#im also not wearing my glasses so everything i just typed is a blir on the screen

[dvasva]

I have a lot of complicated emotions about jgy that i wont get into now but i will say. Really i think peoples dislike of him comes down to who he ends up benefitting and why he hurts other people. because while wwx hurts a lot of people, we tend to view this in a more forgiving light because of something I like to call The MXTX Cycle Of Self Sacrifice And Tragedy in which an mxtx character does a big self sacrifice thing for the benefit of another character but it ultimately leads to a worse tragedy. Examples include: WQ and WN giving themselves up to jgs, only for wwx and the wens to still die, jiang yanli dying to protect wwx only for wwx to go crazy cause of her death, wwx giving jc his core only to be forced to use demonic cultivation, jc running out to save wwx fro. wens only for his core to be destroyed etc etc (there are examples in svsss and tgcf too but this is an mdzs post so i will refrain).

Some characters, imo, are kind of excluded from this cycle of Tragedy and self sacrifice, and they usually tend to be either the characters that are meant to escape this cycle of tragedy, like the juniors, OR characters who make decisions that are only meant to benefit themselves. They may make sacrifices but the sacrifices at the end of the day aren't for the benefit of other people. Theyre caught in another cycle, a foil to my MXTX Cycle of Self sacrifice and tragedy, one might say. I havent had a chance to fully define this cycle or name it but maybe i will one day.

In any case, the most moral thing you can do in mdzs, and in a lot of cultivation novels in fact, is to have Unwavering Morals. Lan Wangji is considered a paragon of morality by both the internal characters and us on the outside because he neved falters. He scolded Wwx when others praised him, and stood by his side when the world turned against him, and never compromised his own morals and decisions for any selfish reason. Wwx is the same way, despite all the tragedy, and thats why wwx and lwj respect each other from the start. AND this doesnt necessarily mean that they are making the 100% pure, unproblematic uwu they did nothing wrong decisions, this is entirely that they do not compromise what they feel is right for the sake of public opinion.

Jgy, on the other hand, is immoral because of his lack of Unfaltering Morals. He will cross any boundary he may have, change any opinion, adjust any morality, and compromise his own feelings in order to achieve greateness. To the point where a lot of times it feels like he doesn't have a sense of personal morality, only a sense of desire and ambition where anything is negotiable as long as the outcome is what he wants.

And this isnt to say none of his decisions were GOOD or didn't Benefit the Greater Good, cause its clear he did a lot of positives for cultivation society as a whole. Wwx comments how the guy is likeable and at the end of the novel, wwx doesnt really habe any personal gripe with Jgy. And you could say 'Wait! jgy does a lot of stuff for the sake of his mother, doesnt that count as self sacrifice?' but his mother kind of serves as an extension of his own ego, a dead justification for the things he does rather than a person in the story who contributes. she is the same as the guanyin statue with her likeness, passively watching over the plot, dead and unable to voice any opinion and unable to be someone who things are sacrificed for. Inherently separate from the cycle of self sacrifice.

Jgy and wwx are foils, is what it boils down to. Which doesnt mean theyre the same or make the same decisions, but their actions and decisions contrast with each other to point out and emphasize certain character traits and details. They have similar backgrounds, but make the opposite choices and yet their outcomes end up almost the same. Cycles yada yada yada.

Also, postscript, nobody likes jgs and while jgy doss eventually kill him, i think some people who dont like jgy are still pissed that he ever helped jgs for any reason, which is so valid. i hate jgs too.

MXTX: so the story starts with the main character's death. Then we unravel his story and how he tried his best but had to resort to fucked up methods in order to create real change and save lives, how society supported him while it benefited them and then turned on him when it was convenient, how his complicated social status of being gentry-adjacent was intrinsically tied into every decision he made AND how he was judged before during and after those decisions, how he experienced abuse and abandonment and support and love, saved lives AND killed people. He sacrificed everything but never compromised his ideals once, and it got him killed.

MXTX: and then we close the story on the death of this other guy, who we're also shown having gone through ALL THAT SAME STUFF, except this guy compromises every single time and that ALSO got him killed.

MXTX: neither of them were killed because it was "right" to, or because they were "evil", but because those with power in society were done with them. Their past actions were used to excuse their executions, and it's kinda fucked up actually, wouldn't you say?

MDZS fandom: 1 billion years of meta on why JGY is an irredeemable villain, and WWX is a pure cinnamon roll

[moonbelowsea]

@dvasva's tags

#trust me i have a degree #mdzs #mdzs meta #i have lots of opinions #does any of this make sense? #no causs its 7 am and ive been thinking about this post for hours #im also not wearing my glasses so everything i just typed is a blir on the screen #i think its really impressive that im typing this basically blind #theres also a lot of other nuance. #like other shit i failed to mention in this post about class and yada yada #but. #this isnt a dissertation #youre not getting that out of me unless you plan to gice me a degree afterwards

MXTX: so the story starts with the main character's death. Then we unravel his story and how he tried his best but had to resort to fucked up methods in order to create real change and save lives, how society supported him while it benefited them and then turned on him when it was convenient, how his complicated social status of being gentry-adjacent was intrinsically tied into every decision he made AND how he was judged before during and after those decisions, how he experienced abuse and abandonment and support and love, saved lives AND killed people. He sacrificed everything but never compromised his ideals once, and it got him killed.

MXTX: and then we close the story on the death of this other guy, who we're also shown having gone through ALL THAT SAME STUFF, except this guy compromises every single time and that ALSO got him killed.

MXTX: neither of them were killed because it was "right" to, or because they were "evil", but because those with power in society were done with them. Their past actions were used to excuse their executions, and it's kinda fucked up actually, wouldn't you say?

MDZS fandom: 1 billion years of meta on why JGY is an irredeemable villain, and WWX is a pure cinnamon roll