That old crow came back today Sitting in my window like a prophet out on the fire escape, to say anger is just love, left out, gone to vinegar / the crow
Do you really like Jiang Cheng (the untamed) as a character? I just feel like, he never gave any regard/reasonable doubt to wuxian ever unless his own honor had been brought to question. He never stood up for him, didn’t try to understand him. All I saw was a character that found himself incompetent against wuxian and let his jealousy guide his reasoning for pushing wuxian away. Like yeah, wuxian choose the wen people... After he gave him an ultimatum? I don’t know, maybe I’m too critical?
no lie my emotions concerning jiang cheng were very mixed throughout the series. during my first watch I had to often stop when jc and wwx had fights after the yiling patriarch storyline started to make myself understand what jc's thought process behind his actions, so I didn't hate him unjustly.
let's start from the beginning of their relationship, ie when they're kids because this is the latest ep I rewatched.
wwx is brought by jiang fengmian and immediately upon his arrival jc has his dogs taken away which according to yanli are 'the apple of his eyes' and that's why he was sad but she explains it was jc who was worried about wwx and asked yanli to find him in the first place.
His ‘you shouldn’t have played hero then and shouldn’t have cared for that hot potato, you should’ve just come with me and you’d be safe’ after the wangxian cave scene, he says this out of anger at which his father scolds him about but it’s misinterpreted by him but wwx understands that what his brother said was out of concern for him.
“it is he(jiang cheng) who advised me to ask you to give the courtesy name to the baby”
we know that jc has always been an bad tempered person. that he speaks without a thought when he's angry and is prone to lash out but then he always comes to regret it later like in the above two situations but that doesnt mean he doesnt love his brother.
one of my favourite line is,
alot of things jc says and does have got to do with madam yu and her pinning jc and wwx against eachother. she worries (and lashes out at her son and husband) and sees the way jf differentiates between jc and wwx, which is basically rubbing it in on her biggest insecurity just like how jf preferred wwx’s mom over her and so comes her horrible parenting style.
This line is so small but it so imp to jiang cheng’s character. He tries not to balantly show that he cares about wwx that’s why a lot of people disregard his feelings.
(Gonna blame jf here too, for not showing jiang cheng enough love for the sake that he's going to become the future sect leader like dude show your kid some love)
jc’s despite being the younger sibling, he has to act like the older one because
forget love, jc doesnt even think his father likes him
This also leads to jc feeling like he was wwx’s shadow. wwx is better at fighting, he's smart and and he's all around someone who understands what the jiang clan and their principles stands for and intentionally or unintentionally follows them, leading to everyone praising him.
Like how, when he heard that the only reason jc became a famous clan leader was because of wwx victory at sunshot campaign.
1) wwx is very childish
2) jc is the future clan leader so he needs to act this way (which is the reason he's always scolding wwx despite the fact that he wants to join him in his pranks and just be a 16 yr old sometimes like how they’re were messing around at cloud recesses while going home) am I projecting here? maybe I am, but these are my feelings on jc lol).
Even though it’s shown that jc worries about their clans reputation because of wwx like when they're going to cloud recesses the first time "pupils from all famous clans will come, don’t let other look down upon us", he knows that everyone and he himself always seems to love wwx anyway
because the thing is jc isn’t jealous of his brother. he, (like @gaysarawat said in his tags) honest to god just wants to be his equal, he wants wwx to see him as his equal and not just protect him as his younger brother (I don’t wanna delve on how wwx character was about protecting jc because he thought he owed his life to the jian family because jf adopted him from the streets and with the constant reminders by madam yu that jc is to be their future clan leader so he has to protect him).
again, jc worries about wwx, he just has a weird way of showing it. weird being, he can’t show that he's being soft when it comes to him and my take is that it’s he can’t be seen showing any feelings and that comes with the fact that he's the future clan leader and that they have to be dignified (like how he says to wwx that playing with rabbits isn’t an upright gentleman thing to do’)
but then a few seconds later
(lwj who, in short, jc thinks is replacing the place wwx has in his heart for jc. oh my sweet dumb child, jc)
jc worries about his brother a lot, his initial reaction when wwx is hurt after the cave scene is of worry and you can see it on his face and the way he holds his shoulder. But then he sees he’s being soft, he immediately changes his tone and hits wwx on his chest and expresses his emotions by cloaking them in anger.
Right after that, wwx asks about lwj another topic jc is sour about and jc literally says that everyone got injured lwj isn’t special. like dude zx and I didn’t stop for a second to come and save you and you’re still going about lwj who’s already left you here.
I didn't know it would get this long, but imma just touch in lightly on the ultimatum part first (I think you mean the scene in the cave before their fight),
its that wwx tells him to cut him off from the clan after jc says "wwx you don’t understand the situation at hand, if you persist in defending them, I wont be able to protect you"
Which according to me is more in the sense that I can't protect you since all four clans are opposing the wens right now and since you're sheltering them they're out for your blood too so just come home with me and let me keep you safe for once.
It's not that jc isn’t at fault, what he doesn’t realise is that if they did stick together they could've actually made the situation better but he was young and influenced by all the elder clans which led them to drift apart so much.
Despite cutting off wwx, they only have a staged fight for the protection of jian clan, and jc doesn't cut ties with him himself.
The point im trying to make is that jc isn’t like wwx and that’s what we’ve been shown and what jc sees as well.
Unlike wwx who’s ready to stand against the world to protect the wen clan, leaving behind everything, jiang cheng doesn’t understand it. He doesn’t understand how wwx can leave his family for a bunch of unknown people and that too wen clan (who were the reason why lotus pier was destroyed, why his parents died). jc does love people but he loves them differently. He isn’t going to give up his life for just about anyone, he isn’t that self-sacrificing person wwx is. that is why he doesn’t understand why wwx stayed behind in the cave for lwj either. but he does love wwx and would sacrifice himseld for him like when we find out in ep 50 that jc willingly lets the wen soldiers find him so that wwx can be safe, he is literally willing to die for wwx when he makes that choice.
Post wwx death, it’s shown it wasn’t only lwj who searches for wwx but also jc. he’s the one who keeps his flute awaiting his explanation. If we look at jc, he lost his family, his clan and everyone is a matter of hours, he then loses his brother in law (despite what he feels for him, then his sister and finally his brother to demonic cultivation and finally to death. he hasn’t had an easy childhood or upbringing with his parents constantly fighting and his father considering him second to his brother.
the ‘take care’ at the end of of the series is what makes my heart hurt so much because he still loves his brother so much and what i wouldn’t do to get these two to hug it out.
Jiang cheng isn’t your typical hero character, his actions are shown to be influenced by his surrounding and upbringing which makes him human and i love him for that.
Anyway this is basically just aamna's feelings on jiang cheng because he deserves to be protected and loved.
okay Unpopular Opinion maybe but I watched most of the show assuming that Jiang Cheng was the older brother and Wei Wuxian was the younger brother (I mean obviously Jiang Yanli is older than both of ‘em but y’know) and I got corrected somewhere along the way re: canon but even knowing now, in rewatching the beginning where they’re all siblings-y and cute, that is still the Vibe I get.
it’s because Jiang Cheng is always trying to be ~the responsible one~ for both of them whereas Wei Wuxian is able to clown around, (the ‘able’ is from Jiang Cheng’s imagined pov, yes), Jiang Cheng is always like: stop being ridiculous! stop making a scene! stop making a fool of not only yourself but the whole family! whereas Wei Wuxian is all genius-chaos-gremlin ~I do what I want~ and he does. And obviously one can have an overly serious and worried-about-what-people-think younger sibling scolding an older one and constantly trying to bring them back into line etc., and it makes sense here specifically because of how they’re not quite exactly siblings, Jiang Cheng’s younger but he’s still the sect heir, so he gets the ~in charge~ mantle that way, it’s not just their personalities but also literally his future job to maintain Jiang Sect relationships with the other families, but anyway it just. Seems like a reverse Dynamic to me, re: their ages, as a sibling. ~shrug.~
