MDZS Jiang Cheng Character Ending Analysis (Novel/Drama Spoilers) - BY BRI >v<
If I asked you to change the ending of mdzs, without completely impacting the actual plot, by removing one character from the story, who would you choose? Obviously, removing any major character would change the story completely, and removing a character post-reincarnation wouldn’t affect enough to change anything, since most of the cultivational world would still despise and fear Wei Wuxian, which is an important plot point. Nie Huiasang and Mo Xuanyu also carry a major role, since they are the catalysts for the post-reincarnation storyline. So now you may be considering minor characters pre-reincarnation, such as one of the clan leaders or a sibling such as Lan Xichen or Jiang Yanli. These answers, granted, would change the storyline, but they wouldn’t result in much of a better ending, if a good ending at all.
In my opinion, the sole reason mdzs arguably has a very bittersweet ending (one that leaves some readers with a sense of unfulfillment) is: Madame Yu.
The saddest part about the ending of mdzs is arguably the lost friendship between Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian. The story begins with them as brothers and ends with Jiang Cheng being the cause for Wei Wuxian’s death during the siege of Yiling (novel pre-reincarnation ending). One of the things that makes mdzs so captivating is trying to discover why this happened (a plot point the drama highlights more than the novel). Before diving into why Madame Yu impacts this story so much, let’s review some important aspects of Jiang Cheng’s and Wei Wuxian’s character.
Jiang Cheng is born with an older sister and is destined to become a clan leader one day. At a young age, a young boy is adopted by his family and they spark a friendship. However, as they grow up, it is noticeable how different the two are. Wei Wuxian is mischievous and seeks danger and adventure, he doesn’t like listening to rules that he finds too strict or unnecessary, and he has a habit of exploiting qualities people are shy about so he can tease them about it later (good-heartedly, of course, but something that is clearly bound to get him in some trouble). Jiang Cheng, however, is more serious and respectful with a habit of joining Wei Wuxian in causing trouble, after all, he is a teenager (and the Lan Clan rules weren’t going to stop a group of teenage boys, lmao, let’s be honest).
They are obviously very close, something that the Donghua seemed to focus on a bit better than the drama. However, it is also noticeable that he gets treated differently from Wei Wuxian when it comes to punishments. There are several points that explicitly suggest that Wei Wuxian tends to receive lesser punishments from Jiang Fengmian compared to Jiang Cheng (something Madame Yu likes to bring up every argument). Jiang Fengmian also seems to praise Wei Wuxian more than his own son, and seems to compare the two more than he should (such as when he reprimands Jiang Cheng for encouraging Wei Wuxian to think selfishly about his survival rather than the lives of others). And so, Jiang Cheng has something plaguing him: inferiority. It is arguable by some people that he has an inferiority complex; after all, despite being the next clan leader, he is not head disciple and pretty much always falls short of Wei Wuxian.
However, I offer another theory: he hates being humiliated. Yes, a quality that pretty much every person on the face of the planet has. Yes, I am saying this is the underlying cause of why everything else happens.
The reason I say this is because Jiang Cheng doesn’t seem to care that Wei Wuxian succeeds, but rather that he himself doesn’t receive the same recognition when he does something similar. When Wei Wuxian along with Lan Wangji defeated the Tortoise of Slaughter, Jiang Cheng isn’t particularly mad that Wei Wuxian killed the tortoise, but rather his words reflect: 1) worry, and 2) anger at himself. He was mad because Wei Wuxian, someone who he clearly sees as a brother figure, put himself in danger because he wanted to save people, and not just in any danger, but a life-or-death situation. Jiang Cheng makes it clear that he spent days without rest or break running to get help so that he could get back to Wei Wuxian as fast as possible, even while injured from the fights with the Wen Clan, who guarded the outside of the cave and attacked everyone who escaped thanks to Wei Wuxian’s efforts (novel scene); he even passed out the second he found people to help. Yet, when they went to save Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, everyone only praised their valiance in defeating the Tortoise of Slaughter, and Jiang Cheng’s actions were overlooked.
So, why did he get so mad at himself about this? BECAUSE OF HIS HEADASS MOM, DUH, I’VE BEEN LEADING YOU TO THIS CONCLUSION!!
Imagine, you are next in line to be clan leader, yet you aren’t head disciple, and now your mother is breathing down the back of your neck because your father is praising someone who is doing better than you. On top of this, you don’t even have the chance to speak to your father about how you feel upset that he treats you differently, because every time the topic of your father being more strict and less praising of you comes up, your mother takes the reigns and doesn’t give you the chance to speak for yourself. Now, all of a sudden, your mother is yelling at your father, saying he doesn’t love his own son and he prefers your adopted brother, and she is also yelling at your adopted brother because he is better than you, and all this is happening IN FRONT OF YOUR EYES ALL. THE. TIME!!
After putting that into perspective, are we really surprised Jiang Cheng turned out the way he did? This entire ordeal must have been HUMILIATING for him, and you KNOW it happened all the time.
Jiang Cheng grew up with this happening, and Jiang Fengmian was only stricter with him because he was going to be a clan leader, and, granted, we can all acknowledge that Jiang Cheng said some shit that his dad was justified in reprimanding him for (such as the whole thing where he told Wei Wuxian he never should have put the lives of others over himself and their clan). Of course, we should also acknowledge that Jiang Fengmian had his faults, and he should have been stricter with Wei Wuxian. As much as we all love this mischievous boi, he was the head disciple of the Jiang Clan and was far too undisciplined and unruly for the position he represented, especially while he was a disciple at Gusu and during the Archery Competition hosted by the Wen Clan (novel scene). And for real, the shit he told Lan Qiren when he asked about why Wei Wuxian was like this, this boy really replied, “It’s just the way he has always been.” That type of response wouldn’t even pass in modern era!
Of course, after all this, Jiang Cheng was going to hold some resentment for Wei Wuxian.
However, the real kicker is Madame Yu’s final words before she sends Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian away… THE WOMAN TAKES A GOOD FEW MINUTES TO JUST STRAIGHT UP YELL AT WEI WUXIAN AND BLAME HIM FOR EVERYTHING!! LIKE WTF!! Look, I’m sorry, MAAM, but the Wens were kind of trying to take over the entire cultivational world, I promise you that Wei Wuxian’s existence affected that all of zero percent. She said that he was the cause for the fall of Lotus Pier, but let’s consider how, oh yeah, LITERALLY EVERY CLAN WITHIN 100+ MILES OR SOMETHING OF THE WEN CLAN WERE INVADED AND FORCED INTO SUBMISSION NOT THAT LONG AFTER; THEY WERE GONNA DO THIS NO MATTER WHAT!! Sure, the Wens may have decided to go after Lotus Pier a bit early because they hated Wei Wuxian, but it’s not as if him not being there was going to stop any of this…? They literally went after GusuLan first, I don’t understand how Wei Wuxian can be faulted for any of this.
But, of course, Jiang Cheng is not here to listen to reason, he just lost both his parents, and years of lowkey (highkey) verbal abuse finally caught up, especially since some of his mother’s last words were blaming Wei Wuxian for everything. This is the start of our downhill slope.
I would like to take a moment and review how Jiang Cheng really received no closure with his father. His father died before Jiang Cheng ever got the chance to speak for himself and just communicate with him, and after all the arguments his mother had with him, it is clear that Jiang Cheng will always carry a part of him that believes his father didn’t truly love him.
But this is something the reader can view as misjudgment. His mother seemed to use Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian as a way to argue with Jiang Fengmian, and in Jiang Cheng’s eyes, this may be viewed as his mother standing up for him; however, looking at this as a whole, the situation isn’t so straight-forward. Quite honestly, it is hard to even tell whether Madame Yu loved Jiang Cheng, or whether she just wanted a reason to argue with Jiang Fengmian. There are points in the story that say Madame Yu ‘forced’ (I use this term loosely, but this is the term the rumors seemed to hover around) Jiang Fengmian into a marriage, and this may be her way of consistently reminding him that “You can’t leave, you have a child to raise.” If anyone has the inferiority complex, I think it can be argued that Madame Yu likely has a slight case of it. BUT! The point is that Jiang Cheng viewed his mother as “the only one on his side,” in a sense, even his own sister fought tooth and nail to be able to see Wei Wuxian even when he was shunned by the cultivational world.
Now, Wei Wuxian doesn’t exactly help his case when he turns down the path of demonic cultivation.
We all know the reason he did it, and many may argue that Jiang Cheng is a fool for thinking for even a moment that BaoShan Sanran could return his golden core, let me remind you of this:
BaoShan Sanran is very mysterious, no one really knows anything about her other than that she has reached “Enlightenment” (a term derived from Buddhism to describe someone who has found the truth of life and no longer is reborn). She is described in the book to be viewed as “immortal” and once a disciple leaves her mountain, they are forbidden from returning. The only people who know anything about BaoShan Sanran are the disciples, and even the ones that have left the mountain don’t spread much information on her. So, in essence, everyone just knows she is powerful and not to mess with her. So, please, excuse Jiang Cheng for having even a shrivel of hope. I am positive that, in his mind, being able to ‘re-grow’ your golden core was just as possible as being able to ‘trade’ you golden core (both of which he believed to be outside the realm of possibility, so yeah, both sounded insane, but he had hope, and no one suggested that ‘trading’ was even an option, so ‘re-growing’ was already mind-boggling). So, Jiang Cheng is happy because he has his golden core back, but when he goes searching for his brother, the man is gone and no where to be found for three full months, and when he does reappear, he is using demonic cultivation and is more closed-off.
Jiang Cheng has gone through the literal worst whiplash of emotions in his life: his parents and entire sect were all brutally slaughtered; he lost his golden core; he got his golden core back, but his brother was no where to be found; his brother is back, but he is using demonic cultivation and won’t discuss the reason with him.
Now, this is where the past ‘abuse’ catches up with Jiang Cheng. He has now been forced into a leadership position in the middle of a war, and now the war is over, but his brother is still…yeah. But now, the other clans are talking and saying that he should be reprimanding Wei Wuxian, but no matter how he tries, the man doesn’t listen to him. This is, no doubt, HUMILIATING for Jiang Cheng, especially when all the other clans are constantly saying he needs to take action against Wei Wuxian because the man was becoming ‘too arrogant’ and etc. When Wei Wuxian finally stands up for the remaining Wens, Jiang Cheng is so humiliated that he didn’t want to stand up for his brother because he knew he would be shunned the same if he stood by Wei Wuxian’s side, especially since it would be as an ally and not the leader in this movement. This is the ‘herd mentality,’ in which the few vocal people in the room speak up for an argument, creating a big fuss, and even though the majority actually agrees for the other side of the argument, everyone remains quiet against this front, making it seem (and, in term, making them believe) that they are the minority and should just stay quiet. It was obvious that the Lans, Nies, and Jiangs all didn’t agree with how the Wens were being treated, but with how loud the Jin clan and co. were, they didn’t want to say anything, especially when they were all still weak and rebuilding after the war. Then, the clans started encouraging Jiang Cheng to go and act against Wei Wuxian and, fueled by the humiliation of not being able to control his subordinate, that’s exactly what he did.
I would also like to point out that Jiang Cheng only ever listened to the information the other clans were feeding him in regards to Wei Wuxian, he never actually knew what was true like we, the readers, do.
AND NOW, this is why I say Madame Yu has ruined Jiang Cheng. Let’s say that she had died a year prior to the entire war. Jiang Cheng wouldn’t have her final words in his head blaming Wei Wuxian for everything; he likely would have been able to reconnect with his father and speak for himself; he would have grown closer to Wei Wuxian without his mother breathing down his neck and would go a full year without hearing an argument about why he was inferior to Wei Wuxian.
In every story, there is a ‘climax.’ In a long story like this, there can be many ‘climaxes’ especially when it comes to different characters. A climax is defined as ‘the point in the story where one decision can change the course of the rest of the book,’ or ‘the decision that alters the ending,’ as my AP English Literature teacher defines it. For Jiang Cheng, the point in the book that alters his ending is the moment he decides to trust the clans over his brother, something that makes him so clearly different from Jiang Yanli.
Yanli never stops believing in Wei Wuxian, even to her dying breath she cared for him and believed he was good. This is from the perspective of someone who literally only knew what was going on based on hearsay, never seeing Wei Wuxian and speaking with him about this. She just knew nothing was as it was told.
I truly believe that if Madame Yu had fucked off a cliff or something before the war, Jiang Cheng could’ve been just like Yanli and would have sat down and given Wei Wuxian a chance to explain his side of the story. He may have even fought alongside Wei Wuxian, because now he wouldn’t be worried about “glory” like his mother egged him to believe, but rather, he would believe more in his father’s belief that they should stand for “justice” for all people. Wei Wuxian likely would have still died, but maybe seeing the Jiang Clan fight alongside Wei Wuxian could have inspired the Lan Clan or Nie Clan to also stand with them. Imagine THAT ending, an ending in which Wei Wuxian stood alongside his brother to fight for the innocent, allying with the Lan Clan and Nie Clan against the Jin Clan, and then they win and Wei Wuxian wouldn’t have even had to die and he could’ve just gotten married to Lan Wangji right then and there and save us all the angst 200k fanfiction. LMAO, I actually think Jiang Cheng might’ve still kept his mouth shut in front of the clans, but lowkey stood up for him, and then maybe Wei Wuxian would die a different way, not by Jiang Cheng’s hand. Then he would return and everything would go as usual, but this time :((((((( Jiang Cheng is happy to see him :((((((((( and he raised Jin Ling :(((((((( like Lan Wangji raised Lan Sizhui (yeah, I think the Wens would encourage him to train him under GusuLan) :((((((((( and Jin Ling would be happy to see Wei Wuxian :((((((( and so would Lan Sizhui because he would already know he is a Wen and was raised a bit by Wei Wuxian :(((((((((( and happily ever after ;-;
You can argue that this is a reach, but I don’t think it is at all. Mo Xiang Tong Xiu (novel author) created a character that was so terrible, she single-handedly ruined the ending for her own son.
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