ive barely been in the svsss fandom for long but ive already seen a handful of people deny sj was a purposeful abuser because hes a bitter victim
i remember seeing someone mention it before how some people have probably gone on so long w/o reading the actual book itself but sj is 100% aware that he is bitter and mistreats people but he does it because it makes him feel better about himself and his own trauma. like he did that shit your honor he knew what he was doing
its kind of funny since his entire character is centered around him being a not good person at all but not a total scumbag with 0 reason why he does anything (+ the false accusations that were born from rumors and the fact sj hated clarifying things to people, which i find ironic considering he just wanted an explanation from yqy why he didnt come back lol)
actually this isnt even just rlly focusing on shen jiu
he may have been named but in every single fandom ive been in ive noticed that people had to make a generally awful character who happened to have good writing and/or a sad backstory into a noble abuser who was doing what they thought best, and i realized that even though i myself love these characters for the complexity, it annoys me a lot because of how it seems to excuse their behavior? and that people try to frame they didnt actually do anything wrong or they were misguided once they admit their "reasonings", while disregarding the writing itself
