#did the fact that the Wen were becoming aggressive and attacking people for no reason escape you that this was a bad thing?

[admirableadmiranda]

Don't get me wrong. I just looove all of MDZS. Be it novel or any adaptation. But I just find WWX to be so passive when it comes to the rest of the cultivation world. Like he annihilated a great part of the Wen Sect as revenge to what they did to the Jiang sect. But when it came down to his new family he just went like: it's all in the past. Blah blah blah. I know its part of his character but honestly I find it unrealistic for anyone to react like that. Lol, im suprised he had unrest after his death for 13 years and for what?! being a good person. I think that WWX a great protagnist but his was too heavy of a price to pay he feels too perfect and too good and although that great. I kinda feel a little odd how easy he lets stuff go. Personally, the cultivation world is horrible and unjust that I see no good in it at all. He didn't even know Wen Yuan survived until the end of the story. Likd c'mon at least destroy some more major sects. 🥺😔

Anon, this sort of attitude towards the events of the story is one that I do not find particularly pleasing and a sign of usually missing the point and themes of the story. There is no small amount of thought and intent that MXTX put into making Wei Wuxian the sort of protagonist he is and it makes the book better for it.

Wei Wuxian is not the sort of person who would casually kill uninvolved people for being associated with those who did once hurt him before, and to suggest he should have is to drag him down to the levels of Jin Guangyao, blackening him beyond repair or respect for his character. To call him passive is to ignore the very nature of what he sees and why his choice actually changes something.

Let's for a moment, go ahead and consider what Modaozushi looks like if he does do that. If instead of choosing to not take vengeance on everyone and sundry, he instead brings the storm of fire and vengeance the clans fear because if it were them in his position they would do that.

Let's see why it's such a worse story than Modaozushi itself is.

Wei Wuxian: misunderstood person who was labelled as a villain before his death and had his reputation trashed to hell and back to cover up their shame at their actions, comes back and decides to wreak vengeance on the clans, wipe out some major clans in return, right as they did to him and the Wen Remnants, down to even the innocent children had they seen him.

These major clans would be the Lan, the Nie, the Jin and the Jiang.

So our story instead of beginning with us seeing that there's something off about the story we're told and the character we meet, he instead at best lets the Lan boys die trying to fight the arm. Sizhui is dead. His whole efforts that ended in his death the first time are utterly wasted now. But that doesn't seem to be something people consider when blithely suggesting that he should wipe out some major clans, especially since he's very quick to remind us that the children are innocent of what came before them in canon!

But I digress, we are not telling Modaozushi the actual brilliant story, we are telling MDZS the flat revenge story.

So Wei Wuxian kills or lets die all the Lan juniors that were trying to fight the arm and this is now fine because it's what the clans did to him. The next people he would run into is Jin Ling! The son of his beloved Shijie. But he's a Jin and part of the Jin clan and children are not immune from his revenge and Jin Ling is not kind to him when they first meet.

So Jin Ling will die. Then yes, we will finally have someone involved who was actually at the siege; Jiang Cheng. Who now will have a good reason to want to kill Wei Wuxian as he just killed Jin Ling in cold blood because he is related to a clan that led a siege on him in his past life.

Since he has to kill the people in the major clans and eradicate them, Lan Wangji can't live either. Too bad, so sad, no sweet romance, we're here for a vengeance plot. Whether it happens in Mo Manor or Dafan Mountain, it would be a rough fight, but well, Wei Wuxian is here to kill the major clans so Lan Wangji has to die.

Nie Huaisang pulled a lot of strings and helped him come back to life, as well as the fact that his Nie Clan is very visibly, tangibly no longer the same clan that Nie Mingjue led against him. But it's a major clan, with people connected to those that hurt him. No gratitude for any of this, Wei Wuxian can kill all of them.

At this point he probably ends up dying in another siege by Jin and Lan hands that is in fact entirely justified because what you are advocating for is him wiping out any clans that were involved in any way no matter the situation and while yes, I know that when people are saying this they're going "Of course Wei Wuxian would let the children, and Nie Huaisang, and Lan Wangji live, because he's not a bad guy", but that's not what they're saying.

What they and you are advocating for is the cycles of vengeance and killing to continue on and on and on. What you want is not an actual act of justice or change that will lead to a better world, but yet more senseless bloodlust. No one in this world is completely unconnected from this.

Wei Wuxian takes not a passive action, but an active one. He has not forgotten what came before, but he chooses where to place his anger and when to act on it. He wants nothing to do with Jiang Cheng and actively runs away from him multiple times. The only time he talks to Lan Qiren at all is in the cave during the Second Siege and after that continues to ignore him as much as he wants.

He calls out the people who are trying to blame him for what happened, he makes it very clear that he will not shoulder their blame for no reason, he still defends them because as much as he personally may not like them, no one deserves what Jin Guangyao tried to do to them.

Do you not realize that, anon? Do you not realize that the same choice to give his all to protect the Wen Remnants despite their connection to the people who wiped out the Jiang clan before is the one he keeps taking in his second life? By all means the Jiang revenge is the outlier here. He doesn't do that again and it is very connected with the trauma of the burial mounds and the beginning of an all out war when he does. Wei Wuxian is not being passive, he is continuing to make the same choices he did before because what the actual decision he is making is that no one deserves to die for a name.

You want here for Wei Wuxian to be judge, jury and executioner. You want him to go out and kill a bunch of nameless people because they share a name with people who sieged him thirteen years before. It's not a good thing. It's still mob mentality. You aren't making him stronger or more righteous to kill more people, you're just erasing the very message that the story carries.

What good would happen if he decided to actually go do as a lot of people want and massacre a bunch of great Clans? Would it fix the societal problems that led to his death the first time? Would it bring back the Wen Remnants and make it so that nothing bad happened the first time?

Or would it just respark the war and cycles of hatred that have plagued him and his generation since they were children and ensure that there will be no such thing as peace in any lifetime?

Wei Wuxian and the Wen Remnants are left with a unique choice in their lifetimes, something that many people do not get. They get to look their killers in the eye, during a time where they could let them be killed and the people around them expect it, and save their lives anyway regardless of their history. They say "You killed me, but your right to live is more important to me than my justified anger. I will keep you alive when I could stand by and do nothing." That is not passive. That is not naive.

I strongly suggest that you consider why it is that you think the story is not as good because Wei Wuxian didn't do exactly what you would have done in that situation. He's not a blank self insert who does actions that don't make sense, we see this pattern of choices play out multiple times.

Why do you conflate justice with death? Who determined that the only way to get get revenge is to bury them? Wei Wuxian's revenge is far better served by him getting everything he ever wanted, a life where he is at peace and loved, with no more battles to fight.

I think that's a much more valuable story than any amount of extraneous murder would have ever been.