What’s the Deal with Jin Ling’s Uncles
I’ve seen a lot of joke posts floating around about Jin Ling’s Uncles, which has given rise to the increasingly complex field of Uncle Math; and a few attempts to explain it, but none that are comprehensive.
Who’s Jin Ling and why does he have so many uncles? Jin Ling is a character in The Untamed who happens to exist at the locus of a whole lot of overlapping family and social circles. He is not the main character, but is a major character in the second half of the show, as part of the younger generation that starts to grow up after the timeskip. Combined with the fact that 1) everybody on this show is a member of the same three or four big families and 2) there are very few major female characters on the show, you end up with A Lot Of Uncles.
What contributes to the number of Uncles is that there are three different types of brotherhood on this show:
Martial or adopted brothers
– and the older generation is linked through all of them. Let’s go through the family tree one layer at a time.
Maternal. On the maternal side, this is actually pretty simple. Jin Ling’s mother, Jiang Yanli has one biological brother, Jiang Cheng. (Conveniently, as well as being Jin Ling’s uncle straightforwardly through blood, Jiang Cheng also held a significant role in Jin Ling’s upbringing and possibly has the closest emotional relationship with him as well, making him a bit of an Uncle Prime.)
Paternal. With Jin Ling’s father Jin Zixuan, things get slightly more complicated because Jin Zixuan actually has quite a few biological siblings. This is on account of his father Jin Guangshan – Jin Ling’s paternal grandfather – being an enormous slut. Jin Zixuan ended up with an entire squad of half-siblings, both brothers and sisters, which means Jin Ling also has the following uncles (or half-uncles) through his father’s side:
Some of these half-siblings were much younger than Jin Ling’s father; Mo Xuanyu was only a few years older than Jin Ling himself. (There was also a half-aunt, Qin Su, so any husband she marries would also be considered Jin Ling’s uncle. Fortunately, this does not actually end up increasing the uncle count by any.)
Jin Guangshan, what a whore. Yes, I WILL slutshame him, Mo Xuanyu’s mother was like sixteen.
So, that’s all of Jin Ling’s biological uncles (and half-uncles.) But you also have…
2. Adopted and Martial siblings.
This one is also pretty straightforward. Jin Ling’s mother Jiang Yanli had one adopted brother, Wei Wuxian. Members of the same sect are also considered to be siblings of a kind. Wei Wuxian was never officially adopted by the Jiangs, but he was a member of the sect, so there still is some kind of legal relationship, her Martial Brother. Legalities aside they were raised as siblings and have a sibling emotional bond; Wei Wuxian would absolutely have had a family relationship with Jin Ling throughout his childhood, if he hadn’t been dead.
Nevertheless, he counts as an uncle; any husband he married would likewise gain uncle status, although once again this does not end up actually increasing the uncle count by any. There’s also the small detail where one of Jin Ling’s biological half-uncles – Mo Xuanyu – later becomes his adopted/martial uncle through a dark magic ritual, thus reducing the uncle count by one.
Could be ‘sworn siblings’ but let’s be real, nobody lets the women in this setting do anything as cool as swearing blood brotherhood. Sisterhood. Whatever. Anyway, this is where things get super complicated for Jin Ling, because any sworn brothers of existing uncles also become his uncles… And existing biological brothers of these sworn uncles also also become uncles.
Jin Ling’s half-uncle, Jin Guangyao, has a sworn brotherhood with Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen. Nie Mingjue has a younger biological brother, Nie Huaisang; Lan Xichen has one younger biological brother, Lan Wangji. All four of these men also become Jin Ling’s uncles by association.
Including this as a bonus even though it does not, as mentioned above, change the uncle tally. Maternal Uncle Wei Wuxian’s husband would become Jin Ling’s uncle as well, but he married Lan Wangji, who was already a Paternal Uncle through Lan Xichen (sworn) through Jin Guangyao (blood). Paternal Aunt Qin Su’s husband would become Jin Ling’s uncle as well, but she married… Jin Guangyao, who was already an uncle by blood. Oh shit.
That Jin Guangshan, what a whore.
Jin Ling has one maternal biological uncle (Jiang Cheng,) three paternal biological uncles (Jin Guangyao, Jin Zixun, and Mo Xuanyu,) one adopted maternal uncle (Wei Wuxian,) and four additional uncles by sworn brotherhood (Nie Mingjue, Nie Huaisang, Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji.) Between them, these nine men make up pretty much the entire cast of the show. Once they start betraying, murdering, avenging, dark-magic-summoning, and marrying each other, Jin Ling’s social calendar gets very complicated very fast.
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