#flute classism is real my dudes

[hollowwhisperings]

The difference is much more one of martial status than birth or social station: there is also that Awkward Reality that, while Wei Wuxian behaved & was generally treated as a "Young Master" (due to his fostering & lack of true peers, strength-wise)... there was no sect to stand behind him.

The burning of Lotus Pier left the membership of Yunmeng Jiang to be as follows:

Sect Leader Jiang Wanyin (16/17 years old). Wielder of Sandu & Zidian.

Jiang Yanli (19 y/o ~ early 20's). Non-combatant.

Wei Wuxian (17 y/o). No longer wielding Suiban.

That's it. Everyone else was dead.

There was no Sect, no homebase nor material assets, no elders nor fellow cultivators... nothing & no one to support any of the Jiang siblings, Wei Wuxian included. The only things standing between WWX and a powerhungry mob were WWX himself, "Sandu Shengshou", and Courtesy.

"Courtesy" is what enabled the Jiang to sit in War Councils, the "time" to search for their MIA brother, troops to help them reclaim Lotus Pier, food to eat, allies to guard their backs when they slept. After the War, "Courtesy" kept debtors at bay: all those "loans" (of troops, resources and "good will") accrued during the War to be Repaid (with interest). "Courtesy" kept Yumeng Jiang from being completely overrun by anyone & everyone so they could "have" their Formal Mourning periods. "Courtesy" was what kept Debtors from showing up at the Jiang's doorstep, demanding repayment in the form of Wei Wuxian. The Jin wanted him as a Pet Researcher. Gusu Lan wanted him as an emergency patient. Various minor sect leaders wanted him as a rentable army-of-one, an instructor, a head on a spike (etc). Sandu Shengshou had the "Right" of Outraged Refusal because Courtesy gave him that right, as Wei Wuxian's Sect Leader.

It is this "Courtesy" that Wei Wuxian was not reciprocating.

While we, the readers, Know WWX literally Couldn't (he was a freshly malnourished mortal drinking himself into forgetting the past 2-ish years entirely)... his Sudden Inability to Be Courteous was Dangerous.

(for himself & Yunmeng Jiang, politically; for everyone, as veterans of a very recently ended war)

Yunmeng Jiang didn't really become an Actual Sect again until Jiang Yanli's marriage to Jin Zixuan: her hueband was a powerful ally, being a peer to her brothers in sword cultivation, and a Useful Blockade between the powerhungry (his father, most obviously) and the still-fragile Yunmeng Jiang (without WWX, its martial strength was Jiang Wanyin + his new reputation as "Sandu Shengshou").

That Jin Rulan survived his father's death spoke of Powerful Protectors, Jiang Yanli's death told us who was "Protecting" him: people seeking a "justification" to play Regent to her son-as-figurehead. Without Jin Zixuan, Jiang Yanli & Jin Rulan were effectively hostages of the Jin: Jin Rulan remained a hostage, even despite Jiang Wanyin's best efforts, all the way to the events at the Guanyin Temple.

Yunmeng Jiang was never in a position to protect itself, not after the Burning of Lotus Pier, let alone support its most valuable & dangerous asset (WWX): similarly, the Jiang siblings could not support their brother because, 1) he would not let them & 2) the only one "qualified" to help WWX in the way he needed... was Wen Qing, considered by WWX as being the foremost doctor in the Cultivation World.

The Jiang siblings did not have the skillset of An Actual Medical Doctor nor any "sufficiently" similar traumatic experiences that would allow them to Recognise or Relate to the [horrific ball of poor coping mechanisms & self-destruction] that had so changed their brother: what little WWX recalls from this time is his being Drunk or Trying To Get Drunk (a cheaper effort, with him so "freshly" malnourished & sans a golden liver but still costlier than his family could really afford at that time).

The only people WWX "believed" he could confide in were the Dead, as evidenced by those ghost girls LWJ was so jealous of &, later, Wen Qionglin.

Wen Qing was probably singlehandedly responsible in "postponing" WWX's self-destruction until after [politics] "Shot First": she Knew His Biggest Secret & had a somewhat "comparable" experience to his Surviving the Burial Mounds (via being a POW &, previoisly, Wen Ruohan's personal physician).

Yunmeng Jiang was never famous for its healing arts but, again, the Sect only had three known survivors. The Jiang siblings, meanwhile, could not recognise that WWX's needs were Medical and that "have you tried meditating" was no longer a viable option.

WWX refused any & all help right until Wen Qing, most Esteemed Doctor in the setting (by WWX's reckoning), showed up. That she Knew of his "pre-existing condition" made her uniquely qualified, from WWX's perspective, and her Past as Wen Ruohan's personal physician made her "safe" to confide in (if Wen Qing had not personally witnessed "worse things" than what WWX might confide, she at least had "experience" in concealing any Judgement or Pity).

The circumstances were universally terrible: even if Wei Wuxian had been officially adopted into the Jiang family, made into his younger brother's "heir" in their family register, his lack of a Golden Core & his "refusing" to follow protocol by openly carrying his weapons would still be a Problem.

Nie Huaisang could "get away with" what he did becauae he spent his entire life making him the subject of piteous vitriol, of "humiliating" himself & his Sect. Nie Huaisang was considered a walking joke, publically scorned for his entire life, ridiculed and the only "expectation" that cultivators not of his Sect had for him was "cowardice". He cultivated this image, on purpose, his entire life: if he was seen with a weapon, someone would joke it was more dangerous to NHS than anyone else.

Wei Wuxian had never truly concerned himself with his public image: this is a Plot Point. Jiang Wanyin and Jiang Yanli were little better, when it came to politics: they were their parents' children (but withhout the decades of experience to compensate for it). The only thing that could have made Wei Wuxian's breaking protocol non-problematic, short of having Bao San-Ren fly by to give his dizi her "Seal of Approval" (& threatening imminent mortality on anyone saying otherwise), would be stripping WWX of any power by outing himself as being without a Golden Core. He would additionally need to Destroy the Stygian Tiger Seal with every Sect standing witness, erase his own memories of [developing necromancy], and Lie that the Seal could have only been created in the extreme circumstances of [blatant lies], ideally with Bao San-Ren nodding along to said Lies.

In short: Wei Wuxian was screwed. The extent to which he and his "foil", Jin Guangyao, were "screwed over" by Circumstances Beyond Their Control is matched only, perhaps, by the times everyone was screwed over by Flagrant Miscommunication.

It's why the Juniors are always the "Hope Spot": they talk to each other, witnessing firsthand the Consequences of not doing so.

I like how Nie Huaisang straight up refuses to cultivate and carry a sword and no one has anything to say about that because he’s a sect heir but when Wei Wuxian, son of a servant, does it suddenly it’s a problem.