Op I read your old post about "the blind dragon who wants to see the sun" and I realized wait Zhongli is most symbolized by the sun
zhongli has soooo much sun symbolism here is a list
Gold everywhere!!! Lots of yellow and gold in his color palette. His eyes are described as golden or amber -the golden glow of his hands, the gold in his suits or archon outfits. Gold, the color of the sun is his signature color.
In his splash art his meteorite looks distinctly like the sun (plus his character demo is full of sun symbolism)
In depictions of Rex Lapis he always symbolizes the sun
Zhongli's namecard description: stars fall, light fades
His burst/ultimate is translated to "Planet Befall" in english but in chinese it is "Heavenly Star"
During one of the melusine quests in fontaine one them says "gold are the tears of the sun" if you gift them cor lapis. She also says cor lapis is warm to the touch "truly as gentle as the sun itself"
Deus Auri which translates to “god of gold” is one of Rex Lapis' titles
Mora (which is often referred synonymously with gold) is minted from Zhongli’s own flesh and blood
As you mentioned Azhdaha was a blind dragon who yearned to see the sun. As Morax was the one who granted him eyes -meaning he was the first person Azhdaha saw- Morax is in part the "sun" he yearned to see
In Zhongli's TCG card the story says "a hidden gemstone can illuminate the whole earth, bright and unrivaled as a star"
One of the distinct features of the adepti is the "illumination" that Rex Lapis granted them that gave them the ability to create subspaces and other powers (what does the sun do? illuminate)
In Azhdaha's story he recites a poem to Jiu (his eroded self) "A star appears within the wild a sun ascends as bright as jade”. Other than gold Zhongli's signature item is jade! Fun fact the weapons of the Primordial Jade series were created by him.
In the description of the Geo Hypostasis it states maybe the reason it creates pillar is not to combat enemies but to get closer to the sky
In one of Albedo's voicelines he says "without human manipulation you would need to harness the power of a sun eight times the size of our own in order to naturally create gold”
Interestingly the Solar Chariot crashed into Liyue forming The Chasm about 6000 years ago, coincidentally Rex Lapis descended upon the region at the same time.
Lastly, while Zhongli symbolizes the sun a lot of the people around him symbolize the moon. Guizhong has a dark blue and white color palette with stars in her sleeves. Azhdaha often depicted with the moon and night. Ganyu and Xiao both have moon symbolism. The 'yue' in Liyue means moon. All the other archons -Venti, Nahida, and Ei especially- have a lot of moon symbolism. So not only is he very "sun-like" but the people around him are very "moon-like"
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not sure how to put this into words. but buddhism (literature, figures, history, etc.) is queer and has been queered over the years. and when a chinese story embarks on a daoism-buddhism-confucianism study, there are echoes of similar themes, devices, techniques, allusions. by nature of being a chinese story, the frequent heart of it is a daoism & buddhism vs. confucianism ideological battle where the latter is rules and conventions and social expectations. and the former is liberation, a queered deviancy because it advocates for plurality and fluidity.
the lotus sutra has a prominent gender-change motif so as to present freedom... the buddhist ideal to emancipate oneself from mainstream society is often realized as a release from the gender hegemony. non-duality teachings in buddhism encompasses all of this.
in the lotus sutra, the dragon girl turns into a male and then proceeds to attain enlightenment - in direct response to the men telling her she cannot do so, that women are spiritually disadvantaged. transitioning is a queer act but also a buddhist achievement: an entity letting go of their body and subsequently their confucian identity of "father", "son", "wife", "mother", "daughter", etc. through this they learn non-duality & non-self & abandoning illusions, the primary concepts to buddhism.
in the lotus sutra, bodhisattva guanyin also notably underwent a male to female transformation. back in the day, guanyin's male form was at first more popular and their masculine image dominated. today it's an androgynous woman in white robes that's become iconic. this gender fluid nature again stands for liberation; guanyin is a beloved figure for women because they depict a breakaway from male-oriented society and the patriarchy. from the sanskrit name "avalokitesvara" (lord who looks down) to the chinese "guanyin" (one who observes the sounds). the chinese symbol of mercy is necessarily linked to a male to female trajectory, described to have a total of 33 male and female forms. for artistic depictions, guanyin has a feminine face but a masculine body (typically an exposed flat chest) too.
even when imagined as a girl without a history of gender swaps, they were still an antithesis to the male-dominated confucian scene. 妙善 miao shan is guanyin's other popular myth: the princess at odds with her royal father. she refuses his demands to marry until he ultimately executes her. it is a narrative negating the confucian relationships, (a) father/son or child, (b) ruler/subject, and (c) husband/wife. this is the constant of guanyin. a direct challenge to chinese patriarchal ideals.
as an aside, post-execution miao shan becomes a bodhisattva in the mountains through one spiritual miracle or another. in the mean time her father grows ill and the only cure is the eyes and arms of a person without anger. they seek out miao shan, not knowing who she is, and she gives up both arms and eyes for her father. after his recovery, the true identity of the bodhisattva is revealed and the father changes his ways. and miao shan ascends to become guanyin. related because an elusive figure amongst nature, blind and physically impaired, is also.... a prevalent trope for enlightened peoples.
overlapping the feminine and the masculine, a presence that has one foot in both categories, is the buddhist language for enlightenment + a manifestation of core buddhist teachings. when you are outside the gender regime and when you are outside human society, when you're beyond a cogent and organized identity, you are free. you are happy. which also means you are queer!
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How do you differentiate between dragons that have the water element and those that have the fire element? I assume that Ao Guang's family would technically be dragons that can use only water. And according to jttw, dragons can control the weather (clouds, water, etc.). However, how do you know which dragons can control fire? Or can be assumed that all dragons can handle these two elements? Or a sea dragon that controls water couldn't control fire?
I guess I would ask you what makes you think dragons can control fire? I know that European dragons that it’s a common connection to their folklore, but Chinese dragons are connected to water such as rivers, oceans, and rain. I don’t think I’ve seen Chinese dragons that control fire if it wasn’t connected to the weather in some way.
Like I'm sure there are but I guess I don't understand what makes you think that dragons would have a fire element instead of a water element. Can you give an example from maybe like a story or something? I've read a lot of chinese tales but certainly not ALL so it would be cool to see how other tales could show dragons in a different light.
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I'd say I'm becoming a nerd, but that ship sailed a long time ago. I guess I'm just expanding my nerdiness to other areas.
Anyway, MORE MYTHOLOGY!
So in Journey to the West, the Buddha explains that there are 4 'spiritual primates' that don't fit into any categories for immortals or types of creatures. Fans of Lego Monkie Kid are likely familiar with 2, the Stone Monkey Sun Wukong and the Six Eared Macaque. The other 2, the Long-armed Gibbon and the Red-Buttocked Baboon are a lot more obscure. They only get a brief mention in JttW because the focus of the chapter they appear in is Macaque, but the idea of a set of super powerful Immortal monkeys is just too fun to pass up, you know? So I've been thunking my thinker.
What if each primate was associated with a different realm (mortal, heavenly, lunar, and underworld) and element? I know the 4 elements (earth, water, wind, fire) are a western idea rooted in alchemy and eastern mythology has 5 elements (earth, water, fire, metal, wood), but there aren't 5 monkeys and this is just a thought experiment and not me trying to force western ideas onto eastern culture.
Got it? Good.
Now, Sun Wukong is very solidly earth because he's, you know, a rock. No surprise there. He was also born in the mortal realm and spent most of his life there, so we'll call him the celestial primate of the mortal realm while we're at it.
The Six-Eared Macaque is another easy one. A lot of LMK fannon associates him with wind, inferring that his heightened hearing has something to do with wind magic. He's also very closely tied to the moon because of the line in "Shadow Play" where he directly compares the Warrior (himself) to the moon. So Macaque is the celestial primate of wind and the Lunar realm.
Now here's where we get a bit more speculative and start using information creatively. There are 2 monkeys, realms, and elements left I want to use, so let's start with the monkeys so everyone has a baseline understanding.
The Long Armed Gibbon (Gibs, from now on) is described as being able to "seize the sun and moon, shorten a thousand mountains, distinguish auspicious from inauspicious, and manipulate planets and stars."
The Red Buttocked Baboon (Babs for short) has "knowledge of yin and yang, understands human affairs, is adept I'd daily life and can avoid death and lengthen its life."
Starting with the realms because they seem easiest to assign, I would give Gibs the Heavenly realm because of its ability to move around celestial objects like the sun, moon, planets, and stars. This leaves the Underworld to Babs, which I think fits nicely because their "knowledge of yin and yang" and "understand[ing] of human affairs" would make them a good assistant to the 10 Kings of the Underworld.
Next comes the 2 remaining elements, water and fire, which are a bit tricky because it could go both ways.
Gibs could be fire because the sun and stars are giant balls of burning plasma, but also water because the sky/heavens are often associated with an ocean or other bodies of water in several different mythologies. For example, in Egyptian mythology, Ra sailed his boat through the sky every day, while in early Abrahamic belief the sky was a huge dome with water on the other side, and rain happened when floodgates were opened to let the water through. In Chinese myth specifically, the Milky Way is often depicted as a river that is sailed through by various deities.
Babs could fit with fire as well because underworlds and hell-adjacent places are often shown to have fires to torment and punish the sinful dead, no surprise there. But there is surprisingly a lot of water symbolism in the realm of the dead as well. For example, some people may be familiar with the Japanese idea of the Sanzu River, very similar in concept to the Greek River Styx, as well as the Chinese Huang Quan/Yellow springs.
Personally I would pair Babs with fire because he has red in his name, making him the celestial primate of fire and the Underworld.
That leaves Gibs to be the celestial primate of water and the Heavenly realm.
I feel pretty good about this, but if anyone else has other ideas I'd love to hear them.
Sh*tpost Masterlist
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plushrump was owned by hussie for a long while and it used to redirect to the page where the plushrump site is within the comic. i think like. their ownership of the website expired at some point? and in 2023 it was replaced by a chinese fitness equipment website if you look on archive.org (atleast thats what it looks like?) i checked the website a few days ago and i swear i got an error message in chinese (i couldve stumbled upon a website with a similar url and its coincidence), but currently the page is blank. i dont think the actual website means anything right now, but with the ownership of it possibly expiring soon i do wonder if THAT means anything.
sorry kinda hyperfocusing on this rn ^^'
oh wow, i was assuming that the expiration date was just that
kinda just to provide a time line, maybe things will start ramping up once we hit april, maybe the website will get some actual detail, i might keep checking in to it if i have the time
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