Jiang Cheng has been so shaped by his mothers abusive attitude that he literally doesn’t feel able to express his emotions in any way other than anger, and its so clear that his emotions towards Wei Wuxian and his death and revival are INCREDIBLY complex and fraught but he has zero ability to process them in a healthy manner.
Like yeah he’s clearly angry and vengeful, but he’s also heartbroken over losing his brother, and so happy he’s returned because he missed him, he still misses him, and he’s betrayed that he feels WWX left him, and jealous of the relationship Lan Wangji has with WWX as ‘taking his brother away’
but he has no structure to process those feelings, so he just keeps pushing and shoving, but it’s clear he’s doing it because he desperately wants a reaction. He wants WWX to fight back, to push him, to throw down, to hit him, literally anything that will show that WWX still cares about him. Everything thats gone down, 16 years of being a respected sect leader and war hero, and he’s still dying for his big brothers respect and attention.
And the shittiest thing is if he got it, I think he would have viewed it as a “we had our fight now its over and you’re my brother again” but without addressing any of the really damaging ways in which the two rely on each others sense of sacrifice and duty to keep them together, which would just cause it to fester and rot again.
I even think him still searching for WWX after all these years because they ‘never found a body’ isn’t really about ‘needing to make sure he’s dead’. I think he’s trying to bring him home.
When he finds WWX is back he keeps his secret, he keeps him safe. and fucking applause for Wang Zhuocheng because every single time he looks at Wei Wuxian after the revival its like he doesn’t know if he wants to start smiling, weeping, or screaming in rage. He’s so proud of him, and so angry, and so happy, and so so lonely.
Under it all Jiang Cheng is still a scared little boy desperate to have his big brother come back to him
edit: I love that it seems pretty much EVERYONE knows exactly what scene I was watching when I wrote this
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