#like he did not just cause a chaotic bloodbath with the love of his life

[lunaxx08]

varadha : you're so dramatic!

deva, with a rose between his lips, throwing glitter around, dressed in formal wear, draping himself across a piano : i have no idea what you are talking about.

[no--envies]

Nightless City – An analysis of Wei Wuxian’s accountability

I’ve come across several takes about the bloodbath of Nightless City that don’t really sit well with me. Some people say Wei Wuxian is totally to blame, others that he’s totally blameless, and I personally disagree with both. I think that, like in many other events in the novel, what really happened is more complex.

(All the translations are by Exiled Rebels Scanlations)

First of all, the text shows us that Wei Wuxian wasn’t completely clear-headed even before going to Nightless City, which is normal considering what he was going through. His whole world had crumbled in just a few hours. Everything he’d done until that moment – the sacrifices he had made for what he believed was right – appeared to be for nothing. He ended up hurting the people most dear to him, and he couldn’t even protect those he had wanted to protect. When he could move again after the three days he spent in the cave immobilized by Wen Qing’s needle, for a while he didn’t even know what to do or where to go.

After he got down the mountain, he stood amid the bushes, catching his breath. Bent down, he propped his hands against his knees for a long while before he stood up straight again. Yet, looking at the wild grasses that covered many of the mountain paths, he didn’t know where to go.

Burial Mound—he’d just gone down from there.

Lotus Pier—he hadn’t been back in over a year.

Koi Tower? Three days had passed already. If he went now, it was likely that Wen Qing’s corpse and Wen Ning’s ashes were the only things left.

He stood blankly. Suddenly, he felt that the world had no place for him, despite how large it was. He didn’t know what to do either.

(Chapter 77)

It’s rare to see Wei Wuxian so utterly lost and miserable. What happened was too much for even someone like him – who always tends to look at the bright side of any situation – to be able to deal with it. Since he doesn’t know where else to go, he decides to go to Koi Tower to retrieve the Wen siblings’ ashes, but he doesn’t manage to do anything before he’s discovered and forced to flee. He wanders without purpose for a long time until he arrives at a city gate where he hears a group of cultivators talking about him with contempt, which triggers his anger.

The longer Wei WuXian listened, the colder his expression grew.

He should’ve understood long ago. No matter what he did, not a single good word would come out of these people’s mouths. When he won, others feared; when he lost, others rejoiced.

He was cultivating the crooked path either way, so what exactly did the years of persistence mean? What exactly were they for?

However, the colder his eyes were, the brighter the raging fire within his heart burned.

(Chapter 77)

We see him come to a very bitter realization: no matter his noble intentions and moral integrity, everyone has already made up their mind about him, he would be made into a villain no matter what he does. Before what happened at Qiongqi Path he had managed to keep a positive mindset, since he was doing fine in the Burial Mounds with the Wen remnants. It wasn’t an easy life, but they were safe, they didn’t starve and Wei Wuxian was free to focus on his research and inventions in peace, creating the Compass of Evil and the Spirit-Attraction Flag. He missed his family, but he also found another one. He had people who loved him and valued him, and whom he loved and valued in turn. All in all, he was content. He thought that as long as he didn’t actively seek trouble, the world would leave him alone. But he was wrong. Jin Zixun ambushed him accusing him of something he didn’t do, and everything spiraled down so quickly he couldn’t do anything to prevent it, until he lost control of his demonic cultivation and killed Jin Zixuan.

In this moment, Wei Wuxian feels completely alone. The Wen siblings are gone, his beloved shijie might hate him for killing her husband and the cultivation world as a whole can’t wait to besiege him. If it had been another time, he wouldn’t have beaten up those random cultivators. It’s not like it was the first time he heard awful rumors about himself. The fact that he reacts so violently here says a lot about the state of mind he’s in. Wei Wuxian is clearly looking for a way to vent his anger, so he takes it out on the cultivators who are speaking ill of him. His rage is justified: not only were they saying malicious things about him without even knowing the full story, but they were doing it cowardly behind his back. However, his reaction is somewhat disproportionate to their offense: one of them gets kicked in the face until he passes out from the pain, while another gets his legs broken for daring to speak up. Although he doesn’t kill them, he does terrorize them and in the end he leaves them there immobilized by the spirits he had summoned (if Lan Wangji hadn’t been looking for Wei Wuxian, who knows how long they would have had to wait to be freed).

After this, Wei Wuxian sees the announcement of the pledge conference and goes to Nightless City. I’ve seen people argue that he was only trying to protect the Wen remnants and that the people who were there had already pledged to kill him, so it was self-defense. But is it really the case? Personally, I don’t think what he did was self-defense. Sure, he tried to discuss first and didn’t attack until he was attacked, but defending himself and the Wen remnants wasn’t the main reason he was there in the first place.

The crowd flung curses at him, but Wei WuXian accepted all of them.

Anger was the only thing that could suppress the other feelings within his heart.

(Chapter 78)

All of his pain, desperation and guilt were too much to handle at once, so he tried to suppress them all with anger, and directed that anger at the people who hated him. Wei Wuxian didn’t go to the pledge conference to try to prevent the siege from happening (since he thought it wouldn’t change anything anyway) or to weaken the Sects’ forces. He went there to vent his anger and frustration. Wei Wuxian is not clear-headed here, as highlighted by this passage:

Wei WuXian spun around to dodge the attack and laughed, “Fine, fine. I knew since the start that we’d have to fight a real fight like this one sooner or later. You’ve always found me disagreeable no matter what. Come on!”

Hearing this, Lan WangJi’s movements paused, “Wei Ying!”

Although he shouted the words, any sane person would be able to tell that Lan WangJi’s voice was clearly shaking. However, right now, Wei WuXian had already lost his judgement. He was already half-mad, half-unconscious. All evil was being augmented by him. He felt that everyone loathed him and he loathed everyone as well. He wouldn’t be scared no matter who came at him. It wouldn’t matter no matter who came at him. It was all the same anyway.

(Chapter 78)

In this moment Wei Wuxian believes everyone hates him and there’s no use trying to convince them otherwise – there’s no use trying to reason with them in a diplomatic way because no matter what he says or does, his words will be twisted to fit the opinions of the crowd. He almost welcomes the attack because this way he can attack them back and vent all his pent-up anger. Wei Wuxian is not behaving like his usual self here. He can’t see Lan Wangji isn’t trying to hurt him because his mind is not lucid. This is why he loses control of his demonic cultivation for the second time, injuring Jiang Yanli.

His shijie is the only one who manages to calm him down a little despite his chaotic state of mind. He manages to stop the corpses from attacking everyone and waits for her to tell him what she thinks of him, if she forgives him or not. However, she dies to save his life before being able to say anything, and the whole situation becomes simply too much for him to bear. All of his emotions crush him at once, so in his already half-unconscious state he activates the Tiger Seal, effectively erasing any chance he might have had to redeem himself in the eyes of society.

The point of this analysis isn’t to blame or absolve Wei Wuxian. It’s very easy to empathize with his anguish in these scenes. What he was going through was incredibly stressful and the root cause (the ambush at Qiongqi Path) wasn’t his fault. Even Lan Wangji says he can neither condemn nor justify his actions, but he’s willing to face all the consequences with him anyway.

I told [Wangji] when I went to see him, Young Master Wei had already made a grave mistake, there was no use augmenting it. But he said… that he could not say with certainty whether what you did was right or wrong, but no matter what, he was willing to be responsible for all of the consequences alongside you.

(Chapter 99)

Wei Wuxian isn’t blameless for what happened at Nightless City. I don’t think he’s proud of what he did and all the people he killed, either. The fact that he destroyed the Tiger Seal after returning to the Burial Mounds is quite telling. He definitely didn’t act in the most rational and clear-headed way, which resulted in a lot of people – including his shijie – to lose their lives, but the point of all this is that Wei Wuxian is human. He makes mistakes because no one is infallible, no matter how heroic, selfless and virtuous. Not even he can be totally immune to all the criticism and accusasions, even though he often acts like he is. Wei Wuxian is a fundamentally positive person, so most of the time he can ignore the bad things that happen to him and focus on the good, but this time his situation was simply too extreme for anyone to be able to stand it.

[peace-coast-island]

Diary of a Junebug

A relaxing riverside picnic

Today was a super relaxing day, the kind of weather that makes you want to snuggle up and get cozy with a hot cup of tea. Spring came a little early today so I wanted to make the most of it before winter comes back tomorrow. I don't mind the cold too much but sometimes it's nice to have a bit of spring peek through.

An occasional break from the cold winter: good, provides some variety, something that makes me look forward to the warmer weather. Sudden changes in weather going from cold to hot with no in between: bad, unpredictable, and usually ends up with me getting sick for like a week afterwards.

On a day like today, a riverside picnic sounds splendid! It's still a bit chilly, but it's nothing a steaming cup of chai tea can't help with. Lately I've been obsessed with this chai tea my mom brought for me from a small Indian store that's become one of her new favorite places. It's a wonderful blend of spices that's not too strong or unbalanced - just right! Add some oat milk and rock sugar and it's so much better than what they serve at most coffee shops, which are usually good but tend to be either too sweet or milky.

Jamie's visiting the camp, having dropped by a couple days ago for a long overdue visit. She also brought along Asher, who's all grown up now!

It's been years since I've seen Asher, who was kinda like Jamie's protégée/little brother back in the day. I think he still is, though he's flown the nest and taking on the world by storm. Jamie stuck with him through difficult times so that's why they have a special bond. I'm glad to hear that he's making strides as a writer - maybe one day he'll have his own show!

Asher's been through a lot - as in he's been through some shit. He was orphaned at a young age so he and his brother Marcel were raised by their aunt Cassie, who also raised his cousins Scott and Nolan, also orphaned around the same time. Sadly, it turns out that tragedy tends to strike more than once for the Woodley-Hiroko-Hamada family.

At fifteen, Asher was the youngest member of the entourage. With an IQ of 200, he graduated high school at fourteen and was a published writer, which caught Jamie's attention. He was originally going to join his brother and cousins at Seashore Path College, but after experiencing back to back tragedies, he couldn't see himself going there, not without his family.

In the span of a few months, Asher lost Marcel, Scott, and Nolan. The four of them were on their way home after homecoming at Seashore Path when a drunk driver - later revealed to be a professor and mentor of the latter three - crashed into their car. Marcel and Scott were killed while Asher and Nolan survived with serious injuries. The two fell into a deep depression and retreated in their own ways. Asher kept to himself while Nolan ended up getting tangled up in something that would set off a chain of deadly events.

Months later Nolan died in a mysterious fire along with another Seashore Path student in an abandoned church. The whole thing was mysterious - two people who as far as anyone knew were never seen interacting who somehow started investigating criminal gangs and end up being murdered. Their deaths were one of many orchestrated by two notorious serial killers that plagued Golden Sunset Hills in a series of events that became known as the Golden Sunset Hills Massacre.

Jamie was the one who not only helped Asher get through a tough time, but also get justice for Nolan's murder. Thankfully he and aunt Cassie were staying in Peace Coast when the massacre occurred and the neighborhood they live in was one of the few that wasn't too destroyed by the crime spree. The damage that took place in the city was devastating, all of that was in a span of a few days caused by a handful of some of the most dangerous criminals in the world.

That was a terrifying time. Hard to believe it was almost six years ago. I remember hearing about it on the news and being worried about friends who lived on the island or nearby. It was nothing but pure chaos and mayhem, a literal bloodbath. The friends who did live through that hell are doing fine right now but it's one of those things that haunt you for the rest of your life.

After graduating summa cum laude two years ago, Asher became a writer for Orla and Ozzie, a show created by fellow entourage member Levi Romero. When it's an Asher episode, expect wholesome fun with some unexpected feels and peak chaotic sibling energy. Some of my favorite episodes happen to be his - Stars That Shine being one of my absolute favorite of all time, not just from the show itself. Asher won an award for that episode and he rightfully deserves it because Stars That Shine is a masterpiece.

It's nice catching up with Asher since we kinda lost touch after he joined the Orla and Ozzie crew. I mean we follow each other online - he's one of the more active crew members on social media, making him a fan favorite - but obviously it's not the same as actually hanging out. It seems like only yesterday he was tagging along with Jamie on her many escapades on the island and now he's all grown up. I'd hate to think what would happen if Jamie wasn't there for him during those rough times.

Aunt Cassie and Matcha are doing well - Cassie's taken in interest in making ceramics and Matcha's up to usual cat stuff. Asher's considering the idea of adopting another (or three) to keep Matcha company but Cassie's on the fence about it. With Marcel, Scott, and Nolan gone the apartment feels a bit too big and lonely for the three of them. Since moving out is not an option - sentimental reasons - Asher wants to fill that empty space with cats to liven things up a little. Obviously that won’t fill the void his brother and cousins left behind but he thinks it’ll make the apartment a little less lonely. Basically, it's a win-win-win situation for everyone, or so he believes.

Jamie and Asher still hang out once in a while, though it's a little hard to meet up with their lives being so busy. This week's actually the first time Asher's had a break in a long time so he wants to make the most out of it. Likewise, Jamie's got some well deserved downtime from her many adventures, so she decided to drop by Golden Sunset Hills and catch up with Asher. Before coming to the camp, the two spent a couple days in Wizpire harvesting fruit and visiting the city.

Speaking of the city, I should make a visit there next time I drop by Wizpire. It's been a couple years since I last hopped on the bus and spoke with Kapp'n. Now that I think about it, I miss our bus ride conversations. It'll also be nice to run into some old villagers there and maybe (hint, hint) bring some new visitors to the camp. Yeah, I should be able to squeeze in a quick trip to the city one day. I'm even willing to check up on Redd and try my luck in buying a painting for the Wizpire Museum.

Since today's weather was so nice, it would be a waste for us not to be outside. I was running low on fish and bugs so we spent most of the day traveling between Lost Lure Creek, Saltwater Shores, and Sunburst Island. Jamie, as usual, was the master of catching bugs - no one can do stealth like her! Asher's pretty good at bug catching too as well as fishing, so I'll be well stocked for a while. We also stopped by the garden to cross pollinate flowers - something Asher seems to have a knack for since he accomplished getting quite a few blue tulip seeds.

In between fishing and bug catching we went for a short hike in the quarry and prepared food for a picnic by the river. I made tea - chai with rock sugar and oat milk - Mira made seafood salad sandwiches, Daisy Jane baked a chicken curry pot pie, Asher and Opal made strawberry daifuku, and Jamie made miso seaweed soup.

There's something so peaceful and soothing about sitting by the riverside. Lying in the grass under the gentle sun, listening to the water and enjoying the lovely picnic. It doesn't get better than that.

[bharatiyamedia-blog]

India and the Indian: Genes are the basis of nationalism however do not decide our future, writes Praveen Swami

http://tinyurl.com/y46mh8sk This essay is a part of Firstpost’s ‘India and the Indian’ sequence, which examines the renewed thought of nationalism in vogue immediately, and what it means. Learn extra from this series. *** Flo, Fifi, Gigi, Mike: Within the 60s, because the Age of Love bloomed internationally, the primatologist Jane Goodall made us acquainted with these light giants, our closest evolutionary relations. The Kasekela chimpanzees shared meals, and intercourse, with a powerful lack of possessiveness; they knew no borders, and welcomed strangers. The science author Robert Ardrey, in 1966, wrote that the chimpanzees launched us to our personal true nature, an “arcadian existence of primal innocence”. Besides, it was not true. From the 70s, the rising Kasekela chimpanzee neighborhood cut up into two, apparently due to male sexual competitors. Brutal border warfare broke out, with a sequence of murderous skirmishes ending within the annihilation of the breakaway Kahama neighborhood. Primatologists Toshisada Nishida, Christophe and Hedwige Boesch, and Richard Wrangham even found chimpanzees practising these most human of behaviours — rape and torture. Within the midst of a world witnessing a dramatic sharpening of group identities — non secular, ideological, ethnic, nationwide — the story of our primate relations ought give cause to rethink our most basic beliefs about ourselves. Exactly what does it imply to be Kasekela or Kahama, Indian or Pakistani, Hindu or Muslim? Precisely what does belonging to a tribe, or a caste, or a nation imply? And why precisely is it we imagine these items are price dying — or killing — for? The solutions to those questions, and the roots of nationalism, are in our genes. * Karl Marx factors us within the path of the place the trendy Indian nation-state started to emerge. “The distress inflicted by the British on Hindostan,” he argued in 1853, “is of an primarily totally different and infinitely extra intensive type than all Hindostan needed to undergo earlier than.” “All of the civil wars, invasions, revolutions, conquests, famines, surprisingly advanced, fast, and damaging because the successive motion in Hindostan might seem,” Marx noticed, “didn’t go deeper than its floor.” “England,” Marx went on, “has damaged down all the framework of Indian society, with none signs of reconstitution but showing”. “This lack of his outdated world, with no acquire of a brand new one, imparts a specific sort of melancholy to the current distress of the hindoo, and separates Hindostan, dominated by Britain, from all its historical traditions, and from the entire of its previous historical past. “ Put one other method, Indian nationalism was an effort to resurrect identification and tradition from the levelling processes of capitalism and imperialism. Illustration © Satwick Gade for Firstpost Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, the founding father of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, understood this clearly. Indians, he argued, “didn’t have a sustaining consciousness of self that will equip them with the willpower and assets essential to defend themselves.” Thus, Hedgewar concluded, “they wanted a philosophy of motion based upon the historic society and cultural neighborhood that had produced them however of the which they had been solely dimly conscious.” Like all nationalisms, thus, the concept of India is a fiction: Nation-states, communities and cultures are in fixed motion, admitting of no neat beginnings or ends. The aim of ideology, of the which religions are a subset, seeks to impose order upon the chaotic narrative of historical past. In its varied iterations — Liberal, Hindu-nationalist, Marxist — Indian nationalism seeks to elucidate who we’re, and what our objective for being may be. The making of the Indian-nationalist story, although, entails judgments about what to go away in, and excise; what to re-imagine, and what to make up. Hindu nationalists revelled in historical cultural and social achievements; few, nonetheless, celebrated the sexual freedoms of Khajuraho or Konark. Indian secularists, equally, drew on ‘Ganga-Jamuni‘ syncretic tradition, however elided over the enslavement of Hindus by Muslim rulers within the pre-colonial interval. From its outset, Indian nationalism was involved with the reclamation of male company — a characteristic of nationalist actions internationally, too. In Bengal, the crucible of Indian nationalism, Professor Bose’s Nice Bengal Circus was hailed for its discovery of the tiger-wrestling Syamakanta Banerjee; his feats had been “patriotic efforts at wiping out the unjust stain of bodily cowardice forged on the Bengali neighborhood.” Ramamurthy Naidu’s shows of breaking an iron bar, stopping a automobile engine, and letting an elephant stand on his chest performed no small function in inspiring members of the post-1918 Bengal terrorist anti-colonialist motion, up to date accounts inform us. In nationalist actions internationally, this forging of masculinity — the reclaiming of manhood from the humiliation of defeat — has been a central aspect. Worry thrives in instances of nice cultural dislocation and disaster, equivalent to our personal, giving life to aggressive masculinity. The chimpanzees of Kasekala may help us perceive why. * The chimpanzee wars of the 70s inform us two essential issues about nationalism. First, the identity-building course of is bigoted. Political nationalism binds collectively an imaginary neighborhood on the idea of less-than-robust causes, and excludes others simply as arbitrarily. The second lesson is simply as important: Violence is an inexorable consequence of the sharpening of group boundaries. There may be, in any case, nobody story as highly effective because the one which entails the shedding of blood. Godi, the primary of the rival chimpanzees to be murdered, was feeding peaceably in his personal territory, providing no provocation, unable even to supply resistance to the eight males who attacked him, utilizing their limbs and rocks. The 2 chimpanzee communities weren’t going through a useful resource scarcity; their key members had maintained a pleasant relationship prior to 2 teams forming. Like people, all mammals cooperate to safe meals or to guard themselves from predators. That is the genesis of subtle types of social organisation, just like the tribe, the caste and the nation. From the expertise of the Kasekela chimpanzees, although, it’s clear that the 2 sorts of mammals construct communities round patrilineal-bonded teams. Cooperation could be a stepping-stone to carnage. From historical past and political science we all know nationalism — based because it may be on faith, tradition, language or ethnicity — has virtually at all times led folks down this path. The ideological building of 19th-century Italian nationalism, fascism in German, or Latin American rebellions towards the Spanish crown to assemble their states was very totally different. But, every led to epic carnage. Evolutionary biology asks the query: Why did the European non secular communities bloodbath one another? Why did the Hindus and Muslims kill throughout communal riots? Why did the Nazis slaughter Jews? Or Hutus bloodbath Tutsis? “Maybe,” primatologist Wrangham speculated in 1996, “people have retained an outdated chimpanzee sample which, although it was as soon as adaptive, has now acquired a stability and lifetime of its personal, resistant even to new environments the place different types of society could be higher.” However our genes aren’t our future. For one, we’ve the examples of the bonobo, the pygmy chimpanzee genetically as near us as its bigger variant species. For bonobos, intercourse, not violence, is the warp and weft of social life; battle is mediated not by means of aggression, however the providing of enjoyment. Certainly, till lately some zoos barred youngsters from visiting bonobo shows, for concern of exposing them to shows of informal intercourse, together with oral and homoerotic pairings. Deadly violence visited by the males towards neighbouring teams — communities, tribes or nation-states — is embedded deep in our evolutionary make-up, and in our minds. The bonobos, although, inform us that our genes can generate very totally different outcomes. From multi-national Austria-Hungary to the European Union, historical past has demonstrated that there isn’t any scarcity of profitable fashions to order human life aside from nationalism. Animal impulses drive highly effective nationalism, however their triumph is way from inevitable if people are keen to rigorously replicate on why we behave within the methods we do. Your information to the newest cricket World Cup tales, evaluation, stories, opinions, dwell updates and scores on https://www.firstpost.com/firstcricket/series/icc-cricket-world-cup-2019.html. 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