A for Autism

Because lets recap: He was tricked, and used, and hungry, and beaten repeatedly, and treated as worthless and disposable, all by a man fully capable of paying him for his work. He was sent alone to deliver a taunt to a dangerous man. He was seven. He accepting the beating he received without complaint, and was further beaten for asking for the payment he'd been promised. He was whipped, and knocked in front of an ox cart.

Chang Ci'an didn't AIM the cart at his finger.

Chang Ci'an deliberately knocked a seven year old orphan child to the ground in front of an ox cart and ordered the driver to drive over the child.

And the driver did.

He manage to escape with ONLY one crushed finger (and, we can assume, many less permanent injuries). Crushing injuries are incredibly serious, and even one so small can be deadly. An orphaned child can't afford decent medical care. Adult Xue Yang has a SEVERED finger, which means that at best he managed to find a doctor who would amputate it for him, and at worst he cut it off himself. At age seven. Xue Yang is INSANELY lucky to have survived to age 8 after this incident.

This is why Xiao Xingchen's suggestion that Xue Yang should have merely cut off Chang Ci'an's finger, or hand, or arm, is so upsetting to Xue Yang. Yes, the revenge he did take was abhorrent and excessive, but Xingchen totally misses the point of the story (understandable in the moment, everything is happening SO MUCH at that point).

Xue Yang, at age seven, had done nothing wrong. He was a child, he was innocent, and he didn't deserve to be treated like his life was worthless by Chang Ci'an, or the cart driver, or the message recipient, or the restaurant owner, or every observer on the street who did nothing to help. And every person who tells him it's "just a finger" further treats the very real devaluing of and threat to his life as normal and fine.

If he, any time after age 7, had been able to exact revenge by cutting off Chang Ci'an's arm, there is nothing equivalent about that revenge. A severed arm is not a crushing injury, and is less likely to produce life-long chronic pain. Chang Ci'an would have good medical care-- a doctor, medicine, pain killers. His life would not meaningfully be in danger. Chang Ci'an had family (and money) to help him with whatever tasks being one-handed made difficult. Chang Ci'an was an adult, who's already lived a life without pain and disability, and who's prospects will not be impacted. Chang Ci'an was an ADULT and therefore better able to understand what was happening and why. And beyond all of that, Chang Ci'an would DESERVE IT.

To say that Xue Yang did everything he did to the Chang Clan in revenge over "losing his finger" is to betray an utter lack of willingness to empathize with Xue Yang. Even the 7yo version of him.

and then i think about xue yang in love, and the way that love becomes another form of violence. not in the sense that "xue yang thinks violence is love", not that at all, because xue yang isn't equating anything to love, he is equating everything to the only language he's learned to speak fluently, which is violence.

Xue Yang didn’t suddenly lose a finger, he didn’t just wake up one morning without a finger. His whole left hand was crushed under a wheel, and his little finger was crushed so badly that one can only assume it started to rot and was cut off. He was a seven year old without money, he couldn’t afford a doctor, so obviously next comes all the infections, it’s a miracle he didn’t die from those.

And secondly, he didn’t lose just a finger, he lost 50% of the strength in his left hand, and thinking that his other fingers were broken and most likely healed wrong it might be even more. And all the chronic pain that comes after that incident.

And let’s not forget that he was beaten by not one, but three adult men in the span of a few hours, he was taken advantage of by Chang Ci’an and was publicly humiliated. His missing finger is just a reminder of all of that abuse.

so when fandom encounters a character who has both been victimized and has perpetrated harm against others, they end up classifying the character as either a victim-primary or a perpetrator-primary. in the case of the victim-primary, the harm the character has caused others is minimized in order to center the character's victim status; in the case of the perpetrator-primary, the harm the character has suffered is minimized in order to not dilute the character's status as a perpetrator of harm. hence we see the prevalent fandom belief that "xianxian did nothing wrong," and hence - as seen here - the fandom repeatedly minimizes the real harm that xue yang suffered before he committed any murders.

regarding xue yang specifically, someone here (i cannot find the post at the moment) has also written an excellent meta pointing out that what xue yang received that day was not just the loss of a finger, but rather the knowledge that his suffering does not matter. that, due to the mere fact of his class, he can be openly abused and disfigured in public, in broad daylight, and it will not matter. that so-called righteous cultivators - who think of themselves as righteous people, who are recognized by society as righteous people - can freely harm him without any damage to their reputation as righteous, because in the eyes of society, harming a low-class street rat like xue yang does not constitute any moral wrongdoing.

And his closest narrative parallel is Wei Wuxian the protagonist, for they both have good intentions but cause harm without intending to, and go mad when they realise the extent of their deeds. They both loved a man so deeply and devastatingly they gave themselves up for it; and it bore the sweetest fruit with the bitterest seed, for while their men too loved them just as deeply, if not more, they could never reconcile.