hello, in svsss what do you think of zhuzi-lang? his story is so sad but he gets so little attention :(((
Zhuzhi-Lang is actually one of my favorite characters in Scum Villain! Perhaps my second favorite after Luo Binghe, actually. His death devastated me.
So, before I discuss him, I will recommend this excellent meta by @thisworldgodonlyknows. Basically, Zhuzhi-Lang has remarkable similarities with other characters in MXTX’s works (notably, as the meta discusses, Wen Ning, but also with Wei Wuxian, Luo Binghe, Su She, and even Hua Cheng). The trope is called “because you were nice to me” on TVTropes, and essentially it’s if someone is kind to a character who is usually treated unkindly by society, they become obscenely loyal and spend their life trying to earn that one act of kindness. If someone tells these characters they have worth, they become wildly loyal, trying to earn that person’s affirmation again and again. It comes from a highly insecure sense of self and from the fundamental question each of MXTX’s three novels ask: how can humans earn the right to be alive?
The answer is that we are alive and deserve to be, and the right to live can’t be earned because it’s inherent. If you look at it, almost all of these characters end up dying at some point in a misguided attempt earn their right to live. Even if they have a happy ending, they die in the meantime; these deaths are not always directly attributed to these tendencies in the character, but are certainly somewhat connected.
Zhuzhi-Lang dies trying to save both Tianlang-Jun and Shen Qingqiu.
Luo Binghe is the only one who does not die but Luo Binghe is still considered dead for several years after being pushed into the abyss (which is at least a metaphorical death) by the same person who he was dedicated to serving.
Wen Ning winds up a weapon; it’s noted his repressed resentment has been used post-death. His arc is about overcoming the idea that he has to earn the right to live even a second life, as Wei Wuxian wants him to live on his own and Wen Ning eventually decides to do so.
Wei Wuxian kept trying to make it up to the Yunmeng Jiang Sect for taking him in (he says as much), which leads to misunderstandings that eventually result in his own death.
Su She dies trying to save Jin Guangyao, and it’s all for naught in the end.
Hua Cheng dies three times, each time for Xie Lian (mimicking Xie Lian’s three ascensions), and each time his death hurts Xie Lian.
However, for each of these characters, it is absolutely not their fault that they feel they have to earn their lives. The biggest bad in all of MXTX’s works is society and its lack of empathy for those who are somehow deficient by its standards–and if you look closely, most if not all characters might be considered deficient, even the ones who pretend not to be.
For Zhuzhi-Lang specifically, he was born to a snake demon clan. He isn’t regarded as a fully human/demon; instead, he’s literally trodden upon and looked at as a lesser being. This cruelty has embedded itself deeply in Zhuzhi-Lang: he is violent when someone is violent to him as a result thereof, but he is also kind to an extreme when people are kind to him. As the above meta I liked to says, he doesn’t understand the nuances of humanity (and when I saw humanity it isn’t limited to just humans–demons/ghosts/gods all fit this within the story), the nuances that enable characters to overcome their flaws and choose their own way to live.
Zhuzhi-Lang is also a foil to Shen Qingqiu and to his cousin, Luo Binghe. Shen Qingqiu, after being transmitigated into the story as the villain, lives as if he has to earn his survival (oh and he also dies temporarily as a result), and lives without nuance. He believes he knows how the story will go, how it is written, even as he knows he’s rewriting parts of it. However, by the end of Shen Qingqiu’s arc, he’s realized he can make his own choices, he can even choose the genre of the story he’s living, he can change the fate of the world and his own fate. It was this fear and this primal belief that he knew how things would go, these constraints he put on his own actions as a result (like pushing Luo Binghe into the abyss), that led to much of the pain and tragedy.
For Luo Binghe, he keeps trying to earn the kindness of Shen Qingqiu, falling deeply in love with him. Yet Shen Qingqiu, much like society itself, is afraid of Luo Binghe, so Luo Binghe tries all manner of rules to earn his appreciation and love but doesn’t succeed. When that fails, Luo Binghe decides to rewrite the entire world, combining the demon and human realm, not caring at all. He goes into a qi deviation, having completely let go of nuance, wanting to destroy the entire world to control the narrative he has never been allowed to control (and much like Zhuzhi-Lang, to return the world the cruelty it always treated him with). Shen Qingqiu saves him, of course, and it isn’t a coincidence that their ending is Shen Qingqiu telling Luo Binghe that if he will not be welcomed in their society, they will find a place where Luo Binghe will be welcomed. In other words, Shen Qingqiu learns nuance himself, learned that the nuance and loyalty of Zhuzhi-Lang is not inherently bad or harmful; in fact, loyalty is a good trait when it is nuanced.
Although Zhuzhi-Lang’s life ended tragically and I’m still not over it, his life wasn’t pointless, and his legacy is not of a monster trodden into the dirt. Yes, some may remember him that way. But the calamity is not solved when Zhuzhi-Lang is nailed to a wall; it’s solved through an act of love and loyalty, through Shen Qingqiu committing to Luo Binghe in his extremely awkward and hilarious way. Even if many characters thing that Zhuzhi-Lang was a villain put down, the narrative counters this. Additionally, not all characters think as much: Tianlang-Jun is still alive and has another chance, and Shen Qingqiu learns the value of loyalty and assurance thereof, which enables him to prevent Luo Binghe following a similarly tragic path to Zhuzhi-Lang.
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