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Wei Wuxian and Chinese Virtues of 忠孝仁义
There’s a lot of conversation about Wei Wuxian and how he struck out on his path without a concern for the Jiangs; about how he’s reckless and not giving a sh*t about his role within his society; about how he had a family and siblings and threw it all away for his sense of right and wrong. But the way I read his actions is within the context of the virtues of 忠孝仁义 (and how the virtues, especially 义, is ingrained in him via the Jiang sect motto). WWX’s major decisions can all be read as him acting in accordance with one or more of these virtues. Even when WWX is being his most irreverent self (and yes he’s rude and bring about a lot of second hand shame) he still remembers the we-self (to borrow from baoshan-sanren’s post) context as the head disciple of the Jiang Sect. Even when he seems to abandon everything, he didn’t abandon his understanding of these virtues.
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Jin Guangyao’s Violation of 忠孝仁义
So I had written about WWX and his strong sense of 忠孝仁义 last week. While I was writing it, I kept on thinking about JGY and how he managed to violate all of these virtues. I wanted to go into this characterization of him because I find it so interesting how opposite he is to WWX in the decisions he made. (Warning: i’m not nice to JGY here so if you don’t want him dragged, don’t read?)
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Hey hi! The scene of Jiang Cheng being an angry grape and tossing his cape could be referencing the Chinese phrase "割袍断义" (gē páo duàn yì), which is taken from an actual event that occurred in history and literally means "to cut your robe and break a relationship". Basically refers to the ending of friendship or any close interaction due to differences in values and opinion! So JC probably did that as a show of officially denouncing WWX. (Although the way he did it was really very dramatic hehe)
anon!!! thank you for my entire life!!
this is so wonderful! i had forgotten about this particular idiom. thank you for bringing in to my attention. the jiang cheng scene now makes so much more sense, but also still ridiculously and absurdly dramatic, i love it so much!!
i just went ahead and skim read the baidu-baike article for 割袍断义 and it’s so interesting. lskg;lkdsg god leave it to a fucking show about one (1) utterly devastating disaster bicon to suddenly get me unendingly fascinated by and absorbed in learning about chinese literature and language, and all the poignant background stories for these idioms, which I totally glossed over as a child sitting in chinese school and wanting nothing more than to go home and doodle
adult me @ child me: u will regret this so hard
Untamed and Swords
This post was sitting in my drafts for a while and I was actually quite close to just delete the whole thing, but then I JUST saw @hunxi-guilai posted THIS and I needed to take her questions and answer them!
Here we go!
What is it that makes a peijian different from other weapons?
In the Untamed World the Sword is usually the first weapon of choice, plainly because it’s rather easy to see on a first glance status and capability of the Cultivator - if he is not known. It’s a respected art of Cultivation. Taking this into the real world of Cultivation: Over the thousands of years Cultivators roam this earth, there were quite a lot decades in which the sword was on a similiar point of necessity like in Untamed. So in summary, this is just about the timeline one lives in. Each timeline has it’s own value of which kind of Cultivation is considered the most important. Untamed definitely chose the Sword for it. So you can use other weapons too, but nothing beats the excellent wielding of a Sword.
Why are they so fancy and shiny? Who makes them? Are they also magic?
I absolutely can’t talk for Untamed, because I don’t know on which information this world is build and how much the author actually knew about the subject. So I’m going to rely on the real world Cultivation, if you are okay with it?
Creating a spiritual sword, needs someone who is specialized in forming swords WITH the power of magic in the background. So, yes, very rare. If you’d ask me where to find such a person in this world, then I can’t answer because I don’t know. Since you can’t run around with a Sword in your hand nowadays, I guess the art of creating them died too?
The other (easier) method is to craft it with one’s own power. It needs a certain level of Cultivation, but the pathworking is rather ‘simple’
I think question one was a joke, wasn’t it? But if I’d answer this seriously, they are fancy and shiny because they are an object of power and an accessory at the same time. Everyone’s going to check out your sword first, before checking out you. So the sword should be fancy and shiny, right?
Does the magic live in the sword, or in its wielder? Or both?
It’s both. A magical Sword owns a connection to it’s wielder and vice versa.
How sentient are these swords anyway? What makes a spiritual peijian different from your average sword?
It depends on the wielder and the wielders Cultivation Level. The higher the Cultivation level the more sentient the Sword. If you’re one step further into a certain Cultivation, you can either infuse your Sword with a spirit or infuse the Sword with a part of your own energy until it becomes a spirit (yep, that’s possible). If it’s the second, your Sword will be incredible powerful, but it also has some disadvantages.
A average Sword cannot be compared to a spiritual Sword. I have some trouble explaining it, I guess? It’s a question of energy. Uhm… that’s the point where I always closed my draft because I just don’t know how to get that into words. Maybe ask me some more questions? I have tendency to find the right words then.
What makes peijian so different from the Qinghe Nie dao?
The killing instinct. Nie’s Sabers are definitely infused with a different energy and thus they are bloodthirsty. Pretty much sure Nie Sect is using some form of military cultivation which can enchant those sabers.
Does Jin Guangyao’s soft sword count as a peijian?
Hmm… yes and no? It wouldn’t get accepted as a status symbol. But it’s definitely a deadly tool.
What makes a peijian different from other secondary spiritual weapons?
The options. You have way more options with a Sword than with all the other available weapons. Does this need more information?
Can peijian be passed on from owner to owner?
Usually no. But this largely depends on the Cultivation level of the Wielder. The higher the level the more unlikely it will be for the sword to allow someone else to be his master. Low level spiritual Swords can be passed, though - but those swords kinda hardly count as real spiritual Swords.
What happens if you wield someone else’s peijian?
This depends on the Sword. They can burn you when you touch them, they can make themselves so heavy, no one besides their master can even lift them. They can bite, they can just vanish.. and so on. Spiritual Swords are creative. All in all, NEVER touch a spiritual sword unless the Wielder is okay with it.
What difference does having a core/sealing your spiritual energy make when it comes to wielding your peijian?
There is always an energy exchange between the Wielder and the Sword. So should you not be able to use your core / or lost it, the Sword will still allow you to use it, but it demands energy to do so. In a battle, you can’t hold out for long, because it’s incredible draining if you cannot circulate the energy. In that case the Sword just sucks your power but can’t give it back.
What are the mechanics of sword-sealing?
Huff, how do I explain this? A Sword is a part of the Wielder. It always wears his energy and is able to exchange energy / circulate it. Through this it protects it’s wielder. When the Sword feels the connection is broken (because the wielder died or is severely injured or in a state where he can’t wield the sword anymore), it will seal itself. The high-grade spiritual Sword only accepts one master (much like the Yin Iron), so it will close himself should it feel it is of no use for it’s master. It’s a safety mechanism. Some Swords are extremely powerful, in the hands of the wrong it could damage a lot. So this is why they choose to just seal themselves. Does it need more explanation?
What are the social taboos/mores around wearing/wielding your peijian?
uh, let’s see if I still know all of them…
It depends of the era on lifes in (as well as the country), but the last time I read the rules (for worldwide use) it was something like this:
you need to always wear your sword / have it with you. It mustn’t be seen, but at least have it stored on your body (can be a spiritual pouch, as well as spiritual jewellery)
never greet someone else - especially not an other Cultivator - with an unsheated Sword
the sword should never have stains
never initiate a fight
don’t use the sword if not necessary
never touch someone elses sword
don’t steal swords (it’s a rule, because there are stories of one’s who tried and uh.. remember when I said the swords are creative?….)
don’t use swords to breach seals / wards or gates
don’t fly the sword (that’s a new one. it’s largely because of satellites and other systems which could find you doing so and it would be kinda odd for non-magic-users to see someone flying on a sword, I guess?)
so, uh, what was the rest? It were about 20 rules, and that’s pretty much all I can remember right now. A lot of things don’t need to be written down, because it’s common sense to just not do it. For my own sake, let’s say I found the rest too hilarious that they needed attention because, well, should be natural to not do?
To answer the question of @forerussake:
It makes sense actually. Suibian recognises Wei Wuxian because he was his wielder all the time. They fought a lot together. Even without a golden core, Wei Wuxians energy is still the same. He just doesn’t own the engine anymore which would drive his spiritual power. For Jiang Chen to be able to unsheath it, is because of the golden core - which Suibian recognizes. The golden core has a distinct memory of Wei Wuxian imprinted on it, and this is what the Sword is able to notice. It would protect JC as well as WWX.
Lan Wangji might be able to unsheath Suibian if Wei Wuxian would be true to his feelings. The moment he would absolutely - with absolute faith - recognize Lan Wangji as his soulmate and allows his feelings for him, Suibian would notice that LWJ is a part of WWX. It would let him wield it, too.
Day 2: Favorite CQL Scene
I made some gifs today of WWX stripping to help LWJ in Turtle Cave for @mdzsnet‘s 1 year with Untamed event. It’s probably a cliche favorite scene… but I’m pretty basic when it comes to tropes… alas!
I love WWX’s logic in this scene – mostly because I identify with it so much. Rest of GIFs and scene breakdown under cut.
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So I get the sense that it’s a notion in certain parts of fandom that Wei Wuxian going off travelling at the end of the show constitutes an unhappy ending for our main characters, or indicates a failure of communication with each other in their desire to be in a relationship, and that Wei Wuxian needs to just get his shit together and realize he should go back to Lan Wangji. But my impression, even from the first time I watched the show, is that WWX’s need to explore for awhile has very little, if anything, to do with LWJ.
I mean, imagine being in WWX’s position. He died - committed suicide - at the absolute lowest point in his life, having renounced his adoptive family, had his chosen community of people slaughtered, and lost everything he had to live for. He was an extremely unhappy person! And then, he got yanked back into the living world, with no memory or awareness of where he was all those years he spent being dead - already deeply disconcerting - and immediately plunged into an investigation that he doesn’t really have a choice but to devote his entire being to. (CQL’s timeline is a bit murky, but my impression is that the post-resurrection plotline takes at least a few months to resolve.) Like… of course he needs time and space to process everything that’s happened to him! Of course he needs an opportunity to just live and experience the world - a world that he needs to become reacquainted with, after being gone for over a decade.
Especially because WWX is someone who copes with his own issues by throwing himself at other problems that need solving and people who need helping, hence why it’s been pointed out by others that running into Wen Qing during his self-destructive, PTSD-ridden binge drinking period post-Sunshot was what pulled him out of his stupor and gave him a purpose again. So I imagine that having a mystery to occupy himself with immediately upon returning to life was a very efficient distraction from his issues! But afterwards, when everything is cleared up, he’s suddenly left unmoored and vulnerable and without a strong sense of who he even is and how he fits into the world now. And yes, he has LWJ to go back to… but he can’t build his entire sense of identity around LWJ, and that relationship can’t be his only source of happiness and fulfillment. And he genuinely seems to like exploring and having new experiences and meeting new people! It’s a good way for him to get a sense of who he is now.
It’s true that WWX has a lot of insecurity and neurosis re: feeling deserving of care and affection, and I’m not claiming that he’s completely resolved those issues (or any of his issues). But I think there’s a lot more trust between him and LWJ, and that he’s considerably more secure in that relationship, by the end of the show. Post-resurrection there are a lot of scenes where he’s a lot more mature in his interactions with LWJ, a lot more capable of grasping LWJ’s boundaries, and a lot better at tempering his teasing with sincerity. So I don’t take his self-discovery journey as the same sort of destructive impulse towards isolation that he displays after his stint in the Burial Mounds. I think it’s a demonstration, rather, of the trust he’s built in LWJ, and in the fact that he doesn’t need to constantly be demanding attention for LWJ to still wait for him and be there for him when he’s ready to come back. And it’s being able to clearly communicate his needs and intentions in a given moment, rather than just shutting the other person out.
And from LWJ’s perspective - it’s so important that he’s able to let WWX go! LWJ is also incredibly neurotic and also feels that he’s not deserving of love. And he grows up without any models of what healthy relationships look like - his parents’ relationship is the only framework he has, as evidenced by him taking inspiration from that in wanting to hide WWX at Cloud Recesses. But he quickly realizes that that’s not what he wants, and that he doesn’t want to force WWX to do anything. When WWX comes back to life, he takes care of him and gives him gifts not because he’s expecting anything in return, but because he loves him and wants to make him happy and show him kindness when so few people have. But it’s important, I think, for him to be able to spend time apart from WWX, to give him the space he needs, without seeing that as just another sacrifice that he’s making. When he sees WWX off on his self-discovery journey, he’s in a place where he can start to trust that WWX will come back, and that he has massive significance for WWX even when WWX doesn’t have to depend on him for emotional and material support.
Being able to maintain distance from each other, and maintain their own separate identities and relationship, with each one still having confidence in the strong foundation they’ve built together, is very important to me, and it’s why I’m so defensive of this ending.
There that really good post going around about Xiao XingChen and Song ZiChen that talks about their relationship with class and reputation, and I keep circling back to it like once a day, thinking about all the ways this affects other characters and how they’re seen by the cultivation world at large.
And I know I’m back on my Wei Wuxian didn’t deserve all the shit he got train, but what consistently bothers me is that everyone treats him/uses him in a way they find convenient, and that she sheer ambiguity of his place in the cultivation world is what allows 90% of damage to happen.
Compared to the other orphans of his (or close to his) generation, he seems to fare better than most, because Jiang Fengmian decides to take him in. But that action alone just serves to broaden the ambiguity, and to make his place more uncertain. He is Jiang Fengmian’s adopted son when convenient to other people to see him as such, or he is the son of Jiang Fengmian’s servant when seeing him as the adopted son would give him too much importance. He is part of the family, except when he is not. He is Jiang Cheng’s and Jiang Yanli’s brother, except when he is not.
His time at Cloud Recesses is a really good example of this because the distinction is easy to see. Nie HuaiSang is known as a terrible student. We literally see him bring a bird to the class. He has a stash of porn he shares with others. We never see him answer a single question, and we don’t even know if he is capable of it if Lan Qiren were ever to call on him. But he is also the younger brother of the Nie Sect Leader, and likely to be the next Sect Leader himself. Would Lan Qiren ever dare throw a book at Nie HuaiSang in front of all the other future Sect Leaders? Of course not. And these little distinctions are everywhere.
I wanna say, just put aside Wei Wuxian’s obnoxious personality for a moment, but even that is impossible to do, because most of it seems to have developed as a coping technique for the sheer ambiguity he is forced to live with. He is literally moving across shifting ground his entire life, as the son of Cangse Sanren, or the adopted son of Jiang Fengmian, or the son of a servant, a brother to the next sect leader, or a companion to the next sect leader, or a servant of the next sect leader, trying to be whatever people around him expect him to be, whenever it is convenient for them. There isn’t a single person around him that is blameless of this, except maybe Jiang Yanli for her simplicity of affection, and Lan Wangji for his sheer complexity of it.
And I think there is no greater example of this than the golden core transfer. Sometimes I wonder what is it that hit him harder (in CQL at least), Madam Yu’s admonishment that he is to protect Jiang Cheng at all cost, or Jiang Fengmian’s? Is he to protect Jiang Cheng as a brother? As the next leader of his sect? As a servant protecting a master? As an orphan who has brought his bad luck to the entire sect? As a son of a man he owes his life to? As a son of a woman who has despised him his entire life? What range of possible sacrifices covers all those bases?
If Jiang Cheng was incapable of medical consent for the golden core procedure, which Wei Wuxian gets to make a decision? The Wei Wuxian who is his brother and equal? The Wei Wuxian who is his older brother and a protector? The Wei Wuxian who is responsible for its loss in the first place? The Wei Wuxian who is destined to forever be inferior in rank? The one Madam Yu despised or the one Jiang Fengmian loved? Do any of them get to make it? How is he to know? And who else could possibly go from being a powerful cultivator to a coreless, powerless human being, and still go on, except a child forced to build his entire life on other people’s constantly shifting perceptions and expectations?
Sometimes I think how easily he slipped into the Yiling Patriarch role, like he’s just putting on another suit people expect him to wear, and I wanna cry all over again. This ambiguity of status, in a wold that is literally built around it, can be applied to quite a few of the other characters as well, but nowhere else does it do such profound damage as it does with Wei Wuxian.
Hi! I was just reading your post about golden core restoration, butcthat and me wonder, if core restoration is a thing, then why did wwx need to give up his core to Jiang Cheng? There seem to be a few options for that, either cores can't be restored in general, jiang cheng would not have had the patience/strength to replace his core, or Wen Zhuliu's power does more than melt the core and instead destroys the entire infrastructure which supports cores. What is your thought on this?
(follow-up questions to this post)
Uh... I’m pretty sure that golden cores can’t be restored after they’re lost? The big deal about them is that you can only form one golden core in your lifetime, which is why 1) Wen Zhuliu’s ability is so destructive and devastating, 2) why Jiang Cheng pretty much loses the will to go on after he loses his golden core, and 3) why Wei Wuxian’s sacrifice is so monumental. Core restoration is not a thing, which is exactly why Wei Wuxian feels the need to give Jiang Cheng his golden core.
The whole thing where Wei Wuxian might formulate a new golden core completely hinges on his resurrection; in the novel, he gets a golden core because Mo Xuanyu still has the ability to formulate his golden core. It’s not so much Wei Wuxian cultivating a new one as it is him picking up Mo Xuanyu’s.
And again, it’s fuzzy in CQL whether or not Wei Wuxian has a golden core post-resurrection. On one hand, he shouldn’t have one, because he’s been brought back in his original body, which already had its one chance at formulating a golden core and blew it. On the other hand... is it his original body? It appears to be missing most of its scars (the Wen brand is missing on his chest post-resurrection); and idk how deep we want to get into the dirty (bloody) details of how the resurrection worked. There’s a possible interpretation out there that the raw material of Mo Xuanyu’s body is functionally put through a magical resurrection meat grinder and re-assembled into a new body that just looks like the Wei Wuxian of years before, but technically isn’t the same (because again, it’s Mo Xuanyu’s body, but recycled). In that case, we have Wei Wuxian in the living matter of Mo Xuanyu’s body, which has just been shaped into a Wei Wuxian-esque form. In this case, he’d also be able to formulate a golden core because it’s not his original body. It’s not the body that had the core surgically removed from it, so he still has that option, can still use the raw materials Mo Xuanyu gave him to formulate a new golden core.
Orrrrrr CQL!Wei Wuxian never formulates another golden core. Also a possible interpretation; we just can’t tell.
I think a big part of the reason why Wei Wuxian was able to keep his missing golden core a secret was because he was walking the ghost path -- people just don’t study demonic cultivation, so who knows what kind of effect it might have on his body? Conceivably, a lot of his injuries could have been passed off as oh, you know how resentful energy is -- it pushes out the spiritual energy, stifles the golden core, because in fact, no, no one knows how resentful energy is, no one’s desperate or crazy enough to risk using it except Wei Wuxian.
Especially post-resurrection, Wei Wuxian makes up all sorts of excuses -- oh, resurrection really did a number on this body, I’m not fully recovered, Lan er-gongzi will just have to protect this fragile and weak man -- and since Wei Wuxian is constantly on the cutting edge of cultivation theory, he can say a great deal of things about his own condition and have other people believe him. Those three days spent unconscious after the end of Sunshot? Overexertion from using the Stygian Tiger Seal -- and since no one knows what overexertion from using the Stygian Tiger Seal looks like since, hello, new invention, maybe one of its side effects is depleted spiritual energy? And again, after Jin Ling stabs Wei Wuxian -- it could be any combination of stress, empathy backlash, empathy-backlash-while-projecting-into-a-paper-talisman, lingering aftereffects of resurrection... what I’m trying to say is that Wei Wuxian has a lot of leeway to make up bullshit about why he’s definitely fine, don’t worry about him, he’s just a little tired that’s all, it’s not worth using his spiritual energy for this small wound... and so on and so forth.
Another thing that complicates matters is that Wei Wuxian isn’t devoid of spiritual energy: when Wen Ning talks about the process of removing a golden core in episode 46, he describes spiritual energy as a body of water -- one that gradually slows, evening out, becoming stagnant and unmoving when the golden core, which used to drive it, is cut away. In that sense, spiritual energy seems to move like blood throughout the body; the golden core is the heart, pumping it, giving it motion. Without a golden core, the spiritual energy doesn’t necessarily dissipate; it just stagnates, stationary, and can’t be moved or used again by the golden core-less person themselves. As a result, Wei Wuxian still appears to benefit from spiritual energy transfusions, which I suppose you can think of kind of like dialysis; it might be that spiritual energy transfusions still work to heal Wei Wuxian’s body because someone else’s golden core is doing the moving that Wei Wuxian’s lack of a core cannot.
I keep thinking back to that moment in episode 29, when Lan Wangji reaches for Wei Wuxian’s wrist, only to have Wei Wuxian jerk it viciously -- frantically -- out of Lan Wangji’s grasp.
This feels like a moment of possible discovery; Wei Wuxian clearly doesn’t want Lan Wangji to realize that anything is amiss (like a whole-ASS GOLDEN CORE) and again, reaches for excuses about why he isn’t bothering with golden core-assisted healing. It’s only thanks to Wen Qing’s timely arrival that Wei Wuxian dodges any further questioning on the subject, but these small moments are the ones where he’s most at risk of being exposed. If he’s fallen unconscious for days, then he can pass off the lack of spiritual activity as a side-effect of the injury or other situational factors. It’s when he should be fine -- he’s up and moving, after all, just subdued a resentful-energy-crazed Wen Ning -- that he has the least amount of excuses he could possibly make.
you may have already answered this before, but i was just wondering what your thoughts were on that shot in ep 48/9 (canny remember which it is sorry) of jc staring at wwx when he's playing chenqing with the stygian tiger amulet for the first time since his resurrection?? because i have Many Feelings and all of them Hurt
oh, I haven’t talked about this moment before! I also just watched this moment last night, and oof--
other folks have definitely Expressed Feelings about how Jiang Cheng, at this moment, has this beautiful and agonizing mix of pride and sorrow on his face at seeing Wei Wuxian wielding Chenqing again. What struck me this time, though, was that this feels like the first time Jiang Cheng can be openly, unreservedly proud of Wei Wuxian, and yes, his dangerous talent
Before the reveal in episode 46 (and following) about the golden core and the real reason why Wei Wuxian turned to demonic cultivation, there were always caveats to any pride Jiang Cheng could feel about Wei Wuxian’s alternative cultivation -- there’s the frustration that came with Wei Wuxian’s refusal to conform to sword-carrying societal norms, the old familiar jealousy when gossiping voices whispered that Wei Wuxian is the true strength of Yunmeng Jiang, didn’t you hear, during the Sunshot Campaign -- that made it so that Jiang Cheng couldn’t be unreservedly, unproblematically proud of his shixiong and all that Wei Wuxian’s accomplished
(thinking about Jiang Cheng and that smile, back before Lotus Pier burned, back when they were two boys shooting kites in the wind--)
and now that the truth has come spilling out in a haunted temple, now that Jiang Cheng knows why Wei Wuxian did what he did -- not because Wei Wuxian was being arrogant, not because he was being difficult, not because he didn’t care about Jiang Cheng and their brotherhood and their hopes and dreams for the future,
but precisely because Wei Wuxian loved him, cared about Jiang Cheng so goddamn much that Wei Wuxian was willing to sacrifice their mutual dream of the Yunmeng Shuangjie in order to give Jiang Cheng what he wanted, what Jiang Cheng needed at the lowest point in his life, sixteen years ago in a supervisory office--
finally, finally Jiang Cheng can look at Wei Wuxian with Chenqing, and be proud of his shixiong with no qualms, no conditions. They’ve already tried everything else -- no one in the temple is a match for a vengeful Baxia, and the Twin Jades have already tried soothing the saber spirit to no avail -- so for Wei Wuxian to step up, to perform his alternative cultivation with the unparalleled skill, grace, and poise that he was so admired and hated for -- in a sense, this moment is the first time Jiang Cheng’s feelings have been able to throw off all the obstacles that came between the two of them -- jealousy, bitterness, hatred, frustration, resentment, misunderstanding
because here is a truth about the Yunmeng Shuangjie -- both of them were instrumental, fundamental, foundational in shaping the other; Jiang Cheng, without Wei Wuxian’s golden core, could not have revitalized the Yunmeng Jiang sect as confidently and successfully as he did
and Wei Wuxian, without being driven by the force of his love and devotion to his adopted family, the home that gave him his shidi and shijie that he would tear open heaven and earth for, reinvent the flow of natural energies for, crawl out of the dark of the Burial Mounds for, would have never been able to become the fearsome Yiling Laozu that he was
at any point, in the unending twilight of the Burial Mounds, Wei Wuxian could have given up and died. He’d lost his golden core -- cut it out of himself, given it away -- anyone else would have called it a day, gone gentle into that good night. Heck, Jiang Cheng nearly gave up the fight after the same happened to him
but Wei Wuxian had so much to fight for. Wei Wuxian had people he wanted to, needed to return to, and without the fierce motivator of love, he wouldn’t have made it out of the Burial Mounds
and Jiang Cheng is undoubtedly an instrumental, integral part of that
MDZS Resources & References:
OR, a collection of meta fiction for MDZS writers and enthusiasts:
Grandmaster of Demonic Timeline by chrisemrys
The timeline of Wei Wuxian’s life with some bonus, worked for my own notes and shared for understanding of my MDZS fic(s)!
MDZS Timeline by thewickling (Diviana)
A guide to MDZS’s confusing chronology that I unwrangle in my spare time.
On Character’s Ages by thewickling (Diviana)
A collection of meta on the possible ages for different characters in MDZS and what ages they would be during key events in the timeline.
Mo Dao Zu Shi Writer Reference: Novel Chapter Summaries by threerings
A breakdown of all the chapters in the Mo Dao Zu Shi/ Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation novel, with what happens when. To help in referring back to specific scenes, because who can remember with every version happening in a different order.
Reference for Modao Zushi Writers: Chinese terms & Naming Conventions by chaoticjoy
This is to provide a reference for writers who are unfamiliar with Chinese literary conventions or terms used in canon. Hopefully someone will find this helpful.
Chinese naming basis for fanfiction writers by miqqumi
I notice a lot of people struggling with how to use Chinese names in fanfic, so I put together a guide. I hope it’s helpful to someone.
The Untamed / MDZS, resources link post, stuff I needed as a writer by AteanaLenn
Discovering and writing in a new fandom is difficult, but especially in one whose culture you know nothing about. I started writing a The Untamed fic the other day, and ended up spending hours looking up reference posts and blog posts, in order to try and avoid the most obvious mistakes at least.
Eventually, I ended with a lot of info, so here you go, useful stuff I found to understand this fandom.
MDZS Audio Drama Episode Guide by pumpkinpaix
An episode guide for all seasons of the MDZS Audio Drama, so if you’re searching for a specific scene/quote, it’s easier to find. A breakdown of novel chapters already exists, courtesy of the wonderful threerings, but the audio drama does slightly different things and has some really beautiful changes/scripting, so this is a supplemental guide for anyone who wants to reference the AD instead of the novel for any reason.
Obviously, spoilers for the entirety of the plot.
MDZS Meta Collection on AO3
I just re-watched THAT scene and a thought hit me: Lan Wangji just stands there watching Wei Wuxian fall from the cliff... Why doesn't he jump onto his sword and swoops down to at least try to save him? Or is he all out of spiritual power? Or does it simply take to long to start and rev the sword? Not saying it's a plothole, I was just wondering...
I mean, I think this is a fair question and I know I’ve seen it discussed elsewhere. I just can’t seem to find the post or remember if any conclusions were reached, so I’m excited to dive into this. As always if anyone has insights or headcanons they want to add on to this, please do.
Because I like pictures, here’s ep 33 Lan Wangji holding his sword and staring in horror as Wei Wuxian falls (what is Jiang Cheng thinking? Who knows.)
Why isn’t Lan Wangji doing anything? He just stands there for long enough that Jiang Cheng backs away and leaves him on the outcropping, all alone.
Poor guy.
Okay, moving on. I think there are at least two ways to approach this, and one is from the production perspective (since this cliff encounter is a thing that only happens in the drama) and the other is from the in-universe perspective (aka, Doyalist vs Watsonian), so I’m going to look at both.
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take a break while watching this little bunny cross your dash
So I hear you people like your Lan Xichen suffering in endless seclusion after he loses (in some people’s eyes anyway) the love of his life, desperate, miserable, barely able to move on enough to function? You want him so hung up on the ghost of someone who was so incredibly important to him, that he simply can’t imagine ever letting that person go? You want the red string of fate, star-crossed lovers, doing anything and everything for love, no matter how much it hurts?
Yeah, I’m sorry to say you might actually be looking for Lan Wangji.
Lan Xichen is the guy who, yes, has his entire worldview turned upside down, but he still investigates. He still searches for evidence. He still listens to people telling him things miiiight not be all that they seem. Lan Xichen isn’t the guy who, say, stands against his entire sect, or his brother, to protect the person he loves, even if it’s with his dying breath, even if he instinctively knows said person did wrong things.
Lan Xichen doesn’t do that. He doesn’t do any of that, because believe it or not, out of his entire family, he’s the only one with any common sense and critical thinking. His entire being doesn’t, contrary to popular belief, revolve around Jin Guangyao, and he is in fact a Sect Leader first, anybody’s partner second.
Any depiction of any ship of his (and believe me, I adore all of them, in very different ways) that makes him out to be singularly obsessed with the other person, is just thoroughly misunderstanding his motivations. Looking at the whole ‘their father secluded himself over the choices he made about his love, and then Wangji did the same, omg’ thing, it’s easy to ascribe it to Xichen as well, but honestly. Honestly.
Let’s please drop the himbo!LXC rhetoric and do this amazing character some justice. He is perfectly capable of reexamining his beliefs, his relationships. I mean people tell LWJ to please look at the mountain of corpses WWX’s mountain of corpses left behind, and maybe think twice, and he never does - we knows it’s because he knows WWX can do no wrong (except. yknow. the corpses), but from any other point of view? Holy shit dude.
Whereas LXC looks at the growing evidence against JGY and what does he do? He investigates! He wants to see for himself! If he’s really about to go against arguably the person closest to him over the past decade(s), he’s gonna need solid proof, so he goes out and tries to find it! Of course a part of it is just wanting to avoid another WWX-like lynching scandal, he’s not going to condemn anyone without proper evidence ever again. But the fact that he’s capable of it in the first place? That he doesn’t just sit on his hands in his room, refusing to even entertain the idea that something might be wrong? That, to me, means he’s capable of hard-to-come-by-in-this-xianxia-land qualities such as critical thinking, rational decisions, oh, and ultimately, moving on.
Thanks to you wonderful people tacking on your replies and thoughts onto this post, I got to thinking, not about LXC this time, but about LWJ, and what’s so intriguing about him to me - his ability to move on. Or his particular brand of it, anyway.
I get it, I love the romance of playing Inquiry for sixteen years straight until his fingers bleed as much as the next guy, but what intrigues me more is that he’s clearly shown to not repeat his father’s mistakes - he doesn’t, against all odds, spend all his time in seclusion, grieving his long lost love, doesn’t abandon his duties, doesn’t forsake his sect and his standing within it.
Thinking about WWX as the singular focus point of his entire life has sustained me on many a cold night, believe me, but the truth is, he lives on, and I find that astonishing. Does he live on hoping, since his Inquiry never gets a definitive reply, that WWX is still out there somewhere? Or does he live on in fear that the next fierce corpse he encounters, the next spirit resentful enough to bring an entire village to its knees, will speak to him in a voice he wishes he didn’t recognize? Isn’t that precisely why he can be found wherever the danger is, always preventing it, always resolving it, always searching, always coming up short?
Either way, he goes on. He doesn’t sit A-Yuan down and tell him of his past, he doesn’t tour the world trying to fix the Yiling Patriarch’s reputation, in fact I’m inclined to believe he rarely ever discusses WWX with anyone. Grief is a persistent beast, like a lead weight on your shoulders on a good day, enough to render you motionless and breathless on the worse ones. It’s written across his back in slow-healing gashes, and pressed into his fingertips where the strings of his guqin have left their thin indents, barely noticeable under stiff musician’s callouses.
Just the thought of him accepting this as a part of himself, putting on his grief like just another layer of his robes, but walking with it, carrying it, is something that, I think, speaks to who he is as a person, who he becomes, thanks to what he’s been through. Knowing WWX, learning what he believed in, what he meant to uphold, the hill he chose to die on, might well have left LWJ questioning, left him doubting and angry with the status quo, but does he become a rogue cultivator, going against the system, rejecting it? Does he disappear to start a sect of his own, does he break rule after rule again to stand up for what he believes in?
No, and I think it’s fascinating - I don’t think he regrets standing by WWX’s side for a second. The only thing he regrets is not being able to help properly, and him accepting he couldn’t have helped, now that’s for another essay entirely. For now, I think, he resolves that were he given a second chance, he’d walk down that single plank bridge without looking back, and it’s just a shame he couldn’t tell WWX that when it mattered.
It’s a good thing, then, that second chances have a funny way of coming about.
Let’s talk about the forest scene in ep25
I’m sure there has been a lot of talk about this scene, but I’m new to the fandom and I have many feels that I need to let out.
I have yet to watch all of The Untamed, but this scene might just be my absolute favorite of the series, and not for the reason you may think (“soulmate”) even though that’s an important part of it, of course.
This scene for me sealed the deal about their relationship. Not that I didn’t notice all the romantic ways in which they looked/touched/mentioned each other before of course, but in this scene I felt something different, especially from Wuxian. A new “awareness”, if I can call it such.
It is such a simple, yet meaningful and heartwrenching scene (in the best way). But let’s go with order.
Wuxian spots Wangji and his first instinct is that of smiling. Notice that it’s not just any smile, but a very sweet smile. This is very important because since he came back from the Burial Mounds, he hasn’t quite been himself and it’s rare to see him *actually* smile.
He almost says Wangji’s name, but the word dies on his lips because he remembers the words of Xichen. But what are these words?
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So we all know that The Untamed is hella censored. And as disappointing as the lack of an on-screen kiss is, I’m actually kind of glad that the show had to work around censorship issues because they did a fantastic job of still showing that Wei Ying and Lan Zhan are a couple without showing that Wei Ying and Lan Zhan are a couple. And honestly there are a lot of things about how their relationship progresses in the novel that are kind of gross (Wei Ying will you PLEASE stop getting Lan Zhan drunk specifically to take advantage of him), and without the ability to show those things the live action version of their relationship flows much more smoothly, and much more sweetly than the novel’s.
But that also means its timeline is a lot more ambiguous.
Judging from the way everything was filmed, I think that they get together much sooner in the live action. But when, exactly? I need details. And so I’m going to try and break the timeline down based on the types of longing gazes they give each other. Buckle in, kiddos. We got some pining to analyze, and this ended up WAY longer than I intended.
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CQL and Genre Intertextuality
I'm being bashed over the head with the "nhs's fan in CQL is made of xuantie/dark iron" thing again and @poorlittleyaoyao please understand that I am thinking of this constantly since you made that post talking about it because I'm just.
holding my head in my hands bc ye gods the cql show writers were genre savvy in ways that are hilarious but also make me feel like I've been hit upside the head with a waffle iron.
For those of us who are no longer damaged by the post or hadn't seen it (I don't actually know where it's gone bc the search feature doesn't work on this webbed site):
Xuantie/Dark Iron is a Jin Yong created metal that famously was used for the blade of the Dragon Slaying Sabre in the third novel of the Condor Trilogy, 倚天屠龍記/The Heavenly Sword and Dragon Saber.
The Heaven Reliant Sword 倚天劍 was created from Yang Guo and Xiao Longnv's Gentleman and Lady swords, whilst the Dragon Slaying Saber 屠龍刀 was created from Grandmaster Dugu Seeking-a-Loss's Dark Iron Sword.
Can we please all take a moment to appreciate how NHS's fan not his saber, NHS, from The Family With The Sabers, gets to shout about how his fan is made of xuantie. The most famous for being the metal that made up The Dragon Slaying Saber. His fan. Not his saber. his fan. dark iron. Dragon Slaying Saber. This is so funny I'm about to mcfucking lose it yet again while typing this.
Going back to Grandmaster Dugu Seeking-A-Loss (who appears in both Return of the Condor Heroes and Xiao Ao Jianghu) and his giant pet condor (sadly, only a ROCH feature) who might've been his one true soulmate for a second, this situation from episode 7, when the Yunmeng Siblings are leaving the Cloud Recesses:
Now, the subtitles here really DO NOT do this line justice because when I first saw it it took me FLAT THE FUCK OUT and I had to lie on the floor laughing for like, 80 seconds before I got my breath back.
Okay, what this line ACTUALLY says is "I am Dugu Qiubai (Grandmaster Dugu Seeking-A-Loss), what's wrong with seeking a match?"
Now, to understand this, we come to this backstory on Dugu Qiubai in XAJH:
“Senior master Dugu Seeking-A-Loss, who created this set of sword techniques, had a name ‘Seeking-A-Loss.’ He had been seeking a loss all his life and still couldn’t get one. Once the sword techniques were executed, he would become unmatched anywhere in the world. Why would he have to defend? If anyone could have forced him to draw his sword back and defend himself, the respectful master would have burst with joy and be delighted beyond measure.” Feng Qingyang said. “Dugu Seeking-A-Loss, Dugu Seeking-A-Loss,” Linghu Chong muttered as he imagined how the senior master had wandered about the Martial World, unmatched anywhere, with only his sword, and couldn’t even find a single one who was capable of forcing him into a defending stance. That was truly admirable.
from Chapter Ten of XAJH: Sword Training.
"If anyone could force him to draw his sword back to defend himself, the grandmaster would have burst with joy and be delighted beyond measure" DO YOU SEE WHY JC STARTED CALLING WWX SHAMELESS NOW. they're JUNIORS. WWX is calling himself "the greatest man of all, who'd sought the feeling of losing just ONCE being forced to defend himself just ONCE in a LIFETIME" and saying "LWJ might be my equal. my soulmate. the loss I was seeking my whole life."
All 15 years of it I'm sure, WWX.
I'm not going to get into finding martial arts manuals or a respected grandmaster who taught you incredible things in a cave bc 1) LHC and Feng Qingyang up there are sitting together, in a cave and LHC is being taught incredible things and 2) Duan Yu from Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils once found the magic finger lasers of ultra laser in a cave. In front of the statue of a goddess. (don't talk about the dancing goddess statue now, Tav. We don't have time for that in this post.)
Not kidding the intertextuality of CQL and how much it plays with and against the tropes of its genre, especially other wuxia tv adaptations as well as wuxia novels is insane. There's other ones I'm missing for certain and these were just the most funny to me, personally, but! just! oh my god! insane! insane! SO funny, so clever in so many ways
Lan Xichen my beloved-