Promises vs Morals
Wei Ying breaking of his so called “Twin Pride” promise is something JC stans and even JC himself aggressively hold on to. It is the example they give to prove how JC was a poor fellow abandoned by his brother over a broken promise. JC brings this up as an argument when everything else fails in the Guniang temple.
Let us ignore the circumstances in which that promise was made. Let us also ignore the situations and arguments that led to this promise. Let us forget about how invalid that promise is and how that promise is always interpreted differently by JC. Let us, for the sake of this argument consider that JC and Wei Ying were good brothers once and this promise was between two brothers.
So what if Wei Ying gave his promise and then broke it? Are promises more important than innocent human lives? Which is more important? Breaking a promise or saving lives? And was it only Wei Ying who broke this promise? It is about the “Twin Pride” and not “One pride and one follower”. If you call someone your brother, then you have his back. It is an implicit promise. If JC had not broken the implicit promise of brotherhood and abandoned his morals and his so called brother, this promise would been kept.
Many fans seems to believe that JC abandoned WY to save his sect. Fine, let us believe this to be true for a moment. In that case, JC has no right to blame WY for breaking his promise. WY choose to save innocent wens and broke his promise to JC. Similarly, JC choose to save his sect and broke his promise of brotherhood. So, even from this angle, JC should not have any complains.
Forget about all this. We will only talk about WY breaking his promise. Here, I would like to give an example from one of the greatest epic ever “Mahabharat” from my country. Once there was a prince who was about to be declared as the heir to the throne. He was the only son of his king-father Shantanu. This king falls in love with a fisher woman and wants to marry her. Her father asks for one condition for the marriage: her son should be the next king. In order to save his father from heartbreak, the prince vows that he will never be the king and he will never marry so that his sons will not contest for the throne later. He also promises to be a servant of the throne instead of a prince.
Years pass by. The fisher woman has two sons and both of them die one after the other. The whole kingdom is doomed without a king or a heir. The prince refuses to break his promise to take the throne. He arranges for other means to have heirs. Among the latest generation of heirs, one is blind, one is very pale, and one is a son of servant. Even though the blind heir is the oldest, his younger brother is made the king. This new king dies soon after. And the saga continues. Everything ends up in a huge war which wipes out the entire continent.
This is what the Lord Krishna has to the prince who made the vow in the beginning. “When you made your promise, the circumstances were different. When your half brothers died without heirs, you refused to become the king. You refused to break your promise of being a servant and use your strength to usurp the next generation king when he was not doing his duty to his kingdom. It was the common people in your kingdom who suffered in the end. Once your promise was your strength of character. Later the same promises became the chains that stopped you from doing what is right. What use is a promise when your strength and prowess is not used for the betterment of your kingdom?” Of course, I am over simplifying a lot of things. The story is much more complex.
But it makes the same point. So what if WY broke his promise? Saving innocent lives and using his powers for the better is always the right choice in the end.
