#he did that to wen chao for jiang cheng.

[danmeichael]

jiang cheng's sexuality or desire for a relationship are secondary, he's actually an eternal bachelor because people are scared of wei wuxian going sweeney todd on them if they break jc's heart.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Heartfelt Reunion.

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[wutheringskies]

I think in MDZS there is a fair share of nurture as well as nature. if Xue Yang lived similarly to WWX and didn't lose a finger he would still kill dogs, hunt and hound them and deeply resent and wish to take revenge on/or slaughter the Jiangs; that is his nature to think of himself as more important than the others; the nurture part comes in with the fact that if he had people like Xiao Xingchen earlier in his life; just like he stopped "night hunting walking corpses" he wouldn't have acted out on those impulses; however you cannot deny that being favoured by the jins, he did have stability; he chose to abuse it. he put xiao xingchen giving him chocolates and showing him kindness as of more stable of a state (which is right) yet the moment he is pushed up in a corner, he reverts back to his NATURE. and in his nature, he hurts others to protect himself. if others did x to him he can kill not only the person who did it but also everybody else who is close to that person, who didn't deserve to die. yet, he won't see HIS actions as crimes. won't regret them. thus, Wei Wuxian says, "if you had to kill someone, you should've executed yourself" because some characters have a strong moral code and fail to adhere (nie mingjue, lan xichen), some's adherence to their moral code makes them fail (wei wuxian, xiao xingchen), some do not have a moral code (jin guangsham), some are willing to push it aside for revenge (nie huaisang) and some twist around their watching frames to justify their immoral behavior (Jiang Cheng, xue yang, Jin Guangyao)

[rhymaes]

The Untamed (2019) // “Sax Rohmer #1,” by The Mountain Goats

[cql-screenshots]

[lgbtlunaverse]

Fandom is so nice to Jiang Cheng's inferiority complex because in reality every single thing he gets accused of is something Wei Wuxian is better at than him.

Jiang Cheng killed Wei Wuxian? Nope. Didn't even get close. Wei Wuxian's own spirits tore him apart before jc could even get there. wwx:1 jc:0

Jiang Cheng tortures people? We get two and a half rumours and a mention from jin ling that jc has 'captured' demonic cultivators before, but who is also apparently confident that just letting wwx run off will kill the issue even though those earlier rumours said ~no one who sandu shengshou captured was ever seen again~

The word jiang cheng uses when he tries to talk big game about 'beating the truth' out of Wei Wuxian's is a word that carries the context of pestering someone to do their homework. Doesn't exactly strike fear into my heart.

Wei Wuxian? Excellent at torture. A prodigy. Did you fucking see what he did to Wen Chao? Dude didn't have fingers anymore because wei wuxian made him eat them. He ripped out his hair, burned his skin off, and then stalked him for several days just to prolong the pain. He forced Wang Lingjiao to bite Wen Chao's dick off and then made her shove a stool leg down her own throat! 10/10, no notes. Absolutely horrifying.

Meanwhile Jiang Cheng's idea of torture is getting a dog to bark at Wei Wuxian for a few seconds. Weak, unoriginal, I bet fairy was literally wagging her tail the whole time. 2-0

Jiang Cheng made the entire cultivation world believe Wei Wuxian was up to no good on the burial mounds and ultimately orchestrated his downfall? lol. lmao, even

It's a big thing in certain corners of the fandom to really zoom in one one particular phrase at the end of chapter 73, where after wwx and jc have their staged duel to make the world believe they hate each other jiang cheng tells everyone wwx has defected and become "a public enemy'' or "an enemy to the cultivation world" or whatever the translation you're familiar with decided upon.

(As an aside, something I really like about this line is that the last half of it is almost exactly the same, like verbatim, as what wwx told him to say. like, the chapter is really hammering home just how much jc is speaking from a script here. wwx tells jc to say "今后魏无羡无论做出什么事，都与云梦江氏无关." and jc says "今后无论此人有何动作，一概与云梦江氏无关" the only meaningful difference is that he says 'this person' instead of wwx's name)

I've seen it said that this bit, the use of 'enemy' was said without wei wuxian's approval, that jc deviated from the script just to hurt his ex-shixiong for leaving him. And that this is what caused all the other clans to turn against wei wuxian. Regardless of if this is what jc and wwx discussed, or if jc had malicious motivations for it (considering my conclusions above, you can guess where i fall) it doesn't really matter, because the novel tells us when the clans completely freak out and become convinced wei wuxian is out to get them (though of course they've been wringing their hands about it since the literal day wwx ran off with the wen, months before jiang cheng visited) very neatly in chapter 75!

It's when they find out about Wen Ning.

And how do they find out about Wen Ning?

Because Wei Wuxian took him on nighthunts! And they kicked ass!

...Wei Wuxian, my man, why are you on nighthunts??? Why are you showing off your incredibly cool sentient fierce corpse buddy, who is way better and stronger than all the other fierce corpses, in front of the whole cultivation world??

Whatever his motivations (extra money, maybe?? they were strapped for crash) I can only draw the conclusion wwx had already given up on appearing calm or non-threatening and didn't care if the clans thought he was a threat, because they'd believe whatever they wanted anyway. Which he seems to clearly be aware of the whole time.

Regardless, we know that this is what created the myth of the Yiling patriarch. It's literally when the title first shows up!

Even if you really believe jc was secretly plotting against wwx in chapter 73, he's clearly doing a shit job of it because nothing he said made anywhere near as big an impact as this. Flopped!

The other point people use to argue Jiang Cheng caused wei wuxian's downfall is Jin Guangyao's speech in Guanyin temple about how jiang cheng could have saved wei wuxian if only he stood by him. Setting aside that jin guangyao is trying to get into jiang cheng's head here, and isn't necessarily saying what he really believes (though it very well might be! who knows with a character like jgy. assuming he's always lying is just as misleading as assuming he's always saying the truth) the fact is, if you read the speech closely, what he's talking about is not the 'public enemy' line, he's talking about the bond between them. The fact that people wanted wei wuxian out of yunmeng jiang, because the two were too powerful together.

He's talking about that one time Jiang Cheng very publically kicked wei wuxian out of the sect!

Which, unbeknownst to Jin Guangyao, was in fact Wei Wuxian's idea the whole time.

final score: 3 for you wei wuxian, you go wei wuxian! And nothing for Jiang Cheng bye.

[mdzs-fanon-exposed]

MDZS Fanon VS Canon: 10/?

Wei Wuxian was called the Yiling Patriarch during the Sunshot Campaign

Rating: FANON – CONFLICTING

There is, understandably, a bit of confusion about when Wei Wuxian started to be known as the Yiling Patriarch. For convenience's sake, he's often called by this title throughout many fanwork depictions of the Sunshot Campaign, and/or the period in which he was coreless. This makes sense from an aesthetics perspective, as during this point in his life he was already adopting the persona associated with the Patriarch brand, but in canon, the title was only given to him after he liberated the Wen prisoners.

Put simply, it's not possible for Wei Wuxian to have been called the Yiling Patriarch during the Sunshot Campaign, because by definition the title must have been given to him once he was based out of Yiling – after he liberated the labor camps and set the Wen settlement up in the Burial Mounds. Although Wei Wuxian had been thrown into the Burial Mounds by Wen Chao, ostensibly drawing that connection before the Sunshot Campaign, nobody else (besides some of the Wens) knew at the time.

However, the title was not given to Wei Wuxian immediately after settling in the Burial Mounds. We can actually pinpoint the exact turning point when Wei Wuxian "became" the Yiling Patriarch:

After Wei Wuxian defected from the Jiang Clan of Yunmeng and became the Yiling Patriarch, he’d been in significant conflict with the Lan Clan of Gusu, especially in the months prior to his death. (Seven Seas Ch. 4)

Wei Wuxian was only known as the Yiling Patriarch after his split with Jiang Cheng and the Yumeng Jiang Sect. This means there was a period of time in between the formation of the Wen Settlement and Wei Wuxian's defection, in which Wei Wuxian was living in the Burial Mounds but was NOT yet publicly known as the "big bad evil cultivator" Yiling Patriarch.

We also know the first time the words "Yiling Patriarch" are mentioned chronologically:

None of the fierce corpses Wei Wuxian had ordered to patrol the foot of the mountain actively attacked anyone—the most they did was hurl them away with teeth bared in a snarl. No one was ever hurt. And so, more and more people crowded at the foot of the Burial Mounds. Wei Wuxian once saw a long pennant in the distance, emblazoned with the title “The Supreme Evil Yiling Patriarch,” and spat out an entire mouthful of fruit wine at the sight. (Seven Seas Ch. 17)

This implies that the title of "Yiling Patriarch" was formulated not by anyone in the cultivation world who saw Wei Wuxian as a threat, but by the common people who idolized him. The title could have then spread to members of cultivation sects, who adopted the common name.

In fact, the next time we see a reference to the title is when the Jiang siblings secretly meet with Wei Wuxian and Wen Ning, and Jiang Cheng uses it to tease Wei Wuxian:

“Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng were still standing inside the courtyard. Jiang Cheng raised his bowl. “To the Yiling Patriarch.” “Hearing the title reminded Wei Wuxian of that long pennant fluttering shamelessly in the wind, and his mind was filled with its huge dazzling words: “The Supreme Evil Yiling Patriarch.” “Shut up!” he said.” ... He finished the rest of his soup in a single mouthful and stood. “Impressive. Amazing. As expected of the Yiling Patriarch.” Wei Wuxian spat out a piece of bone. “Are you done?” (Seven Seas Ch. 17)

Meaning while the title spread incredibly fast, it was not taken seriously (by Wei Wuxian, at least) for at least a short period of time while the rumors surrounding Wei Wuxian were building up. Notably, Wei Wuxian does not associate himself with the title.

My interpretation of why this happened is that during the period that Wei Wuxian was still part of the Jiang Clan, his actions were seen as representative of – or at least the responsibility of – the Jiangs. Regardless of whether the cultivation world knew he was working alone, as it were, he was still beholden to a sect who had power over him. Wei Wuxian would not have been seen as a "patriarch" in his own right.

After the defection, however, Wei Wuxian was an unknown in terms of affiliation, and thus a potential threat. With the rumors about him already beginning to paint him as evil and unstable, combined with the fact that he was going on public night hunts with Wen Ning, he quickly became notorious:

After stealing the show at several Night Hunts, quite a few people came knocking, drawn by admiration of his reputation and in hopes of joining the “Grandmaster” to become disciples under his banner. (Seven Seas Ch. 17)

Thus, the title of "Yiling Patriarch" would have only been popularized once it was assumed that Wei Wuxian wanted to start his own sect. This would have only exacerbated the hypothetical threat that Wei Wuxian was to the cultivation world as well, and contributed to his mythologizing as a quintessential sort of boogieman. This is actually an excellent example of a major theme in MDZS, of how quickly rumors can cause severe harm.

In the end, regardless of how or by whom the title was created, Wei Wuxian was only (unwillingly) given the title of Yiling Patriarch after he defected from the Jiangs.

[jiangwanyinscatmom]

There sure is a certain hypocrisy here with certain stans that want to play moral ethical dilemma when Wei Wuxian killed Wen Chao, Wang Lingjao and Wen Zhuliu gruesomely and it was beyond brutal, awful, unhinged, savage, morally repugnant; to then spin around to say the Wens being held in labor camps was only fair, and Wuxian saving them is hypocritical and should have been killed as a whole to begin.

Because Jiang Cheng is sad and angry they killed his parents (when said Wens that did said killings died when he helped to torture them three years prior). And his continued hate after this to other Wens not having been heavily involved there are still to blame for this and Wei Wuxian himself is flawed or hypocritical for not wanting to further seek violence upon them and argues to leave the remaining Wens alone as well as mentioning there are prior Wens sitting in the conference he interrupted.

So which is it? Wei Wuxian is inhuman despite stopping his own violence at Wen Chao and the Wens during an active war and choosing to help people that are being unfairly harmed. Or Jiang Cheng has no fault for his violence and inhumanity due to his grief that he continues to lash out with on Wei Wuxian who had gained him his vengeance?

[spriteofmushrooms]

Your tag in this post about how wwx never sees jc for who he is. You are right and I am crying right now

Jiang Cheng takes after his mother, and that's an immutable fact so it doesn't matter that Jiang Cheng begged Yu Ziyuan on his knees to spare Wei Wuxian. They're the same! It doesn't matter that Jiang Cheng is more diplomatic than his mother or more active than his father, or that he raised Jin Ling in such a way that he feels safe talking shit to Jiang Cheng (which Jiang Cheng NEVER did, only Wei Wuxian talked back).

Wei Wuxian's torture of Wen Chao was all a display for Wen Zhuliu because Wei Wuxian wants him to know how it felt to watch Jiang Cheng suffer. And aren't they the same?

Wei Wuxian knows exactly who 34-year-old Jiang Cheng is: he's 9- and 12- and 15- and 17- and 19- and 21-year-old Jiang Cheng.

Jiang Cheng was most upset about his dogs, who all had stupid names anyway; but actually Jiang Cheng was most upset that his father could love on and comfort Wei Wuxian but not Jiang Cheng. Jiang Cheng was upset at losing because he's sooo competitive, but actually he smiles when he learned Wei Wuxian won in both CQL and the donghua.

Wei Wuxian is the one who knows Jiang Cheng best! Jin Ling is never right. It's impossible that Jin Guangyao knows Jiang Cheng well enough to hurt him.

Jiang Cheng is truly the child who cannot be taught! Jiang Fengmian said so. Which means that Jiang Cheng could never give up any negative feelings he has for Wei Wuxian, and there's no point in explaining anything, and it was all lost long ago without hope of recovery.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Market based mistakes.

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[qiu-yan]

wei wuxian vs. pragmatism: what MDZS intends to say about righteousness

copy/pasting most of my rather bitchy reply into its own individual post because i think it deserves to stand on its own.

so i think we can all agree that MXTX intends for us to read MDZS and conclude that wei wuxian is ultimately a deeply heroic and righteous person. whether you as the reader agree with this assessment of wei wuxian's moral character is another question entirely, but at the very least it is fairly obvious to all of us that MXTX intends for us to read him as a good person.

so why does MXTX call wei wuxian a good person? what aspects of his character and which of his choices make him a good person? what moral framework and what definition of morality does MXTX employ in order to call wei wuxian a good person?

i posit that MXTX argues that wei wuxian is heroic precisely because he is not pragmatic - because he adheres to his moral ideals despite the consequences, and because he did not make moral sacrifices at critical junctures of his life. the first half of this post will argue that wei wuxian is not pragmatic. the second half of this post will argue that this is exactly why wei wuxian is heroic, and that the moral framework employed by MXTX is deeply idealistic instead.

so let's begin.

let's start by establishing two things.

first: what MXTX argues about morality through the narrative of MDZS and the reader's own beliefs about morality are two different things. me saying "MDZS argues that xyz is righteousness" and me saying "i think xyz is righteousness" are two different statements. the following analysis is concerned not with what i myself consider to be righteous, but rather what MXTX argues through MDZS is righteous.

second: wei wuxian is not pragmatic.

what does it mean to be pragmatic? unless we are speaking about the school of philosophy specifically (which i am not here), being pragmatic means being grounded in reality and focused on practical outcomes. it means being result-oriented and considering the consequences of your actions before you act; it means acting only after you have considered the potential consequences of all possible courses of action and have then decided which outcomes are acceptable. being pragmatic also means recognizing when achieving everything you want is impossible. and, in such situations, being pragmatic thus entails compromising to achieve a desired outcome, even if that means you don’t get everything they want. to put it in edgier terms, being pragmatic means being able to make moral sacrifices.

an idealistic person attempts the impossible. a pragmatic person recognizes when something truly is impossible.

wei wuxian is not pragmatic.

first, wei wuxian is not someone who carefully considers the consequences of his actions before he acts. in fact, he displays a startling lack of consideration for consequences. it repeatedly falls upon other characters to either try (and fail) to hold him back.

when wei wuxian punched jin zixuan for insulting first jiang yanli and then jiang cheng, did he consider that jiang fengmian and jin guangshan might then dissolve the betrothal, and that jiang yanli might have wanted to make a decision regarding that on her own? no. he just punched jin zixuan because he was mad that jin zixuan had insulted two people he loved.

when wen chao threatened mianmian, and lan wangji and jin zixuan stood up for mianmian, and then wei wuxian stood up for them by holding wen chao hostage in turn - did he consider that there might be consequences for humiliating and threatening the life of the son of a warmongering great sect leader who has already proven capable of attacking other sects? no. did he stop and think "alright, wen ruohan has already attacked the cloud recesses, which proves that he's willing to wage war against the other sects. threatening the son of a sect leader is an easy way to earn any sect leader's ire, and since i'm the first disciple of the jiang sect, this puts not just me but the entire jiang sect on wen ruohan's shitlist"? no. it would be one thing if wei wuxian weighed this possibility and then decided that rescuing an innocent girl and the people who defended her was more important was worth the risk - that would show that he considered the consequences and then made his choice. but the thought simply never entered his mind. he acted simply because he wanted to save mianmian, jin zixuan, and lan wangji from the wens; he did not think beyond that.

when wei wuxian busted the wen remnants out of the qiongqi pass labor camp, did he have a clear plan as to how he was going to weather the political fallout? did he have a plan more detailed than "live quietly in the burial mounds until everyone forgets about us"? no. when jiang cheng challenged him as to how he was going to survive the situation, he did not in fact offer anything more concrete than "we'll just wait for everyone else to forget about us." he blustered about being a once-in-a-generation genius who could accomplish the impossible, but he provided no actual plan as to how he was going to do it. this leads me to conclude that wei wuxian did not in fact have a long-term plan for handling the consequences when he went ham at the qiongqi pass camp - that, instead of weighing the consequences and then making his decision, he instead decided immediately that this was something he had to do, consequences be damned.

and then - on top of this - all of his following actions then point in the exact opposite direction of his stated plan of waiting for everyone to forget about them. because instead of doing anything to fade into the background, everything wei wuxian did instead just convinced the jianghu he was an intolerable threat.

and this was not a sustainable strategy.

one thing i really appreciate about MXTX is that she does not make the rest of the jianghu into one-dimensional villainous morons. it's quite easy for lazy writers who want a persecution plotline to have the rest of the story's society magically start hating on the protagonist for no good reason, to make every background character in the story's world a three-braincell moron. but MXTX is not that author. it speaks to MXTX's skill as an author that, from the perspective of the rest of the jianghu, fearing wei wuxian as a mortal threat was an entirely reasonable conclusion for them to come to.

first, the gentry's most recent direct interaction with wei wuxian during this time period is him threatening to kill all of them. when jin zixun doesn't give him the information he wants, wei wuxian straight up says: "if i want to kill everyone here, who can stop me? who dares stop me?" this is a threat! and - surprise - threatening to kill people naturally makes people think that you want to kill them! 

next, wei wuxian refined wen ning's dead body into the first sentient fierce corpse in history, and also the strongest fierce corpse in living memory - and then took wen ning with him on night-hunts. that's where the reputation of "the yiling patriarch and his ghost general" comes from. this very naturally made the rest of society fear him even more, because now the guy who has just recently threatened to kill you has demonstrated even more of the power to easily do so! the unparalleled power to do so, which no one else possesses and it would be very hard for anyone else to counter! add in the fact that wei wuxian's activities were also attracting prospective disciples - people gathering outside the burial mounds because they wanted to learn demonic cultivation - and naturally the public is even more frightened, because now it looks like the guy who threatened to kill all of you is also gathering the political force to do so!

the public is incorrect about wei wuxian's intentions, of course. but what does wei wuxian do to correct these misconceptions? to rehabilitate his public image, because now his public image has the life of not just himself but also all the wen remnants under his protection riding on it? to prove to the public that he isn't an active threat to their lives - that he does not seek to murder them all in their beds - that it is safe for them to allow him to live, and that they can in fact survive if they don't kill him?

nothing.

it would be one thing if the story mentioned how wei wuxian tried to correct the malicious rumors about himself and failed. but that is not what happened. what happened is that wei wuxian sat on his corpse mountain and let everyone else say what they wanted to say. and when he left his corpse mountain, it was to bring his one-of-a-kind unparalleled sentient fierce corpse with him on night-hunts, which of course just fanned the flames of the rumors instead. he doesn't even tell the prospective pupils camped on his front door to fuck off - he just sneaks in through the back door.

this is not pragmatic behavior. though you can argue that wei wuxian's strategy here was to become so powerful and so scary that no one would dare try to fight him, anyone with a brain can tell you that this is not a sustainable solution in the long-term. first, if you want to use threats to keep someone from attacking you, you also need to promise stability - you need to give people the reassurance that if they don't start shit with you, then you'll leave them alone too. if you drive the "threat" factor too high, as wei wuxian did, you instead end up convincing people that if they do nothing you'll kill them anyways - that they have no choice but to kill you if they want to survive.

second, if you want to use threats to keep someone from attacking you, you also need to prepare for the inevitability that, if someone does end up getting hurt, everyone will blame you first and no one will want to hear your side of the story. after all, if someone gets hurt, then the first suspect everyone looks towards will be the guy who's been consistently saying "i'm strong enough to hurt you! i'm strong enough to hurt you! don't start shit with me because i'm strong enough to end you!" for the past few months. this is basic common sense. and yes, the society of MDZS is unfair - wei wuxian deserved a proper trial and investigation after the death of jin zixuan. but the fact that society is unfair is something a pragmatic person would have recognized and planned for.

wei wuxian did not recognize and plan for this reality. even after he accidentally kills jin zixuan, wei wuxian still insists that if only the jianghu investigates jin zixun's hundred holes curse, they'll see that wei wuxian didn't cast the hundred holes curse, they'll see that there was more scheming going on, etc etc. wen qing has to directly spell out for him that, at this point, society no longer cares about the truth of the matter. it seems that wei wuxian was actually oddly idealistic about the true nature of his society all the way until the very end.

all of this leads me to conclude that, when wei wuxian busted the wen remnants out of the qiongqi pass labor camp, he did so without considering the consequences of his actions. he assumed that he could improvise and weasel his way out of this situation, as he's always done in the past with his typical genius - only this time, he was wrong.

wei wuxian acts without considering the consequences of his actions. he does not make a decision only after carefully deliberating over all of the potential outcomes - not at all. instead, he acts in the moment - not out of any rational consideration of potential outcomes, but rather because it is simply something he must do. this by definition makes him a deeply unpragmatic person.

to put it into more familiar terms, for wei wuxian, the righteousness of an action comes not from its consequences, but are rather inherent to the action itself. even if he were doomed to fail, he could not give up on the wen remnants.

second, at critical junctures, wei wuxian is unable to make moral sacrifices. to be pragmatic is to know when you have to sacrifice: to know when, in order to achieve the most inalienable of your goals, you have to give up on some of your other goals. this is something wei wuxian is consistently unable to do.

of course, when it comes to his own wellbeing, wei wuxian is all too willing to sacrifice. he'll carve out any number of his internal organs to save those he loves. but this honestly speaks less to wei wuxian's moral framework and more to his lack of self-worth from a troubled upbringing.

because, when it comes to any moral cause, wei wuxian is entirely unable to sacrifice anything, even if being unable to sacrifice entails more negative consequences. wei wuxian could not sacrifice mianmian, jin zixuan, and lan wangji to wen chao and his goons, so he took action and took wen chao hostage himself. to sit back and do nothing as wen chao threatened the lives of those three was simply unthinkable for him - even if it meant taking a course of action that put yunmeng jiang in danger.

wei wuxian's relationship with jiang cheng deteriorated because jiang cheng did not know about the golden core transfer: because jiang cheng did not know that wei wuxian could no longer cultivate, from jiang cheng's point of view, it looked like wei wuxian was just refusing to help out and fulfill his promises for kicks. wei wuxian could have made things a lot easier for himself and also any wen remnants he chose to rescue had he simply told jiang cheng the truth - but he knew that finding out the truth of the golden core transfer would make jiang cheng miserable, and [jiang cheng's happiness] was not something he was willing to sacrifice.

wei wuxian's single most prominent moral decision is his refusal to allow the wen remnants to be sacrificed. anyone with a shred of political sense had to know that rescuing the wen remnants and then protecting them would be near impossible - that it entails making an enemy of the jin, and due to the jins' power, the entire jianghu. wei wuxian himself knew this; he is no moron. wei wuxian also had no long-term plan, no allies, and significantly less power than the rest of the world believed. yet, despite this all, he acted anyways, because he could not let the wen remnants be sacrificed.

the wen remnants wei wuxian rescued from the qiongqi pass labor camp included both regular civilians and cultivators. perhaps wei wuxian could have negotiated a proper release for the non-cultivating civilians, such as granny wen and a-yuan, had he chosen to give up on the cultivators. but - the question of whether this would have worked or not aside - this was not a sacrifice wei wuxian would be willing to make.

nor could wei wuxian sacrifice the safety of yunmeng jiang. i am firmly of the belief that, had yunmeng jiang formally stood by wei wuxian's side after wei wuxian attacked the jin-run labor camp, lanling jin would have eventually declared war on yunmeng jiang, and yunmeng jiang's would inevitably be destroyed. both wei wuxian and jiang cheng understood this as well - which is why wei wuxian told jiang cheng to let him go.

(you can argue - successfully - that wei wuxian did in fact sacrifice [his obligations to yunmeng jiang and his promise to jiang cheng] by leaving yunmeng jiang to protect the wen remnants. this is true. but i think that - from wei wuxian's point of view - this was not much of a sacrifice, because due to wei wuxian lacking a golden core, he already viewed himself as mostly useless to yunmeng jiang. so him leaving - in his view - is not really that much of a loss for yunmeng jiang.)

wei wuxian promised wen qing that he would return wen ning's consciousness to his corpse. when wei wuxian made this promise, he had no idea if he could actually pull it off or not. but then he did - and, in the process, created the most dangerous weapon the jianghu had seen in living memory. wen ning specifically, or moreso wei wuxian's inability to control him, leads to so much of wei wuxian's eventual downfall: wei wuxian loses control of wen ning and accidentally kills jin zixuan; when wen ning goes to turn himself in at jinlintai, he ends up going berserk again and killing another 10-20 jin and lan cultivators, which leads to the nightless city pledge conference. frankly, wei wuxian could have avoided a lot of trouble - or at the very least, a lot of the public's fear - had he not raised wen ning from the dead. it's not like he'd be completely defenseless without wen ning, either. but wei wuxian promised wen qing he would resurrect wen ning - and he could not sacrifice his promise to wen qing because of what wen qing had already done for him.

a pragmatic person is able to make sacrifices, including moral ones. at the very least, a pragmatic person recognizes when sacrifice is inevitable, when all paths lead to something being lost. a pragmatic person, put in the trolley problem, would recognize that there were only two options and that both options involve sacrifice: either he must kill one person, or he must allow five people to die. there is no path forwards in which all six people live.

wei wuxian is unable to make moral sacrifices. he clings on to all of these moral causes, all of these promises and obligations, and it is precisely because he attempts to hold onto all of them that he ends up losing everything. to reuse the previous example, wei wuxian in the trolley problem tried to save all six people because he could not accept any of the sacrifices made inevitable by the trolley problem.

to put this all together - wei wuxian is not a pragmatic person. he makes decisions with his gut, not his head - he does not consider the consequences of his actions before he acts. nor is wei wuxian able to make sacrifices - even necessary ones in order to avoid greater tragedies.

but. none of this means that wei wuxian is not a deeply heroic person. rather, to do what you believe to be righteous and attempt to live up to your ideals despite the consequences is exactly what MXTX lauds as moral. and to be unable to make a moral sacrifice when everyone else in your society easily does so is in fact deeply heroic.

it is precisely because wei wuxian is not pragmatic that MXTX declares him a hero.

some people, including myself, favor a moral framework that centers pragmatism and reason as virtues. to us, the ideal moral character is someone who makes decisions based on reason and not emotion, who considers the potential consequences of every course of action before making a decision, and who then, based on these inferred future consequences, uses reason to deduce which of all of the possible outcomes is the most preferable.

but this does not in fact describe wei wuxian, nor is this how wei wuxian views ethics. and to be honest, i don't think this is how MXTX views ethics either.

in all three of her stories, MXTX repeatedly comes down harder on the characters who make pragmatic decisions, the characters who are willing to sacrifice. in fact, killing sunshot soldiers while acting as wen ruohan's spy, and then killing nie mingjue's men in order to ensure a chance at killing wen ruohan and saving nie mingjue, was the pragmatic thing for meng yao to do, because that was the least bloody path forwards towards a sunshot victory over qishan wen. in fact, cutting ties with wei wuxian after he attacked the jin-run qiongqi pass labor camp was the pragmatic thing for jiang cheng to do, because it was the only path forward that did not put yunmeng jiang, his first and foremost responsibility, in the line of fire. and yet (though the situation is less clear with jin guangyao), MDZS as a narrative criticizes both jin guangyao and jiang cheng for these decisions - because, to MDZS, righteousness does not lie in pragmatism.

(this is a statement i personally disagree with. but we are here to discuss what MDZS wants to say about pragmatism and righteousness, not what i want to say about pragmatism and righteousness.)

by contrast, the one single act for which deeply controversial jiang cheng is ultimately lauded for in the narrative is also his single least pragmatic, most emotional act. the one single act of jiang cheng's that MDZS does not criticize is when, after the fall of lotus pier, jiang cheng ran out from his hiding spot to distract the wen soldiers from seeing wei wuxian. from a filial, duty-based point of view, this was a deeply stupid and unpragmatic course of action: jiang cheng's first and foremost duty, as the sole surviving jiang and new sect leader jiang, was to survive, rebuild his sect, and avenge his parents. from a consequentialist point of view, this impulsive choice is also what led to the domino-fall of tragedy that followed, since jiang cheng then got captured and had his golden core melted, which then led to everything else. yet this stupid, unpragmatic, and impulsive decision is ultimately the one act MDZS considers to be jiang cheng's single most heroic.

the key as to what MDZS considers to be heroic, what it considers to be righteous, lies in the jiang family motto: 明知不可而为之, attempt the impossible. this line, taken from the analects of confucius, can be considered to be a deeply deontological ideal. i find this twitter thread (warning to my followers: does kind of dunk on JC) to be rather helpful in elucidating this line's meaning. 

to attempt the impossible, to try what shouldn't be tried. "ask yourself not whether you can do it, but whether you should...consider not the result but rather the journey - have a clear conscience regardless of outcome." in other words, what matters is less whether you succeeded or failed, or what sort of outcome your actions brought about - what matters is that you tried. what matters is that, in the face of overwhelming odds, you tried to do what you think is right. and even if you end up failing - even if everyone you sought to protect ended up dying - the fact that you tried still has moral weight.

this is why it was righteous of wei wuxian to save the wen remnants - even though the ultimate consequences of that decision were overall negative, even though everyone wei wuxian tried to protect died. in fact, if wei wuxian had died immediately - if he had been shot down by jin archers at the qiongqi pass labor camp the moment he came within their range - if he had died before any wen in the labor camp realized someone wanted to save him - he would still be a righteous person. because, for MDZS, what makes an action righteous is not its consequences. for MDZS, what makes a person righteous is not what impact their actions have on the world, but rather that they have the sort of moral character that leads them to never give up on their ideals.

wei wuxian does not consider the consequences of his actions before he acts. or, should i say - wei wuxian makes decisions despite their consequences, because despite the consequences there are simply some moral causes he simply cannot give up on. wei wuxian did not save the wen remnants because it was pragmatic to do so. it was in fact deeply unpragmatic to do so. no - wei wuxian saved the wen remnants without a concrete long-term plan, without having thought through anything beforehand, with the knowledge of how weak he was in reality - because he could not give up on the wen remnants, consequences be damned.

to have some moral causes you simply cannot give up on, no matter the consequences - to MXTX, is deeply heroic. in this sense, MXTX's moral philosophy is not pragmatic at all, because to be pragmatic is to be concerned with practical consequences. instead, both wei wuxian and MXTX herself are deeply idealistic, because what matters to them are ideals and principles that extend beyond consequence.

as the linked twitter thread notes, this is why MXTX waits until the very end of the book to reveal that wen yuan, now lan sizhui, lived. this is why wangxian only meet mianmian and her family at the end of the book. this is why all of the cumulative positive impacts of wei wuxian's resurrection -  jin ling forgiving wei wuxian, jin guangyao, and wen ning, for one - are kept to the end of the story: because MDZS needs to move away from the consequentialist argument. MDZS needs to establish that wei wuxian's righteousness is separate from the impact of his actions: that wei wuxian isn't righteous merely because his actions had a positive impact for which others can thank him, but rather because the actions he undertook were inherently righteous on their own. that even if none of these positive impacts existed - if wen yuan had also died, if mianmian hadn't made it - then wei wuxian's choices would still be moral.

this is also why MDZS ultimately comes down harder on characters like jiang cheng and jin guangyao, even though a more results-oriented moral framework would instead laud such characters. both jiang cheng and jin guangyao are deeply pragmatic characters: they put concrete results before abstract moral ideals, and they're willing to compromise on their ideals in order to achieve better results. i am a JC stan and a jiggy apologist because of these exact traits. but MDZS is a narrative that criticizes such pragmatism and instead holds up wei wuxian's idealism as a moral ideal - so, in order to advance its themes, the MDZS narrative ends up criticizing both jiang cheng and jin guangyao.

ultimately, this idealism - this criticism of pragmatism - lies at the heart of MDZS's themes. wei wuxian's righteousness is directly connected to the fact that he is not pragmatic. the fact that wei wuxian makes moral decisions despite the consequences, and that he is unable to sacrifice any moral cause - is all part of what makes him at once deeply unpragmatic and deeply heroic.

---

you see, the funny thing here is that i personally disagree with this theme. as i've said before, i'm a utilitarian. to me, the morality of an action does in fact arise from its consequences; to me, someone who compromises on their ideals to achieve better results is preferable to someone who adheres to all of their ideals and then loses everything. the character i consider to have had the greatest positive impact on this story's world is jin guangyao. the character i consider to have most dutifully fulfilled his obligations is jiang cheng.

therefore, i disagree with basically everything i wrote up there about "trying": i think that if you try to do the right thing, fail epically, and in the process of your failure get a bunch of other people killed as well, the fact that you failed this badly does in fact matter quite a bit. the bulk of my more haterish posts are born from this fundamental disagreement with what MDZS posits is righteousness.

however. as a reader i must recognize that [what i consider to be moral] and [what the author of this story considers to be moral] are two different things. my own moral philosophy may be heavily results-oriented, but MXTX's is much less so. therefore, regardless of what i think of wei wuxian, i conclude that MXTX ultimately intends for us to read wei wuxian as a heroic figure for the exact reasons i gave above - and that fact must then inform every analysis of MDZS i write.

[oneeyedoctogod]

Gods this fandom sometimes, I swear. I'm sorry I read two deeply bad takes back to back, and I have to rant. I'm sure others have said it better than I, but really. Come on. I actually have to wonder if people who talk about the extras actually read them because...

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji didn't leave the cultivation world in canon. They elope, and then they come back. The fact they're not involved in the bigger politics is... pretty much to be expected, but they very much do participate in the day to day lives of the Lan sect. They go where the chaos is to night hunt, they teach, Lan Wangji comforts his brother in his seclusion, and Wei Wuxian meets some new Lan disciples.

As for the cottage fantasy... Again, I honestly have to wonder if the people talking about it actually read the extra it's in? Because it's just that. A fantasy. A dream. It's basically a representation of Wei Wuxian's wants for a domestic life, something he definitely has now! He's always been characterised as someone who wants to help others and who loves cultivation. Why would you think the dream is to be taken literally?

And the idea that Wei Wuxian has 'several important relationships just floating there', that he's not dealing with... Where? Which ones? He teaches the juniors and grows closer to Jin Ling. He doesn't exactly interact with Lan Xichen, but he asks after him. He meets Mianmian again and wishes her well. He asks after Wen Ning after Lan Sizhui comes back then has some father-son bonding moments with him!

Nie Huaisang and Wei Wucian aren't close. They were friendly once, but they didn't ever meet after the lectures. I don't see how that qualifies as an "important" relationship, especially with Nie Huaisang never openly admitting to his part in Wei Wuxian's resurrection. But even then, Wei wuxian says he'll be keeping a close eye on him, so one can imagine they meet again at some point.

As for Jiang Cheng... what more do you want Wei Wuxian to do exactly? Even if you want a reconciliation, why can't Jiang Cjeng be he one to actually grow up and do the work for once? He's the one who never apologized. He's the one who is still openly hostile in the extras. If Wei Wuxian wants to move on and not interact with him, he's well within his right to do that, given how Jiang Cheng treated him. Hell, he's more generous than most since he encourages Jin Ling to talk to Jiang Cheng. If I'd been treated by someone like Jiang Cheng treated Wei Wuxian and saw him hit our nephew several times, I certainly wouldn't encourage them to meet. (But that's Wei Wuxian for you, the moral ideal and better than all of us.)

Anyway, I really don't understand why people insist on making Wangxian have a sadder ending than the one they actually did. It's a HEA for them, sorry guys. And yeah, maybe Wei wuxian has some trauma to work on... but the whole point of the character is that he doesn't let his trauma define him. That he wants to forgives, forgets and moves on.

(Also, just because he doesn't have a breakdown or the cultivation equivalent of therapy in the extra doesn't mean he's not working on them? He finally is at peace, with a solid support network. Maybe he does talk about his past hurts with Lan Wangji - Lan Wangji certai ly knows when to comfort him when he needs it. But the narrative point of the extras is to show they're moving on from the past! And you know what, sometimes the beat thing to do to heal is to do just that. They're living their best lives, deal with it.)

And finally... shit did you really read the whole book and come to the conclusion Wei Wuxian should have 'learned to accept help'? Who the fuck offered help? Who did he refuse?

(Don't say Lan Wangji. 1) I love him, but "Come back to Gusu" is very much not an obvious offer to help, and when Wei Wuxian understandably misunderstands him, he never manages to correct it.

And 2) once Wei Wuxian tells him explicitly he's not leaving the Wen remnants behind, Lan Wangji understands and backs off. He approves! I'm sure he'd do more if he could, but just like Jiang Yanli, he can't!)

Jiang Cheng literally said, 'No one will help you, no one is on your side' (and then made sure that was true by saying Wei Wuxian was the enemy of the cultivation world). Jin Zixuan chose to ask the one who was ambushed to disarm rather than the 300 cultivators attacking him and lunged at him when Wei Wuxian refused to comply (because he'd be killed if he did!!). How is that help?

Who else tried to help? Whose help did Wei Wuxian reject?

Wei Wuxian was presented with a series of bad choices and took the best he could, the ones aligned with his principles, accepting he'd have to face consequences at some point but also knowing it was still worth it. He's not the one who failed or made a fatal mistake or betrayed his word.

Rant over. Sorry about that.

[sonik-kun]

Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian torturing Wen Chao together was very hot, actually, and us JC fans were cheering both of them on when they did it. Idk why JC antis act as though we ignore that part about JC and only condemn WWX for it. He tortured a genocidal rapist with his brother, and we love them for that.

Was it morally right? No. Was it a war crime? Absolutely. It was still sexy of them regardless 🥰🥰

[ssailormoonn]

❛ You're Mine ❜ - Master list

Yandere!Lan Wangji X Fem!Wen!Reader

REQUESTED? YES (filled request)

TW/CW; X Fem! Reader, she/her pronouns, obsessive behaviour, dubcon! noncon! frequent sex, breeding, size kink, slightly forced marriage, doggy, missionary, prone bone, jealousy, yandere behaviour, kidnapping, bondage, oral, creampie + more ╰┈➤ This anon has asked for this to be a reader insert only asking that the reader having long hair which goes past the waist (as its chinese tradition) and that she is smaller that Lan Wangji, everything else is up to you!

STORY INFORMATION; Follows the plot of MDZS briefly, contains brief events on the Xuanwu of slaughter and the sunshot campaign. This a a Yandere x reader, so if its not your cup of tea, SCROLL. All characters are 18 +

SYNOPSIS; Lan Wangji is obsessed with the reader after she helped him in the cloud recess and now, he doesn't want to let you go.

─── CHAPTER LIST - 4/6 ╰┈➤ total word count 11,100/??

╭ Chapter 1 - 4.1k+ words ╰┈➤ Back story on how LWJ and you met, the Wens burned down the Cloud Recesses and this is when you started to help the Gusu Lan Sect in the aftermath, just like your brother and sister (Wen Qing adn Wen Ning). But as you helped out, you were in a lot of secret meetings with LWJ. But this caused LWJ to fall more desperately obsessed with you than he already was. During the Xuanwu of slaughter, you get captured from the Lan's and Jiangs by your own clan members Wen Xu and Wen Chao because you were helping the 'enemy'.

| Chapter 2 - 2.8k+ words ╰┈➤ You get saved by Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji (individually). But Lan Wangji's obsession turns into love and to repay Jiang Cheng's kindness, you work as a spy for him to help during the massacre of the Lotus Pier event. Which causes Jiang Cheng to fall in love with you. The sunshot campaign was up and running, but it wasn't something you, a healer should be fighting for causing you to get injured. Lan Wangji saves you and brings you to Gusu to hide and recuperate, taking care of you.

| Chapter 3 - 2.3k+ words ╰┈➤ Jiang Cheng searches for you as you left the Jiangs so suddenly, so, Wangji gets the wrong idea, thinking you are lovers. This moment creates just the beginning of his yandere tendencies and his demeanour changes. An argument arises and he kisses you which then leaves you wondering why Lan Wangji is doing this, the HanGuang-Jun is kissing you with such anger. Then, this leads to non-consensual sex but Wangji makes sure to take care of you in the kindest way possible, calming you dow and after it leads to Dubconsensual sex now that you have realised your feelings for him

| Chapter 4 - 1.9k words ╰┈➤ The war has now passed and Lan Wangji is taking care of you and helping you search for your siblings. When you two found them, you requested to stay with them in Yiling, to leave Wangji. But this caused Lan Wangji's already yandere personality to rise to another level. He wants to bring her back to Gusu and marry her, but she doesn't want to, she wants to stay with Jiang Cheng, her siblings and doesn't want to follow the 3000 rules.

| Chapter 5 ╰┈➤ This results in Wangji kidnapping her and hiding her secretly, visiting her to only have sex. He loves her of course, but he spends time with her, not only to have sex, but to be near her. This is the softest Lan Wangji will ever be towards you. You tried to run away from him, only because you felt suffocated hiding, Jiang Cheng tried to help but failed. The second attempt you made by yourself and that soft love you were getting changed, it was only rough, dominating sex. But he accidentally confesses and you did to, which changed the mood, it wasn't rough, but just intense.

| Chapter 6 ╰┈➤ Wangji is satisfied, now knowing that you aren't lovers with Jiang Cheng, that you're just a good friend. So now he has you all to himself, your his and no one else's. Then you two get married, it's just the two of you, his pretty wife. You two celebrate during the lantern festival together and send of a lantern, knowing that it's just the two of you forever.

[rosethornewrites]

Mom, who has only seen The Untamed, didn’t understand why Wei Wuxian was so feared.

I had to explain that he dug up cemeteries to get the bodies of their enemies’ ancestors to march against them, that Wen Ruohan was a megalomaniac but not into demonic cultivation, that every Wen soldier that was cut down was potentially another corpse wwx could raise to fight for him (but did he also raise allies?), that the very idea of him was so terrifying that he became the folk culture boogie man very easily with a few well-placed rumors. Children thought if they were naughty he would come for them in the night. Wei Wuxian was a living nightmare.

She was surprised none of that got into The Untamed, where it is made to seem like wwx just disrupts Wen Ruohan’s control and wwx is never shown controlling a fierce corpse—only Wen Ning, who isn’t technically dead in The Untamed, more like in between life and death. They couldn’t show it because then wwx would be morally grey and that’s not allowed. They can’t show shambling corpses, only living puppets, unless the controlling cultivator is absolutely evil. What is black, what is white?

Specifically she didn’t get why Jiang Cheng was so angry at Lan Wangji, and it’s like, mom, he spent 13 years angry with wwx and raising his nephew and grieving his sister and other family, and right in his salad Lan Wangji is parading around in mourning clothes for far too long to be considered appropriate, clearly acting like a grieving spouse, mooning over and, in going to where the chaos is to fulfill his promise with wwx, appears to jc to be searching for him instead. Shows up randomly where demonic cultivators mimicking wwx are causing trouble like he hopes wwx is back. Not that Jiang Cheng isn’t low-key doing the same thing. And so it becomes wrapped into the grief and anger.

She really wants to read the novels now.

Sorry, rambles here.