âWWX and JC reconciliationâ is such a trash gutter concept if you think about it for more then one second.
What Wei Wuxian did was help the people he owed a debt to, people who risked their lives to save him and JC and put everything on the line simply because helping WWX and JC was the right thing to do. They were Wen! Wen Ruohan was winning! Capturing and presenting the Jiang Heir wouldâve given them prestige and riches like no other! And instead they risk everything to save them.
And when time passed and they were the ones who needed help, JC refused and WWX acted with honour. He saved the lives of people because it was the right thing to do. Because a 1year old toddler isnât evil, a grandma isnât evil and a bunch of people born with the name âWenâ doesnât mean theyâre evil.
And then Jiang Cheng takes part in the murder of these people. No he leads the charge to massacre the people Wei Wuxian gave everything to protect. He is there when they slaughter them all and dump their bodies in a blood pool and lie to the world about it. He upholds those lies and is famous for ending the Villainous Yiling Laozu. Wei Wuxian believes that A-Yuan is dead because he knows that even a child wonât be spared!
And then after Wei Wuxian comes back, it just never stops. From being whipped and being almost killed again to having a dog set on him, to outright homophobia. Jiang Chengâs constantly saying slurs against the body of Mo Xuanyu and trying to slutshame Lan Wangji until it gets so bad that Wei Wuxian qi deviates.
Wei Wuxian is so furious that the man he loves is being degraded and humiliated that he spits up blood and collapses. He asks Lan Wangji to take him away from Lotus Pier and never wants to return. He just takes in the ranting and raving of JC to forever be his subordinate and serve under him quietly and apologises but has no intention of anything else.
There is nothing to âreconcileâ because there is nothing there. JC Stans may be okay with someone saying homophobic slurs against their loved one and holding up a banner of âwhy canât we all get alongâ about a man whoâd throw you to the wolves to save his own skin and pride, but Wei Wuxian is not, most people are not and people who genuinely like WWX and JC both as characters arenât either. The only thing in common Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng have is Jin Lingâs well being and thats it.
Wei Wuxian is happy and thriving with his husband, he is finally with people who will stand by him and act with honour; with a partner whose moral compass and beliefs aligns with his own completely and he is surrounded with people who are happy for him and uplift him instead of simmering in snide spite and jealousy. Wei Wuxian is happy to night hunt with his husband and travel the lands and then come back to make a home with his favourite person. He has moved on towards a happy blissful future and thatâs all that matters.
Hmmm this is a very interesting post so let me just try to summarize my thoughts:
The massacre of the Wens that WWX had at the burial mounds was absolutely unforgivable (we know that JC doesnât care for the wellbeing of strangers; only those of people he knows and cares for - this is similar to his mother. From his own experience, caring for strangers or people you owe nothing to only brings harm to the people you love - you must choose carefully which battles are worth fighting. This is why he considers WWX to have a âhero complex.â) None of that justifies straight up murder of innocent people, though. This is the biggest point against JC. Although WWX at this point had already lost control over who he killed (Jin Zixuan, completely blacking out at Nightless City) and may have gone on to kill more innocent people, the Wens didnât deserve to die. We also donât know if JC necessarily wanted to kill him or just imprison(?)/subdue him or anything like that; WWX ended up dying bc of his own spiritual rebound.
Directly or indirectly, WWX caused the death of JCâs parents, sister, and brother-in-law (the blame cannot be placed on WWX, as he absolutely always tried his best to do the right thing. I also acknowledge that WWX felt all this grief just as much as JC did; however, JC blames WWX, partly because WWXâs actions and partly because of his own helplessness.)
I completely disagree with the argument that JC is selfish trash who would throw anyone under the bus to save himself and his pride. While WWX did give up his core for JC, JC also willingly risked losing his own core (and did lose it) to draw Wens away from WWX when they were on the run after Lotus Pier was destroyed. I truly believe that before Jin Zixuan and especially Jiang Yanliâs death, Jiang Cheng cared deeply for WWX and wouldâve sacrificed himself for him just as WWX wouldâve done for JC.
Additionally, while it wasnât WWXâs fault (ofc he couldnât just sit back while everyone planned to kill him), Jiang Yanliâs fault was a direct consequence of WWXâs existence and actions. Especially because JC has already lost so much, I donât blame him at all for blaming WWX for Jiang Yanliâs death (and Jin Zixuanâs death, of course, which was directly WWXâs fault).
I donât think âsimmering in snide spite and jealousyâ is a correct description of the way JC sees WWX. We can see many instances where JC is clearly proud of WWX, cares about him, and defends him in front of others at his own expense (going against his mother when she was whipping him, defending WWX when LWJ was growing hostile after WWX started practicing demonic cultivation after returning from the Burial Mounds - although LWJ obviously had good intentions). While JC was certainly jealous of WWX, he was not proud of this fact and did not ever truly wish WWX harm until Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanliâs death, which to JC was unforgivable and likely the turning point / point of no return in their relationship.
I agree that the homophobia and everything he said to Lan Wangji is also unjustifiable. I also agree that WWX and LWJ share a certain set of morals that is different from JCâs. Thereâs no definite right or wrong when it comes to morality, and both sides have merits (helping all those in need vs. protecting oneâs own). Reconciliation may be unlikely due to this reason, but I do not think it is impossible. They donât ever have to agree with or forgive everything the other has done. If a family member is someone youâve loved and known since childhood, you can love them despite their perceived moral failings, and despite their many mistakes.
Sorry to say, because if you read the 7seas version itâs partially theyâre fault, but not only did you fail at being unbiased, you somehow missed important core themes of the story that are integral to both characters, so integral, in fact, that they are repeated multiple times and are the focal point of the climax at Guanyin Temple. Write whatever fanfic you want, more power to you, but understand that there is a difference between âI want this to have happened in the canonâ and âthis is what actually happened in canon.â
Could you tell me which themes I missed? I can sort of understand what youâre getting at, with JC being unable to tell WWX about him luring the Wens away from WWX leading to him losing his core, therefore suggesting that the two are unwilling to dredge up past regrets and are focused on moving forward without each other.
Still, MDZS is a story that is heavily focused on the love between siblings. The Twin Jades, Wen Qing and Wen Ning, Nie Mingjue and Nie Huaisang (you could even include the three zun as sworn siblings). The characters are heavily motivated by their love for their siblings. Due to this being such a central theme, I donât think MXTX ever intended WWX and JC to be irreconcilable.
Mdzs is actually not a story about âthe love between siblings,â it is a romance story about the two leads finally being able to get together through all obstacles. Siblings simply existing in the book does not make their existence a core theme. One actual theme you clearly missed is classism. Wei Wuxian is treated badly because he is not a part of the gentry, thus characters treat him as if his place is to serve them or be reviled. The entire persecution around his character is directly stated multiple times by the characters doing the persecuting that they fear he will start his own cultivation clan and overshadow those already established, raising heâthe son of a servantâabove his âsuperiors.â Jiang Cheng in the flashbacks feels threatened by even the idea that Wei Wuxian be his equal (his literal brother) and is only calmed when Wei Wuxian says that Jiang Cheng is Jiang Fengmianâs actual son while heâll be his subordinate âjust like our dads.â Right before the defection duel, Jiang Cheng echoes his motherâs words about Wei Wuxian âovershadowingâ him by helping the Wen, because he knows itâs the right thing to do, that it makes him look bad to not do it, and that Wei Wuxian makes him look bad for doing it without his support. They are irreconcilable not just because they arenât siblings, but because Jiang Cheng has only ever viewed Wei Wuxian as a servant that he needed to tightly control and be ever vigilant against lest he be overshadowed by the latterâs talent.
Another major theme you missed is that actions have consequences that one must accept whether they want to or not. Throughout every flashback, Jiang Cheng does things that push Wei Wuxian away until they reach the current status of their relationship in the novel, but also, everything that he does to alienate Wei Wuxian as the âcauseâ of all his lifeâs ills leads directly to half the tragedies he faced. He doesnât get to tell Wei Wuxian about why he lost his core in the end because telling him this after years of abuse, leading the charge for his death twice, falsely accusing him of killing his family, and then spending 13 years gleefully killing innocents as proxy for him absolutely overshadows that one good act. On top of that, Jiang Chengâs loss of his golden core was not an intended consequence of his actions, which is why he blamed Wei Wuxian for that too.
As Jiang Fengmian said, Jiang Cheng needed to be mindful of the things he says and does because some things cannot be taken back. Punishing Wei Wuxian for the loss of his golden core canât be taken back, because Wei Wuxian already sacrificed his own golden core to him. Refusing to acknowledge his debt to the Wen siblings canât be taken back, because they were already murdered through his tacit approval. Participating in the Nightless City murder pledge banquet canât be taken back, because it already led to the murder of his only sister due to his negligence. Leading the first siege canât be taken back, because Wei Wuxian and the Wen remnants are already dead. And all those things lead to 1) the reveal at the second siege that that cultivation had spent 13 years lying to their own children about the reason they âhadâ to kill Wei Wuxian, thereby damaging their reputations in the eyes of said children, 2) the reveal in the ancestral hall that Jiang Cheng had publicly and gleefully persecuted to death the very people responsible for his current power and prestige, leading to his breakdown, and 3) Jin Guangyaoâs scathing rebuke in Guanyin Temple about how almost every post-war tragedy that was blamed on Wei Wuxian was actually a direct result of Jiang Chengâs petty jealousies being exploited to alienate and target Wei Wuxian, leading to yet another breakdown. And at the end, Jiang Cheng has to live with all of these truths being made public knowledge, also by his own hand. So no, this isnât âthey are unwilling to dredge up past regrets,â this is âJiang Cheng has no right to settle accounts with Wei Wuxian, because not only would it devalue all the good things they actually did for the other but he would also come out as the one owing the most.â
Finally, 1) the only character in the entire novel who ever acknowledged Wei Wuxian as family was Jiang Yanli. Not Jiang Cheng, not the Jiang parents, and certainly not Jiang Cheng. This is a mistranslation Iâve seen from the 7seas version where âsectâ is interchanged with âfamily/clanâ to promote the âWei Wuxian was adoptedâ fanon. And 2) Wei Wuxian practices ghost cultivation, not demonic cultivation. That is also a mistranslation.
