#hua cheng's devotion is unending

[0uterc4t]

TGFC SPOILERS!!!

i was today years old when i realized that hua cheng's ascension was him protecting xie lian's dream; the biggest question i had about the story of his ascension has always been "why would he protect a bunch of strangers?" and, obviously the answer i gave myself was "for xie lian, because he still wanted to protect the people of his god".

if your dream is to save the common people, then my dream is only you.

i had the answer right in front of my eyes and couldnt see it. we are blinded by xl's pov and tend to forget thay hua cheng is in fact evil, he did a lot of bad things that granted him his influence over the three realms. yet for his god, for his lover, he managed to ASCEND in heaven while already being a GHOST. he sacrified himself, a part of himself or even better, the part of himself he hated the most so that he could persevere xie lian's dream of saving the common people. his soul was about to shatter but instead of feeding on the livings trapped in mount tonglu (they would have died either way since no human being can survive that place), not only he decided not to arm them - meaning almost certain death - but he decided to sacrifice himself AND protect them. and all this was AFTER the wu ming arc. after he watched xie lian losing himself, seeing him thirsting for revenge and doing all that stuff, after seeing that just one single person decided to stop and help his god. and this isnt something granted coming from a person like hua cheng, but the very thing is that he undersrands xie lian's true self, and that's why he did what he did. he probably saw all that was happening and decided not to intervene because he knew what xie lian needed, and saw what that one person meant for xl.

fucking simp.

[sunshineastro]

hello tgcf fandom. let’s talk about yin yu and hua cheng’s relationship for a minute .

yin yu as a banished god, being picked up by the last believer of another banished god. yin yu spending years and years serving hua cheng and witnessing the art he creates and the worship he bestows and the love he carries. yin yu being one of the few people who knows the full truth of xie lian’s fall from grace, because he’s proven himself trustworthy. yin yu learning this and learning what’s been done to hua cheng and how deeply he still loves xie lian, and maybe for the first time in his life being able to look at himself as something good.

not necessarily because hua cheng wants him in any way, but because if xie lian is still deserving of love (and of course he is, yin yu would never argue otherwise) and if their stories are so similar… well, let’s be honest, that’s what it would take for yin yu to feel capable of being a person again. i think he looks at hua cheng’s unending devotion and hears about wu ming and he sees quan yizhen. who was willing to die if yin yu asked it of him, in much the same way.

i don’t know how to end this, i just think the parallels there are neat :)

[grassbreads]

I cannot believe I forgot that Xie Lian's "god-pleasing warrior" costume in the parade is meant to represent Jun Wu. Holy shit.

Xie Lian is literally introduced to us not only dressed as Jun Wu, but acting the part of him in a performance, and his costume is topped off with a full-face mask. When Jun Wu later tries to force Xl to become him, to act out his deeds while dressed as him, mask and all, he's asking him to so for the second time. Because everyone agrees that Xie Lian and Jun Wu's lives as crown princes are perfect parallels. Pre-ascension Xl fits perfectly into the narrative when Jw tries to cast him as himself, and so Xl wears his beautiful costume and mask in the parade.

The question of book 4 is whether Xie Lian will follow Jun Wu's path post-banishment, with donning the costume and mask of the White No-Face as a symbol that Xl is becoming Jw. Xie Lian wears the older crown prince's clothes and mask when their stories fit together, and Jw can once again cast Xl as himself when he gathers the souls of Xianle's army to unleash the curse.

Then Xie Lian's path diverges from the original crown prince's. He doesn't fall completely down the path of hatred and isolation, and for the next 800 years, he trades out all the masks and Jun-Wu costumes for a bamboo hat. Even better, when Xie Lian eventually defeats Jun Wu, he does so clothes-first. The emperor's beautiful armor is shattered, and the rest follows suit.

Xl even gives his old god his bamboo hat in the end, reversing which one of them's costuming who. (and notice how the mask is something to hide behind or deceive with, whereas the hat is simply something for protection).

The thing is, Xie Lian was never quite so perfect a parallel to the Crown Prince of Wuyong as everyone thought. Xie Lian played him in the parade, and he played him perfectly, but then Hua Cheng appeared, and Xl abandoned his role immediately. He lept from the stage and his planned path in order to rescue a common person, losing his mask in the process, and thus showed his true colors to the world.

Xie Lian may be similar to Jun Wu on the surface, but for the past 800 years, even from the first pages of the book, the things that have set him apart have been Hua Cheng and his unending devotion to saving the common people.

That's Xie Lian's true face under the mask Jun Wu puts on him.