Cosmic

Violet Evergarden Ever After: Chapter 1

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She was meant to be the price for peace; her life in exchange for the mysterious Dragon Master’s mercy. Her captor wasn’t supposed to be a ghost from her past, and she wasn’t supposed to become his ally…or his lover. And when news spreads of a blonde-haired girl at the Dragon Master’s side, there will be repercussions for dragons and Vikings alike.

Chapter 38: Leverage

AO3 Fanfiction.net

and also created a ranking list (in order of when I read/started to read) in case people were curious…each one has two ratings b/c I consider enjoyment more important than quality but not everyone does

Or, dissecting Bai WuXiang. I’m not going to get into whose face is actually under BWX’s mask (there aren’t spoilers in this meta), or into Lang Ying, but I instead want to talk about Bai WuXiang’s foiling with primarily Xie Lian and Hua Cheng, but also a bit of He Xuan and Qi Rong (fitting as BWX and the latter three are the Four Great Calamities). 

Anyways. Mount TongLu. 

The funny thing about Mu Qing and Feng Xin’s horror over Hua Cheng’s love for Xie Lian is that they think he’s a demon stalking Xie Lian with the intent of harming him. 

Feng Xin was practically getting chills looking through those murals, “My fucking god… who the hell is he? He’s been watching you since eight hundred years ago?! And he is still, even now? What the fuck! This is terrifying! Is he bewitched? What the hell does he want? Normal worshippers won’t even do this much, just what the hell does he want??”

And Hua Cheng has loved Xie Lian and lived for him for 800 years. Yet, while there is a demon stalking Xie Lian for 800 years, it is not Hua Cheng but Bai WuXiang.

Bai WuXiang’s obsession with Xie Lian seems to be that he wants Xie Lian to become exactly like him, as a sort of forced empathy (I’m sensing a pattern among MXTX villains: see here for He Xuan and here for MDZS’s Xue Yang). I’m curious to see where this develops. Bai WuXiang seems to recognize Xie Lian’s terror and understand it, even, and he wants to see it drive Xie Lian into the same kind of crying/laughing despair that governs him. 

White No-Face lifted his face to look at his eyes, and he said warmly, “Your highness, I think, you might have misunderstood. There certainly will be a Supreme who will emerge from this kiln, but, it won’t be me. It would be you.” …

“Do you remember this cry-smiling mask?” White No-Face asked, “It suits you.” …

Then, without giving him a chance to protest, that tragically pale cry-smiling mask melted with the infinite darkness as it was heavily pressed onto Xie Lian’s face.

This is, of course, a crucial difference when compared with how Hua Cheng sees Xie Lian. He never forces Xie Lian to do anything, and accompanies him even when he doesn’t want Xie Lian to make a particular choice. In other words, Hua Cheng gets real empathy and what it’s like, that it doesn’t mean becoming exactly like someone or agreeing all the time, but walking with them. 

Xie Lian softly sighed a breath of relief and forced a smile, “Nothing, it’s just, in these past years, how I passed my earlier days wasn’t the prettiest sight, it was all muddled and very much a failure. I just thought if you had witnessed it it wouldn’t be good.”

Hua Cheng laughed, “How could that be?”

Xie Lian however, didn’t laugh at all, “It’s not a joke, it really was quite the failure.”

Hearing this, Hua Cheng withdrew his smile and turned solemn, “That’s okay too. Didn’t your highness already say it yourself?”

“Me?” Xie Lian was confused, “What did I say?”

Hua Cheng recited languidly, “To me, the one standing in infinite glory is you, the one fallen from grace is also you. What matters is you, and not the state of you.”

(Phew, finally finished writing this)

I think his arc is really good overall, with strong thematic relevance! (b ᵔ▽ᵔ)b 

That said, parts of his character (and backstory) could have certainly benefited from further being fleshed out, especially when it comes to his home circumstances that were left vague and his relationships with characters besides Xie Lian (I’d like an extra showing how Yin Yu came to work for him pls). 

Looking at matters chronologically, I feel like Hua Hua probably has one of the most existential arcs within this story, starting with him trying to find meaning in life during childhood and then tenaciously spending the rest of his existence determined to fulfill it, be it in life or death. His personal development is obviously deeply linked to Xie Lian, and through the path he has carved from his own decisions, he got to form his own sense of identity while finding love and acceptance, both with Xie Lian and within himself.

To begin, in Hua Cheng and Xie Lian, we see how their lives started out as inverses of each other During Xie Lian’s early years as the God-Pleasing Crown Prince, Hua Cheng, or Hong-Hong-Er as he was known back then, had a poor life filled with such abuse that it would continue to affect his self-esteem even 800 years later. Since he was born under the Star of Solitude, Hua Cheng had no meaningful connections in his life prior to meeting Xie Lian, and from what’s been shown of how others reacted to him, most people actively chose to keep him at a distance, seeing him as a source of misfortune. 

Rather than seeing Hua Cheng for what he truly was at that time - a lonely, miserable child in need of help - many decided to be guided by preconceptions of “fate”, and behaved accordingly, which was decidedly not healthy for the young Hua Cheng’s self-concept, as highlighted by his anguished reaction to being told his fortune by the Head Priest. 

With Xie Lian being the first person to show sincere kindness, to not care about what’s been said about his “fate”, to embrace him and basically treat him like a proper person, it’s only natural that he swiftly made a huge impact on his life. 

An ask about psychoanalytic theory *wipes tears* thanks, friend.

So if you would like a catch-up on the terms I’ll use, I talked about id/ego/superego in MDZS here. I’m going to primarily use psychoanalytic analysis on Xie Lian (Jungian, Freudian, etc.) 

The goal of psychoanalytic literary critique is to examine how the character comes into their own sense of self, called self-actualization. Which is definitely Xie Lian’s arc–after spending 800 years trampled and gaslit and tormented, he finally comes to an assurance of who he is and whom he wants to be. What matters is him, not the state of him. 

A typical relationship between a father and son (or father-figure and son-figure) in these kinds of stories is that the father figure is someone the protagonist must surpass and overcome to fully understand themselves: their father played a role in who they are, but is not fully who they are. 

So let’s talk Xie Lian. 

MXTX uses a lot of Freudian trios in her writing, and I think the one you identify is definitely one. Bai WuXiang is definitely the id, Mei NianQing the superego, and Jun Wu the ego who mediates between them. The problem is the “Jun Wu” is an illusion; he does not exist at all. He is a mask created through hardened armor, a mask for Bai WuXiang to wear. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t the ego–he is, but he is to be replaced once the truth is revealed.

Which, imo, is actually perfectly emphasized by the fact that Xie Lian actually grows into the ego to mediate between them. I mean, the last battle takes place on a bridge, a fallen bridge between heaven and earth. The bridge symbolizes a lot of things, but among them is that Xie Lian is literally a bridge between Bai WuXiang/Jun Wu and Mei NianQing, or the ego mediating between the superego and id. On this bridge, Jun Wu’s armor is finally chipped off and he is left defeated and vulnerable–and it is in this state that Mei NianQing finally decides to learn from Hua Cheng and Xie Lian. What matters is you, and not the state of you. He stays with Jun Wu, the two of them meeting in the middle, in a sense. 

Xie Lian followed Mei NianQing’s righteous path until his first ascension, and then he was tempted to become like Bai WuXiang because Bai WuXiang desperately wanted someone to be able to understand him. He wanted empathy; he wanted to not be alone anymore. But Xie Lian, in the end, rejects this path… with the help of Hua Cheng/Wu Ming. 

I think Xie Lian’s initial rejection is pretty telling: he wants to do what MNQ would do. Go ahead and stab me. 

Under the rain, Xie Lian was holding the sword up, and he said darkly, “As long as you use this sword to pierce me, you won’t be affected by the human face disease.

But Hua Cheng shows Xie Lian another way, sacrificing himself for Xie Lian. 

Xie Lian then continues along MNQ’s path for 800 years, but as Hua Cheng will later remind us, this isn’t entirely good either. Xie Lian has very low self-esteem and is just fine with being abused and suffering when he really should realize that suffering is not a virtue nor a shame: how one responds is what matters. Suffering should not be glorified, but neither should it be condemned. 

However, Mei NianQing notably only lives to survive himself, as you said to me. Xie Lian takes on other’s burdens as well. It’s not that either is right or wrong–there should be nuance, negotiation, empathy and compassion and helping others through their burdens, while also maintaining a healthy self-esteem. MNQ’s motivation to survive did not come from self-esteem but rather from guilt over what Jun Wu had become (and from how he didn’t help lift those burdens). In the end, Xie Lian (through Hua Cheng) learns to balance this, and Mei NianQing, too, takes his first steps towards overcoming his own past and the negative aspects of his way of life through choosing to stay with Jun Wu even after his defeat, choosing to take some of his old friend’s burdens at least. 

The ego is the part of each of us that makes decisions, as emphasized by the fact that despite Bai WuXiang’s attempts to remove Xie Lian’s choices, he relies on his own choices in the end.

As for his actual parents… Xie Lian loves them, but he does not have a great relationship with his father. The king wants him to be what he is not, and his father is simply not a good ruler and can’t bear that Xie Lian knows this. His father wants to be able to protect his son and wants to be everything his son wants him to be, but he cannot be (Xie Lian directly states this at one point). But they are more alike than they would think: Xie Lian, too, wants to save and protect (the common people, loved ones) but cannot do so. If the king is a bad king in the eyes of the one he wants to protect, Xie Lian is not much better a god in the eyes of the people he wants to protect as well. 

His mother Xie Lian is closer with. His rejection of his parents towards the end is agonizing and emphasizes this protection dilemma: it comes just after Xie Lian has been traumatized by being held down and stabbed hundreds of times with a sword (which is a phallic symbol + the way Xie Lian goes and locks himself up in his room insisting he’s fine after his parents and Feng Xin immediately know something is wrong–it’s…not a subtle metaphor. It is not assault, to be clear–you cannot and should not equate them–but it is a Freudian metaphor for a violation others view as shameful, but the shame is actually on Bai WuXiang for orchestrating it). He cannot tell his parents what happened to them because he doesn’t want to burden them; him not telling them is a burden. 

Mama Xie and the king then commit suicide as an example of exactly what Xie Lian fears he is and what he has to overcome: the idea that he’s a burden, that harming himself is fine so long as it benefits people. 

His parents hang themselves because they believe they are a burden to their son. Xie Lian tries to hang himself afterwards, but of course, he cannot die. He tries to take revenge for them then and reaches his lowest point, but Wu Ming saves him and he rejects Bai WuXiang’s path. 

So what I’m taking from your analysis is that symbolically, Jun Wu/Bai Wuxiang are representing the id, Mei Nian Qing is representing the superego, and Xie Lian is the ego that mediates between them, which Hua Cheng helps facilitate.

I like this (esp with the bridge symbolism), but I also want to quibble on a few points (/clarify what I meant when I used the ordering I did). I was thinking of ‘Jun Wu’ as superego, and used quotation marks there because what I meant there was more about Xie Lian’s (and the world’s) idealized view of Jun Wu, not the Wuyong Prince himself. And I view Mei Nian Qing as ego rather than superego, because I think he’s a somewhat amoral character, even as a mentor figure to Xie Lian- after all, he urges Xie Lian to not get involved or try and help alleviate the drought- I feel like Mei Nian Qing is a character who generally tries to avoid getting involved and prioritizes his own survival (other than in his decisions surrounding Xie Lian, in which he tends to take actions to protect him from the Wuyong prince’s fate).

And wouldn’t you say that Mei Nian Qing already knows this ‘What matters is you, not the state of you’? After all, he’s the one who tells Xie Lian that to ascend is human and to fall is also human in Book 2, presumably with the Wuyong prince in mind. Granted, given the ‘beyond hope’ comment Mei Nian Qing makes in Book 3, I could also see how it’s reasonable he may have himself lost sight of this in between, after that second confrontation with his old liege. In any case, I tend to interpret his character as being willing to return to the Wuyong prince, but it’s the latter’s walled-off cruelty that keeps him from doing so.

But since you bring up this act of Xie Lian bridging between superego and id (and also this notion of burden/avoidance), do you think it’s reasonable to say that in the centuries between his second and third ascensions, Xie Lian is not so much bridging between id and superego as he is attempting to avoid them? So during that time, although he is largely performing ego (and superego, although he’d deny that), it’s more a refutation the superego/id dichotomy than it is a balanced embrace of them both.

But then, it’s Hua Cheng’s self-affirming influence which allows Xie Lian to claim his actions as emblematic of his self-worth (represented by his use of ‘shattering boulders against the chest’ without hurting himself); armed thus with a stable sense of ego, Xie Lian is empowered to more properly bridge between the artificial constructs Bai Wuxiang and Jun Wu, and thus bring the Wuyong prince back to himself.

Wow.

Wow.

That transition to Book 2. How evocative that last scene is, stripping bare Xie Lian’s character like the corpse of his mother. This scene is masterfully crafted. Let’s break it down.

Xie Lian, feeling dejected and unable to fit into the rank-and-file of heaven, but unwilling to completely shed the facade of being a heavenly official—that is to say, unwilling to accept either Shi Qing Xuan or Hua Cheng’s offers of hospitality (both of these figures represent people who have ‘made it’ in their respective realms)—turns toward a potent symbol of his past: his family mausoleum.

However, even there—especially there—hobgoblins lurk: the ashes of his mother whose body he was unable to protect (thinking filial piety, this extends to his kingdom, his legacy, his line—oof, An Le), a treacherous shadow (who is simultaneously an innocuous guardian figure, an innocent man, and a vile demon) and, finally, a child who rises from his mother’s ashes.

MXTX is planting, has been planting themes of coexisting dualities and cycles of death and rebirth. These yin-yang-type dichotomies are presented in opposition to artificial imposition of order—it’s lampshaded earlier by Xie Lian with that comment about things appearing in fours. Now in many cultures, 4 represents divine order (while in Chinese it’s also considered an unlucky number)—how many gods in TGCF are denoted by the compass direction they reign over, for instance? But in TGCF, divine order is flouted! It’s all muddled at this point—Who truly has power? Who resides where? Who is wearing a mask? For whose interests does each god and demon labor?

Let’s focus on dualities now. A passage from the Zhuangzi:

“When ‘this’ and ‘that’ do not stand against each other, this is called the pivot of the Tao. This pivot provides the centre of the circle, which is without end, for it can react equally to that which is and to that which is not.“

As I mentioned above, Shi Qing Xuan and Hua Cheng are both presented as beings who are able to flourish in their positions. I posit that their success is due in part to their ability to reside on this pivot, to be able to accept their inner dualities as the natural flow of reality: SQX is happy to take on a male or female form, is both shallow and intuitive, changeable and steadfast. Hua Cheng, also one who finds no difficulty changing form, is kind and ruthless, gentle and harsh (much like his butterflies), mysterious and sincere.

Now how is it that Qi Rong aggravates Xie Lian? He accuses the crown prince of naiveté, of being unable to accept his darkness, the other half of a duality that all sentient beings possess.

But Xie Lian won’t have any of that! Qi Rong is wrong about him; much as he still resents it, Xie Lian has long known that he cannot cleave to a single side of the yin-yang—he is not in denial over his dark side, and it has been a long while since he’s been able to afford any special silk that could preserve his innocence. No, that naiveté is dust, though his bright facade might fool some.

Of course, he’s aware that it’s an innocent human’s body he’s roughing up, but he’s also aware that Qi Rong is unlikely to give up this form without destroying the host, if only to ’teach Xie Lian a lesson’: like all the innocent common people Xie Lian has tried to save over the years, this man is corrupted by a persistent demonic nature. The best he can do now is destroy the demon—along with the attending human casualty—to save the child that remains. This dilemma mirrors in a moment the eradication of the Yong An dynasty, jaded resignation forcing Xie Lian’s hand to slaughter the king in front of his son, to become the villain opposing his saintly image.

And it’s not just utilitarianism that appears to set him over the edge: like Aeneas cutting down Turnus, Xie Lian—our calm, innocent, wide-eyed cutie Xie Lian—seems to give into passion, give into anger, take up the sword.

But the child, the child is still present. And so we are plunged into the past.

Man, I was like, “hey, I’m open for commissions” and y’all were like “let’s give her the greatest possible subjects.” Queen’s Thief, Coco, lady mages and adventurers…. I couldn’t have asked for better material. Sometimes commissions are a drag, but these were all really fun to do.

Thanks to everybody who asked for commissions, and to everybody who expressed concern for my predicament. The bad news is that I won’t be doing another commission round just yet. The good news is that my paperwork cleared, so I’m no longer homeless and jobless and roaming feral around Yellowstone National Park. I moved into my apartment two days ago and am gearing up for another season in uniform. As always, you can see all my ranger photos and watercolor sketches on my Instagram.