#yang chan

[set in the Black Myth, New Gods AU.]

TW: Mentions of Abuse, Trauma, Death, Parental Death, Child Death, Mental health, Violence

Erlang Shen is such as fascinating character (and the hate from the LEGO Monkie Kid fandom honestly hurts my soul), and there are two things that seem to stand out to me in his mythos:

Generational Trauma

Systematic Injustice

This post is touches a bit on Yang Jian's psychology, and how his personal experiences with grief may influence his relationships.

In my BMNW universe, Yang Jian's backstory is pieced together from the many iterations of him that I've read/watched. If you have any questions/criticisms, please drop a comment.

Context

The Jade Emperor's younger sister, Princess Yunhua (later conflated with the goddess, Yaoji, due to the amazing 2009 Prelude of Lotus Lantern series), was sent to earth to capture a fugitive dragon. She was wounded in the heart, but saved by a mortal scholar, Yang Tianyou. They fell in love, and have three children:

2 boys: Yang Jiao & Yang Jian 1 girl: Yang Chan

When the Jade Emperor learned about this, he was enraged and sent soldiers to wipe out the family. Yang Tianyou and Yang Jiao were killed, Princess Yunhua was imprisoned under Mount Tao, leaving the orphaned Yang Jian and Yang Chan to fend for themselves.

I will continue with the story beats down the post, and how each of them affects Yang Jian's psychology.

The Initial Trauma

Yang Jian was a normal child in a family of five, with loving parents, a brother to look up to, and a sister to look after.

At a young age, his entire life and worldview was turned upside down. His father and older brother were killed, his mother dragged away in chains (sometimes depicting Yang Jian as a direct witness), leaving only him and his little sister.

This rapid succession of events is going to cause both children severe emotional and psychological stress.

I know the concept of the Five Stages of Grief is outdated, but this is just a writing guide. Plus, people still use "Freudian Excuse", despite Freud being long ousted

Denial

Yang Jian learns of his mother's fate, and cultivates his power in hopes that he will one day free her.

During this time, Yang Jian is under a lot of pressure to both care for his sister and to train to one day reunite with their mother.

I don't think it would be a stretch to say he was parentified to some extent.

Parentification is when a child is forced to take on adult responsibilities, such as caring for their family members (often younger siblings). This often happens when the parents/guardians are unable to provide the necessary care or isn't present to provide them.

I think he would also be bombarded with "compliments" like, "Such a mature young man," or "You're such a good boy, taking care of your sister like that", which would make things worse. It would compound the feelings of guilt and shame he is already feeling, also adding the burden. If he fails to take care of his sister, then he’s being “immature” or a “bad brother” in the eyes of society, especially one that constantly espouses the "virtues" of filial piety.

This even could have started pre-tragedy. Yuanhua, pregnant with her third child, bringing her two sons over and asking them to be good big brothers for their new little sister. If Yang Jian fails at being a "good big brother", he’s failing his mother’s last request.

All of this would have an even worse impact on his mental and emotional well-being, which is already not good.

I also expect that there could be some unconscious resentment towards Yang Chan for being "less burdened" than he is. As younger sister, he is obligated to protect her, meaning she gets to be innocent for a slightly bit longer. His resentment could fester when she turns out to be hopeful and seek out love in humans, like she's naive and incapable of understanding what he has experienced (the truth of the world, as he calls it).

Hang onto this, it's going to come back later

What keeps him going is the hope that one day, he will free his mother and reunite with her. He’s working on “fixing” his broken family.

Anger

Yang Jian frees his mother, cleaving Mount Tao in half with an axe. In response, the Jade Emperor sends his ten literal burning suns to burn his sister and nephew alive.

Only Yang Jian survives, and is driven into rage, picks up a mountain to kills them (nine die, one escapes).

It requires multiple forms of outside divine intervention for him to finally stop. When he calms down, he and the Jade Emperor are at an impasse.

This is the culmination of all the cultivation and training that Yang Jian has been doing for his whole life. All of his pain, hard work, and living on the run is going to be worth it, because he's going to free his mother and finally reunite his remaining family.

Yang Jian is going to finally "fix" his broken family.

Then his mother dies right in front of him, in one of the most brutal ways possible.

He returns to that feeling of helplessness from his childhood, when he first lost his mother. That misplaced feeling of guilt might be amplified since now he is powerful enough to challenge the gods, but his mom still died in front of him.

So, all that previous bottled up negativity, amplified by this helplessness and newfound rage, leads to the crash out: Yang Jian chasing down the ten suns and possibly killing nine of them.

When Yang Jian is going in a rampage, I don't think the nine suns are the only casualties. I think many innocent people and minor gods and spirits would have been caught in the crossfire, which makes everything worse when he finally calms down. He sees the damage he has wrought, and realizes he has become the same monster that haunted his childhood.

Bargaining

Yang Jian and his uncle, the Jade Emperor, have a "truce" of sorts. Yang Jian will no longer rebel against the Heavenly Court, and he and his allies will be left to their own devices.

There is this (translated) line from a poem in Journey to the West that describes him:

"His heart was too lofty to acknowledge his relatives in Heaven/ "In his pride he went back to be a god at Guanjiang."

He has peace with his uncle, but wants nothing to do with him. He will hunt yaoguai and suppress threats to the natural order, but he is not Heaven's lapdog. He has certain autonomy and rights that others don’t.

He and his sister are now living comfortably and out of Heaven’s direct reach, so things are okay for now. He has a new family, the Plum Hill Brotherhood, so that slightly eases the pain.

Here, Yang Jian begins acting like another character: Vander. Both are leaders who led failed rebellions against unjust systems, but they halt when they see the damage that their reckless actions caused. They end up trying to bargain with the system instead of changing it, which earns them much criticism.

I will be making a more extensive post about his comparison later.

At this stage, Yang Jian lives in cognitive dissonance. He still feels the rage from the last stage, but he's trying to channel it more "productively", by trying to protect the world and his sister.

This is also where he imprisons Yang Chan.

That resentment I mentioned earlier tips into a boiling point when he finds out that Yang Chan committed the same "crime" as their mother. His sister married a mortal man and had a child.

Yang Jian is obviously enraged, maybe going into a "After Everything I've Done for You" speech. After everything he did to keep his sister safe and happy, helping her become a goddess, he learns that she "betrayed" him.

I would even say that Yang Jian has some self-hatred that comes from existing: “If I was never born, my mother would still be here”, and his only experience with divine-mortal romance was his own childhood filled with suffering and death. So, he is shocked that his sister (a fellow victim) would subject her own child to the same fate.

Very much Jon Snow: “I will never father a bastard!”

From an objective perspective, this is not a logical perspective to have. Yang Chan is a grown woman at this point, so she has personal autonomy and agency. She can make her own decisions and take responsibility for her own actions.

This is a real blow for Yang Jian, who never stopped seeing his sister outside of his parentification-lense. He sees Yang Chan's crime as a fault of his own failure to be a good brother and guardian.

So he listens to the Jade Emperor and imprisons her. It isn't until he got some time to actually reflect on his rage towards his sister when he realizes how irrational it was.

Except, it's too late to take it back.

There is also the guilt that he might have forsaken his mother's final wish to be a "good big brother". He could try to twist his mother's innocuous words into fitting his actions. He is protecting his sister, by keeping her in a prison where he can "protect" her.

So, he does another bargain: protecting his nephew: Liu Chenxiang. If he can keep Chenxiang safe, keep him out of Heaven's reach, make sure he grows up "normal", he can do right by his sister.

But he never recovers from his parentification-lense, he instead switches it from his sister to his nephew.

Depression

Yang Jian is now drifting day to day. He has no family left, too much baggage to carry, but no one to relate to.

Still, he is not completely closed off. He has a good support system (Plum Hill Brotherhood, Nezha, etc.), but he keeps them at a distance.

He lives with his Plum Hill Brothers, but he's not going to willingly trauma-dump all of his lore to them. He's the eldest brother, so why burden his new family with his problems. He's friends with Nezha, but he refuses to tell him anything too personal.

So, he shuts down.

He thinks that eventually, his problems will fade and he will forget them.

That does not work.

Instead, Yang Jian is burying himself in his own self-pity and self-loathing, which causes him to withdraw further.

He might even grow to resent others for trying to help him, which causes the occasional outburst, which drives him further into his shell.

Yang Jian's thought process:

He's doing his best not to burden you with his problems, so why are you prying? Do you want him to explode and scream at your face about how miserable he is? I'm doing this for you! So stop prying!

Acceptance

Some eagle-eyed readers will note that there is one thing that stayed consistent throughout his journey through grief: a need for control.

For many abuse and trauma survivors, they try to reclaim a sense of control. Losing control is terrifying, since it means the victim is vulnerable and able to be abused again.

For Yang Jian, this primarily manifests as a need to control and protect others and himself, which has been present since he was a child.

There are also instances where victims try to assign meaning to traumatic events, to say that trauma is good damage, that enduring it made them stronger or special.

Yang Jian saw what happened to his parents and elder brother, and interpreted this as the consequence of defying Heavenly law, which is why he later imprisons his sister for committing the same crime.

Yang Jian was a parentified orphan who has to care for his sister and try to free them mother. He sees this as a sign of his maturity and just nature. He knew what was good for his sister, having been the head of the Yang family for so long, so how can he make a bad decision for her? How can he make a bad decision for his nephew?

He was fighting in the war that lead to the fall of the Shang Dynasty and the rise of the Zhou Dynasty. He saw countless men die, unmourned and unburied. He saw King Zhou, a maniacal tyrant who lusted after Nüwa and tortured hundreds of people, be deified as a minor god, despite the fact that the gods were fighting in a war to depose him. Well, obviously, it's unjust, but that that's just divine politics and destiny. There is nothing he can do.

He tries to spin a narrative about his life so that everything makes sense, so that there is a coherent lesson to be learned.

So, where is Yang Jian headed afterwards?

Yang Jian needs help.

He needs someone to challenge his worldview.

He needs someone to break his need for control.

He needs a wake up call.

And who's the one to best give it to him?

(Also maybe unpopular opinion but i think the the Erlang hate in the lmk fandom is insane free my guy he did NOTHING WRONG (other than the Lotus Lantern events ofc but its not like he wanted to do it))

I am not familiar with the rules so I am curious (I love reading all your explanations so much), what are the rules in the underworld?

Actually funny enough someone gave a GREAT explanation of the death/rebirth process and what that would look like to an average person! @ryin-silverfish made a wonderful comprehensible and walk-through guide of what dying and going through rebirth are like for normal human beings and what they are most likely to see.

Can everyone just go there?

It sounds like you are more asking if people that are alive and are planning to stay alive can go to the underworld?

Normally for most humans, this isn't the case as the only way for a mortal to go to the underworld is to die. As for Immortals or gods then they would have the Walking Cloud (at the very least) and should be able to physically go to the underworld however I don't see most deities doing so without at least some cause or permission. The underworld is run like a business/branch of government/etc. so if a deity goes there and just gets in the way then that could still be rude. In short, I can see deities CAN go but if they don't have a reason then it would be better if they stay out of the way.

or is Sun Wukong an exception?

Sun Wukong is always the exception. He is different from most and if not all deities as he is shown to move and travel anywhere without fear of repercussions. Wukong goes to the underworld because he KNOWS he can and knows that no one can stop him even if he holds other deities' duties to do so. Wukong has no qualms about having others be inconvenienced for his sake and shows this well when he goes to the underworld multiple times in the journey to recruit people's help. It isn't... proper to say the least but Wukong never let social etiquette stop him from completing his goals. I doubt any other deities would have the gall but Wukong has the power to back up his boldness so no one really stops him.

Like, is death permanent for the demons/gods/mortals alike?

"Permanent" isn't really... permanent so to speak. If we are talking about general yao/deities/mortals then all things have a soul and eventually, these souls are all trapped in the wheel of reincarnation. The only beings that are outside of this trap are the Buddha (hence Wukong reaching his goal for true immorality/freedom at the end). There are different details depending on which dynasty lore you might be looking at but all beings are still bound by reincarnation and can still die.

Mortals normally die as such with old age or being killed and thus they go back to the underworld, get evaluated, and go through the incarnation process after their memory is wiped.

Yao are just spirits that skip their human cycle and try to cheat in their animal/object life. If you don't know how yao work read this and understand that Yao are just animals/objects that cultivate to get a humanoid form. Once they die/killed their souls go back into the cycle and either pay for the karma by one of the judges, or they are reincarnated back into their animal/object form to properly life out their lives until they get enough karma to be a human. Or maybe they were a good enough Yao and can be a human in their next life.

Deities while immortal can still be killed. I've seen in Journey to the South how some deities can even use reincarnation to avoid being arrested by heaven by being reborn as someone else and still retaining their past life's memories. This is illegal as you SHOULD have your memory wiped before you are reborn but it can happen if a person goes through other means. But in most cases, if a deity is 'killed' then they would most likely go to the underworld, live out their good karma in a paradise and then be reborn in a very good life. Usually, when I see deities being sent into the reincarnation cycle it is usually a punishment and they will eventually come back to heaven once they have earned their cultivation all over again. We see this with Tang Sanang who was the Golden Cicada who had to live through 10 lifetimes of pure lives to get back to where his cultivation needed to be. And we see this with Zhu Bajie who was reborn as a pig but turned into a yao as he kept his past life's cultivation.

Or is there some process they have to go through to be rebirth?

The process should be the same for everyone going through the judgment halls. But there are certainly a lot of cases of people coming back from the dead (like in FYSS) or mortals being deified after death when they are worshipped.

But normally mortals/yao/deities have their karma weighted and depending on their good/bad deeds they either be reborn into a life that is easy or one that is filled with struggles. If they are really bad then they are usually born as an animal/object as punishment until their next life to be a human to work for a better life. Hence why Yao tend to cheat and skip to the humanoid form so they don't have to live out their lives as animals/objects.

Because I am wondering if (this is like speculation/headcanon) there was ever a chance for Erlang's older brother to be reborn/rebirth, or if Erlang had ever thought of going down the underworld to find him?

Yang Jaio would have been reborn certainly as that is the process all mortals go through.

However, by the time Erlang got his own cultivation/enough power to fight the Jade Emporer, I personally think that Yang Jaio would have been reincarnated and forget all his past life. Erlang could certainly go to the underworld and perhaps ask about his brother's next life but at that point this wouldn't be the brother he would know and would be someone with his soul but not his memories.

He could still go and look but depending on if Erlang would want the weight of knowledge knowing who his brother would be and living out hundreds of mortals' lives might be exhausting.

I am so interested in the Yang Siblings, because despite not being there, I love that Yang Jiao haunts both of his siblings, like being known as Second Son and Third Sister feels like a reminder that they had an older brother, haha.

they're so <3

___, Two, Three