So this is something that came up from both my Yiling Laozu meta and my analysis of the chapters referring to the Prison Camps, and that is -
The Yiling Laozu plays with children and sells radishes and farms in a mountain.
But SunShot Era WWX, is fucking terrifying.
SunShot Era WWX is the one you do not want to fuck with.
This man walks out of hell and brings the dead with him - and immediately leaves a death trail of cultivators as he hunts Wen Chao.
There is obviously the extremely gory torture scenes, but we are not going to touch all of that. Let's stay as PG-13 as we can.
All of the corpses were cultivators of the Wen Sect, dressed in sun robes. All of them were high in both rank and cultivation. In spite of so, all of them died in gruesome yet diverse ways, and all of them had been left in the public where many could see.
The man who returned from the Burial Mounds is perhaps much closer to the Yiling Laozu of Lore than WWX when he actually got the title. This is a man out for vengeance and blood - a man who you do not want to cross.
There is undoubtedly a lot of descriptors about WWX's effectiveness and ruthlessness in the war, like NMJ's memories for one. He had absolutely no issue digging up corpses to feed his army, or turning the dead wens into fierce corpses to be used in battle against the next wave of Wens. He was perfectly willing to punch the life out JZX after the soup incident.
So during the entirety of the Sunshot, the reputation he gets is earned, and is also the reason JGS is practically salivating for his power and the other sects jump at the smear campaign like starving dogs.
As though he heard nothing, Wei WuXian took out the flute at his waist. The few prisoners who were beside him, trudging forward, screamed before they threw off the heavy objects on their backs and fled. Within the valley, a large circle of space formed immediately, him in the center.
In truth, the prisoners didn’t recognize Wei WuXian’s face, for the Wen Sect cultivators who ran into Wei WuXian on the battlefield of the Sunshot Campaign only met one end—utter annihilation. Thus, most of the Wen cultivators who recognized his face became fierce corpses in his army, for him to command. However, the flute made of dark wood, decorated with a crimson tassel, and the young man in black who controlled it had already become their nightmares.
Any Wen who met Wei Wuxian in battle FUCKING DIED. Do you guys realize what that means? This guy walked into battle, and left absolutely no survivors. Not the one. He is a legitimate nightmare in the mind of the Wens - he left a bloody legacy in the wake of the SunShot Campaign. No one even recognizes his face because anyone who saw it is dead.
The image Wei Wuxian created during the war carries on afterwards as well - Wei Wuxian even uses the reputation to his advantage when he is arguing with JZXun and JGS in the Banquet scene and during the Prison Camp scene to demand answers from the Inspectors.
So - what is the point of this meta aside from lowkey simping over the vengeful avatar WWX became in the wake of all the horrors ?
If you guys have seen other posts of mine, you know I am simp for Wei Wuxian because of his kindness and compassion and the amazingly righteous heart he has. So while again, I lowkey simp for SunShot Era WWX, it mostly just makes me incredibly sad, because it is very, very clearly a result of him being pushed to the extremes and being HEAVILY traumatised from the Burial Mounds and then from the War after that.
Wei Wuxian did not get the time to mourn or rest following the Fall of Lotus Pier - he is in a constant state of activity, much of it that has heavy toll on his health and well-being. He is thrown into quite literal hell and he claws his way out and then enters a fucking war. He does not get time to rest or recuperate or even process all the horrors he experienced.
He is the one-man army for much of the Sunshot Campaign battles - he had to be, for the still rebuilding Jiang Sect to have received much of the war reparations still. He had to be, because Wei Wuxian at the end of the day wouldn't let his comrades in battle die if there was a way to avoid it. He had to be, because he had to protect both Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli.
And the reason this matters is because the moment he does get to rest, once the war is actually over, once he actually gets to heal, he is a different person. Everything he is, kind and playful and good, shines right back out.
And the very man who became the nightmare of the Wens is the one who saves them when the world would have seen them dead for their names.
It's also interesting because the Sects praise WWX during the war, but once the war ends, he suddenly becomes the wild card, becomes too powerful to be left on his own - he is suddenly not someone they can control and that is a terrifying realization, especially when he is someone who they see as crossing the social norms of the gentry society. And it doesn't matter if WWX is no longer the man he was during the war - they will paint him as a mad dog craving power and destruction all the same.
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