Shen Yuan and Shen Jiu are the same person who have just lived through different experiences.
Now before I get into this I have to preface that my analysis of Shen Yuan’s personality is mainly based off how he speaks and acts in his own head, and how he acts around Liu Qingge and Shang Qinghua.
Remember throughout the novel Shen Yuan spends most of his own time fearing for his life. He knows what behaviors will get him killed so he goes the opposite direction. Faking a kinder and more patient personality than he actually has.
Not to say that every hint of kindness is fake, but he definitely plays it up.
With that out of the way I can start off by saying that Shen Yuan and Shen Jiu have almost the exact same personality and interests. Barring the level of cruelty either of them seem capable and willing to commit. Which can be and is explained by the level of trauma either of them has gone through. I’ll get back to that later.
Now what do I mean when I say that Shen Yuan and Shen Jiu have the same personality. Well I’m glad you’ve asked
1. Shen Jiu and Shen Yuan are both people that enjoy learning and both have an interest in monsters.
2. They’re both bitchy-but in a fun way. They’re both snarky, they both think everyone around them is an idiot and love to insult them for it, they’re both incredibly intimidating(See how Shen Yuan acts with Shang Qinghua)
3. They both have low empathy. Shen Jiu treats Binghe like shit because that’s how he was treated.
Shen Yuan didn’t even try to understand how Binghe was feeling after he came back, and even more than that didn’t even think about how his friends would mourn him after he faked his death.
4. Piggy backing off of number three; neither of them seem to think about the consequences of their actions. This seems self explanatory.
5. They’re both also extremely ambitious and productive when it comes to something they think is important. Shen Jiu wanting to move up in the world. Shen Yuan and his ever present fear of death. Both of them were constantly working and putting things in motion to achieve their goals.
There’s an extra that really proves my point personality wise where Shen Jiu goes monster hunting with Liu Qingge and Shang Qinghua and if you told me that it was Shen Yuan in that scene it wouldn’t have seemed out of character at all. That’s how similar they were.
The only big difference between them is once again their aptitude for cruelty. And once again, that’s the trauma baby.
Shen Yuan had a MUCH easier life than Shen Jiu, oh my god. Of course Shen Jiu was gonna grow up fucked up, his life was miserable.
It’s the nature versus nurture debate.
The both of them seemed to be angry people already the only difference is Shen Yuan going “You can’t treat people like that” and Shen Jiu going “Yes I sure as fuck can, I was treated like that.”
That’s it, that’s the only difference between them I can find. So much of their dialogue would be completely in character for the other to say(barring the treatment of binghe.)
I don’t know where I’m going with this I just want to share my Shen Jiu isn’t dead propaganda
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