#must be deeply damaged by his relationship with Jiang Cheng

[winepresswrath]

People are deeply invested in the relative morality of these fictional magical war criminals. I once got a TON of shit for suggesting that I don't think WWX's reaction to learning that JC uses corporal punishment with JL would necessarily be to flip out and end their relationship, or even necessarily be upset as long as JC wasn't whipping the kid with Zidian or whatever. (I do not think JC hits JL but it would be considered normal if he was. This is Ancient Fantasy China! No one's calling CPS!

Wei Wuxian seems perfectly happy to continue having a relationship with the cloud recesses, the place where corporal punishment is most explicitly normalized within the narrative. I don't think it's a coincidence that we don't see that form of punishment being used with the juniors, but I also really don't think they've reversed their stance on physical discipline in the last 13/16 years. Man, I don't know. I think the morality of these characters is so much fun to overanalyze! It drives both the plot and a big chunk of the character conflict! The various moral traps everyone is always falling into that force them to make choices with no good outcomes is one of the best and most fun parts of the whole story. "When there is no good outcome, what bad outcome do you choose " is a great question to make your characters answer. "This Character Is Bad and Everyone Who Likes Him is Wrong" is just not a way of engaging with this text that sparks joy in me, and I lose nothing when I put it in the trash.

#i don't think he does #at least in cql #because Jin Ling is just so indignant about anyone daring #but like... Wei Wuxian hits Jin Ling in the novel #lightly! the text takes care to say that it didn't hurt him and he was just embarrassed! #but it's a thing he does! hilariously in the context of this conversation because he thinks Jin Ling should rely on Jiang Cheng for support #and not push him away as part of an effort to protect him #anyway I'm a huge baby about corporal punishment and prefer not to go there #but while I think lan Wangji grew out of it #I also don't think Wei Wuxian is the first or last person he ordered beaten in the novel #people can grow and change in a novel about growth and change #groundbreaking #IDK quite apart from the grim dark crowd i do see a lot of people who think Jin Ling #must be deeply damaged by his relationship with Jiang Cheng #and it is not actually that I think Jiang Cheng is pulling any kind of A grade in parenting #but like we see people being deeply damaged by their relationships with their parents and parent adjacent people #it's a central and repeated theme! #and Jin Ling and Jiang Cheng's relationship does not have those vibes attached for me #Jin Ling gets mad at him #not scared of him

[inessencedevided]

Oh yeah, titles are totes valid. I like yiling patriarch cos when you think about it it doesn't make sense. He didn't create the town of yiling, and he technically doesn't even live there. He sould be called burial mounds patriarch or smth.

Anyway, enough about titles (also if I have made a mistake due to translation error or misunderstanding, whoops). Which OG sect leader do you think was the worst, and which one was the best? And which next gen sect leader is best and worst?

I dislike jgs most, cos yikes. Wrh might have been a tirant and war criminal, but at least he wasn't as big of a dick as jgs. Can't really decide who the best is, cos they all had issues, you know?

Worst next gen would have to be jgy, not cos I dislike him as a person but because he definitely commited war crime and genocide. Idk best here either cos once again, *slaps top of cgl* these cultivators can fit so much trauma and issues. I do like imagining how the now sect is run. One twink mastermind and his hunk retinue? Love that for them

-the axe cultivator

Argh, 🪓-cultivator (there's an emoji! :D). I'm so sorry! I'm terribly behind again in answering you. I promise, I like your asks but I want to give them proper attention and the holidays were surprisingly busy this year.

That question is very creative! And hard ^^ I had to think about all my answers, even the seemingly easy "worst sect leader of the OG". Because while jin Guangshan is definitely a pompous ass and overall shitty person who is more concerned with sleeping with every woman in Lanling than his duties and who didn't step up during the sunshot campaign and then decided to use the power vacuum afterwards to his advantage, he at least, you know, did some sect leading. Which is not something that can be said about one Qingheng-Jun. That guy just left his brother and eventually and increasingly his teenage son in charge. Now what is worse? Bad sect leading or no sect leading at all? I don't know if I can decide ^^

Ah yeah and Wen Ruohan ... 🤷‍♀️ obviously he wasn't great, but he's also the least three-dimensional "villain" so I never really bother with him ^^

The best og sect leader? Does lan qiren as an acting sect leader count? ^^ obviously he too has issues, as you said. I believe lan qiren, as a leader, as an uncle and as an educator was deeply influenced by the things that happened with his brother. I can only imagine how deeply it must have hurt him to see his brother abandon both his people, him, his brother and his own children for the sake of one woman. Whatever your opinion on qingheng-jun, I believe we can all agree that his actions must have deeply hurt and disappointed lan qiren. We don't know what he was like before those events, so we don't know just how mich of his extreme rigidity is due to those events, but I do believe that they hardened him and made him more inflexible. Maybe he was much more of a free spirit before. Maybe he was a lot like Lan Wangji, but instead of loosening and expanding his understanding of the relationship between morality and rules, the events that shaped him let him to harden them. We don't know. But we do know that he picked up the pieces his brother left him. My point is, you can think about his style of leadership and teaching what you want but you cannot deny that he is devoted to the people in his care and that's not something you can say about a lot of the leaders of his generation.

Now, to the next gen leaders:

This is, in a way, even harder to decide ...

I wouldn't call jiggy the worst sect leader so easily. His record, imo, is very much mixed. The watchtowers, if I recall the novel correctly (it's been 6 months since I last read it ^^), were a pretty good way to get help to people who usually fall under the radar of the cultivation sects. So while he definitely sacrificed a lot in his rise to the top, he seems to have tried to help the common people (something that cannot be said about his two predecessors).

But ... who then? I thought a lot about it and I think I'm inclined to say Nie Huaisang. Don't get me wrong, I love him as much as anyone, but I also remember the part in the novel where, when wangxian investigate the "man eating bunker" (i wonder how accurate that translation is) a town's person sais that they don't expect help from the nie sect because ever since Nie Huaisang took over nothing gets done and they neglect to help the people within their territory. Now, we know that Nie huaisang cultivated a reputation of general incompetence so people wouldn't suspect him to scheme against jin guangyao, but in doing so, he obviously neglected his duty to the people under his care. Which is, imo, pretty consistent with his character. Nie Huaisang us ruthless when sufficiently angered and has no qualms to cause casual damage to achieve his goal (see Mo Xuanyu's suicide to bring wei wuxian back). His revenge was his first priority and so he placed being a good brother over being a good sect leader.

Best? Is also dificult. I honestly can't decide between Lan Xichen and Jiang Cheng? There are so many factors to consider here! (There were already woth the ones above, really): what actions count towards the assessment of their leadership? What makes good leadership at all? (Which is funny because I'm doing my masters in political science rn and that's one of the biggest questions in political theory. But I only really know "Western" political theory. Chinese philosophy i have only ever graced the surface of) which is to say ... I can't really decide.

Jiang cheng put his sect above all else. While there's a lot of debate about whether that was morally right, it's certainly what helped him rebuild his sect as quickly as he did. He is brash and sometimes cruel, but his deciples clearly trust him and admire him.

Lan Xichen is an incredible diplomat. He is calm, fair (i.e. when he decides to listen to wangxians accusations against the sworn brother he loved and investigated them himself) and proactive when he needs to be. (I know, he is often accused of being too passive within the fandom, but I don't think that is necessarily the case. In a world where most leaders seem to base their judgement on rumor and hearsay more often than not, he withholds judgement until he listened to all sides. That is not a flaw in leadership) Now, in the end, he seemingly follows his father's footsteps by going into seclusion. I would argue, that still doesn't place them on the same step leadership wise. A. The situation with Jin Guangyao and madam lan, imo, aren't equivalent. It's hard to judge madam lan because we don't know what let her to kill the lan teacher, but I think it's unlikely she deceived qingheng-jun in the process. Jin Guangyao actively deceived kan xichen for years. When lan xichen learned this, he decided to investigate and was badly hurt in the process. The outcome, seclusion, may be the same, but the reasons are different. Also, the novel heavily implies that lan xichen will eventually emerge and take up his duties again.

All of this is to say... I can't decide ^^

I'll answer the other putstabding ask tomorrow. It's past midnight now and I should really sleep. Thank you for being so patient 💙

Btw, happy holidays, if you celebrate 🥰

#the untamed #mdzs #ask #mdzsnetcc #jin guangshan #jin guangyao #lan xichen #jiang cheng #nie huaisang #please don't mind all the typos #i didn't read over what i wrote again #all my past german teachers would be so disappointed

[spockandawe]

I’ve been thinking about this off and on for a while, trying to figure out if it’s a story I could write (maybe, but it would be very outside my wheelhouse, and I’ve been writing slowly lately), but I at least want to get the thoughts written out somewhere. 

So there are about ten million was I can’t get over Nie Huaisang, but in particular, I can’t stop thinking about the last conversation that he has with Wei Wuxian in the show. Because the exchange isn’t overtly hostile, but it is... very cold and suspicious. And heartbreaking to me, personally, after seeing everything to do with their earlier friendship and Nie Huaisang’s relationship with his brother.

Basically, in a universe where Wei Wuxian does his carefree wandering thing sans Lan Wangji, I want him to be a regular guest at the Qinghe Nie sect. Not on any sort of schedule, just irregularly popping in to bum food and lodging from Nie Huaisang and disappearing again. And, more importantly, Wei Wuxian feeling out in some more depth just who Nie Huaisang is in comparison to who he was, and figuring out how much danger Nie Huaisang still poses to his loved ones.

(the answer: not much)

If Nie Huaisang has an active goal at that point, I think it is to be a minimal danger to the other powerful players in the game. He just exposed himself as a major hazard, sabotaged his two strongest alliances in the process, and did a lot to piss off every major sect around. He achieved what he was after, and even if he would maybe like to be an influential political figure, he knows better than to chase power right at that moment. He makes that plenty clear to Wei Wuxian in their conversation.

And, more importantly, I think he’s tired, he’s lonely, he’s sad. He misses the old positive genuine relationships he used to have. He’s spent years and years putting on an act and cozying up to a person he must have loathed. When he finally does get to drop the act, it’s not surprising that he’s much less silly and much more sedate than he was as a kid, and honestly, in that last scene, he strikes me as emotionally burned out and exhausted.

Plus, he and Wei Wuxian have a surprising amount of common ground between them. Their particular goals didn’t ever align, and I don’t think Wei Wuxian will ever be happy about how willing Nie Huaisang was to put Wei Wuxian’s loved ones in the crossfire, but... Wei Wuxian is also capable of a lot of forgiveness, and a lot of compassion.

(he’s not always able/willing to forgive, but that’s a whole other essay I’d love to write at some point)

And on a basic, basic emotional level, and almost uniquely among their generation in the main sects, Wei Wuxian and Nie Huaisang were carefree younger siblings without heavy family expectations resting on their shoulders, until tragedy slammed them in the face and left them alone and desperate. Wei Wuxian’s loss was more... dispersed than Nie Huaisang’s was, but he had people he loved attempting to support him along the way, until they were all lost too. Nie Huaisang suffered fewer losses, perhaps, but was left in a precarious position he’d never expected to hold, where his closest relationships were his brother’s killer and his brother’s killer’s best friend.

I don’t think either one of them is exactly happy with the other one’s choices. Given Nie Huaisang’s feelings about saber cultivation, I doubt he’s happy about Wei Wuxian pursuing demonic cultivation. And Wei Wuxian definitely isn’t happy that pretty much every surviving person he loves was in danger from Nie Huaisang’s maneuvering. But I also think that they both understand on a deep, personal, visceral level, ‘this is the only weapon I have left in my hands, and I am aware of the damage it will do, but I will use it to fight until my dying breath.’

No matter how much Lan Wangji loves Wei Wuxian (which he does, very deeply), that isn’t something he has the same direct understanding of. Jiang Cheng doesn’t understand it the way they do. Lan Xichen doesn’t understand it the way they do. The younger generation has been surprisingly well-protected from the trauma the earlier generation experienced (another essay I want to write), and this kind of desperation is foreign to them. 

Wei Wuxian is aware that he’s much different from the child he was when he came to study at the Cloud Recesses. No matter how silly and carefree he is naturally, even now, it’s been tempered by the damage he’s taken since then. And he is a very protective person, who’s very capable of holding a long, long grudge. But he’s a very compassionate person too, and smart enough to recognize the ways Nie Huaisang’s choices echo his own, even if they aren’t the choices he would have made. And if he can reassure himself that Nie Huaisang doesn’t pose a further danger, which I think is well within his capabilities, I think that rebuilding that friendship would be an extremely positive and constructive relationship for both of them to have, and I want it.

#the untamed #wei wuxian #nie huaisang #wen ning is the other major protected little sibling in play #and he didn't survive his losses long enough to adjust the way nhs and wwx did #and his older sister outlived him #until she didn't #but he wasn't in a position to... do much with that at the time #meta #? #long post/