragedies, more pining than you can shake a stick at, grand acts of love.

is it good?

it’s very, very good. it’s the first fantasy cnovel i read (aside from the hilarious one about a guy traveling back in his own timeline and becoming a sugar baby to a mafia boss, which was in a very different league), so i don’t know which things are baseline and which things are unique, but it had a very solid foundation: ambitious multilevel, multi-timeline plot coming together in the end both events- and emotions-wise, beautifully iddy main relationship, maybe multifaceted characters who change and grow and clash together in fun ways, a clear and heartfelt understanding of its own core themes.

it’s also, unexpectedly, very funny, in this visual, slapsticky, begs-to-be-adapted way - i found myself laughing out loud over it a lot of times, and it possesses this gift of swerve between understated but earnest emotions and all-out jokes that i associate with… a bit of prattchett and a bit of gintama, honestly. take it as you will.

(oh my god the mecha. i will laugh over this one until i die.)

it also made me cry several times; granted, it’s not like it’s this time, but those were very heartfelt tears.

and the main duo?

first let me say that xie lian was lifted out, wholesale, out of my deepest character preferences. he fell really, really far, and did some bad things, and some very horrible things were done to him, and by the time we meet him he went through everything and achieved this effortless kind of traumatized, humble, accepting, wryly self-deprecating, utterly competent chill that makes a character incredibly appealing to me. he’s kind, and he’s sweet, and he’s gotten any possible embarrassment at least a couple of centuries ago, and he kinda made peace with himself and kinda didn’t. i love him.

and, thankfully for me, hua cheng, the ghost king, loves him a whole damn lot, a ridiculous amount, an epic, over-the-lifetimes, life-shattering amount, and he’s a terrifying presence to everybody else and a shy, protective, sweet dork to xie lian, and every time they’re together on page my entire heart is just. it’s AMAZING. he’s a great combination of playing the obsessive protective yandere stalker-lover trope straight and putting it on its head, by making hua cheng not just revere but respect xie lian, in all his good and bad decisions.

they are just so - good for each other, holy shit. they get each other so well. they’re the best ever power team. i love them.

(the rest of canon is various character reenacting “really? in front of my salad?” meme at them. it’s hysterical, and it’s the best. everybody teams up to tell xie lian that his boyfriend is Problematic way, way before xie lian clues into the fact that he does have a boyfriend, and he’s having none of it. i love it.)

and the themes?

okay, so. roughly half of this novel is ridiculous iddy pining, and a fourth of it is various tropes (off the top of my head: soulbond, sex pollen, body switch, de-age, various shades of identity porn… crossdressing…) played very shamelessly. but it also really benefits from having an overarching set of ethical questions, and while it deals with them a bit shounen-style, it still deals with them, and it makes the whole text fresh, and sweet, and bold.

is it possible to save everybody? should you try to save everybody? if you lack the powers to back your convictions, does it make you complicit? when is it possible to stop the cycle of suffering, what can you do if you want to but can’t? if you tried and people you failed turned on you, whose fault it is, where does the blame stop?

Detailed spoilers begin from here, and i would REALLY advise to stay unspoiled, because the domino reveals are very fun

i loved the various ways the novel sets all those pieces up and then overturns them and then returns to them. xie lian wanted to save everybody and it was arrogant naivete of an untried, untested, privileged young man who never had a real challenge before; his presence made things escalate quicker, and yet everybody around him pretended it was his attempt to make things better that ruined everything, and not a combination of factors outside of his control. and yet he accepts the blame, because it dovetails with his shame at not having enough powers to back his intent up; and yet his triumph over bai wuxian is that he doesn’t, after all, renege on his initial drive to help people.

my most favorite part of this novel is that its turning point, the lynchpin of the whole novel, the moment that keeps xie lian’s soul and safety intact, is not his personal purity and drive; it’s not even hua cheng’s devotion and sacrificial love. it’s just a moment of little, grudging, human kindness from a little, petty, rude man whom the history will sweep away soon. the bamboo hat in the rain. the rest of the plot keeps twisting and turning and coming back to itself, but this? this was unquestionably, beautifully clear, and i loved it. it’s never about the gods, it’s all down to - fallen human is human, ascended human is human, and human is not some state, virtuous or sinful, you get stuck with - it’s a multitude of choices, and there’s never a final one.

and incoherent spoilery screaming for people who read it already

oh my god i had SO MUCH FUN. i’ve been flailing on meme for days, because somebody just finished reading there too, and i’m still bursting with ALL THE FEELS. ruoye origins oh my god! that hat! jin wu’s backstory and ultimate end! e-ming’s praise kink! pei ming’s little shippery 'hoho’! hua cheng’s horribly handwritten stick and poke tattoo of xie lian’s name! the lanteeeeeeeeeeeeerns. feng xin and mu qing on the bridge, making up with each other and with xie lian! hua cheng trying to explain to xie lian that his habit of using himself as bait and pincushion at any given moment is deeply emotionally upsetting to him, and succeeding! banyue’s learning from xie lian to be a truly horrible cook! the entire deal with shi qingxuan and he xuan and the wind fan in the end. THE CAVE. THE GIANT MECHA. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa and aaaaaaaaaaaaa and aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa and i am beset, beset by feelings. come scream with me.

#tgcf #tian guan ci fu #heaven official's blessing #xie lian #hua cheng #cdramas #cnovels #mxtx

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neverdoingmuch · 4 years ago

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hello! I just wanted to ask, which do you think in the mdzs novel has the most questionable morality? like they have done more bad things but they still had kindness in them somehow (?)

oh!! this is a hard one for me anon! i’m always bad at ranking characters but i’ll do my best! i’m not sure if you were hoping for like a quick answer or a long one but i’m gonna go with a long one bc that’s always fun and i’ll do a tldr if you don’t want to read through all that? yeah that seems like it’ll work because holy shit i didnt mean for it to get so long (and kind of away from the point of your ask too so sorry about that!)

okay! So, the three main contenders for morally dubious characters are, as far as I’ve seen, Xue Yang, Jin Guangyao, and Wei Wuxian. Not a big surprise, I’m sure. While they’re the more obvious options, they do have a lot of parallels and exhibit a lot of the themes and ideas that MXTX was getting at. I mean, I love looking at Jin Guangyao and Wei Wuxian as foils, and even other combinations of the three, so my answer will probably be heavy on the comparisons. I do think it’s worth touching on Jiang Cheng as well though. Also, I’ll try to stay as unbiased as I can because there’s a few characters on this list that I just don’t like … like at all.

Jiang Cheng tends to get brushed over a lot when it comes to some of the horrible things he’s done. From promising to protect Wei Wuxian from dogs only to immediately use them as a threat whenever he wants to to leading a siege on a group of people he knows are completely innocent of any crimes to torturing and killing people for thirteen years, he’s definitely not a good person. His concerns lie first and foremost with himself and his. That doesn’t seem like a horrible thing at first – he should owe his loyalty to himself, his family, and his sect – but it does mean that when the Xuanwu’s cave situation happened, his response was to get mad that Wei Wuxian helped Jin Zixuan and Lan Wangji. (And that’s why Jiang Fengmian got mad at him!). Later on, when pressure comes from the sects regarding Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng chooses not to stand with him, which, while understandable, isn’t exactly a kind move to someone who called Jiang Cheng his family and was trying to repay the debt the two of them owed Wen Qing. There’s no denying that he does care about Wei Wuxian, but when forced to make hard choices, he picks what’s easiest for himself. In general, I’d say that his sense of morality is selfish and somewhat flighty, but not necessarily questionable, so I’ll move on!

For the usual suspects, I’ll start with Xue Yang because I’m just going to immediately eliminate him from the running. I’ve seen people interpret his character sympathetically or try to justify some of his actions or the way he turned out, but I honestly just can’t. While you could feel sympathetic towards him because of his childhood, we have Wei Wuxian as a direct contrast to Xue Yang, as well as, to a certain degree, Jin Guangyao. Both Xue Yang and Wei Wuxian were street kids who had a horrible time in their youth, but Wei Wuxian was able to leave that behind him. That’s a lot easier to do when you’ve been adopted into a major sect and afforded comforts above your station (and also have terrible coping mechanisms), but even Jin Guangyao’s revenge isn’t quite as wide-spread and malicious. I know it may seem a bit obvious, anon, but some people really do try and treat Xue Yang like he’s morally dubious which confuses me a lot because how?? Even if we do say that he has suitable cause, one of the messages of the novel is that your past experiences don’t justify your future actions, so even within the context of the novel – a novel which is concerned with highlighting the grey areas of morality – Xue Yang isn’t afforded any sympathy. So, there’s really no way to construe him in a positive light. His only moments of kindness come with his time spent in Yi City with Xiao Xingchen, where Xue Yang doesn’t change much – he may have cared for Xiao Xingchen, but Xue Yang still tortured him as he did so. I never quite read that arc as Xue Yang learning to care or being allowed to be kind again so I’d just say that he lacks both morals and kindness. On that basis we can boot him from this competition.

Jin Guangyao may have been one of the antagonists of the novel, but he wasn't a completely bad person or like The Worst. His main crimes involved getting revenge for slights against him or his mother – being from Nie Mingjue, Jin Guangshan, or any number of other cultivators. I think that, to an extent, his actions are justifiable. While you can contrast this to the way Wei Wuxian gets called a servant's son, they do differ in the fact that Wei Wuxian is afforded a higher level of protection due to him being favoured by Jiang Fengmian. Additionally, when Wei Wuxian does have his birth used against him, he's usually the person who acted out first anyway. Jin Guangyao was insulted for doing little more than exist and was never the person to act out first, yet still faced a near constant onslaught of insults. I'm not saying his actions were justified by any means, but the reasoning behind his actions is sound. The one thing I will note is that he doesn't let go of his grudges – even when everything is all done and dusted and he has everything that he could possibly want from life, he still holds onto that hatred. I remember seeing a post where someone mentioned that characters who were able to move on and change for the better were able to get their happy ending in MDZS, which isn't relevant here but definitely applies to Jin Guangyao when thinking about why he got the ending he did. I don't agree with the degree to which he enacted his revenge against certain characters and I loathe the whole Qin Su situation. I don't care how much he cries about it, he could've at least told her, but I mainly just pretend that part didn't exist. So, he has suitable cause for at least some of his actions, and his other victims can just be classified as necessary collateral rather than being intentional innocent targets, if that makes sense, but he's definitely vindictive and spiteful.

On the other hand, he did a lot of good, too. He's a side character for the most part so Jin Guangyao didn't get the most screen-time, but we do hear of some of the good things he's done. The main example would probably be the watchtowers. One of the interesting things about Jin Guangyao and Wei Wuxian is that while both of them are capable of kindness, the breadth and scope of Jin Guangyao's is much broader – the watchtowers are an idea that not only showcase how Jin Guangyao's upbringing allows him to see flaws in the cultivation world that the other privileged cultivators can't, but also show how he does care about the people. I've seen a few people try and play it as a spying technique but I don’t really believe that in the slightest. I mean, the point of the towers is to cover the areas where the sects aren't, so I have no idea what Jin Guangyao's people would even be spying on. Anyway, setting up those watchtowers really didn't benefit him any specific way – unless you consider him endearing himself to Lan Xichen and garnering a good reputation with the common folk something that outweighs the absolute nightmare it would have been to make the sects participate in the project to begin with. In a more specific case, Jin Ling's dog was given to him by Jin Guangyao. It's interesting that, despite Jin Ling spending the novel being trailed by Jiang Cheng, the gift that he obviously cares for deeply is from Jin Guangyao. In the Guanyin Temple scene I definitely got the sense that Jin Ling had loved and trusted Jin Guangyao before the truth came out so I'm firmly convinced that he would've been a wonderful and conscientious uncle to him and just generally good to the people who worked for him and/or the commoners.

Okay, now Wei Wuxian!! As far as I've seen, people are relatively good at staying true to his questionable sense of morality. Like with Jin Guangyao, we know that he can be vindictive and pretty excessive when it comes to getting his revenge, but I'm not going to deny that I was definitely rooting for him when he went after Wen Chao and his little gang. The main issue with Wei Wuxian is probably the demonic cultivation – the stigma against it tends to get reduced to it being bad for the user and their temperament etc. etc., but there's more to it than that. I'm no expert on Daoism by any means, but from my understanding desecration of corpses and disturbing the dead is a significant cultural taboo. This isn't just Wei Wuxian doing something no one else can do (though it certainly is true), it's also him doing something no one else should do. I've seen the massacre at Nightless City being added as another tally to his list of crimes, but I honestly think that that isn’t a crime worth adding – he needed to defend himself so he did, simple as that.

As I mentioned above, Wei Wuxian's kindness is a bit more specific – where Jin Guangyao cares for the people, Wei Wuxian cares for individuals. We see his kindness more clearly, be it because he's the main character or be it because actions are clearer and stronger when it's for a single person or a small group. It's a bit easier, in my opinion, to care about people when you don't have to live with them and face them every day, but Wei Wuxian does. Even though Wei Wuxian led a lot more comfortable life than Jin Guangyao, we never really see Jin Guangyao get his hands dirty in the same way Wei Wuxian does. When a sacrifice needs to be made, Wei Wuxian’s the one who makes it. He doesn't relegate, he does it himself. We know that he would do absolutely anything for those he cares about and that's why he's able to commit a lot of the atrocities he does.

When it comes to deciding between Jin Guangyao and Wei Wuxian for most questionable morality, I think we need to look at the reasons behind their actions. Wei Wuxian’s sense of morality is definitely nowhere near that of the Lans but he has always been driven by his sense of justice and his love for those around him. In that sense, I've always read him as having a flexible sense of morality rather than a questionable one. I'm not sure how much of it ties in with his sense of duty, but it's definitely a lot. Wei Wuxian is, and always will, fill the role that is required of him – be it the childish and sweet younger brother, the talented but flippant older brother, the monster that wins the war, or the fierce protector that gives his all, Wei Wuxian will twist himself into whatever position he's needed in at that moment. Obviously, he went after Wen Chao for his own benefit, and the corrupting influence of the resentful energy does need to be factored into this, but at his core, Wei Wuxian will always value his duty (to his sect, family, friends, and innocents) and doing what is right over anything else. He may have stumbled along the way, but he did manage to form his own path to uphold all the values that he wanted to. Jin Guangyao, on the other hand, is similar to Jiang Cheng in how he's driven by his own motivations for betterment and revenge, albeit with more grace and intelligence. Jin Guangyao may masquerade as being motivated by any number of causes but he will never do anything at his own risk, and he will always be his top priority. So, while it's a close call between Wei Wuxian and Jin Guangyao, I'm going to have to go with Jin Guangyao on this one!

tldr; the fandom favourites for questionable morality are xy, jgy, and wwx so i mainly looked at them. I included jc as well but neither xy or jc demonstrate the dichotomy needed so they got eliminated from the running. Jgy and wwx both commit and are willing to commit horrible crimes as well as being capable of caring for others and being kind. but, where wwx is driven by his sense of justice and love for others, jgy is driven by his own motivations for betterment and revenge, making for a more questionable morality (as compared to wwx's more flexible morality).

#mdzs #mdzs text #mdzs meta #dfgrgt i was like hm but what if this post isnt good enough to tag as meta #modao zushi #wei wuxian #jin guangyao #xue yang #jiang cheng #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #asks #legal talks #i figured that since i wasnt giving a very interesting answer i might as well throw in some discussion too #i hope this answers your question anon!!#thanks for asking me i had a lot of fun answering this #in case you couldnt tell from the uhh 2k i wrote #Anonymous #but if you want to send any more asks please do!! i love discussing things like this

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hamliet · 5 years ago

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hello, in svsss what do you think of zhuzi-lang? his story is so sad but he gets so little attention :(((

Zhuzhi-Lang is actually one of my favorite characters in Scum Villain! Perhaps my second favorite after Luo Binghe, actually. His death devastated me.

So, before I discuss him, I will recommend this excellent meta by @thisworldgodonlyknows. Basically, Zhuzhi-Lang has remarkable similarities with other characters in MXTX’s works (notably, as the meta discusses, Wen Ning, but also with Wei Wuxian, Luo Binghe, Su She, and even Hua Cheng). The trope is called “because you were nice to me” on TVTropes, and essentially it’s if someone is kind to a character who is usually treated unkindly by society, they become obscenely loyal and spend their life trying to earn that one act of kindness. If someone tells these characters they have worth, they become wildly loyal, trying to earn that person’s affirmation again and again. It comes from a highly insecure sense of self and from the fundamental question each of MXTX’s three novels ask: how can humans earn the right to be alive?

The answer is that we are alive and deserve to be, and the right to live can’t be earned because it’s inherent. If you look at it, almost all of these characters end up dying at some point in a misguided attempt earn their right to live. Even if they have a happy ending, they die in the meantime; these deaths are not always directly attributed to these tendencies in the character, but are certainly somewhat connected.

Zhuzhi-Lang dies trying to save both Tianlang-Jun and Shen Qingqiu.

Luo Binghe is the only one who does not die but Luo Binghe is still considered dead for several years after being pushed into the abyss (which is at least a metaphorical death) by the same person who he was dedicated to serving.

Wen Ning winds up a weapon; it’s noted his repressed resentment has been used post-death. His arc is about overcoming the idea that he has to earn the right to live even a second life, as Wei Wuxian wants him to live on his own and Wen Ning eventually decides to do so.

Wei Wuxian kept trying to make it up to the Yunmeng Jiang Sect for taking him in (he says as much), which leads to misunderstandings that eventually result in his own death.

Su She dies trying to save Jin Guangyao, and it’s all for naught in the end.

Hua Cheng dies three times, each time for Xie Lian (mimicking Xie Lian’s three ascensions), and each time his death hurts Xie Lian.

However, for each of these characters, it is absolutely not their fault that they feel they have to earn their lives. The biggest bad in all of MXTX’s works is society and its lack of empathy for those who are somehow deficient by its standards--and if you look closely, most if not all characters might be considered deficient, even the ones who pretend not to be.

For Zhuzhi-Lang specifically, he was born to a snake demon clan. He isn’t regarded as a fully human/demon; instead, he’s literally trodden upon and looked at as a lesser being. This cruelty has embedded itself deeply in Zhuzhi-Lang: he is violent when someone is violent to him as a result thereof, but he is also kind to an extreme when people are kind to him. As the above meta I liked to says, he doesn’t understand the nuances of humanity (and when I saw humanity it isn’t limited to just humans--demons/ghosts/gods all fit this within the story), the nuances that enable characters to overcome their flaws and choose their own way to live.

Zhuzhi-Lang is also a foil to Shen Qingqiu and to his cousin, Luo Binghe. Shen Qingqiu, after being transmitigated into the story as the villain, lives as if he has to earn his survival (oh and he also dies temporarily as a result), and lives without nuance. He believes he knows how the story will go, how it is written, even as he knows he’s rewriting parts of it. However, by the end of Shen Qingqiu’s arc, he’s realized he can make his own choices, he can even choose the genre of the story he’s living, he can change the fate of the world and his own fate. It was this fear and this primal belief that he knew how things would go, these constraints he put on his own actions as a result (like pushing Luo Binghe into the abyss), that led to much of the pain and tragedy.

For Luo Binghe, he keeps trying to earn the kindness of Shen Qingqiu, falling deeply in love with him. Yet Shen Qingqiu, much like society itself, is afraid of Luo Binghe, so Luo Binghe tries all manner of rules to earn his appreciation and love but doesn’t succeed. When that fails, Luo Binghe decides to rewrite the entire world, combining the demon and human realm, not caring at all. He goes into a qi deviation, having completely let go of nuance, wanting to destroy the entire world to control the narrative he has never been allowed to control (and much like Zhuzhi-Lang, to return the world the cruelty it always treated him with). Shen Qingqiu saves him, of course, and it isn’t a coincidence that their ending is Shen Qingqiu telling Luo Binghe that if he will not be welcomed in their society, they will find a place where Luo Binghe will be welcomed. In other words, Shen Qingqiu learns nuance himself, learned that the nuance and loyalty of Zhuzhi-Lang is not inherently bad or harmful; in fact, loyalty is a good trait when it is nuanced.

Although Zhuzhi-Lang’s life ended tragically and I’m still not over it, his life wasn’t pointless, and his legacy is not of a monster trodden into the dirt. Yes, some may remember him that way. But the calamity is not solved when Zhuzhi-Lang is nailed to a wall; it’s solved through an act of love and loyalty, through Shen Qingqiu committing to Luo Binghe in his extremely awkward and hilarious way. Even if many characters thing that Zhuzhi-Lang was a villain put down, the narrative counters this. Additionally, not all characters think as much: Tianlang-Jun is still alive and has another chance, and Shen Qingqiu learns the value of loyalty and assurance thereof, which enables him to prevent Luo Binghe following a similarly tragic path to Zhuzhi-Lang.

#ask hamliet #svsss meta #scum villain #the scum villain's self-saving system #zhuzhi-lang #luo binghe #shen qingqiu #mxtx #mxtx meta #Anonymous

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inanna-arianna · 5 years ago

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Another meta on Lan Xichen I did not want to write

Never once does the novel state that LXC was romantically even interested in JGY. And here is why the people who ship JGY and LXC are the most tedious, annoying and delusional part of not just MDZS but MXTX works in general.

It’s their insidious and tenacious twisting of information and pushing of their headcanons as legitimate narrative. The best example of this is the wiki page for MDZS outside of tumblr. Twitter is not as infested as tumblr is. Twitter favors NieLan pairing, it would seem. But those who ship NieLan do not try to pass their ship as canon nor do they shove it down everyone’s throats. Ship all you want, but once you start adding your headcanons to profile pages that are supposed to be an objective analysis of the character profiles and source materials, that is where you become a delusional menace.

Author even went as far as to state that the only gay couple in the novel is WangXian. Why would she be coy? Why would she hide? She has written novels with more than one homosexual couples before.

To the delusional shippers LXC has gone into seclusion to repent for the killing of JGY. They even twist his seclusion to such a level that they insidiously add LXC seclusion to be the same as his father’s. Even adding it to the list of clearly romantic acts of passion such as here:

this is sadly just one of many pages they infected

I don’t think people give LXC’s dimwitted naivety the full credit it deserves. I get it, people are fond of his character. He is one of my favorite characters also. But he is not benign.

His idiocy has come with a terrible price.

Siege of Burial mounds? Against a broken man and a group of farmers who were non-combative? The siege came to their doors. WWX had the right to raise the dead to defend them. Ultimately, had LXC been a competent clan leader and had his clan stood for what they say they do: righteousness and justice, WWX would not have been as desperate as to resort to such horrible cultivation practices. Had the Lan clan been what they pride themselves at being, they would have stood on Wei Wuxian’s side. And don’t try to oversimplify it. I’m not talking just about the siege. I’m talking about the build up to it as well. But Wei Wuxian stood alone. He stood alone at the path where they failed to assassinate him. He stood alone at Nevernight. He stood alone at the siege. But the snow white boots of the righteous Lan clan, stomped the skulls of old women and frail men.

Nie Mingjue’s death is on LXC’s hands more than JGY. You don’t blame a tiger for being a tiger. It does what it was made to do. Nie Mingjue trusted Lan Xichen. Painfully so. And it cost him his life. It was LXC constantly making excuses for JGY and shielding him from criticism and consequences that allowed him to get away with all the evil he has done for so, so very long. JGY carefully and meticulously build the image Lan Xichen had of him. I don’t deny that LXC was a victim of JGY. Perhaps the most tragic victim. But it does not absolve him of his crimes and playing a part. Weather out of his dimwitted naivety or moral cowardliness, does not matter. JGY needed Lan Xichen. He needed him to be his moral guarantor, his warranty, his shield and advocate. He used LXC’s impeccable reputation as a shield. He needed LXC to vouch for him.

That is why he never mistreated Lan Xichen.

But it’s not exactly true, right? I don’t doubt that JGY in this cruelty and arrogance and lust for power truly believed that he never mistreated LXC. But that is just not true. Weather the suffering of the person Lan Xichen loved most in the world, his own brother. Or by having LXC be his unwitting accomplice in his crimes. Nie Huaisang used LXC to deliver a final blow to JGY. But JGY was a villain. JGY’s fans want to condemn Nie Huaisang for that one act but gleefully ignore just how much damage JGY has done to LXC by using him to further his own ambitions. A man that now has to live with the consequences of his naivety and blindness.

Lan Xichen spending time in seclusion is coming to terms with what he has allowed to happen by continuously absolving JGY of his crimes and willfully turning a blind eye to his wrongdoings. Do people seriously believe that a man who is the head of a clan that prides itself on righteousness and intolerance of all evil is going into mourning for the death of a villain than rather to repent for being the guarantor that allowed the said villain to go unchallenged for so long? That his reputation was used as a cover that allowed a murderer to go unpunished.

Before those shippers try to point out how LXC was hiding JGY’s crimes and avoiding reveling them out of romantic interest: Don’t try it. LXC was naïve and non-confrontational on all fronts. He stood by and watched the mistreatment of Wen civilians, elderly and disabled and even children. His greatest love is his brother, yet despite being the head of the clan he stood by and watched his brother be viciously beaten and scared for life. Even refusing to know why his gentle and kind mother would murder someone is part of his refusal to even think and dwell on things that displease or hurt him. He is an incredibly passive and lethargic person.

Even his demeanor, gentle smile and voice are a shield against aggression. Author herself has stated that when drunk his voice becomes more booming, deeper. It’s a common tactic to defuse aggression. He puts on a submissive stance. Gentle voice and smile, non-aggressive and non-threatening gestures. But even he snaps from time to time. Like he did with WWX. But ultimately he is someone who avoids confrontation and pushes all that is too hurtful for him to think about out of his mind. Even if it is his own mother and her pitiful destiny, even if it is the brutal beating of his own bother. So no, he was not hiding JGY crimes out of love or romantic interest.

Do not forget, when confronted with the facts: he sided against JGY. Immediately. He sided with his brother. He sided with the man who is possibly the only man in the world that he hates (or as close to hate as LXC can muster). LWJ one mistake in his own eyes. He helped them gather evidence against JGY. He hid WWX in Cloud Recesses at great personal risk fully knowing that he was gathering evidence against JGY. He revoked JGY’s access to Cloud Recesses as soon as suspicions rose.

My point is: Ship whatever you want to ship. But don’t insert your headcanons or shipping fantasies into source material or profile pages that are supposed to be objective. Why have I decided to go off this time? Well, I have, so far got 4 people to look into the MDZS fandom and 3 of them were very much confused as to why they could not find a single reference to JGY and LXC “epic romance”. And asked me about it. Every time it was them reading wiki pages maliciously edited by JGY/LXC delusional shippers. I’m not going off at normal shippers. I understand the appeal. Many people like to ship the victim and his/her abuser. Just look at the people who ship Xiao Xingchen and Xue Yang. Not that I would ever ship those. But I’m not here to ship-shame. Just for mercy’s sake stop shoving your ship down our throats or try to pass it off as canon. It’s not.

I hate writing metas on LXC. I love his character. I truly do. I relate to him more than many other MXTX characters. He is deeply flawed. A bit dimwitted, lethargic, non-confrontational, but he is well meaning, benevolent, and generous. Whenever I have to write about him I have to unpack things I don’t particularly enjoy pointing out. See, why his character appeals to me. I don’t like thinking about those things so I push them out of my mind. And so I apologies for grammatical errors, to begin with I was short on time. But once again I was irritated into writing a meta on this subject. So I combined many of my metas and rants into this mess.

#Lan Xichen #zewu jun #lan huan #jin guangyao #meng yao #nie mingjue #nie huaisang #gusu lan #lan clan #meta #mo dao zu shi #the untamed #grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation #Lan Wangji #Wei Wuxian

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chrispersonalcornermoved · 5 years ago

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First: I do respect that some aspects can make someone uncomfortable, sometimes even if they do understand a scene.

Second: I feel like some people do miss the whole point of the stolen kiss on Phoenix Mountain? Or their first time?

Lan Wangji finds himself unable to control himself in Phoenix Mountain, his control snaps briefly and he steals a kiss.

The things is: he stops, and we see very soon after how angry he is (with the implicit fact it’s at himself, and later confirmed he was indeed angry at himself, when Wei Wuxian feels familiar with Lan Wangji’s kiss).

And like... That’s a big part of Lan Wangji’s character, as well as a “flaw”, like... Lan Wangji isn’t perfect. He’s got many good qualities, but that’s also because he learns to control is less good traits.

As a teen, he dreamed of doing things to Wei Wuxian. But he never did those, and I think people forget that. How it’s all a dream, at most that passed his mind again when he’s awake, but at the end of the day, he never did. The only time he was forceful, it was for the kiss, and he backs off almost immediately and is so angry at himself. He never does something like this again. He knows it’s bad.

He wants to bring Wei Wuxian to Gusu, but he only ever asks. Never force him to come.

He isn’t good because he doesn’t have bad traits, but because he deals with them so they don’t cause bad actions. He also recognizes when something is not so good (ex: losing control and stealing a kiss, the idea of forcing Wei Wuxian to come to Gusu, his fantasy as implied by how he tried to not have WWX see the dream of it only for WWX to give no bad reaction).

And again, that’s what makes Lan Wangji so good: in addition to his good traits, he makes sure his bad ones are controlled. The stolen kiss is a way to show that he does have his own flaws, a reminder he’s human, and it puts into context how he’s always avoided giving in to the depth of feelings that pushed him to steal a kiss. But, yes, it’s a reminder he’s human. And while we all can guess who it is, it’s not meant as to romanticize it. It’s meant as, “here is LWJ being unable to control his desire, and regretting it soon after, while WWX is shocked but also senses the person is nervous and actually thinks about the shame if he saw who it was”.

Like... one of thing in WangXian is how both can suffer from how people paint them. Wei Wuxian suffered because he’s been villainized, but Lan Wangji suffered because he’s been idolized.

It’s more subtle for Lan Wangji, but there are hints and signs and pointers toward the implicit reminder that, hey, don’t idolize him and think him without faults, he’s not good because he has no faults, he’s good because he steals a kiss and is angry about it and never does it again, he’s good because he wants to take Wei Wuxian with him but never does, he’s good because he’s had dreams that showed him desires but he never followed them, he’s good because he knows how deeply he feels and does his best to restrain himself until Wei Wuxian tells him it’s okay.

It’s because he’s been put on this piedestal of “model of righteousness”, especially before he met WWX, that LWJ couldn’t really allow himself to have faults.

Also: don’t forget they are both virgins for their first time? Of course they will be awkward, unsure about certain things, trying to make it work, and also there’s the other side that I have yet to see talked about: making love is intense. Like. That’s the love of your life! And for Lan Wangji, it’s the love you’ve loved for so many years, who you never thought you’d have, and you can touch! Who also touches you first, and teases, and you’re just so overwhelmed, but unlike before, you know they love you too. That’s why I said make love, not s/ex.

Their first time is also, to be fair, realistic? They’re in love and want it, but also confused and at best knows some theory. But they managed to figure it out.

(At worst, I can see LWJ not quite thinking when he starts to prepare, but Wei Wuxian isn’t displaying a clear no either, just confusion, and when he does display some pain, Lan Wangji stops. And Wei Wuxian doesn’t ask for them to stop. Also: Lan Wangji telling him to stop talking if he doesn’t like it (what’s he’s “complaining” about), and Wei Wuxian keeps talking.

(And if we look at WWX, he gets carried away when LWJ is drunk, but he himself recognize it was bad. LWJ, for his part, clearly warns WWX off, not because he doesn’t want his touch, but because he wants it too much. As proven as when WWX continues, and LWJ snaps, kissing and touching).

Again, I can understand why some parts feel uncomfy, but I just... wished people could see the intent behind certain aspects.

You can dislike the idea of LWJ stealing a kiss, but it doesn’t mean it was bad writing or not fitting in the story. You can dislike the fantasy he’s had, but it shouldn’t be by forgetting he was a teen getting his first major crush (in a sect that heavily drilled restraint into his head, so to be fair, is it so illogical that he can only associate desire with such a lack of restraint, especially back then?) and also without forgetting he never acts on it. You can dislike their first time or other bedroom dynamics, but it doesn’t mean it was badly written (maybe awkward, but they were virgins too) or that it’s “bad” (real life people can have preferences, and looking on their characterizations, it’s well fitting for LWJ to be the one to “lose control” and for WWX to “let himself be handled/give himself up”, because all their life, that’s the thing they weren’t able to do).

This was a lot about LWJ, as I felt a bit sad to see again some things, when to me, the dynamic was always so... clear.

LWJ: grew up in environment of restraint, has to learn to deal with his own desire, makes mistakes, but learns along the way, if he has a doubt makes sure to know WWX is okay (ex: not seeming to reply to WWX confusion, but stopping when WWX seems in pain, and giving him an out when he says “stop talking then” in reply to WWX apparent complaints, to which WWX gives his okay by talking more). Finds out he can let go of restraints with WWX, still shows some stress/shame/something at times (ex: not wanting WWX to see the library dream, when WWX figures out he stole the kiss) but WWX himself reassures him.

WWX: always confident, always took care of himself, both things sometimes genuine and sometimes a mask. Grew up with a lot of mentality of putting others first, in addition to his own self sacrificing tendencies. Later shows value to the idea of being caught if he falls, aka having someone he can be vulnerable with, who can figuratively catches him, who he can be at the mercy of. Also, I’m pretty sure he discovers he’s got some k/inks as early as the stolen kiss (the forcefulness), and knows it by the time he explicitely says he loves to see LWJ angry (which he was looking to do very early on).

So we have someone who has a need to let go of restraint, and someone who has a need to be at the mercy of someone. Also: someone whose first instinct is to be forceful, and someone who enjoys it. Maybe it’s convenient, maybe MXTX wrote it this way to add another “match made in heaven” aspect (as opposed to make them have trouble in their bedroom life), but it’s there.

Also: they’re happily married, and happily active in the s/exual aspect. We already have troubles having canon gay characters, let alone canon gay couples, can we not tear down canon gay couple who is s/exually active? You can not like the mistake they can make or the awkwardness or their k/inks, but it’s your preferences, just like theirs is what canon shows us.

And I don’t defend canon because it’s canon, I defend it because it aligns with their characterizations. I defend it because I felt so glad their romance, as beautiful as it is, also had its “oops” moment (stolen kiss, non-typical s/exual fantasy, awkward first time, having trouble controlling your desire) that made it feel so much more real. Then you add that they have k/inks? Realistic. Not everyone’s k/inks will feel comfy to you, but its theirs, not yours. What’s to remember, too, is that most of their k/inks were explored when they were in a dream world (and with them already married and so, knowing each other well, including implicit trust and knowledge of each other preferences).

Wangxian romance is not meant to be “pure”. It’s beautiful, it’s a love story, but with its own bumps in the road. They add to the story, and they are not better if they didn’t exist. People can be romantic and s/exual. Wangxian can be soft and k/inky.

Not liking a thing doesn’t mean that thing is a writing mistake of the author, or “unfitting” of the characters/relation.

And for the love of everything, stop saying censorship was good to Wangxian. Especially when you say it removed the “bad” aspects or the things you didn’t ~approve~. I can’t begin to explain why it’s so bad if you can’t realize it yourself. I can’t even begin to try and guess how you can love Wangxian and praise that it was censored.

What’s worse? A stolen kiss not being shown, or a gay marriage not being shown? A stolen kiss not being shown, or a canon gay character rewritten as harrassing women? The s/exual aspect of a romance not being canon, or erasure of anything non-hetero?

It’s a blessing that CQL was able to show the romantic aspect so well, but they played with fire. It only worked out because they gave us as much of the novel romance as they could. Without the actual, full blown romance of the novel, CQL would never have existed nor have such a lovely “soft” romance.

Wangxian can be soft. But it’s only a part of who they are.

You don’t need to like all aspects of their relation and dynamic, but don’t pretend those aspects have no place. They do.

If nothing is censored, you can choose what you pay attention to, and what you kindly not write/read/see, you can create your own comfort without affecting others comfort. But if something is censored, everyone who did want to read/write/see cannot do it then, and your comfort is at the cost of others comfort.

#wildchrisappears #long post #(seeing some things again and again in tags just)#(make me want to say something)#(agree or not but thats what I feel)#(and i didnt tag because i'd rather have the ship and character tag free of 'discourse' on whether novel canon wangxian is good or not)#(not very unexpectedly its the more physical aspect that seem to cause disagreement)#(as if people cant accept s/exual active people)#(that as well as things that are not all black or white)#(irony of irony consider MDZS deal a lot with pack mentality and grey morality)

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