#i am begging y'all to read more than the smutty bits of this novel please

[thatswhatsushesaid]

exhales

anyway, jin guangyao's situation with qin su is not remotely comparable to his situation with mo xuanyu because:

1. jgy only becomes aware that qin su is his sister after they are engaged, have been sexually intimate, and she is pregnant with jin rusong;

2. there is no way for jgy to extricate either himself or qs from their betrothal and subsequent marriage without creating tremendous hardship for qs, her family, and drawing undue scrutiny to jgs' assault of madam qin. given what qs ultimately chooses to do of her own volition in the novel and the drama, I think it should be clear why jgy would have zero expectation of jgs facing any repercussions for his actions;

3. prior to discovering the truth of their relation to each other, jgy and qs's relationship was one based on consent, mutual attraction, and affection. they cared about and wanted to be married to each other.

in contrast:

1. mo xuanyu did, in fact, sexually harass jin guangyao. this isn't a rumour. he confesses to sexually harassing jin sect cultivators at the beginning of the novel in the screed of notes he leaves behind for wei wuxian. jin ling is the one who reveals later on that the identity of the cultivator mo xuanyu harasses is his half-brother, jin guangyao;

2. jgy knows that mxy is his half-brother. mxy knows that jgy is his half-brother. the only 'mutual understanding' they have here is that they both know that they are brothers;

3. there is zero textual support for jgy making sexual advances on mxy, and plenty of textual support for jgy exiling mxy from jinlintai specifically because the last thing he needs is to be surrounded by rumours of incest while he is trapped in an incestuous marriage himself;

4. in the novel, jgy is not on mxy's list of people for wwx to kill on his behalf when he enacts the sacrifice ritual. in other words, jgy is not a target of mxy's resentment at all--only the mo family is. if jgy had concocted this insidious lie as part of a smear campaign to discredit mxy (???), it seems like jgy would be at the top of the 'fuck you' list that mxy leaves behind for wwx. but he isn't.

tl;dr jgy is not a hypocrite for wanting to distance himself from a half-brother who won't take no for an answer, just because his father's sexual violence (and inability to keep track of the women he has assaulted, apparently) has trapped him in an incestuous marriage.