No questions, just need you to know that this is the first time I’ve come across your art and you’ve fully converted me to Ryoshu/Hong Lu. Like, I always knew it was a ship but the way you draw their dynamic makes me violently giggle and kick my feet. So thank you for opening my eyes
im so glad you like them through my visions :) its always the highest praise that people get to ship them through my stuff. unfortunately this acc isnt up to date but im active on x/twt (naansougi) for more recent drawings if youre interested!
TW: SA/CSA, Grooming and familial, emotional abuse.
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A small analysis on Hong Lu's Story as a Metaphor for SA/CSA
I’d like to preface this with if I come off as insensitive or offensive, I sincerely apologize. I'll delete this if need be. Feel free to correct me on anything. Of course, feel free to disagree as well. This is just my own reading into the story. It's not supposed to be "the canon or right" way of interpreting it.
I'm fully aware that this could be entirely unintentional on PM's part, but the beauty of stories is finding your own interpretation of the words gifted to you. Please be civil!
If you find yourself feeling unwell while reading through this, please close out for your own mental safety.
Hong Lu is heavily objectified. In his IDs and even before his canto itself, this is one of the things we know about him. He’s described as a “gem of a child” (Liu Hong Lu uptie story), “a precious jade that must be kept within the deepest coffers” (Qingtao) and during the flashbacks, everyone else around him either praises him or scorns him for his upbringing without thinking about how it affects him emotionally. The first scene where the shadows close in on him while he hears about how they whisper is obviously a sign that this is something he’s distressed about.
I believe that Hong Lu's backstory can be read as SA. I don't think I'm alone in this as I've seen others mention it too, but I’d like to talk about my main points on why I believe this: his objectification, his abject grooming by Jia Mu, and how he reacts during and after, as well as the circumstances around it.
A question you might ask is: why this topic? Couldn't this be applied to other types of abuse too? The answer is yes! It can! But the imagery of the cuckoospawns, its wordings, and how Hong Lu acts afterwards is a direct result of that incident and recontextualizes his behavior. The inherent horror of the loss of bodily autonomy, the imagery violent creatures rising from one's own body, the silencing of the victim and its specific wording leads one to think in that direction. So I will be going that direction.
The elders themselves literally use him as a source of their entertainment. This objectification is one of the main reasons why he believes he has no bodily control over himself.
To be clear, Jia Mu was absolutely grooming him. One of the main tactics abusers will use is to isolate their victims from people who could support them, and when Baoyu shared how scared he was to Xiren, Jia Mu immediately had her lobotomized. This reinforced the belief in his mind that if he were to speak about this to anyone, bad things would befall them too. This is also a common thinking pattern that SA victims have, particularly the ones that have suffered familial abuse.
Familial abuse especially is tricky because it affects everyone. Some family members would even tell the victim not to report the abuse because it could “ruin” their family by tearing it apart. The weight of the emotional turmoil falls once again to the victim, adding more stress to an already traumatizing situation.
As Jia Mu is the family hierarch and him as a child, there is already a clear power imbalance there that Hong Lu will never be able to escape anything she makes him do. Jia Mu knows he’s a kind and gentle child. Someone who would try his best to save a person suffering. Someone who believes he could befriend even the people who speak ill of him. That boy would never willingly put anyone in harm’s way. She uses this as leverage to ensure that he would never talk to anyone about his circumstances again and to continue her abuse over him.
During the lab scenes we’re treated to how he continues to be forced even though he pleads he doesn’t want to. He begs anyone to help him, but Jia Mu even goes as far as taking away his only source of support: Xiren. In the end, what breaks him is his sole confidant rehashing the same words that sends him unbearable fear: to be silent and keep watching. He pushes away Daiyu, who is the only other person that notices his change of heart. A sign of trauma is pushing away the people that care about you as well as the isolation abuse tactic in full display. He now forces himself into the mold of what Jia Mu wants him to be. Because if he does this, then it’ll hurt less. Because this is what they tell him to do. He forces himself to be more palatable to his abuser.
Now, the incident. When he tries to stop people from going inside the venue, they don't believe him. He can't explain why out of fear. They laugh, ridicule or get mad at him for saying nonsense. This also mirrors the way victims are treated: are you sure it really happened? You're ruining someone's reputation. You don't even have any proof. Are we supposed to believe you? They're a good person, they would never do that. They do not take his cries for help seriously. Baoyu trying to help was also his own cry for help. That if they listened to him, maybe his choices do matter.
Second, I believe it’s no coincidence that it has implicit sexual violence, in my opinion. They did not go into details into how the cuckoobirds reproduce exactly, but their choice of wording is very intentional: “high level of fertility”, “reproductive abilities”, and “the glint of hunger when it’s reproductive instincts kicked in”. It is supposed to invoke that type of imagery within you without actually saying what went on. That’s part of the horror. So then, it should be easy to guess what it means for Hong Lu to have witnessed all of that unwillingly.
To preface I'm not saying he was assaulted himself. However, the things he witnessed also counts as SA because this was done to him against his well. I think it's an important distinction that there are different types of SA as well.
This is how he reacts after it all: dissociation, self-hatred and a deep, deep desire to be heard and comforted by anyone. It was vile. It was extremely violating. All he wished was someone to please help him, because this was something that never should have happened.
He was forced to watch people used as a breeding ground for the cuckoospawns. And even if they were not, these were things bursting out of people's bodies and wombs. There's a lack of bodily control for everyone imvolved. That's incredibly violating to imagine. Baoyu was only a child, too.
“After today, nothing good will ever happen to me again.” this was the line that made me go, oh.. Baoyu.. :(... And what fueled me to think about how exactly I was reading the canto. Not going into details, but this was a line that struck me personally. When something that violating happens to you, you just feel... I don't think I could describe how empty it makes you feel. But it really does feel like nothing good will happen to you again, because that traumatizing experience will always weigh down on you no matter what.
He buries his flowers-- his emotions and conscience, his free will and choices, and most importantly himself-- in a way that he won't have to watch as they wither. They will still be as "clean" and pure as they ever were, like what happened to him never happened at all. This is a common pattern among victims of SA, especially children. When someone has been assaulted, they think they've been dirtied by the experience and will never be "clean" again. This is a tangent but I personally don't like this perception because no matter what happened to someone, I don't think they've been "dirtied" at all. It was never their fault to begin with.
The elders as well have an obsession for him to stay a pristine jade. Impervious to anything beneath him like despair, fear, and agony.
Here are some other points I couldn't fit in above:
- When Jia Huan exclaimed he knew the reason why Baoyu was depressed, he reacted with fear. But when Jia Huan went on to say it was because of Daiyu, you could actually see his face slowly fall too. Whether it was disappointment or relief, but I think it was because he wanted someone to understand his situation without him having to say it out loud.
- (credit to user lyrecross for noticing this) Hong Lu shares the same "emphasis on the stomach area which is either wounded, open or binded" imagery across his EGOs. It's intriguing and sad how he shares the theme with the woman who was undeniably violated the most in this canto, Kong Sihui, who had her baby eaten by a creature which then burst out of her womb.
I'd like to point out his effervescent corrosion EGO: oysters create pearls because it's their body's natural defence against parasites entering their shell or to damage to their fragile shell. His corrosion line is this, too: “Filth nests inside me... So that they may be reborn as something useful.” This one's more or a stretch but the pearl's positioning also looks like a pregnant woman's belly. (I guess the entire clam opening is the stomach though)
The only exception to this trend is Soda Hong Lu which has the corrosion ego line “The seagulls... They keep crying and screaming away..!” and his base ego.
- DOTRC also had very blatant themes of sexual assault because it was about the misogyny women faced during that time. I interpret the original Jia Baoyu as also a victim of CSA, because even if its the time period, children having sex is pretty.. yeah. I'm glad to see they didn't leave this particular theme behind, even if they weren't that faithful to the original novel.
If you managed to read this far, thank you for taking the time out of your day to do so! And please be kind. Hong Lu is one of my favorite ever characters and I'm a big fan of the direction PM took with him. It might have been unintentional, but it was nontheless written well. Please share your thoughts with me, as long as it's polite!
To add on to @vantabone's original idea, this is part of why the ending of part 2 is so impactful.
Hong Lu is shown throughout the Canto to keep receiving the same treatment from most of his family. "Jia Huan" believes he's useless and deserves nothing, most of his siblings and companions in Hongyuan all believe he grew up with no downsides, and even his own father begs him not to participate in the Hierach Evaluation with the same "our precious" language Lu hears from Jia Mu.
Which is why the encounter with Jia Qiu is so impactful. Not only does he concern himself primarily with Hong Lu's own thoughts and feelings, but he understands that this was an abused child who had no say in anything.
He understands that he can expect Hong Lu to hold an answer for his question, especially because he's seen it from the kindness he's shown others, but that Hong Lu isn't going to open up easily when it's shown that every other time he does has led to massive downsides like his friends and family being murdered or turned against him.
It's why he's so patient during the final fight. He knows that Hong Lu is terrified of the people around him suffering for speaking what's in his heart, but also knows it NEEDS to be said if Hong Lu is going to ever heal.
There's a reason the joke is that this isn't a fight, it's a therapy session. Because some of the techniques and methods he uses can relate directly back to actual therapist techniques when dealing with abuse victims. Obviously therapists don't actually beat you with their manifested minds, but the rest of Jia Qiu's words line up really well.
One of the things that I can think of off the top of my head is his follow up comment when Hong Lu does finally give his answer of kindness. It's meant to intentionally dig in further to this answer, and ground Hong Lu in this truth that he's been burying for years. To get him to reaffirm his own beliefs that Hongyuang DOES need the kindness he is thinking of.
Challenging negative thoughts and reaffirming positive ones is something therapists actually recommend for people with this nihilism, which makes Jia Qiu all the more wise for his specific word choice and usage.
Overall, it's such a touching moment that Jia Qiu gives Hong Lu the complete space to explore his feelings about himself and the abuse he went through, because that's what he needs most; to be able to explore and crawl out of that shell.
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