Sometimes it feels like the main message that a lot of people miss in MDZS in their leaps to justify one character’s hatred for another or attempting to remove them from the world because they will never be at peace until that person is completely eradicated, is that it poses a question of “how much blood does it take to satisfy the anger? How much death is necessary to live? How much pain that you want to inflict is truly equal to what you have suffered? Where is the line between justice, vengeance and murder?”
MDZS does not have our modern sensibilities and laws for such a thing, and it’s on purpose. It’s set in a time where there is no emperor or god onscreen to merit out justice or retribution, it’s all in the hands of the mortals. They get to decide how much is enough.
And the thing that so many people miss is that for almost every character (and I will include Wei Wuxian in this with a caveat) go too far at some point. Sure, the desire to kill your brother’s killer is understandable. But what about the people who you harm in that path? Nie Huaisang does end up taking down Jin Guangyao, but the cost is that Qin Su also dies, destroyed even before her death by the reality of what the men around her will stoop to do out of pride and anger, what they will use her for in the process.
Why do I stand so firmly against the people who say that Jin Guangyao and Jiang Cheng had their reasons, that they were right to go as far as they did? Because the text itself does take the time to show us what is reasonable in that world and what is greedy, wrathful, unjustified.
Jiang Cheng has every right to hate the men who invaded his home and killed his family. In the natures of their society it is not wrong for him to step him and take revenge against them. The supervisory camps in Yunmeng were built on the blood of his people. I have no qualm with him removing them from his land, even though it ends in their deaths.
But that does not mean that his righteous war should extend to all who bear the Wen name and that is where the gap comes in. Wen Chao had him tortured and his golden core crushed. By the rules of that world as extolled by Xiao Xingchen when talking to Xue Yang, it is reasonable to take back what was done to him in blood there.
But Wen Ning is not Wen Chao. Wen Ning risked his life, his sister’s life and ultimately ended up contributing to Wen Ruohan’s campaign toppling and ending in dust because when he was offered the choice to either stick by his family or stick by his morals, he chose the former. The Wen’s attack on Lotus Pier was wrong. The lives they took were unjustified. Their actions were deplorable.
By standing up and protecting Jiang Cheng in the way he does, smuggling him back out of Lotus Pier and hiding him away from the Wen who would kill him, he is declaring that his own family is in the wrong, and instead makes a sacrifice that could have had him and his sister killed should Wen Ruohan ever find out about it.
Jiang Cheng knows this. This is where the right of hatred falls flat. This is where his righteous anger becomes a hunger for blood that will never be satiated.
Now I’m not saying that Jiang Cheng should hug and kiss Wen Ning for everything. There are limits to what humans can endure, even ones as good as Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji. But he refuses to ever acknowledge what he knows. He refuses to ever act in kind. He owes a debt and he knows it. And he instead not only refuses to pay it by not necessarily taking them into his lands, but even acknowledging that they did anything. He buries them with their family and his words. He lets his hatred overwhelm all else.
He was not powerless at the end of the war. Far from it, in fact! He had a sect that was still rebuilding its forces, but it had been three years since the start of the war so it can’t be tiny anymore, and he had Wei Wuxian with the Yin Hufu. The only two necromancers in the world, who are powerful enough to hold whole barriers on their own. This is the whole point of the display at Phoenix Mountain. Wei Wuxian is showing the other three great clans and all the smaller clans that it does not matter how many of them they have, Yunmeng Jiang has him and while they have him, they are untouchable. This is a known fact.
Jiang Cheng would have faced no long term retribution from doing anything. He could have simply let Wei Wuxian pull them out of the Jin indoctrination camp and take them through Yunmeng to somewhere else and after some grumbling and some pleading on Jin Guangshan’s part, nothing would have happened. Wei Wuxian is too strong and the other clans are too aware of that. No one was safer than Yunmeng Jiang at the end of the war.
That is why the Jin play off of his jealousy and anger and get him to throw aside Wei Wuxian. It is literally their only option.
This brings me to the other half of my discussion, which is where does the bloodshed end? What is enough spilled blood?
If Jiang Cheng hates Wei Wuxian enough to try to kill him, then this should be a vengeance that ends with Wei Wuxian’s death. Death ends all obligations. We owe no more money, we settle no more debts, we leave the shackles of the living in life and the dead move on as do the living.
So why then is it acceptable that Jiang Cheng spends the next thirteen years killing people that remind him of Wei Wuxian? That the moment that Wei Wuxian does return, his first action is to try and kill him again? That he tortures him multiple times and it is only Lan Wangji’s presence and Jin Ling’s quick thinking that save him on those occasions? By all rights including our modern ones, Wei Wuxian should be free and Jiang Cheng should have moved on in thirteen years. Thirteen years is long enough to raise a child almost to adulthood, but Jiang Cheng clings to a hatred that has had no outlet for that long and continues to try and demand Justice that he has already received.
Where is the line? When is enough? Why does the blood of innocents have to be paid too for the hunger of the mighty? Wen Ruohan subtly assassinated Nie Mingjue’s father, but Nie Mingjue decided that there was only to be death for anyone related to the Wen. They didn’t have to do anything, even if they tried to stop him it wouldn’t be enough. Only the death of every Wen would slake that hunger, and then in death when he is driven only by that hunger, only the death of every Jin. Including the ones who weren’t even old enough to hold a sword at the time he died. Jin Ling is as good as Jin Guangyao for Nie Mingjue to kill. All that matters is that he’s connected. All that matters is that there is another body to feed the never ending hate that fills him.
Xiao Xingchen says that for Xue Yang to take a finger or an arm from the man who harmed him as a child is reasonable. Even to kill him if that is truly the only way to end his hatred. But what is a finger to an entire family? “Because it is mine!” Declares Xue Yang and this is where the crux of it lies. “It is my hatred, it is my anger. It is my right to kill anyone because I am angry and I refuse to let it go.” This is the trait that Jiang Cheng, Jin Guangyao and Xue Yang all share. “I am angry and I am hurt so it is my right to do as I will and no one should take that away from me or I will hurt them too.”
This is why they are antagonists. This is why two of the three of them end up dead. This is why Jiang Cheng staying his hand in the temple and Wei Wuxian’s mercy towards him is the only reason that he survives the end. You can’t ask the world to feed your endless hatred. Eventually you will hurt the wrong person and by the very laws that you and the world have set, will come for you. There is no such thing as bloodshed without pain. There are people who will miss those who are gone. And not all of them will be as good as Lan Wangji. Not all of them will move forward in their lives and ignore you. Sometimes the oriole will stalk you in the shadows, waiting for the moment the praying mantis slips up. The wheel ever turns and those on the bottom eventually rise up.
Now as for Wei Wuxian, we see a different answer on him from the others and this is where his morals really come into play. Cause at first he does exact justice for those lost at Lotus Pier. Steps in which the narrative does not fully condemn him, but suggests lightly that it is the sort of thing that he does not linger in, as well as he himself looks back and decides that maybe he did go too far then. Maybe he did do too much in the name of anger and justice. Three months after the event he is willing to kill and torture Wen Zhuliu and Wen Chao. But three years later he looks at the members of the family that killed his and goes “I do not love you. But this is not right. You do not deserve this. I will not let you suffer this any longer even though your name is Wen.”
For Wei Wuxian, the line ends at the end of war, at the deaths of those who directly caused him the most pain. He does not necessarily forgive or absolve. But he does recognize that there is no sense in continuing the bloodshed or allowing others to continue it out of some misplaced sense of vengeance. He is offered a chance to stop the wheel and he tries. He tries so goddamn hard. He tries until it kills him and everyone else he protects because the anger of the rest is too wrapped up in their self righteousness to examine what is reasonable and what is the cost for what they do.
I do not exonerate the Lan here, but I do point out that they at least actually make an attempt to change things afterwards. We see it in the way that Lan Wangji continues to act in the world. We see it in the way that Lan Xichen stops and reconsiders what he knows of Wei Wuxian, and helps him when the wheel attempts to spin back to where it was before. Where the juniors go out hunting on their own to help people of all kinds. They find weird mysteries and they follow them, they are kind to all. It does not absolve what they have done in the past, it does not make them blameless.
But it is a start. And one that Jiang Cheng has not taken. If he had, we wouldn’t be having these debates and arguments about what is a reasonable enough amount of death and destruction that he can cause on account of his past.
This is where the line is.
Modaozushi asks the question of how much death is enough and concludes at the line “when you continue to court death to satisfy your anger, you will eventually find death standing at your door too.” It happens to Xue Yang, who after killing Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen and A-Qing and everyone in Yi City, finds A-Qing’s ghost leading those who can end his hurting of others for good. It happens to Jin Guangyao who assassinates and hurts so many people that Nie Huaisang finds allies in Mo Xuanyu, Sisi and Bicao, all of whom are willing to help him drag Jin Guangyao to the depths by the chains of his reputation.
Jiang Cheng is offered another chance. Leave Wei Wuxian alone and move forwards with his life. At the end of the book he accepts that chance. It is probably the last one he will get, but he accepts it. This is why he finishes out the book alive no matter how much blood he has on his hands. You can always change your actions until you are dead.
This is the question that Modaozushi posits and answers to all of us and to which I now offer to you when you consider the actions in story. What is enough? How much blood must be spilled before you are happy?
Why does it matter to you that those who are hurt are allowed to hurt without consequence? Where do you draw the line when all of those who caused you pain in the past are buried?
What is the price that you demand for your happiness? When is there enough blood on your hands to be happy?
When do you say “there has been enough death. I will stop this here and now because it is enough.”
Will you be the hero or the antagonist in someone else’s story?
