post 1: mdzs fandom idiots only stan the gentry characters because they haven't unpacked their classism. if they had, they wouldn't be gentry stans because they'd know that all of those characters are privileged scum and only the commoner [sic] wei ying is righteous
post 2: lan wangji is our proletariat hero
post 3: that whoreson jin guangyao should have known his place.
Also, now that I’m thinking about it, with the exception of the qin scene, the 3zun “right in front of my salad” dynamic is really more NMJ showing up unexpectedly in front of Xiyao and slamming his salad down on the table between them. And then saying that.
you’ve mentioned a few times in your meta that you view nmj as being hypocritical, and i’m inclined to agree with you! would you share some specific quotes from the text that you feel especially support this reading of his character? 👀
It is one of my favourite words to apply to him, isn’t it! I think that’s because a) it’s true, and b) NMJ’s reputation for righteousness (and his belief in his own righteousness) grant an in-universe illusion of consistency that often bleeds through to external readings of him. So I press the point, because it’s fundamental to his character and I usually see it elided or reduced to all-bark-and-no-bite-grumpy-bear-with-a-heart-of-gold fanon NMJ.
And oh yes, there’s an absolute wealth of quotes supporting this. As always, I use the EXR fan translation because I’m old school.
Christ, this got long. Click for more.
It’s all relative, man
First we need to establish what NMJ’s principles supposedly are.
[Nie Huaisang’s] brother, Nie Mingjue, was extremely resolute when carrying out orders, quite renowned in the cultivation world. […] Nie Mingjue had always taught his younger brother with extreme harshness, particularly caring for his studies. (Chapter 13)
[…] he took over the Nie Sect before he even reached twenty, doing everything in a direct, forceful fashion. (Chapter 21)
When he lived, Nie Mingjue was often exasperated by the fact that his brother didn’t meet expectations, so he disciplined him strictly. (Chapter 21)
In spite of Nie Mingjue being a junior to Jin Guangshan, he conducted himself in a strict manner and refused to tolerate Xue Yang no matter what. (Chapter 30)
Without any hesitation, Nie Mingjue scolded, “Drinking the water he brought you while speaking such spiteful words! Did you join my forces not to kill the Wen-dogs but to make idle talk?!” (Chapter 48)
“A proper man should carry himself with proud righteousness. There’s no need to care for the talk of those idlers.” (Chapter 48)
As we can see, NMJ is all about righteousness, but we don’t get too many details confirming what that righteousness entails. We’re expected to make assumptions based on context: that his values are in line with the ideal values of his society, and that he’s living his life according to those principles (and enforcing said principles on others).
This is worth keeping in mind. We know NMJ is ‘righteous’. We know, in a general sense, what societal standards for morality are in this setting and we see the tension between society’s theoretical standards, its actual standards, and the moral frameworks of characters such as WWX and LXC. And there’s tension between those standards and NMJ’s moral framework, too. But though WWX attempts (and fails) to opt out and LXC attempts (and fails) to find a better way through open conversation and consideration of context, their failures are not due to hypocrisy but instead larger forces at play. In other words, they go up against society and society wins.
NMJ has a problem with society too, but for him the problem is not with its rules and assumptions—it’s with the individuals who make it up. He has no problem with the system. To NMJ, the system is a good thing. If only the people in it would rigidly conform to the rules, everything would be fine. And an outlook like that can only ever lead to hypocrisy, not just because human beings and their actions don’t fit into rigid categories, but because by not attempting to navigate the system (LXC, JGY, JC) or even attempting to opt out (WWX, LWJ, XY), NMJ positions himself above society, as a moral arbiter.
This is why he feels entitled to upbraid JGS, who is a generation above him. It’s why he feels entitled to harass and attempt to murder JGY for not being loyal to NMJ over and above his filial duty to his father. These actions are after he’s reached the point of no return with the sabre spirit, yes, but they didn’t come out of nowhere. It’s just the nadir of a path he’s been on presumably his entire life.
All the information is on the task
NMJ is very good at bending his supposedly rigid principles when it’s convenient for him, while not offering any grace or understanding to others who do the same. And ‘others’, let’s be real, usually equates to JGY. The horror vortex of NMJ’s obsession with controlling JGY really cannot be escaped.
Let’s start with the biggie. JGY is naturally the one who calls NMJ out, because he’s the only one who can see the emperor has no clothes, and by clothes I mean leg to stand on.
“But, Brother, I have always wanted to ask you something—the lives under your hands are in any regard more than those under mine, so why is it that I only killed a few cultivators out of desperation and you keep on bringing it up, even until now?” (Chapter 48)
“Are you saying that all of the people you killed deserved their deaths? […] Then, may I ask, just how do you decide if someone deserves death? Are your standards absolutely correct? If I kill one but save hundreds, would the good outweigh the bad, or would I still deserve death? To do great things, sacrifices must happen.” (Chapter 48)
Chifeng-zun, my man, he has nailed you. The point is not to start drawing equivalences in quite the way JGY is doing—I would certainly argue that if you’re killing undeserving people for the greater good you’d better have one hell of a greater good to be aiming for, even in the crapsack world of MDZS. JGY’s argument is partly a numbers game, but I want to set that aside, because it’s a distraction from his core point, to which numbers are irrelevant: can NMJ truly justify every single murder he has ever committed? Because if he can’t, he’s condemned by his own supposed standards. Note JGY’s use of the word ‘absolute’. NMJ is a moral absolutist! Is he absolutely sure? And if he is sure, does it matter that he’s sure? Why is his certainty more important than anyone else’s?
NMJ never once grapples with these questions. If he did, he might be able to pull the teeth of his own hypocrisy by acknowledging it and engaging with it. But of course he’s not capable of that, certainly not by the time of this scene.
And speaking of NMJ’s hypocrisy re: who does and doesn’t deserve to die…
“Very well! I’ll kill myself after I kill you!” (Chapter 49)
But Roquen, you cry! NMJ says such an utterly mad thing because he’s battered and beaten and not thinking clearly, not to mention past the point of no return with the sabre spirit as he’s been cultivating with resentful energy intensely throughout the war! That’s why he walks it back after LXC intervenes!
To which I say: it is almost as though context matters!
And yes, I’m aware of the context. I’m aware that just before this bit of dialogue the narrative claims JGY pointing out ‘if I hadn’t killed them you’d be dead’ is a subtle way of saying ‘you can’t kill me because you owe me your life’ as though that’s purely manipulative rather than being, you know, true. ‘Even if you refuse to accept I acted for the best, please don’t kill me and I’m going to subtly remind you that you owe me to maximise my chances of getting you to not kill me (after I just risked my life to save yours when it would have been 100x better for me personally if you died)’ is hardly an outrageous position.
It’s interesting, though, isn’t it, that NMJ never again mentions taking his own life as a matter of principle, despite the fact that he subsequently attempts to murder JGY again for the apparently unforgivable crime of … not being able to overrule his abusive father about XY, and then having the temerity to complain to LXC about NMJ’s attempt to murder him.
Obviously the Jin are a huge threat after the war, but these are all pretty feeble reasons for piling on JGY. Sure, maybe JGY would also have tried to protect XY if JGS weren’t around, but the fact is that JGS is around and he’s calling the shots. Besides, once JGS is out of the picture JGY has no issue disposing of XY (with Dr Evil levels of ineptness, apparently), so that’s a fairly decent indicator he’s not ride or die. As for the fact that JGY is making nice to NMJ’s face but complaining behind his back, well. Regardless of any genuine desire to vent to his only friend, I have no doubt he was indeed trying to drive a wedge between NMJ and LXC as a strategic move. But is it wrong of him to do so, considering NMJ is a genuine and present threat to his life and LXC is just not getting it? And does any of the above, including his struggle to maintain his position and all the other work he does for his father mean he deserves death—immediate, extrajudicial and violent death?
Let me put it this way. NMJ is making JGY responsible for his father’s actions and his father’s orders—the question of whether JGY is on board with his father’s instructions is academic, because he has no choice in the matter. JGY cannot opt out of his situation. The only opt out is death, and that is not a meaningful choice because no one else is getting vilified for having the audacity to fight for their place in their world rather than lie down and die. And even if JGY really were a cackling supervillain 100% on board with his father’s diabolical plans, NMJ’s focus on him to the exclusion of JGS is driven by emotion and not by a rational evaluation of the morality and logistics of the situation.
And when he’s insisting that JGY deserves death (and trying to mete it out to him) NMJ never again considers for a moment whether, if JGY really deserves to die, then maybe he does too.
As a third example, to make it a hat trick, we have this:
However, Jin Guangyao wasn’t his subordinate anymore. Only after they became sworn brothers would he have the status and the position to urge Jin Guangyao, like how he disciplined his younger brother, Nie Huaisang. (Chapter 49)
“Brother, it really was my father’s orders. I couldn’t refuse. Now. if you want me to take care of Xue Yang, what would I say to him?” (Chapter 49)
NMJ is perfectly aware that according to the rules of their society and the moral framework he himself subscribes to, JGY’s highest authority is his father. But NMJ can’t accept that. He thinks he should be the ultimate authority over JGY, and though he couches it in moral terms about wanting JGY to follow the correct path, what he really means is what he himself considers to be the correct path. As always, he doesn’t listen to JGY’s perfectly valid points about how it’s not possible for him to do the ‘right’ thing as he just doesn’t have that kind of authority and will only end up making his own life worse. I don’t have a quote demonstrating this, but considering everything we know about NMJ, I think we can infer he would not take kindly to JGY ordering NHS to do something futile and self-destructive in the name of the correct path, purely on the grounds that JGY is now his elder brother.
I’ll acknowledge again that JGY is absolutely an accomplice in his father’s schemes, and the originator of a fair few of them since he’s politically gifted. But it’s just not possible to untangle JGY’s complicity from his need (and his right!) to survive. NMJ is correct to be concerned about JGY as a risk, because he’s a huge asset to JGS. But once again, making JGY a target is not the moral or even the sensible thing to do. We know JGY enjoys aspects of what his father asks him to do. We also know that once his father is out of the picture he gets rid of XY, purges the Jin of corruption and pushes through the watchtower project. When he has agency as a clan leader he doesn’t follow his father’s political agenda to the letter, to say the least! So there is certainly a large dollop of truth in his claims that he has no choice and he’s unhappy and vulnerable.
And then a bonus, something not linked to JGY to demonstrate that NMJ’s hypocrisy extends beyond his personal vendetta.
Nie Mingjue spoke coldly. “If she responded with only silence and not opposition when the Wen Sect was causing mayhem, it’s the same as indifference. She shouldn’t have been so disillusioned as to hope that she could be treated with respect when the Wen Sect was doing evil and be unwilling to suffer the consequences and pay the price when the Wen Sect was wiped out.” (Chapter 73)
Charming. Funny how NMJ says this after spending the war fighting on the same side as the guy who invented demonic cultivation and controls an army of desecrated corpses, violating every possible social and cultural principle they have. But the Sunshot Campaign would have failed without WWX’s contributions, so I suppose NMJ thought that compromise was acceptable. It’s all right for him to stay silent and not oppose WWX, since WWX has been useful to his own agenda. What’s not acceptable is staying silent when the consequence is your own violent death and literally no good whatsoever being achieved thereby.
Aside from being a hypocrite, NMJ is also pathologically incapable of self-reflection.
Finish him!
At the end of the day, NMJ’s principles are inherently contradictory because he’s living in morally relative world where the narrative expects us to take context into account and root for a protagonist who brutally tortures his enemies to death and a romantic lead who find+replaces his ethical framework with ‘Wei Ying’.
It is simply not possible for NMJ to be both righteous and rigid, so when he chooses to be rigid he foregoes being righteous. Even in his moments of flexibility, he continues to apply harsh standards to others that he refuses to apply to himself. That’s what makes him a hypocrite. He isn’t a bastion of absolute morality in a sea of corruption. He’s in denial about the nuanced reality he’s living in, and placing himself on high as a moral authority with no actual mandate. Hypocrisy inevitably results, and the consequences are hugely damaging to everyone around him.
@thatswhatsushesaid Yeah you timed that ask really well, because I was already in NMJ mode! No promises that any other asks get a 2k word response within 24 hours though.
As for the rest of your tags, it’s so funny you’d raise the topic of WWX because I absolutely knew he had to be in there as an example of NMJ’s hypocrisy. I hunted HIGH AND LOW for direct textual evidence of NMJ disapproving of WWX’s demonic cultivation and I could not find it. If you have anything I will be seriously grateful, because I could have sworn there was at least one line that referenced NMJ’s disapproval in specific. It doesn’t really matter if there’s a direct quote or not since we can easily infer his opinion, but I did feel like the person searching for the glasses that are already on their face.
During my ‘wait, we can infer NMJ disapproves of demonic cultivation but the direct quote seems to have slipped down the back of the sofa’ journey it honestly slipped my mind to dig deeper into the hypocrisy of sabre cultivation vs. demonic cultivation. It is absolutely hypocritical that he disapproves despite doing literally the same thing but with animals, but I think my personal ranking does place his willingness to be on the same side as WWX (while not trying to randomly murder him for bad behaviour—I guess JC’s authority over WWX is more important than the authority JGS has over JGY, despite the fact that JC has so little control over WWX they have to engineer a fake breakup) as higher on the hypocrisy scale than his attitude to demonic cultivation generally.
Firstly, I do see a distinction in principle between cultivating the resentful energy of beasts rather than human beings. It’s not a nice thing to do either way, but if we’re splitting hairs I think we can agree there’s a difference between animals and people. I know it’s much more sad if Mittens has her resentment about never being fed ever in her life cultivated, compared to corpse puppeting Sociopath-gongzi who beats his wife and starves his children. But as a general rule, we do treat animals differently to people and I don’t want to stray into false equivalence. NMJ is a hypocrite about it but there’s still some nuance involved.
(As an aside, the problem of ever-increasing numbers of enraged bloodthirsty entombed sabres is a big one, but I’ve always found it a funny image. Anyway it’s of course hypocritical to have the dangerous byproducts of your cultivation stashed away like that, but it’s also a straightforward example of the consequences of dabbling in resentful energy from any source, so it’s hardly unique on a thematic level. It doesn’t say anything new about NMJ’s hypocrisy; just ties in neatly with my points about the fact that he never for a moment wonders whether he’s doing the right thing. The point is not that he should conclude yes, on balance he’s doing the right thing, or no, on balance he’s doing the wrong thing. The point is just that it never occurs to him to ask the question at all. Speaks volumes.)
Secondly, in light of the above, that’s why I focused on his willingness to work with WWX. This hypocrisy has layers! The first layer is disapproving of demonic cultivation when he engages in similar practices, but the second, deeper layer is being willing to tolerate it when it serves his own ends. As long as he doesn’t have to get his own hands dirty and can pretend he’s therefore not complicit, that is. And that is an attitude he shares with basically the entire jianghu, to be fair—but to be fairer, NMJ positions himself as better than the rest of the jianghu, as a moral authority, so there’s the hypocrisy again.
And the third layer, the heart of this particular onion, is the fact that NMJ is perfectly willing to join the rest of the Jianghu in condemning WWX. It’s hypocritical to turn on someone who’s been such an asset, to be sure, although at this point WWX is the victim of propaganda and his own foolish arrogance. But the real point is this: NMJ doesn’t question himself and his own conduct during the war in light of WWX’s supposed evil and dangerous behaviour. If everything about WWX is true, why isn’t NMJ pondering whether he himself is complicit because he allied with WWX during the war? (The answer is situational ethics, a thing NMJ claims not to believe in.)
This sort of thing is why I give short shrift to NMJ’s moments of empathy (ha). They’re essential to his character and vital to include when writing him, but they’re moments. He momentarily feels bad for JGY, momentarily remembers what he owes JGY. But it never sticks—he always returns to judgement and violence. There’s no self-reflection at all, and therefore no hope of identifying his own hypocrisy, never mind addressing it.
I see you have done some really thoughtful metas. What're your thoughts on Nie Mingjue? IMO he's a lot more complicated than he's usually assumed to be...
One of my classic absurdly late ask responses! Glad you enjoy the meta.
I think NMJ occupies a fascinating place in the narrative, because his ultimate fate is inevitable despite the fact that he theoretically has more agency than most (all?) of the rest of the main cast.
For a start he becomes clan leader at a young age, and while that comes with its pressures it's undeniably an influential position. He's the leading general of the Sunshot Campaign. Then, after the Sunshot Campaign, the Nie and the Jin are by some margin the most powerful clans. So, in a political sense NMJ has immense power. In theory he has the ability to make far better choices. He could stop persecuting JGY, who literally has no choice but to follow his father's orders, and he could choose to focus his ire where it belongs: on JGS. And he could also choose to counter JGS in ways that don't push the jianghu back to the brink of another devastating war.
Except he can't make those choices. And I want to make a strong distinction here: he is not like other characters such as JGY or LXC or JC, whose choices are limited by their clear understanding of their own limitations and the political landscape (including but not limited to the fact that a post-Sunshot descent into war between the Nie and the Jin would be catastrophic). No. NMJ's choices are limited because by the end of the Sunshot Campaign his mental capacity is irreversibly compromised.
Not only is NMJ terminally ill, but we're given clear examples of contrast between NMJ early in Sunshot and NMJ late- and post-Sunshot. Pre-Sunshot NMJ understands the Wen have political and cultivation power that utterly outclasses him and his clan, so he stands by and tolerates their existence. He knows it would be suicide to go up against them, and it's only when the Wen cross a line and all the clans unite that he's able to actually do anything about the fact that WRH murdered his father.
Contrast that to NMJ by the end of Sunshot, so irrationally obsessed with JGY that he's willing to jeopardise the hard-won (and fragile) stability of the jianghu by trying to kill him. Reminder: when NMJ kicks JGY down the stairs, he starts to follow him down with the express intent of killing him. As in, he fully intends to murder the legitimate son of his main political rival and an immensely powerful clan leader on the steps of his own home. That is ludicrous. Pre-Sunshot NMJ wouldn't have done something like that for his own beloved father, let alone for a grudge.
All of NMJ's flaws are obvious from the earliest point of his timeline: he's proud, he's inflexible, he's righteous but he's hypocritical. But early on we see examples of NMJ bending a little, of recognising nuance and showing, in his own inelegant way, his compassionate side. By the end, that's gone. The fan-burning incident alone (the fantrum!) demonstrates it. That's the way he treats his beloved didi, never mind how he treats his san-di.
Of course the narrative claims JGY can always talk NMJ round, but it's simply not true. In the end, the only way JGY can preserve himself is by making NMJ a promise he can't keep (to deliver XY's head) in order to buy himself enough time for NMJ to die and no longer be an immediate mortal threat. If JGY had not accelerated NMJ's decline, NMJ would have killed him and plunged the jianghu into another needless conflict.
I've spilled ink on the staircase scene already so I'm holding back on digging into this in more detail, but the fact is any discussion of NMJ's downfall is inextricably tangled up with JGY. The focal point of NMJ's descent is his obsession with JGY in particular, and it's important to remember what's relevant is not so much what JGY has or hasn't done but how NMJ treats him.
I do think one of the best ways to put it in context is to compare the way NMJ reacts to WRH to the way he reacts to JGY. WRH literally kills NMJ's father but NMJ has a cool enough head to know he has to bide his time. JGY on the other hand absolutely does betray NMJ's trust, in a situation where, again, if he does as NMJ wants (turns himself in) he's going to end up dead. And from that moment on, NMJ has no intention of giving JGY the benefit of the doubt. Yes, after LXC intervenes (remember, JGY would be dead without that intervention!) NMJ backs off and ends up agreeing to the sworn brotherhood, but he enters into the brotherhood in entirely the wrong spirit, seeing it as a way to monitor and subjugate JGY, who is already answerable to his father over and above any obligations to an elder brother.
Would NMJ at fifteen years old have listened to LXC and JGY's explanations in Qishan or later on the stairs at Golden Carp Tower? Possibly. But we don't have any examples of a time when he truly listened to JGY, and he was always going to end up this way regardless, taken out by a qi deviation and turned into the stuff of nightmares. JGY accelerated an existing process to save his own skin, but he didn't invent it out of whole cloth. So the tragedy of NMJ is not what JGY did to him. It goes back further than that, to when his ancestors first started cultivating the resentful energy of beasts.
Even then, contrasting NMJ to another character is illuminating. The text tells us NHS is in a bind: if he cultivates with his sabre, he's dooming himself. But if he doesn't cultivate with his sabre, he's pissing off his ancestors. The instinct then is perhaps to think—poor NMJ! He's in the same bind!
But NMJ never has a moment's doubt about sabre cultivation. NMJ knows the price and he pays it without question. NMJ doesn't agonise about how to balance his duty to his clan and his ancestors against his desire to not go violently insane. He accepts it as a fact of life and never thinks to question it or push back against it. He marches down the path that extirpates all his good qualities and leads straight to his worst self, and never so much as glances around in the hope of sighting a different way.
Again we're getting to that tension I find most interesting about NMJ: agency rubbing shoulders with inevitability. NHS finds a way to lead his clan and Word of God become Xiandu without cultivating with his sabre. Does that mean NMJ is responsible for his choices and he can't be absolved of his actions by blaming his inheritance? I don't necessarily have an answer for that, but I hugely enjoy exploring the question.
How fortunate it was that there had been no misunderstanding after the groping incident in the bath!
Lost in the throes of passion, Lan Wangji pounded away as Wei Wuxian complained about how bad the sex was while also inexplicably urging him on. Then suddenly, Wei Wuxian said something that wasn't 'ow' or 'keep going'.
"Hey, Lan Zhan! Do you hear that?"
"No," said Lan Wangji.
Thud, thud, thud, went the bedframe.
Clink, clink, clink, went the small stones rattling against the outside of the window shutters. In the darkened street, Nie Huaisang scooped up another handful of pebbles and threw them. Most landed pitifully short of the window; the few that hit made barely any impact at all.
If only he'd trained harder! Then his aim would have been strong and true.
But as it was, his efforts were not enough to disturb the happy couple, who continued busily inventing love all through the night.
x
Meanwhile, at the Guanyin Temple, Jin Guangyao and Lan Xichen conversed undisturbed.
Before Nie MingJue’s high viewpoint, the crowd parted again and again, with both sides nodding at him in respect, calling him “ChiFeng-Zun”. Wei WuXian thought, Such a show of extravagance is going to reach even the heavens. All these people both fear and respect Nie MingJue. There’s quite a few people who fear me, though not a lot who respect me.
Thinking about the Langya front during the war again.... We know that Jin Zixuan was there "In the middle of the Sunshot Campaign", when the soup incident happened. Do we think he was there when MY went there, earlier in the war?
Lan XiChen smiled, “Young Master Wei has said before that he does not want to care about any of the redundant formalities. Let alone carrying his sword, even if he does not wear his clothes, what can others do about him? How truly youthful.”
[...] Suddenly, he heard Lan WangJi mutter under his breath, “How frivolous.”
He voice was extremely soft, as though it was directed at only himself. The two words knocked upon Wei WuXian’s ears, somehow making his heart skip a few beats as well.
Lan XiChen looked at him, “Hmm? Why are you still here?”
Lan WangJi was a bit confused. With a straight face, he replied, “Brother is here, so of course I am here as well.”
Lan XiChen, “Why have you not gone to converse with him yet? They will soon be far gone.”
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