#over sqx | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

biantianyang · 1 year

Text

While reading the blackwater arc I couldn’t help but notice a surprisingly clear allegory between the Venerable of Empty Words and OCD. Whether intentional or not, it was so prominent I wanted to write a (not so) little analysis about it. So let’s get right into it!

First: what is the Venerable of Empty Words? We get a fantastic concise description here:

“The Venerable of Empty Words draws power from fear in people’s hearts. With power, it manipulates its victims to realize its predictions and then makes new ones; the cycle continues until the person is thoroughly broken and their mind is lost to despair. The more unsteady one’s heart, the more disadvantageous their position; the more one has, the more one fears loss.”

To rephrase this in terms of OCD, simply replace “The Venerable of Empty Words” with “OCD.” Purposeful or not, MXTX was describing OCD very well here. If anyone reading doesn’t know what OCD is, considering how misunderstood the disorder often is by people who don’t have it, it’s not just a disorder where you wanna clean a lot. It is when a person may have unwanted thoughts & fears (which are ego dystonic I might add) that disturb the person with OCD. This then results in compulsions which come in different forms that the person may do in response to the obsessions in an attempt to be rid of them. For example, a person might fear they could hurt their family, so they’re unable to handle knives. This is a pretty basic and general definition/example.

OCD is also sometimes known as a doubt disorder. It draws from the doubt/fear in people’s hearts. It manipulates one’s brain into believing their intrusive thoughts. If one point of focus isn’t enough it could establish multiple new types of obsessions. Just reading “the cycle continues until the person is thoroughly broken and their mind is lost to despair” was like… ok holy shit bro that’s just what it feels like. The terror that the thing you fear most is true. Looping over until you can’t take it anymore. This definition of the Venerable of Empty Words also focuses on the heart, and in many ways OCD attacks what people value. “The more one has, the more one fears loss” a sentiment that can be applicable to things like violent intrusive thoughts surrounding one’s loved ones.

We also get to see a few examples of how the Venerable of Empty Words attacks people. In a general sense, it’s described as:

“If someone was happy, in their moment of joy, it would appear to dump a bucket of cold water over their head—a killjoy in the most literal of terms.”

OCD interrupts those who have it’s happy moments in their lives. It feels as if there’s never a moment of peace. OCD is everywhere. The very concept of the Reverend of Empty Words stalking Shi Qingxuan all her life wherever she goes, hiding in the shadows, lurking, matches the persistent fear OCD gives someone. No matter how hard you try, you can never seem to escape.

In a more specific example, the Reverend of Empty Words tells Shi Qingxuan:

“Just wait! Your closest family, your best friend—they’ll all die a disgraceful death because of you!”

Does this not sound like a blatant intrusive thought? There’s no reasoning why, but now you have a new fear that your loved ones are going to die. It isn’t just that her closest family will die either, but that they’ll die because of him. The person with OCD believes the fault lies with themselves. Thus the obsessions over this intense terror.

What follows are the compulsions. When Xie Lian gives an example of when he witnesses the Venerable of Empty Words attack someone he describes:

“The wealthy merchant jumped to his feet in a rage, set on catching the one who would say such a thing, but that person ducked under the table immediately and disappeared into thin air!”

The merchant is quick to get upset at the Venerable of Empty Words’ words. He lashes out trying to stop him, but fails. When you get an intrusive thought you do a compulsion to try to be rid of it, in an almost instinctual way. You want to focus on the horrible thought… how dare my brain say/accuse me of this! Get rid of it! But it still runs free.

This is because the way to get rid of the obsessions and thoughts are the same way you get rid of the Venerable of Empty Words. Xie Lian lists three ways to deal with the Venerable of Empty Words as:

“The first is to not let it open its mouth; cut it off before it can speak. This works in the moment but not in perpetuity, so you need to remain vigilant at all times.”

“Second, if it should speak, don’t let the subject of its curse hear. Anyone would be frightened to hear someone cursing them at the height of their joy, and that creature feeds on fear; it revels in it. The more frightened you are, the happier it becomes.”

These first two are the lesser effective ones. In the first, one can try to shut it up, but they aren’t fully rid of it. Trying to block out an intrusive thought sometimes might work in the moment but they’re bound to come back. An uncomfortable vigilant feeling remains along with it. Second, not allowing someone to hear the words is equivalent to not letting someone get intrusive thoughts, which sounds like just not having OCD to me.

The third solution is the best:

“However, if you pay no mind to however it tries to curse you or rain on your parade, then it can’t do anything to you. So, the most effective method is the third—surround yourself with happy occasions and ignore it completely. Let it choose to speak or remain silent, but forget everything it says. Make yourself stronger and continue down your path according to your own will, and not in accordance with the tragedy it predicted for you. If it can draw no despair from you, it will eventually leave on its own with its tail between its legs… Of course, it could still very well be lying low, waiting for its next chance to strike.”

Part of having OCD is accepting the intrusive thoughts that come to you. The Venerable of Empty Words/thoughts/fears may remain but you must learn to accept and not pay too much attention to them. To truly treat them as “empty words.” An extremely difficult task. And it doesn’t ensure that they won’t come back either. But you cannot wallow in it because that only makes things worse. That’s quite literally the obsessive part.

Xie Lian even goes on to describe the third method as such:

“Although the third method was the most effective, it was also the most difficult to accomplish. After all, who in the world could truly build such a heart of stone and feel not a single ripple of fear?”

Like yes!!! Who!??!! It’s an undeniably difficult thing to do. The reason why OCD is such a terrifying disorder is because humans do not have hearts of stone and do not live without fear. People with OCD are especially susceptible to this. Just as those who are described as “superstitious” in the novel are more vulnerable to the Venerable of Empty Words.

The Shi family tries something different from the three methods, although most similar to the second, by attempting to disguise Shi Qingxuan and be rid of the Reverend of Empty Words. Here we also have a more fantastical element where Shi Wudu can help his sibling escape the grasp of the Reverend of Empty Words by swapping her fate and getting her to the heavens. Unfortunately, people with OCD do not have this opportunity. And regardless, it doesn’t work for Shi Qingxuan at all. You can’t play dress up and run away from a disorder, you have to let the distressing thoughts come and die away.

As a bonus Xie Lian has a very interesting case. He manages the Venerable of Empty Words with his horrible luck.

“Either he experienced no happy occasions and [the Venerable of Empty Words] waited fruitlessly for years, or he had already grown accustomed to all the bad luck and suffered neither fear nor anxiety. His luck was so bad it defied the imagination of the Venerable of Empty Words, so Xie Lian thought nothing of its curses, and in fact treated them as well-wishes or daydreams.”

In some tragically comedic manner, Xie Lian has become OCD-proof. We can take Xie Lian as an example of someone without OCD. The Venerable of Empty Words/intrusive thought comes to him and he finds a way to defeat them by being like ok lol. sounds good to me! These thoughts can come to him and he can accept them and move on. Even though Xie Lian might be a special case where he can do this because things are naturally bad for him, his capability to move on at all is a huge feat for someone with OCD. And in turn the Venerable of Empty Words has no choice but to give up. To literally die of starvation. The intrusive thoughts leave him. He never has to obsess over them or have compulsions in response.

Shi Qingxuan also has a slightly different case considering He Xuan devours the Reverend of Empty Words as a part of his revenge plan which makes things more complex, but without a doubt she exhibits symptoms of OCD in the same ways I described before. She is a target of the Reverend and is aware of her own vulnerability towards it. Although she spends a good amount of time running away, when the blackwater arc crew set out to deal with it, she responds obsessive-compulsively upon hearing the Reverend of Empty Words speak.

Essentially, the Venerable of Empty Words is to its prey as OCD is to those suffering from it. Whether or not MXTX intended for this to be a little allegory to those with OCD I’ll probably never know, but I’ll be damned if the allegory isn’t there.

#ok WOW that was longer than i thought it was gonna be. a lot of quotes lol #but ive been sitting on this post for months.. over a year maybe lol #kinda funny that the venerable of empty words is better accidental ocd rep than anything else ive seen in media #still cant decide if i hc sqx as having ocd either but like the jinx bitch itself? ocd manifested!#actually sure she has ocd too <3 #if it means anything too: i told my analyst abt this and she was like wtf. they're so similar #tian guan ci fu #tgcf #shi qingxuan #xie lian #he xuan #b.txt #venerable of empty words #what else do i even tag this idk

37 notes · View notes