#which means meng yao's views on himself purely in the moral sense might be more in line with nie mingjue's than lan xichen's | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

lgbtlunaverse · 1 year ago

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I'm ruminating on this- And by ruminating I am of course referring to the process of regurgitating partially digested cud and rechewing it like a cow- and I just wanna say that I still stand by this but also that it is extremely significant that meng yao's two most important relationships are with the guy obsessed with justice and ridding the world of evil and the sect leader of the clan specfically known for its extremely rigid rule and punishment system.

I'm chewing on this and my thoughts aren't fully formulated yet but i have been having Thinking about and jgy and his definitions of harm and his moral framework and generally he seems to very much come down on the side of consequentialism- what with him considering himself as having "murdered" qin su when her death was unambiguously a suicide. But she killed herself because of things he did, so even if he never wanted her to die or took actions toward that, he considers himself as having killed her.

And yet every single time he is confronted about his actions, he is incredibly quick to emphasize that he had no choice, he didn't really want to, there was just no other way out. It's a complete 180 from the motive not mattering at all to it mattering a LOT.

And that has led me to me believe that when he's talking about his lack of choices he's- the uncharitable might call it lying for sympathy, but that's not it, jin guangyao does sincerely believe he had no other choice (except, as nmj so nicely put it, sacrificing himself) but he's also not defending himself with full sincerity. It's more that his motive doesn't really matter much to him as a matter of morality, but he knows it matters to other people. He is not genuinely defending himself and arguing he doesn't deserve blame, he is arguing he shouldn't be punished. There seems to be a very strict barrier in his mind between accountability in the moral sense (what does he hold blame for) and in accountability in the practical sense (What punishment should he get.)

Which makes perfect sense for a guy who is well aware that the justice system will never actually be just for him. That any punishment levied toards him within the legal and politcal system he lives in will primarily be because of who he is and who his mother was and not because of what he actually did. Yes he thinks what he did was wrong yes he thinks that is morally repugnant no he shouldn't get punished for it.

And well. I don't agree that people should just get away with mass murder because the judicial system sucks but... is he wrong? I mean, what did him in at the end? Payment for his actual crimes? No. It was a lie that was believed just because he was the one being accused.

#mdzs #3zun #like oh my god #MADE FOR EACH OTHER #meng yao #jin guangyao #you might say xichen doesn't want to punish him but that's because xichen thinks his actions were justified #like i re-read the 'i just thought you had your reasons' line and surrounding scene and yeah.#xichen FULLY agrees with the 'i had no choice' thing. for the things that he knew about that is #he believes MORE in the justifications jgy gives than jgy does #I imagine that might have something to do with his own feelings about doing something he considered morally wrong #namely fleeing and leaving the rest of his sect to die #because the alternative of staying and dying was worse not just for him but for the rest of his clan #contrast that to nie mingjue for whom dying is the 'right' thing to do for his people and has been prepared to do so since childhood #but fundamentally they BOTH agree that doing something wrong must be met with punishment #they just disagree about what is wrong #which means meng yao's views on himself purely in the moral sense might be more in line with nie mingjue's than lan xichen's #but xichen stands with him on the issue of how he should actually be treated and so by necessity he pretends they're on the same page #ftr don't think nieyao COMPLETELY agree even leaving out the idea of punishment #because they stand on different sides of the minimizing harm vs maximilizing benefit divide #but i do think that they agree more on the actual moral reality of jgy's worst decisions than either of them do with xichen #just not on what the reaction to those should be.#in classic me fashion the tags are 4 times as long as the actual post

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