Hello, let's say I'm writing a fanfic, I wanted to know information about the Jade Emperor 👉👈 something like his personality? his role as emperor of heaven? sorry for the inconvenience.
Whoosh. It's one of those questions I hesitate to answer, because so much stuff are involved that it's hard to do it in a satisfactory manner.
First: the "Jade Emperor" name, or sth similar, is first mentioned in Tao Hongjing's Zhenling Weiye Tu, gained popular usage as a nice-sounding name in Tang poetry, and was officially merged together with the Heavenly Emperor sacrificed to by the imperial court during Song Zhenzong's reign.
Though the officially sanctioned sacrifice doesn't seem to continue past Northern Song, it has affected folk beliefs and vernacular fiction enough that the mass pretty much equated JE with the Heavenly Emperor, who rules over the celestial court in the same way a human emperor rules over the mortal one.
As such, it's very hard to pin down a "personality", because it's like asking "what's the typical personality of a ___ dynasty emperor": do you pick the best, the worst, the most significant, or the most mediocre as your exemplar?
Of course, you can still answer questions such as "What do the emperor's officials expect from him, what power do he hold over his subjects and what is the limitation of that power, and how's a good or bad emperor defined in creative works?"
So that's what I'll try to do for JE.
In religious worship, JE is certainly one of the more "serious" deities when it comes to attitude and rituals of worship, because of his status as the ruler of the celestial bureaucracy grants immense power over the life of regular mortals, and also, in a way, greater distance from the worshippers.
(Doesn't mean the folk celebration of his birthday isn't a grand, bustling affair, but there tend to be some restriction on the type of sacrificial offerings, the things you pray to him for, and the representation of his images in worship.)
The more organized Daoists put him up there with the Three Pure Ones, not necessarily in a hierarchical way. Some made JE the Three Pure Ones' subordinates, others one of the Three Pure Ones/their successor, and came up with an origin story for JE that was basically just a reskinned version of Sakyamuni's.
However, as we get closer to the folk side of things, JE tends to be the Big Honcho in the Sky, period. The top gods of the Daoist and Buddhist pantheons may be seen as equally or more powerful and competent, but their relation to JE is like that of venerable Daoist/Buddhist masters to the emperor.
Essentially, they'll be asked by the emperor to use their miraculous powers and solve problems, and given a lot of respect, but it doesn't mean they have any supreme political authority over the imperial court.
Which is kinda what you see in JTTW too. And bc vernacular literature both inspire and take inspiration from folk religion without being literal religious scriptures, JE can be just as benevolent, foolish, or petty as any traditional emperor.
As for his role: all the departments of the Celestial Court ultimately answer to him. This includes the Thunder Bureau (in charge of weather as well as divine justice) and other departments that control natural phenomena, the various stellar gods in charge of fate and fortune, the martial warrior deities with exorcist functions, and many, many more.
The bureaucratic division means he probably doesn't have to micromanage every tiny thing, but in vernacular novels, we do see him drafting orders for weather events, and gods involved in weather creation mentioning that they can only make a thing happen with JE's permission/can't go against official guidelines without consequences.
Oh, and also, in popular folklore, all the Kitchen Gods will go to JE and make report on their respective mortal households on the 23/24th of the twelfth lunar month, and return on the fourth day of next month.
Thus the customs of giving honey/sticky candy to the Kitchen God to make sure he can't say anything bad about your family to his boss.
However, just for fun: if you subscribe to the "1 day in Celestial Realm = 1 year in mortal realm" theory, the Kitchen Gods will be making one presentation every day by Celestial Standard Time.
And I can just imagine their presentations being the last hour a celestial official has to endure before they get off work, during which they nod, clap on cue, and desperately wish they are somewhere else.
(Happy Lunar New Year, btw.)
