#the jgy wwx narrative foil strikes again

[lgbtlunaverse]

Ooooh this reblog seems to have completely passed me by for months which is a shame because I have thoughts

You're right, his value sustem is so fucked up lol (and your tags!! They fucked up a perfectly good kid!!) But this implies one of those values is having a moral problem with demonic cultivation despite Nie saber cultivation being similar.

And this is very crunchy because... we don't know if he does? Idk, maybe there was something in one of the adaptations I missed but in the novel? Zilch. Nada.

The main point for this seems to be Nie Huaisang insisting that saber cultivation and demonic cultivation are totally different he swears wei-xiong!!

But that is:

a) A thing Nie Huaisang says, not a thing Nie Mingjue says. Nie Mingiue has been dead for a decade at this point, and saying that Huaisang and Mingjue have different moral philosophies is quite the understatement.

b) A thing Nie Huaisang says, which is not necessarily a thing Nie Huaisang believes. Huaisang is a lying little liar who lies and if he doesn't have any objections to demonic cultivation at all, he certainly has a vested interest in not revealing that, just in case wei-xiong ever gets suspicious about how conveniently he was pushed in the direction of solving the murder of huaisang's older brother rightnafter coming back from the dead. (Though nhs certainly doesn't have a problem doing things he does consider immoral to get revenge for his da-ge either, he's shown that very clearly)

Everytime we see Nie Mingjue speak out or act against Wei Wuxian, there is always a different reason for doing so (which may be fucked up in their own ways, but have nothing to do with demonic cultivation being innately evil or not)

He speaks out against Wen Qing during the conference because he's mad she didnt sacrifice her life trying to stop Wen Ruohan, because remember: self sacrifice is not only Good but Mandatory. He joins in on the siege on the burial mounds because Wei Wuxian just killed Jin Zixuan and then hundreds of others (that 3000 number is definitely exaggerated, but he did kill a fuckton of people in nightless city) and nmj believes in hacking down dangerous people with his saber. None of this recquires that he thinks demonic cultivation is innately bad, just that he thinks the way Wei Wuxian is using it is wrong.

Which is very interesting!! Because now you have situation where Wei Wuxian is hated and believed to be innately evil for a specific prejudiced reason, and Nie Mingjue doesn't share that belief, but when that prejudice forces Wei Wuxian into dire circumstances and he does something fucked up (which could all have been avoided if people hadn't hated him from the start) Nie Mingjue turns against him anyway.

Does that, perhaps, remind you of someone else's relationship with Nie Mingjue?

Weirdest possible NMJ take is that he's a hypocrite. "Oh he only believes in justice when it's convenient for him" I cannot stress enough how the problem he has is the EXACT opposite of this. Nie Mingjue holds onto his values even if it makes things objectively worse both for himself and others. He will stick with his idea of justice even if it's patently not suited for the situation. "Well he expects other people to take risks that would kill them only because he can take them with no personal harm" Nie Mingjue has, out loud, with full intent to follow through, declared that he's willing to commit literal suicide if it's what his moral code recquires. Nie Mingjue thinks dying for the cause is both reasonable and morally good and is- with the saber curse- doing it himself the entire time. I fucking WISH he would prioritise his own wellbeing at literally any point in the story it would probably make him more chill and easier to talk to.