What do you think of people bashing Jiang Yanli and going "Jiang Yanli is not an angel"?
I've seen a handful of people complaining about her being "just as bad as the rest of her family."
Here's the list of the most frequent accusations towards her:
She keeps telling Wei Wuxian to submit to/compromise to her relatives' mistreatment/abuse. Making her an abuse enabler.
She prioritizes Jiang Cheng over Wei Wuxian (though there were other people who claim the opposite).
She marries into the Jin sect despite their clear hostility towards Wei Wuxian.
She doesn't care about Wei Wuxian's overall well-being while he was living in the Burial Mounds.
She insensitively shows off her wedding dress and offers only a couple bowls of soup instead of providing the Wen Remnants with money and supplies.
She rashly abandons her son to chase after Wei Wuxian and foolishly tells him to stop defending himself.
Her sacrifice was nothing compared to Wen Qing's because her death made everything worse for Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng, and Jin Ling.
Honestly people bashing Yanli have either never understood her role in wei wuxian's life or are just jc stans trying to make him look better with the "everyone in mdzs is morally grey even jyl" stance. I have luckily haven't came across any of yanli haters tho I have seen few of these points being raised.
We must remember that she is a women in a highly patriarchal classist society, where she barely holds any power. She herself is mistreated by her family and is looked down upon by jin zixuan before he falls in love with her. These people think she has position or power to be making these decisions, she doesn't.
There is not a single instance I remember of her telling wwx to just take abuse or her prioritizing either of her brothers over the other. Also even jc can't stand up to his toxic mother and he is the sect heir, what do they expect yanli to do? She barely gets to have a say in her own life. She has took a stance for wwx and defended him in front of her in-laws, asking jin zixun to apologize and has called wwx her brother in front of everyone proudly cuz she loves him unconditionally.
And that love is what makes her seek out wwx, she just wanted to see her brother, to talk to him and see how he is, also wwx was being targeted by the entire cultivation world at that moment, is she supposed to be uncaring?? Yanli's love is what shapes wwx's own perception of love, love is unconditional, it means to accept the person as they are and to have faith in them not blindly but out of trust that is build from knowing them to their core that the love both yanli as a sister and lwj as a lover has given wwx. She is irreplaceable in wwx's life, anyone saying otherwise is dumb.
Now for the whole "privileged, uncaring, ignorant" thing, whether her marriage to jzx was out of love or compliance is unclear to me (I would need to revisit the novel for that I haven't read it in a while now), it did seem she was mostly been pushed into compliance by jc and madame jin, not like she has much choice other than to marry him. She doesn't choose the date of her marriage either ofc, the sects most likely wanted to do it asap.
She decided to meet wwx, to show him the wedding dress in secret since the world has already shut him out, she also didn't have the power to stop it from happening cuz if she did there is no way she would not have defended wwx, also becuz jc didn't have a damn spine to take a stand for wwx while he clearly has the power and position to do so unlike jyl.
Also her death wasn't meaningless, it literally cemented how much she cared for wwx and how much she loved him, jc failed to honor that sacrifice and that is the reason why wwx was in trouble in the first place. Wen qing and jyl both individually hold special place in wwx's heart and both their sacrifice are meant to show how much wwx means to them and is done out of love, there's no ranking it.
I just don't see any reason to bash her, well even if some people think she isn't "an angel", she still did more for wwx with her limited station than jc ever did, also she is a perfect sister for wwx, there is no arguing that.
Edit: here (X) is a post by @/mxtxfanatic, answering similar questions, you can read more metas on this there.
-> Anyways the rant become a bit long hope you don't mind. Hope the answer was helpful, sending love💕
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