#i genuinely enjoy any opportunity to talk about jgy and discuss why he's such a cool mirror for wwx

[thatswhatsushesaid]

via @cryiling

hi hello!! I literally jumped up out of my seat with excitement to see someone who 1) admits to currently disliking jgy and who also 2) is trying to engage with the fandom, the meta, and the source material to understand why so many of us do not hate him, so 🥹 thank you so much for reading my post, even tho I think it is demonstrably clear that I am not exactly da-ge's biggest fan lmfao. I'd like to respond to a couple of the points you raised in your tags here if that's okay!

1. there's a serious problem with medium bleed when discussing jgy's actions in this fandom! tl;dr, novel!jgy =/= donghua!jgy, cql!jgy, or manhua!jgy.

the first point I have to make is that I am speaking exclusively about jin guangyao's characterization in the novel, which is the original source material from which all other adaptations draw. so while jgy's actions are portrayed with less nuance in other adaptations (e.g., the live-action drama, the animation, and the comic), in the novel his acts of violence, either for revenge or out of necessity (from his perspective), are intentionally presented to the reader through the lens of multiple different unreliable narrators, such as mingjue's fierce corpse's recollection of the past (which we then witness through wei wuxian via empathy), sect leader yao (gag), and wei wuxian himself. some things to bear in mind re: the differences between the novel and other adaptations:

jgy's decision to kill the jin commander on the langye front is explicitly stated by him in the novel as a last desperate attempt to save his own life from death on the frontlines, and to salvage his only means of receiving recognition from his father. he makes it clear that this commander is physically beating him in addition to sending him out onto the front lines as a comparatively weak and self-taught cultivator, and though it is clear that the thing that finally pushes him over the edge is the commander taking credit for his strategic successes with his father, this is still a life or death situation for jgy. if he doesn't receive recognition from jin guangshan, his options for 1) avoiding poverty and 2) fulfilling his filial obligations to his mother, meng shi, are super limited.

jgy tricks nmj in this moment because even after explaining his situation to nmj, nmj will not let him go, even though jgy makes it clear to nmj that the scales of justice are already stacked against him. nmj's opinion that righteousness will prevail is routinely proven to be false throughout the novel; we only have to look at the fates of xiao xingchen and song lan to see that. before he tricks nmj, jgy says (and I'm paraphrasing) "you are sending me to my death," meaning that if jgy returns to jgs to try to justify his actions, he will absolutely be executed--a harsh and unjust punishment when this commander was violently abusing him and sending him out onto the battlefield daily. it's also important to note that when jgy seals nmj's meridians and escapes, he does not make any further attempt to hurt him, and in fact bows to him before running away. if he wanted to kill nmj in this moment, or to hurt him further, he absolutely could have. but he didn't!

2. jgy's capacity for cruelty is a mirror for wwx's: their darkest actions are either reactive to their immediate circumstances, or the result of tremendous emotional upheaval.

specific examples of what I'm talking about when I say "reactive to their immediate circumstances":

jgy's torture and killing of prisoners of war for wen ruohan during the sunshot campaign and transporting his father's political enemies to xy for demonic cultivation practice after receiving his courtesy name. if he hadn't done these things for wen ruohan or jin guangshan, at best he would have lost his position within their courts (resulting in poverty, again); at worst, he could have been executed--and yes, I stand by that being a conceivable outcome even in jinlintai considering jgy's proximity to and awareness of jgs's investment in demonic cultivation. in short, he had to play by the rules of the game, or die.

jgy's killing of the nie sect disciples in wen ruohan's court; see above! also bear in mind that jgy is objectively attempting to buy time for lan xichen's reinforcements to arrive without blowing his cover in the process. again, play by the rules of the game, or die.

jgy's taunting and retraumatizing nie mingjue wrt nmj's father's death <- I will again state that imo jgy has limited control over his options and his actions both in qishan and in jinlintai, but as I've said in previous posts, I do think that the specific confrontation between jgy and nmj in the scorching sun palace needs to be assessed separately from jgy's other actions. because it is a watershed moment in this relationship and in the trajectory of the plot. jgy and nmj both traumatize each other here and imo should never have been allowed within 6 li of each other again after the conclusion of the sunshot campaign. (I will throw together this write-up at some point. one day.)

the second siege of the burial mounds would not have happened if jgy had not received the letter from nie huaisang threatening to expose his incestuous marriage to qin su to the broader cultivation world if jgy did not kill himself within a week's time. this one gets to be both a reaction to his circumstances as well as a 'trigger,' but I'm listing it here because it isn't an action he chooses to take when acting exclusively under his own power and volition. (like this is entrapment 101.) I'm also going to push back against the common mischaracterization of this action as being an attempt at mass murder, because it was much more complex than that, but digging down into the details of the text for the citations is a job for future-me, and this post is already long enough.

wwx's industrial scale desecration of human remains for his demonic cultivation; without a golden core, how else is he supposed to survive being in the burial mounds? this begins as a survival mechanism, but the more he utilizes it initially to survive and then to protect others, the more impossible it becomes for him to stop using it even when under pressure from the rest of the cultivation world, including jiang cheng. he is using the skillset that he has at his disposal to survive, and it is one that involves violating the autonomy of the dead of his enemies to turn them against their own friends and loved ones, potentially denying them rest and the opportunity to re-enter the wheel of reincarnation until he is 'finished' with them. (there's a parallel here between wwx using socially unacceptable cultivation methods to ensure his own survival, and jgy using socially unacceptable means of fighting back against opponents who are substantially stronger than he is, both in terms of cultivation and martial arts, to ensure his own survival. they both face censure for their actions and they are both killed for it. it was just luck and nhs's vendetta that ensured wwx received a second chance at life.)

wwx's killing of the jin sect cultivators guarding the wen sect prisoners, and allowing the wen corpses to enact their revenge upon the guards. it was very much a them or him situation.

specific examples of what I mean when I say triggered by "tremendous emotional upheaval": CW for frank discussions of rape, assault, torture, cannibalism!!

jgy having xy burn down the brothel of his childhood with all the sex workers inside, as well as his decision to murder his father through having him raped to death by sex workers, who he then has murdered, after discovering that jgs not only would never love him, but could have saved his mother from a terrible death in poverty, but chose not to because literate women are "too much trouble."

wwx's particularly grotesque torture and murder of wang lingjiao (forcing her to choke down a literal table leg in what is a transparent allusion to oral sex, and her sexual relationship with wc) and wen chao (forcing him to autocannibalize himself before having wang lingjiao bite off his genitals), as well as all of the wen sect soldiers and cultivators he murders and tortures in the immediate aftermath of the sacking of lotus pier. following the trail of bodies he leaves behind is how jiang cheng and lan wangji find him before he kills wen chao.

wwx's impulse decision to snap the neck of the younger brother of the soldier who accidentally kills jiang yanli during the nightless city massacre. this is cold-blooded murder that is obviously triggered by his rage and grief over his sister's death.

other people (e.g., @fincalinde, @confusion-and-more, and @xiyao-feels specifically) have written about the relative nature of cruelty and violence in the novel in far more detail and with far greater eloquence than I can, but I will drop a link to this specific bit of meta I wrote regarding wwx's violence towards the wen sect soldiers and cultivators after the sacking of lotus pier, vs jgy's actions regarding jin guangshan. the tl;dr version is that we can never with any certainty know jgy's mindset regarding many of his actions, but we do know that 1) he does not regret murdering jin guangshan, and 2) wei wuxian did enjoy his torture of soldiers whose involvement in the sacking of lotus pier was spurious at best. we know this because they both tell us as much, with enough hints and context clues in the text to indicate that they are telling the truth.

3. once the dust settles, jin ling can't bring himself to hate either wei wuxian or jin guangyao. that he groups them together at the end of the novel is thematically significant!

wwx makes a point of emphasizing after the guanyin temple events have concluded that jgy has essentially replaced him as a scapegoat for the ills and woes of the cultivation world, and I think it is especially important to note that it is jin ling who gives sect leader yao a thorough dressing-down when sly has the gall to tell him that jgy isn't worth crying over.

rather than re-analyze this scene myself I'm just going to redirect you to @leatherbookmark 's A+ reading of the scene, which includes excerpts, pls go read it! and while I do think it is possible to make the argument that "oh, jin ling just bought into all of jgy's lies, he was deceived, jgy never cared about him," I think that is an unnecessarily reductive and shallow reading of the text, and jin ling's feelings about his relationship with his uncle matters, especially given their placement in the text. I'm bringing up these characters' perspectives specifically to show what a wide range of opinions about jgy the novel presents to the reader at the point he ends up trapped in the get-along crypt with nmj for the next hundred years because jgy's ability to speak for himself at this point is over. he can't. so what do we have left? I think it is important that jin ling is the one who defends his right to cry over the loss of a relative who, yes, was responsible for a great deal of loss and hardship, but who also was present for him throughout his life as a source of stability and comfort and support.

and I'm running out of steam at this point, whoo I wrote a lot of words, but I hope this at least provides some clarity around the issues you raised in your tags, and gives you more stuff to think about regarding jgy. 🙏

did nie mingjue give jin guangyao a 'new life' after his mother's death?

okay i'm not trying to call out one post specifically or anything but this is definitely not the first post on this site to call jin guangyao the cruelest character in MDZS, and that is such a reach, especially when both xue yang and jin guangshan are, you know, right there. but i also want to dig into one of the points raised about jin guangyao and nie mingjue's relationship, and what they owe to each other, because i could not disagree with the principle assertion more.

so, did jin guangyao "[kill] the man who gave him a new life after his mother died"?

I assume we are discussing nie mingjue here and not jin guangshan lmfao.

okay, let's for the sake of argument assume your assertion that jin guangyao owes nie mingjue a life debt is correct. to be clear: I don't think it is. i do not think that meng yao owes nie mingjue a life debt when he comes into his service, nor do I think that he accrues one after receiving his courtesy name and title of lianfang-zun. but let's just pretend anyway.

JGY LIFE DEBTS OWED TO NMJ (STARTING TALLY): 1 - because nie mingjue gave him a job NMJ LIFE DEBTS OWED TO JGY (STARTING TALLY): 0 - how nice for him

I also want to emphasize that nie mingjue's attempt to help creates additional hardship for meng yao that he likely wouldn't have experienced if nie mingjue had stopped to ask him what he wanted before deciding he knew best. recall that he did not offer meng yao a promotion after overhearing his cultivators mocking his low birth: he just gave it to him, without considering how this promotion might (and in fact did) cause the bullying and harassment meng yao received from the nie sect cultivators to escalate. please also remember that meng yao does not ask mingjue for a letter of recommendation to take to jin guangshan to seek his recognition--he does not even want to leave! in fact he is explicitly telling lan xichen in that moment before nie mingjue interrupts their conversation that he feels obligated to remain with nie mingjue! it is nie mingjue who decides to send him off to jin guangshan with a letter of recommendation, and while meng yao expresses his immense gratitude for this gesture in the moment, it is so important to emphasize that he not only did not ask for this, but he was not asked if he wanted it, either. even then, the letter of recommendation that nie mingjue sends along with meng yao when he opts to release him from his service does not open any doors for meng yao at all. in fact, jin guangshan seems to use this as the perfect opportunity to eliminate another inconvenient bastard son during war time, and assigns meng yao--a weak and self-taught cultivator--to the front lines under a captain who not only beats and abuses him, but also forces him to come up with military strategies for the jin sect's successes, which he then takes the credit for when reporting to jin guangshan. if meng yao had not killed this captain, it's likely he would have died on the langye front during the sunshot campaign. meng yao gives himself a new life as jin guangyao and lianfang-zun because he is the one who kills wen ruohan during the battle for nightless city, and he does this entirely on his own (making use of deceit and trickery that nie mingjue finds dishonourable, in fact).

but anyway. after presumably giving meng yao this 'new life' in the form of the impromptu field promotion that meng yao did not ask for, meng yao repays his, um, debt (is that what we owe our employers when we are already providing them our labour?) to nie mingjue in full (??? only in full? he isn't, you know, maybe owed some change?) when he saves nie mingjue's life from wen ruohan at the battle of nightless city. and to save myself a lot of stress and frustration, let's all just collectively agree that, while the life-debt ratio of "giving someone a job" vs "risking your life to save else's" is absolutely not 1:1 in the real world, we're just. assuming it is, for the sake of this argument. the salient point is jin guangyao's ledger is now clear. he's back in the black, as it were.

JGY LIFE DEBTS OWED TO NMJ (UPDATED TALLY): 0 - he saved the life of the guy who gave him a job NMJ LIFE DEBTS OWED TO JGY (UPDATED TALLY): 0 - and the guy who gave jgy the job does not owe him anything in return for having his life saved, since jobs and lives are interchangeable and of equal value apparently

that's it, y'all, they're square.

except nie mingjue then explicitly attempts to murder meng yao/jin guangyao three times before jin guangyao even begins to play the song of spirit turmoil for him. which means we need a new scoreboard for keeping track of the mutual-murder attempts that define the rest of their relationship, beginning immediately post-sunshot campaign. here's where the mutual-murder attempt tally stands:

JGY'S ATTEMPTS TO MURDER NMJ (STARTING TALLY): 0 - he did literally the opposite of attempting to murder nie mingjue NMJ'S ATTEMPTS TO MURDER JGY (STARTING TALLY): 1 - nie mingjue tries to kill meng yao (who is not fighting back!!) with baxia, prior to being stopped by lan xichen (chapter 49)

that's explicit attempt #1! but if we believe that part of lan xichen's intent with all three of them swearing brotherhood to each other was to, in essence, provide jin guangyao and nie mingjue a clean slate upon which to rebuild trust in their relationship, then let's go ahead and reset that scoreboard. even though that is not how reconciliation between human beings actually works, particularly not when mutually-inflicted trauma is at work, but. whatever.

JGY'S ATTEMPTS TO MURDER NMJ (UPDATED TALLY): 0 - by the power vested in zewu-jun as the first jade of lan, apparently NMJ'S ATTEMPTS TO MURDER JGY (UPDATED TALLY): 0 - zewu-jun now pronounces u both even stevens, you may put baxia down. ..put it down, mingjue.

nie mingjue does not put baxia down, figuratively or literally. explicit attempt to murder jin guangyao #2 happens after they have sworn their binding oath of brotherhood to each other, and is the infamous "what else should I expect from the son of a prostitute" confrontation at the top of the jinlintai tower steps. nie mingjue literally kicks jin guangyao down 50 solid stone steps, which could easily have broken his neck or spine (or both). please note that this was an unprovoked act of violence against a much, much weaker cultivator whose only offence[1] against nie mingjue--arguably the strongest cultivator and martial artist of his generation--at this point was… saying words nie mingjue didn't like, and not killing xue yang when nie mingjue told him to. time to update the scoreboard again!

JGY'S ATTEMPTS TO MURDER NMJ (UPDATED TALLY): 0 - no, jin guangyao has not begun playing the song of spirit turmoil for nie mingjue yet! (chapter 104) [2] NMJ'S ATTEMPTS TO MURDER JGY (UPDATED TALLY): 1 - kicks nmj down the jinlintai steps, which, yes, is attempted murder (chapter 49)

which brings us to explicit murder attempt #3, which happens immediately after nie mingjue kicking him down the stairs. while jin guangyao is still recovering and picking himself up off the ground (in other words, not retaliating in any way or provoking further violence) nie mingjue unsheathes baxia to finish the job, and would absolutely have done so if lan xichen had not, yet again, intervened to protect jin guangyao. you know what time it is now.

JGY'S ATTEMPTS TO MURDER NMJ (UPDATED TALLY): 0 - nope, still has not begun playing the song of spirit turmoil between getting punted down the stairs and standing back up again NMJ'S ATTEMPTS TO MURDER JGY (UPDATED TALLY): 2 - yes, this is a second attempt at actual murder, I am not going to argue about this with anyone

all of this happens /gestures @ literally all of that, while jin guangyao is continuously traveling back and forth between jinlintai and qinghe to play the unaltered version of cleansing to help stabilize nie mingjue's qi. we know this because lan xichen explicitly tells us this in chapter 49, and nie mingjue agrees with him. we also know that this unaltered version of cleansing is having a positive impact on nie mingjue's spirit and his relationship with jin guangyao, because wei wuxian remarks on this while experiencing nie mingjue's memories in empathy. to be very clear: before jin guangyao has played the song of spirit turmoil for nie mingjue even one time, nie mingjue has already tried to kill jin guangyao three times. he is actively attempting to murder jin guangyao while jin guangyao is actively working together with lan xichen to repair their relationship and forestall nie mingjue's inevitable death by qi deviation. and we can go around in circles all day about whether jin guangyao ultimately kills nie mingjue solely because he is defending himself against a man who will not stop trying to kill him, or whether he's doing this because daddy said jump, or if it is a bit of both--I fall into the "it is always a bit of both" camp with jin guangyao--but that is actually beside the point.

the point: if we are keeping score about who has attempted to murder whom (and how frequently) by the time nmj ultimately kicks it, the final tally is nie mingjue 3 - jin guangyao 1. if we include his attempt to kill jin guangyao at the point of his qi deviation, the final tally becomes nie mingjue 4 - jin guangyao 1. so, even if i didn't disagree with the principle assertion made here, i would argue that jin guangyao not only squared that debt to nie mingjue years ago by saving him from wen ruohan, nie mingjue in fact now owes a life debt to jin guangyao for all the attempts to kill the guy who literally saved his life.

tl;dr these are the actions of a man who gave his subordinate a lot of trauma and anxiety, but not a new life.

[1] I am shelving any discussion of what meng yao does or doesn't owe nie mingjue within the context of his time spent undercover in wen ruohan's court because I feel there is nuance enough in that situation to justify its own post. meng yao and nie mingjue both deeply, irreparably traumatized each other in that situation and should never have been let within 6 li of each other ever again after the end of the war, much less pressured to swear brotherhood to each other. (grips lan xichen's shoulders, stares deeply into his beautiful eyes: wtf were you thinking, er-ge)

[2] even if I were to agree that he obtained the song of spirit turmoil in advance of the stairs incident and had already begun playing the song for nie mingjue (which I do not), it is clear that mingjue is improving, pre-stairs. this implies that jin guangyao, while he may have prepared a contingency plan, has not been putting any spiritual power into the portion of cleansing that contains the altered bars of the music. we know that he is capable of altering which parts of the song receive spiritual power because both wei wuxian and lan xichen confirm that this is possible in their (emotionally fraught, for poor xichen) conversation inside the cloud recesses library pavilion after the torn page is discovered. this, combined with the two to three month time frame that the altered song requires to trigger mingjue's qi deviation, plus the two month time frame that jin guangyao presents disingenuously to nie mingjue regarding xue yang, are clear textual evidence in support of my position. the music changes after the stairs.

[evilhasnever]

so I saw an old post (that was not even about JGY) saying that everyone in Lan Xichen’s life takes and takes from him and never gives back, which in itself is a thought I could ponder or discuss further, but someone in the replies singled out JGY as the worst offender and I couldn’t disagree more with that.

I’d argue Jin Guangyao is the only person who gives LXC the same amount of care and attention that LXC gives others. Nobody else is shown (in canon) doing nearly remotely the same for Lan Xichen - not LWJ, not NMJ, nobody. 

JGY rebuilds the Cloud Recesses, always gives his political support when the Lan (esp. LWJ) are in hot waters, prepares LXC’s favorite fruits when he visits, they talk late into the night every time they meet... I bet he is returning LXC’s hand-painted gifts with painstakingly chosen gifts of his own. I’d say they both visibly enjoy being nice to each other, and just generally being around each other.

And before any bad faith argument that JGY is being kind and solicitous with LXC just to kiss ass or stay on his good side, first of all when he is CC he doesn’t need to go out of his way to do so (LXC already thinks the world of him before Meng Yao ever becomes JGY, and before he ever had the means or opportunity to do things for Lan Xichen’s sake, anyway) and second of all there is no indication whatsoever that his feelings towards LXC are ever anything but positive. Why wouldn’t they be? LXC is only ever good to him. 

But also: while LXC is certainly special to him, this is also just what JGY *does*. He returns kindness with kindness and hurt with hurt (cf. that ZZJ interview in which he plainly says “if you’re good to him he will be good to you”). Sisi and QS were kind to him so he tried his best to protect them (even though their situation was entirely fucked), NMJ was once good to him so he saved him from WRH, etc. If everyone had been as nice to JGY as LXC was, things would have been peachy. Anyway I’m digressing. The tl;dr is that xiyao is built upon mutual respect, genuine appreciation, and reciprocal care (cf. that lhk interview in which he described them as people who always support each other) and they both relish in it! It’s a unique dynamic that they do not share with anyone else, and that is why it’s so fundamentally important to them to the point that lxc is referred to as jgy’s white moonlight in a world of gray, and lxc in turn is shattered completely by jgy’s death.