Looming Disaster

Inspired by this post.

I feel like, yes, people keep trying to look for ways that MDZS could have gone differently, ways that WWX could have saved himself. And, the only way was for WWX to leave the Wens to die. The Wens would have died earlier and more cruelly if WWX had left them alone.

In fact, I feel like MDZS is interesting, because, for most characters who had the motivate to prevent WWX's death (WWX, JYL, LWJ, The Wens), there's literally no other option for them. WWX would have saved the Wens whether he cultivated the orthodox path or not, the Wens would have been jailed no matter what.

This wouldn't be a happy ending. WWX is not the type of person who would be happy in this situation. WWX was able to die without guilt. He had anger and resentment, yes, and he hated that the Wens died under his protection, but he at least had the comfort of knowing that he did all that he could have done. WWX's resentful spirit was said to be fairly docile, and that's the reason, it's because he doesn't have guilt. This wouldn't have been true for a WWX who didn't save the Wens.

Once he saves the Wens, and is seen as a heretic, he would have been attacked no matter what, and WWX is constantly put into unfair battles, that he doesn't initiate, and the damages of these situations are blamed on him, but there's no reason to believe that a golden core would have saved him in such a situation.

"He loses control", but that loss of control is always due to emotional disturbance. Emotional disturbance like that in a traditional cultivator could cause Qi Deviations with similar effects. That's what happened to Nie Mingjue, who's emotional state was made deliberately disturbed. So, not cultivating his ghost path wouldn't have saved him either.

LWJ couldn't have done anything, he just was not close enough to WWX for WWX to trust him to ask for help. Maybe he could have made WWX feel safer with him, but like, honestly, he was a tsundere teen, and I've said before that teens are allowed to be tsunderes. He couldn't have predicted what would happen just because he was mean to the annoying sexy boy in his class, lol.

JYL, she didn't know the situation that WWX was in, both she and JZX were kept from the worst of the Jins schemes, and they both died when they tried to do anything to help. Both JYL and JZX lack the power to have done anything.

Jiang Cheng though. That's where you can see an action that could have been made. In chapter 73, he sits before all the clan leaders, and is told about WWX's actions. He says that he owes the Wens a debt, and never clarifies the nature of the debt. Nie Mingjue says that Wen Qing never worked against Wen Ruohan, but this isn't true, and more importantly, JC knows it isn't true.

You can say that JC saying something would have been useless, but the fact of the matter is... he doesn't even try. He doesn't even try to tell people what happened, to be honest with them about why WWX did what he did. He could have tried to stand up for WWX, and that's something that could have changed the course of the story of WWX's first life, and made it so that it could be happier.

You can say that JC was powerless and that no one would support him, but the truth is, he wasn't really. The Jins had the most money, but the least amount of respect, because they joined the sunshot campaign late, and supported the Wens before that. The Lans and the Nies were in a similar war torn state as the Jiang, and they knew the circumstances of the Jin Sect's greed. Nie Mingjue is specifically noted as thinking that there was something shady about the situation he can't put his finger on.

JC was just the youngest, but to say that he was powerless just isn't true. He had the most feared cultivator on his side, and one of the things that JGS tells him to warn him of WWX's behaviour is that people will overlook him, the leader of the sect, and respect WWX more. There are no threats made to the YMJ sect, only to JC's pride.

Even if JC had genuinely perceived a threat to YMJ, telling the truth to at the conference and letting all the clan leaders decide the correct course of action could have helped. He did none of that, and that's the ONLY choice in the story that could have saved WWX.

The reason JC is the villain of the story is because of this. His choice was the one that led to WWX's downfall, at the end of the day. You can argue about his moral greyness or his nuances, or the way he tried to sacrifice his life for WWX, but the truth is, when WWX needed him, he didn't stand up for him. And, that's why there's no Yunmeng Shuanjie reconciliation, and why JC ends up unhappy at the end.

They’re just super mad that I refuse to be bullied out of a tag because they want to control the fandom again. No, you still do not get to push me to anti jiang cheng because I have the temerity to talk about his actual character and at this point I consider the desire to ship a homophobe with every random man in the story despite him being clearly uncomfortable with the concept in any way, far more anti jiang cheng than my posts pointing out what he actually does.

Just because the word canon is in the tag name it doesn't make the take more valid lmao. It's a search category with a passive aggressive name because the people that made it were harassed out of the general tag. They deserved the snark for essentially being kicked out of the character tag. Plus it made it easier to search out novel specific posts, so to me it was a win/win

And I just shake my head at these people trying to "reclaim" the tag and telling the fans that made it to go make a new tag again. Hey Twitter stans, why don't you make your own tag called "actual canon Jiang Cheng" or whatever if it means that much to you. The tag name doesn't automatically make you any more correct or incorrect. Right now all you're doing is ruining people's ability to curate their content.

You ever do so poorly your coach immediately resigns and the country makes up a new idiom over it

but you know what? That's OK. Even real life couples start like that too and they're more than content. In RL, there's always one who gives more and they're OK. My point is that what we like in a fictional romance is subjective and what some people find beautiful, others won't so nothing will change that. What is a fact and has nothing to do with opinions is that they're canon. it's ridiculous to pretend that's something that is up to debate and We can literally take every single canon couple in fiction and say there's someone else better for them but that's not how it works not in fiction and not irl either. And it's fictional ffs, there's no if's, they're no real, they're not people that can REALLY pick. So I don't see the point of overthinking and look if there's someone else for him. it's this moment where I believe people should go outside and stop interacting with fandom. Just look for other book and stop focusing on wwx if his story isn't that compelling for you. I'm sure that there are some story where a character that is the type of wwx ends up with someone that's more of the type you prefer.

Hi Anon,

Quite honestly I don’t care that you or anyone doesn’t like Wangxian. We all have different things that appeal to us after all and there is nothing wrong with that.

I also agree with your last point that Wangxian is canon and that is the end couple no matter that other fans may think WWX would be better off with someone else.

However to me Wangxian isn’t just the end couple because the novel told me but because MXTX crafted an exceptionally beautiful romance. And quite honestly I don’t know if you read the novel or not or only read it once but frankly you are wrong about the depth of Wei Wuxian’s feelings for Lan Wangji and why he fell in love with him.

Anyways I want to go over the 3 main points of your argument

1. That Wei Wuxian flirting with Lan Wangji didn’t mean anything

2. That Wei Wuxian ONLY fell in love with Lan Wangji because he was lonely and he was the only one by his side

3. That Lan Wangji somehow loves Wei Wuxian more because of what he did for him

Lan Zhan, you're really great. How can such a gorgeous beauty play the guqin so well, have such proper penmanship, possess such strong spiritual energy, be endowed with such high cultivation base and even be so amazing in bed? How can you be so outstanding? Tell me how I could not love you…"- Chapter 111 extended translation by Big Bad Red Panda

For the rest of the quotes I will be using the EXR Translation but I thought this was a perfect quote to start us off.

Anyways basically this is going to be an extremely long essay about Wei Wuxian’s love for Lan Wangji. It’s long because Wei Wuxian loves Lan Wangji a lot.

I don’t know where I was going with this so it goes a little off the point but I think I managed to get through what I wanted. This is just a lot of rambling.

I see a lot of people in this fandom acusse Wei Wuxian of being a genocide bc of what happened in nightless city, as if he was the only responsable for the situation and didn’t die for it in the most gruesome way (sounds like the cultivation world right?). Wwx was indeed responsible for killing cultivators in nightless city, he himself acknowledges this, but at the same time he refuses to carry sins he didn’t commit. Why that? We were told first thing that he killed 3,000 cultivators, but then someone else come and say that he actually killed 5,000 cultivatos. How can we know if either of those informations are correct? How can we trust this if we know all of the other things they said were false? The ppl who were at nightless city were elders, sect leaders and their best cultivators, and we see some of those same cultivators in the second siege in BM without a scratch. There were 3000 cultivators gathered in nightless city, but wwx didn’t kill them all, but even so, he still killed a lot of people.

Now let’s put some context. WWX has been invited to a family event at Koi Tower but is attacked without evidence in pacetime. A lot of people use Jin Zixuan’s death to say that WWX is a murder, but that doesn’t even make sense. There were 300 people trying to kill him and Jzx instead of ordering them to retract, decides to side with his cousin and demands Wwx to lower chengquing, even if he was the only one being attacked. Jzx starts arguing with Wwx and then launches against him in a moment when he was surrounded by enemies and in an extremely stressful state, Wwx reacts instinctively, just like someone who has gone through war and has an knee-jerk reaction against any sudden movement towards him, Wxx loses control over Wn and Jzx dies. ( This is the only innocent person Wwx kills directly out of war time, and I consider what happened before Jzx’s death as war )

Okay, recapitulating, so just like the Wens, the Jins too made a war move against someone who was living peacefully. But that’s all erased by Jzx’s death, so the Jins again demand a payment for that, which was Wq’s and Wn’s sacrifice, with the promise that the Wens remains wouldn’t be attacked. JGS somehow makes Wn lose control and kill a lot of people, and then blames Wwx for it (which doesn’t even make sense, why would they give themselves up just to kill some people? Wwx was the most powerful cultivator, he could have had killed everyone there if he wanted without the need to send his two closest confidants to their deaths) and uses it as a excuse to gather many sects and plan an attack, ignoring the white flag given by the wens btothers, continuing to move towards war.

That’s when Wwx arrives, his appearance was unexpected, they were planning a surprise attack ( I wonder if that had happened and the cultivators had invaded BM screaming for the wens’s blood and Wwx obligatorily defended himself killing all those people fandom would still consider him a murderer, cuz well, that’s exactly what was going to happen, so these cultivators were going to die anyway ) so Wwx still tries to talk to them ( like at the Jin’s banquet, when he tries to talk to Jin Zixun but is ignored and then forced to use violence, or when Jin Zixun ambushes him and he still tries to be the voice of reason) but is directly attacked by an arrow aimed at his heart, which currently pierces him but misses a vital point because of bad aim, so he attacks back and the fight starts.

Wwx is a soldier and that was war, he was fighting to defend his people. How many innocent people were killed in the Sunshoot campaign? I’m sure not all soldiers agreed with Wen Rouhuan and were just following orders ( like those who helped Wn rescue Jc ) but they died anyway. In times of war no one stops being human, neither side is right or wrong you’re just fighting to protect yourself, the only ones who deserve to die are the oppressors like Wen Rouhan and JGS. Some cultivators were there under orders from their superiors, or were manipulated by the Jins, they were ‘innocent’ ( as innocent as the wens soldiers who didn’t agreed w Wrh ) but complicit. The deaths caused by Wwx were his burden to deal with, but it’s not just him who has to be held responsible for what happned, this fandom is used to seeing Wwx always take responsibility for everything and they think that’s okay, but everyone there were adults like him and they knew that if they attacked BM they would meet resistance and many people would die just the same.

Yanli was also an adult who made her own decisions, it was her choice to go unarmed to an battlefield, it was her choice to sacrifice herself to save WWX, just like Wq did and I don’t see anyone blaming Wwx for her death. After Jy’s death, Wwx loses control and starting killing indiscriminately, and in my opinion this was a lot like a QI deviation, except that DC is much more destructive.

He did kill a lot of people at nightless city, but it certanlly wasn’t 3000. He couldn’t just talk to these ppl bc they would not listen to him, no matter what. So what was he supposed to do? There was no other way for him to resolve this situation, and he didn’t even started the fight in the first place. He would not let the Wens die, he would not surrender to be killed and neither side would give up, bringing death for all. Every cutivator there knew they were at risk to be killed, either they wouldn’t be there planing an attack against the Yilling Patriach. They were fighting a war and in the end they died, the wens died and Wwx died. When he came back, he still held the responsability for what he did, for the people he killed, but no one other than him did that, bc the cultivation world couldn’t acknowledge they were wrong too and not the only victims of the hisotry 

The fandom:

About as pleasant as gazing upon the elephants foot [Chernobyl]

Like, MXTX isn't subtle about it. She structured her narrative in such a way as to make it clear what should be believed and what should be doubted from the very beginning. Even though the full truth only comes out later on in the story, MXTX will usually show us when the information isn't trustworthy by contradicting it in some small way right away.

The first thing we learn about WWX is his reputation, which is immediately put into question as soon as he wakes up in MXY's body. MXY thinks he's summoned a vicious ghost to take his revenge, but we're told right away that WWX was actually a very well behaved ghost who never harmed anyone and never sought revenge. Then we learn that if doesn't kill the Mo family, he'll die painfully and his soul will be destroyed - and WWX not only doesn't kill them, he saves the Lan juniors (when we know the Lan clan was one of the clans that contributed to his death) and aids them in their attempts to save the Mo family.

At this point, we readers should know that the rumors about WWX shouldn't be blindly believed. Even if we haven't seen exactly what happened in the past yet, we should know it couldn't be exactly how cultivation world said it. The more time we spend with WWX in the present, the more we should doubt everything we've heard about him from the rest of the cultivation world. I'd also like to point out that WWX is never prortayed as regretful and torn up by guilt. This is not a redemption story, as WWX was in the right from the beginning.

The flashbacks only further cements this, as each one deconstructs some of the rumors about WWX's first life.

The same is true for other characters. Like, we're told LWJ was WWX's enemy, but WWX himself says it wasn't so bad immediately after, and one of the first things he does on page is defend WWX from JC after he saw WWX controlling Wen Ning with a flute. So, naturally, we should doubt the veracity of such a rumor.

It's the opposite with JC, for example. The first thing we learn about him is that he had a role in WWX's death, and his first appearance confirms his intention to see WWX dead again even after he already died once.

In the flashbacks, that knowledge is supposed to color how we view his character. His behavior is toxic even as early as the first flashback, and we're supposed to treat it with due gravity, as we know it'll eventually get worse to the point of killing WWX and hunting down people he suspects might be him (and killing them even if they are proven to not be WWX). And MXTX is even more blunt when it comes to YZY. She outright says that what YZY says makes no sense but everyone just has to suffer her temper. Why does any reader still believe this woman's words about WWX?!

With LWJ as well. We know from his present interactions with WWX that he couldn't have disliked him as much as his past actions indicate if we take them at face value. For example, LWJ's jealous moments in the past could only be interpreted as such with the knowledge we have from the present storyline.