nmj for the ask game!
ahaha, I figured at some point I’d get one that wasn’t all easy sunshine and rainbows gushing for paragraphs XD
well, ok. I think probably the thing I like most about Nie Mingjue is the way he really, truly is also an unfortunate crispy marshmallow full of trauma and resultant bad decisions just the same as everyone else is?? a lot of ink has been spilled by other people writing very eloquently about the way being raised to the expectation of pretty inevitably dying before his time for his clan has given him a perspective on what’s important in life that very few other characters have; about, similarly, the militarised culture the Qinghe Nie are more steeped in than most other sects even before the Sunshot campaign begins due to territorial encroachment, and the way operating as a sect leader and military commander starting at such a young age, where others are regularly laying down their life for him, have shaped the justifications he needs to hold onto as to what kinds of sacrifices of whom are necessary.
and that’s really the core of what makes him a sympathetic character to me, is the very clear throughline between the burden of responsibilities that shaped him, and (like everyone) the dysfunctional, destructive ways he internalises their messages and the coping mechanisms he needs to build to deal with them.
(in its own way, I also do like in CQL particularly, that we see how a decade of building resentment, how reinterpreting events after the fact and getting ever more caught in his own biased memories and interpretations, affects the way he’s even able to show others the knowledge of history he has access to. eyewitness unreliability, and the fluidity of memory more generally, are topics/themes that are very important to me and I really appreciate the role he plays in bringing those ideas up in the story.)
oh and, I do also very much like that he can make Lan Xichen smile and open up emotionally and not always have to be the oh-so-calm-composed-responsible-Zewu-jun in his presence!! because er-ge being happy and having someone to reassure him and lay his burdens down with occasionally is important to me 🥺🥺🥺 so he can stay, for a bit, for now :P