#at the end Jiang Cheng isnt an honest person

[shiina-a]

About how Wei Wuxian died.

Wei Wuxian describes the second siege as a repetition of what happened and it makes sense. Not only because of the mob drunk on self righteousness but because of the Yin Tiger tally situation.

Destroying one half makes easy to imagine a situation where all that cursed energy made the fierce corpses he kept around go insane, and since they obeyed the "early bird gets the worm" rule he couldn't control them.

That left all those people who came to kill him, fighting the corpses and since they were corpses specially created by Wei wuxian then they probably were hard to kill.

It was the same type of situation.

So what did Wei Wuxian do?

The same thing he tried to do in the second siege. Paint a target on his clothes and sacrifice himself by luring them away. Of course, that would mean that the fierce corpses were going to eat him, bit by bit, until there were not even bones left.

In the eyes of our self righteous mob this could only look like Wei Wuxian's power backfiring him, it was easy and no one would even begin to consider any other explanation, much less one that painted Wei Wuxian as their savior. So that was the final version that everyone told and Wei Wuxian was happily ambiguous about it, because after all, he isn't the type of person who treasures the good things he does.

That leaves us with how did he feel? Doing something that would guarantee him a painful death.

Well, we can also see glimpses of it in the second siege.

The second siege is different because Lan Wangji stands by side. He isn't asking Lan Wangji to die with him, he's asking him to stay, so if the worst happens he doesnt have to die alone.

With all this, we have a clear picture. The mob came when Wei Wuxian was busy trying to destroy the Yin Tiger Tally. Wei Wuxian lost control of the corpses he created probably because of the heavy resentment energy and since that energy belonged to the Tally there was nothing he could do. The corpses attacked the mob and Wei Wuxian sacrificed himself and of course, while all this happened the only thing is his mind is how utterly alone he was.

Little by little the people close to him died or left. And the one person he thought was his ally, Jiang Cheng, was part of the mob who came to kill him.

So he died like that, thinking that the whole world hated him. Probably more than the corpses devouring him, that sole idea is what hurt him the most.

[fixielixie]

to be honest i didnt use the word evil or selfish to describe jgy here. and when i say wwx is selfless its not that im 'watering down his character' or pulling that take from my ass, its literally within the text. by reading mdzs its hard to believe that wwx is motivated by selfishness at all, when most of his ideals that he acts on come from a sense of justice and a hope to help people who are in shittier situations than himself.

lets examine the /actual/ reason jiang cheng was upset after finding out about the golden core transfer, and its not because of the reason you said. the main reason he was devastated is because he spent over a decade demonising everything wwx ever did, claiming that he was ungrateful and had never paid back his debt to the jiang sect. he now feels after finding out about the transfer that he cant hate him anymore, because who would hate someone who made such a sacrifice for him:

"Am I supposed to not hate you? Can I not hate you? Why is it that now it's like I'm supposed to have wronged you? Why do I feel like I'm the fucking clown all these years? Do I deserve to be blinded by your splendor? Am I not supposed to hate you?"

he's angry because he had thought for once he was the one who had made the nobel sacrifice when guiding the wens away from wwx and getting caught by them himself (tho he clearly didnt think of the consequences of these actions, hence losing his core) and then he finds out that wwx somehow one upped him in even /this/. his whole life he's been competing to try and be better than wwx, and he realises here that once again he lost. when it shouldnt have even been a competition in the first place: "It's enough as long as you say so? You [wwx] know everything! You're better than me at everything! Whether it be talent or cultivation or spirituality or personality, you guys knew everything while I was much lower- then what am I??"

the point im making here is to compare wwxs golden transfer to jgy marrying his sister and then killing their baby.... like those two things arent comparable in action nor in motivation. the main reason why jgy married qs in the end was not out of some noble sacrifice for her own sake, but because but not doing so would both bring to light his own fathers awfulness and would lose him favour within the jin sect. he married her to save both himself and his father face, and then when questioned about it claims that it was to protect qs. jgy paints this choice as the only option but lxc is like "you could have come to me???" literally the entire time when jgys crimes are being admitted. but that was the risker option and it wouldnt have secured jgys place in the jin sect so he didnt.

pointing out the differences in motivation for both these characters isnt me trying to simplify the reading of the text, its literally just me understanding what the text is telling me. nmj is killed by jgy because he knows too much about what jgy is capable of, which is dangerous for jgy so he takes him out. xy was personally recommended by jgy to his father so he personally facilitates his experiments on both dead and alive cultivators, because the better xy is the more it benefits jgy.

a cultivation sect dared to speak out against jgs becoming chief cultivator so jgy captures literally all 70 of them and gives them to xy to experiment on and kill, while also claiming that he had no choice in the matter: "You don't have to look at me like that. I also had no choice."

and literally in the next scene we see that jgs didn't even have any knowledge that jgy was doing this, and this was him acting on his own accord to protect the reputation of the jin sect. jgy even says xy can kill and hurt as many people as he please, as long as it isnt linked back to the jin sect "Wreck stalls however you want. I wouldn't even care if you burned down the entire street. Just one thing- don't wear the Stars Amidst Snow robes and cover up your face. Don't let anyone know who did it, or it'd be trouble for me."

like this line here practically sums up jgys morals, that as long as it doesnt hurt his own reputation or the jin sects, he really doesnt care who gets hurt or what gets destroyed, whether it be his own brother, nephew, sworn brother, child, wife, cousin, random innocents.

the reason why it was selfish for jgy to marry qs and hide the fact that they were siblings is because the only reason he chose to do this was to safe himself and his father face. and the reason i know this is because he says so himself: "If I suddenly broke off the engagement, they would have noticed what was going on and Jin Guangshan and Qin Cangye would have fallen out with each other. Who do you think would be the one that was shunned by both sides and met the worst end?"

the thing about jgy is that he generally only does things that will benefit himself, even if it means stepping on others to do so, he doesn't care about who gets hurt, /as he says so himself in his own words/. by me saying so and therefore criticising him for it, because it leads to him doing some pretty awful things, isnt me jumping to conclusions to paint him as the bad guy. his actions speak for themselves, everything i pointed out has been backed up in the text, like i said at the start, im not pulling this shit out of my ass.

I think saying that jgy is selfish and wwx is selfless is missing the point of their characters, or it's too watered down for such a nuanced topic

See, wwx is selfless in that he did things to save the wens and not himself, and jgy is selfish in that a lot if his actions were done for his own life preservation/power

But that is the surface level of thier characters. Many of the characters in MDZS are there as foils to wwx or wangxian, to show you that not everyone gets this same happy ending. Xy and jgy for example both end up losing their "light" while wwx gets his.

So when looking at jgy's motivations, sure they look selfish, but it's practically shoved in your face that no, he's been doing all of this for his mother.

He, unlike wwx, followed his mother's wishes and worked hard to become a cultivator and accepted by his father. I would say most of jgy's worst crimes all stemmed from his father, including the wife and son thing.

Wwx on the other hand was told to take care of jc. And he doesn't do that. Sure he gives jc his core, but that's it. And giving jc his core isn't necessarily protecting him. Though I'd be okay with an argument that it was, I just don't think it's inherently protective. I think, like the wens, it is a selfish act so that wwx can feel better. But again, I'm open on this subject

The problem is he leaves jc's side while the sect is in ruins to run and save the wens. Because of the wens he has to leave jc's side for basically the rest of the story.

Jgy did it for his mother while wwx defied his "mother" .

And I think that's the motivation difference, not that one is selfish and the other isn't. Because in a way leaving jc to save the wens was selfish of wwx. Staying by jc's side and helping put the sect back in order, learning how to navigate politics, THAT would be selfless of wwx.

So yeah, they're both selfish in their own ways, the difference is that jgy is selfish to fulfill his mother's wishes and wwx is selfish by denying his mother's wishes