Lahan's Brother - The Curse Of Good Work
Lahan’s Brother, is not obsessed with potatoes in the same way Maomao is poisons and later medicine, he doesn’t care about them the way that Lahan cares about numbers, and he doesn’t define himself by it in the way that La’s tend to do.
Lahan’s Brother frequently throughout the western capital arc notes that he is not a farmer, this is, to him objective truth. His father is a farmer, he is just the boy that was kicked from the capital to the countryside and forced into the fields all the same.
""F-Farmer?!" Lahan’s Brother chocked. He seemed to want to push back, but he was too enraged to say anymore." - vol 10 chapter 3 - Maomao’s pov.
Though we are not starved of unreliable narrators, characters that assert things about themselves that are not perfect truths. I find it very disingenuous to claim that is what this is for two reasons, Lahan’s Brother's purpose in the narrative from a meta perspective — Lahan’s Brother, is a parallel to Jinshi.
Lahan’s Brother is not a La, its why he doesn’t boast the character in his name. Lakan and his brother (Lahan’s father) both do, Luomen and his brother (Lakan’s father) both do, Lahan does, Maomao refuses her place in the La clan, but women also don’t take the clan character. Junjie, is not regarded as a La, in something as potent and important as his own name, the word that defines who he is for the world denies him his family, because he is not one of them. He is missing that defining character because he is missing that defining characteristic eccentricity. He is not an obsessive, over-talented, hyper-specialist, he is the question and the proof that good, honest, hard work will always beat talent.
"When Maomao had been taught to read, she'd started with her own name. It was important, she was told, for helping you know when you came from" - vol 3 chapter 1 - Maomao's internal thoughts.
"Normally I'd have booted them out of the family and that would have been the end of it," - vol 14 chapter 6 - Lishu's grandfather explaining why he only took the U character from Ujun the former heir. Stripping him of the clan character was the most he could do, while listening to Lishu's request.
Lahan’s Brother ends up tricked into coming on the journey west by Lahan, into doing work that his father was too busy in the north to do. He knows a lot about potato cultivation because of all the time spent helping father lover of farming that he is, and so with promises from Lahan to be fulfilled on his return he sucks it up and gets on the ship with a heavy trunk of seed potatoes to diversify the food supply of the western province. Something that in fact brings him nothing but strife, and leaves him well and truly harrowed thanks to the plague insects but, and most notably, he refuses to do a half assed job.
“If he were clever, he’d have dialed it back by twenty percent or so, instead of going all out every single time” - vol 10 chapter 16, Maomao’s internal thoughts.
He can not do less than that and that is where the Jinshi parallel begins.
It is a frequent point made that Jinshi gets a lot of work foisted on him and allows it to happen to a degree because it needs to be done and he can just see it done, a very unhealthy thing to do and almost certainly the reason that he has so many jobs. Jinshi is the grand protectorate, is implied to manage the land seized from the Shi clan, and functionally act as prime minister, while also acting as a prince. Also the reason that Maamei is given to him as more an aide then the typical court lady secretary, and Hulung later after the western capital arc.
The western capital arc also ends with both Jinshi and Lahan’s Brother going unknown for their work. It is a major part of the plot that Jinshi is letting Gyoku-ou take credit for his work a sentiment that it doesn’t matter who’s gets the credit just that it was done, and as we learn, Lahan’s Brother stuck in the western capital for some extra time writes what becomes a must have of a farmers almanac though never with his name. No one not immediately involved with them at the time will know all that they did, their involvement in these situations and it is better that way. There is no burning need or desire in them to be known for this work because it is not defining to them, though it is not defining it is never treated by them as unimportant. It is work that had to be done, and to them that is all the reason needed to see it done if it is in their ability.
"He's plucked this moment right out of Jinshi's hands! Jinshi had done all the work but Gyoku-ou would get all the credit." - vol 10 chapter 20 - Maomao's internal thoughts.
"this seems to be the true reason I was summonded here--to serve as a convenient foil," - vol 10 chapter 20 - Jinshi.
"Later, the diary would be edited into a manual of farming techniques, but its author remained unknown." - vol 13 chapter 8 - future/semi omniscient narrator informing the audience.
They both have this tendency to sacrifice themselves for the sake of others. Lahan’s Brother was tricked into his role in the western capital but that in his mind is no reason to do perfect work, it is clear that there is a pride he take in doing good work, and a pride that is damaged in that denigration of that work. This is also to a degree, tied to their positions as disregarded first born sons.
"As hard as he had worded, Lahn's Brother simply couldn't reach everyone in time... struggle as he might, Lahan's Brother was never going to reach the finish line" - vol 10 chapter 20 - Maomao's internal thoughts
Lahan’s Brother is the elder of the two and is noted to have the temperate and manners expected of a man of his family. He was raised as the eldest son of the clan heir, he was the future heir apparent, for twelve years he lived that. There is a thread that comes up occasion, this what if Lakan didn’t drive the rest of his family into the countryside, and what what would be of Lahan’s Brother, and the idea that he would have made a good soldier. Furthering this idea of Lahan’s Brother as a good heir, his grandfather a La obsessed with swords, Lakan who rose through the ranks, the established rivalry of the La and Shi clans being an extension but also a small scale and easier to understand rivalry of the military and the bureaucracy of court, Lahan’s Brother fits into that. A budding friendship with Lihaku who has trouble getting on with types who aren’t akin to soldiers, challenging a man to a duel, not just that but the strategic mind to know how to win the duel in a way few others can see. There is the world where he was the better heir, but he’s not a La.
Kind of a little more tangential but I do think there is something here with relation to the constantly rejecting the titles of farmer and Lahan’s Brother that a lot of people miss simply through culture and history that isn’t translated, there are three layers of abstraction for a lot of western fans. First we are typically reading a translation removing us a step from the original work (especially considering the many issues that are taken with Kevin as a translator) then there is the potential of being removed from the Chinese culture of the setting and the Japanese culture of Hyuganatsu (think the three teachings or the myth of Vega and Altair) then many of us are removed again by the settings historical context. Lahan’s Brother should be a member of the aristocracy, he should be a member of the military or bureaucracy and as we see is all to common should have been put in that position by his family. Yet he is repeatedly called a farmer, a classification of commoner rather than the position of aristocracy he can be assumed to have a complicated relationship with. Also, Lakan has built a military that is meritocratic, the doctors are explicitly anti-nepotism, and Jinshi is using the name Jinshi. Jinshi, a rank that became incredibly popular with common men as they were increasingly able to take the civil service exams, and the bureaucracy became more and more common men who achieved the Jinshi rank in the exams rather than aristocrats.
He rejects the assertion he is a framer and while acting as one, we are often reminded of that noble blood. Yet, in the same vein he rejects the name of Lahan’s Brother and while being perceived as such, including sitting at the La clan's table, a member of the clan, we are reminded of that farming background, asking for something the length of a hoe to fight a duel with.
He is not who he was born, nor is he is fathers son, he is his own unique person.
A very interesting parallel to Jinshi, who by all accounts should be the crown prince, he constantly proves himself worthy of that title, and the only reason it was removed was because of the Emperor’s love and care for Jinshi and his personal want to be free of that title. In the same way that Lahan’s Brother is his fathers son, a blooded member of the La clan, while at the same time not being a La, Jinshi is a bloodied imperial, he is the son of heaven, and unbeknownst to him the first born son of the Emperor, but at the same time, as Ah-Duo said, he is not of heaven, he is plainly human.
"To Ah-Duo, Yue was human. She had been able to determine as much tonight. To Ah-Duo, Yue was a son, but she not able to say so. For him to remain human, he could not be her son." - vol 15 chapter 16 - Ah-Duo's nternal thoughts
Lahan’s Brother is as ordinary in contrast to the La’s, as Jinshi is human in contrast to the imperials.
There is also just another weird connection he has to Jinshi which is there names. Lahan’s Brother’s name is disregarded and ignored and the phrasing by which that is done.
Maomao specifically cuts them both off from telling her who they are. In very different circumstances and for very different reasons, but she rarely stops someone from saying their name, she just doesn’t listen to it most the time. In this same interaction she refers to his father as La something, it is these two names that she refuses to learn.
““Why didn’t he ask his father?” Maomao asked. Lahan’s father, La… uh, something or other, loved farming and seemed like he would go to the ends of the earth if there was a field to be tended there.” - vol 10 chapter 3 - Maomao pov
In another very strange moment that is paralleled between them, Jinshi’s name is revealed to Maomao as much as it can be, at his being called the crown prince, in it being given away to someone else. As is Junjie, given to the young boy from the western capital.
""Oh, but if anyone else already has my name, please, by all means, forget it's mine" ...Lahan's Brother stood there with his face squinched up, looking like he wanted to say something" - vol 12 chapter 8 - Maomao pov
""That title no longer belongs to me," Jinshi said. "A royal son has been born." - vol 4 chapter 20 - Jinshi
Lahan’s Brother exists, like many characters, to be in conversation with others. The contrast his family with a question of generalisation vs specialisation. The nature of the hard working to be worked hardest.
Lahan's Brother is not the potato La and to call him as such is to deny what he is, the far more interesting case of being from something that is supposed to be innate to your blood. To call him the potato La is to say that Jinshi is suited to a life as Emperor. They are the rejection of what their family is not who their family are, and I think that is an infinitely more interesting character.
