MDZS is about love. Not about romance.
Not to be fake deep but Wei WuXian’s “always remember human kindness, always forget bad things they’ve done to you” is one of the most powerful messages I’ve read in a long time. It’s not new, it’s not original but it doesn’t matter because now and forever, we’ll always need stories about love. And WWX is so good; he’s unbelievably good, illogically good, he’s good despite everything and everyone. His every decision is motivated by the purest, the kindest love.
Honestly, if someone asked me what is MDZS about, I could go into details and try to explain its original plot full of twists, but I could also say it’s a story about love. I know what you think - “But Soshi, MDZS is a romance, it’s supposed to be about love. You didn’t discovered a new America”… The truth is no, not every romance is about love. Making your character declare sentimental confessions and kiss in the rain is not showing feelings. Compare to the pretty epic intrigues and plot twists, WWX and LWJ’s love story is anything but epic. Yeah, they have some big and dramatic scenes like fighting with the turtle or “come back to Gusu with me”, I can’t deny, but much more often their relationship is so down to earth and boring: they study together, they sleep together, they eat together, they travel together, hey drink together. WWX undresses LWJ when he’s drunk. LWJ carries WWX when he doesn’t feel well. And when they fight, instead of covering each other with their own bodies and screaming names, WWX and LWJ go separate ways, saying that they’ll meet later because everything is going to be all right. It’s so anticlimactic. It’s so normal. It’s so tender. Soft. And it doesn’t happen often, but when I am reading about them, I really fall in love with their love and think that I would like someone to love me as much as they love each other. Despite their fails and flaws - come on, this relationship is far from being perfect. Is there anything more beautiful than loving for imperfection?
But this is all just a drop in the sea of love. WWX and LWJ’s love - romantic love - helps them keep going. Carry one. And take care of so many more people. Now I’m going to cry but MDZS is a romance story where romantic love is never ever portrayed as bigger than other kinds of feelings. It’s a story about friendships, siblings, parents and children, about born family, about made families, about human relationships and being good to everyone, because we never know what other people have gone through. It’s about Wei WuXian and Wen Ning and how some words, unimportant to us, may mean the world to someone else (or hurt, like during WWX and JL’s first meeting), how we should always smile because we never know when we’re going to change someone’s day. Good things are coming back, we can find love in a place we would never expected it to be. It’s a story about Jiang Cheng and how people wither without love. In the end, under the layers of complicated plans and difficult schemes, those characters are so simple. They just wanna feel loved. And if we had more people like the Lan brothers, if we were loved for who we are and not for who we are supposed to be, then we would have more WWX and less Jin Guangyao.
You know what I also appreciate, in some bitter sense? That the author doesn’t pretend everything is going to be fine and if you’re good, people will be good in return. Evil gives birth to evil. But evil things happen to good people. Even when they don’t deserve it. You can do everything, but someone will still stab you in the back. Life is brutal, full of loses, full of pain and tears. No matter how much you try, you’ll always face hate. And this life is worth living. That’s Wei WuXian’s message: happiness is a choice. It’s easy to present some happy-go-lucky epicure singing “don’t worry, be happy” but WWX is so beautiful because it’s not portrayed as something easy. Being happy is a hard work and requires too much effort… but in the end it’s worthwhile. Because you choose; to look at someone who stayed, to enjoy the meal, to drink, to laugh when you want to cry, to try, again and again and again. (Sorry, I became emotional writing it. That’s what good literature does to you) Still, it’s so hard to let go and never mourn what is gone but WXX makes a decision that he wants to focus on small things. I wrote about it before - WWX and LWJ’s love is built on little moments. It’s amazing: WWX’s name is repeated by mouths of the most important people, his actions affect politics and change the whole world! He’s the perfect chosen one! The most powerful! And yet… his reward in not a kingdom, or fame, or gold, or even being someone special. The only thing that matters is sleeping in peace, drinking good alcohol and enjoying music. This is why WWX does it. This is love.
MDZS message is universal. Maybe it’s hard to imagine that we have an adopted brother for whom we sold our soul. But we can decide that children playing with their kites are enough to smile… or that we need position, money and respect to feel truly happy. Because you know… it’s all a matter of decisions. Sometimes we need a reminder that the smallest things are good enough to keep us alive.
