Just finished the MDZS novel it was amazing and I loved it but I kinda wanted to pitch in with my thoughts on jiang cheng since he seems really widely contested in fandom. Spoilers for the whole story btw.
Now while reading I kept being struck with a sense of familiarity in regards to the Wei/jiang relationship. Now I was in deep a few years back in the She-RA fandom. And the more I thought about it the more I think a lot of the analysis behind catradora can apply here.
Now catra and jiang cheng are very different characters in a multitude of ways but where I think they are really similar is some of their characterization and especially in their values.
Both are very prickly, sarcastic type characters who have difficulty expressing their emotions and making friends but also carry a deep loyalty to those few they do hold dear. Both are also unfortunately saddled to self-sacrificing hero types who would do anything for the greater good.
This leads them to become incredibly divisive because once they feel betrayed by that person they considered their ride or die—they react strongly, harshly, and often in ways borderline unforgivable. Catra almost destroys the fabric of reality and jiang cheng like, murders Wei wuxian and the wen clan and also every trace of both for the next 13 or so years.
But even then, even with the horrible things they do to our protagonists, they are often the most relatable characters. And I think the reason for this is their values. In the end, catra and JC will always always put themselves and those they care about before everyone else.
Catra and JC start each of their series relying on adora and WW as their main pillar of support and friendship. They are such unfriendly unlikable people they don’t really have any other peers with whom they have a good relationship.
At the beginning of the series, Catra literally only has Adora and would put her before everyone else. She holds onto the promise adora made to her to always be by her side like a lifeline. This is paralleled by WW and JC. Jiang cheng puts his clan above everything else and considers WW his basically brother (ie family ie above outsiders). He also takes WW’s promise to always be his right hand man INCREDIBLY seriously considering it a symbol of WW’s loyalty to both himself and his clan. As such, neither can really understand it when adora and WW choose to leave them. To people like adora and WW, they would help literally anyone who needed it, regardless of personal cost. Where catra and JC save their acts of goodness for those they love, adora and WW offer their kindness freely and without discrimination, often very much at their own expense.
Caring so much for these self-sacrificing idiots becomes painful in and of itself. Throughout MDZS, every time Wei wuxian puts himself in danger in their youth—it’s jiang cheng who becomes the most upset. I’d have to reread for more examples but notable are after the wen chao cave debacle and of course when Wei wuxian decides to turn his back on the whole cultivation world and align himself with the the wen clan survivors.
It’s stated that JC blames WW’s saving lan Zhan in the cave on the death of his parents. And I want to explore that almost unreasonable leap of logic a little more. Because it really is illogical. Sure maybe WW caught the attention of the wen higher ups a little early but it was clear they were coming for lotus pier sooner or later. And when they are older and JC confronts WW about it he asks, why would you save HIM. Why would you put Lan Wangji over your safety and by extension the entire jiang clan. He’s doesn’t blame WW for his parents deaths (mostly), he is mostly hung up on how WW could possibly value LW, a boy he barely knows, enough to nearly die and also put the jiang clan at greater risk. He doesn’t understand WW’s intrinsic urge to help whoever he can as much as he can and in fact, feels that this cheapens WW’s loyalty to himself and the rest of his family. If he really prioritized the jiang clan he would never get into such a situation that puts the jiangs in a more vulnerable position. No matter who needs saving, it can’t possibly be more important than self preservation and personal loyalty.
And this is a sentimentJC is never really allowed to express. He’s constantly told the opposite, in fact. He is constantly bombarded by others telling him Wei wuxian perfectly embodies the clan’s founding ideology. He’s free spirited, he is simply attempting the impossible. WW is constantly touted as the ideal jiang, when jiang cheng is the one who would never fail to put the jiangs first. But even so, I don’t think that’s really why he became so resentful. He clearly cares about WW so much— spent countless sleepless nights to save him from the cave, stood up for him against his mother, got captured by the wen clan and had his core destroyed to save him— but still constantly has to live with the fact that WW has a hero complex the size of the titanic. And while everyone always emphasizes his jealousy, I think that this—WW’s disregard for his own well-being in face of perceived injustice is what angered JC more. All he wanted was for WW to focus on his family first and disregard others as less important. But at least back then, he was there. If WW wouldn’t value himself and the family then JC could be his constant reminder. He would become the sect leader and WW would be his number two and maybe then, in such a vital position would WW start putting the jiang clan first.
So when WW gives up everything and goes to burial mound and leaves the jiang cheng for who are also ostensibly strangers, it is a deep betrayal. He would even prioritize the fallen wen clan, the enemy, over his personal ties, the jiang clan. He promised to stay by his side. Throughout everything, even though it hurt when he’d help others without a second thought, at least he had some reassurance that WW would always consider them first. That he’d be his right hand forever. The jiang clan’s twin prides to match the Lan’s twin jades. But, for a few disadvantaged people, WW was willing to give all that up. Once again Wei wuxian put others over himself and even cuts ties with the jiang clan, like JC was probably terrified would happen all along. So even though he knows WW is cutting ties to save the jiang clan face, and at this point still deeply cares about him (brings Yanli to visit, let’s him name Jin ling, etc) he still resents it, and by proxy resents WW. As soon as everything goes to shit and WW is gone—he can’t help but feel anything besides that anger and hurt and spends 13 years extremely cranky and volatile. Without Wei wuxian around to speak for himself jiang cheng begins to look back with an increasingly distorted and narrow, firmly rooted in his own head version of events. Obviously WW never cared about me or my clan and if he valued us over lan wangji my parents wouldn’t be dead, if he valued us over the wens he would never have defected and my sister wouldn’t have had to die protecting him. And his promise, the one thing JC held onto as proof of WW’s loyalty— was broken just like that. There was a time JC believed WW would always be by his side. Forever his right hand man, his twin hero. Why is jiang cheng so mad at WW? Why does all that hurt and resentment build and build and build? Well it’s for the same reason catra loses her shit when Adora leaves her for the rebellion. The same reason reason she cannot fathom how adora can care about some people she just met and barely knows enough to abandon her.
To catra, the rest of the world could burn so long as she and adora were okay. To Jiang cheng, so long as his sect is okay the rest of the cultivation world could fuck off. But adora and Wei wuxian constantly break that bubble. They are loyal, yes, but that loyalty isn’t exclusive. They just can’t let the world burn, if someone else is in danger or needs help, they can’t help but do what they can to provide it. It’s a character pairing practically oozing with conflict and the promise of hurt feelings.
In the end, these relationships are so juicy because each of these characters are exactly what their counterparts need. The selfish to balance the selfless. The self preservation where there is next to none. They are duos stronger together than apart and so their almost inevitable separation hurts so much more.
