#mostly i think i've been so pulled into MDZS because of the insoluble meng yao problem

[inappropriatewenning]

I keep trying to put a finger on why “the problem with jin guangyao is that he’s too ambitious” bothers me so much as an argument.  Because it’s one thing to say “he does really bad things to reach his goals,” but I often see the ambition itself cited as Why He’s Bad.  (I also see plenty of other reasons for hating him that I think are fair--he kills characters we like, he lies to characters we like, he eventually develops class solidarity with his father’s society rather than his mother’s...)

But “his problem is ambition” strikes me as a real misreading of the situation.

This is an incredibly ambitious world.  There are competitions left and right to test one another’s strength and skill. There are lists and rankings everywhere you look.   People duel each other routinely.   People strive to develop unique and powerful magic and fighting techniques.  The Nies strive for personal achievement with a toxic technique that almost-inevitably kills them.  Or heck, cultivating to immortality is a thing.  That’s ambitious!

(Readmore cut, because sorry sorry I get long here and a little incoherent. tl;dr: there are a lot of problems* with jgy that are adjacent to ambition but it’s inaccurate to say that ambition itself is the problem)

And it’s certainly legit, as a reader, to say “that’s all immoral,” or “that’s all missing the point of morality.”  It’s a fair thing to question!  Questioning the cultivation world is a big point in MDZS.  And then you can take a trip over to TGCF and meditate more on the moral dimensions of achievement and whether it’s better to be a lonely trash-picker or a prince who tries to save the world.  You could also distinguish between ambition for personal power (being a super cool strong cultivator who can kill lots of badguys) and political power (being a super cool strong sect leader who can direct public works to kill badguys).  That’s an interesting wrinkle and it’s probably worth looking at more some time.

But in MDZS I feel like the two people I see charged most often with “ambition (derogatory)” are Jin Guangyao and Jiang Cheng.  I’m not going to get into Jiang Cheng here, but...Meng Yao, man.

He has goals.  It’s true!  He has goals!  After his mother dies he attempts to enter his father’s world.  If you want to say that’s Bad Ambition, fair enough: again, you can say the sect world is morally flawed.  But in that case, I hope you’re also arguing that really it would have been better for little Wei Ying’s soul if he’d been left on the streets.  The only virtuous life is one of pure humility and suffering in the shitty old non-magic world. (Or is the argument fundamentally just that little Meng Yao from the brothel should have known his place...?)

Then, yeah, this is where most people would say things go bad.  For reference, I’m talking novel here, not CQL, but even in the novel the guy does bad things!  Murdery things!  Bad, bad, bad!  And haters are absolutely welcome to hate on the murdering, lying, etc.  MDZS is a hyper-murdery fictional world and we have our faves in it and we have characters we hate.  (...though tbh the only character i really hate is jin guangshan, i love pretty much everyone else even when they’re hurting each other, and i get really sad when i feel like i’m somehow supposed to hate character A because i like conflicting character B. but to hell with jin guangshan. there’s someone on an actual power trip, both personal and political.)

But when I see people say “oh the problem is JGY’s ambitious” rather than “the problem is he does bad things to achieve his ambitions” I feel like that’s...argh, such a serious misreading of the fictional world itself?  His ambitions are completely in line with the ambitions of all the other main characters!  Being his father’s son.  Navigating a difficult political world.  Not getting beat up or murdered.  The one thing that really stands out in-world is the innovative watchtowers, which, like.  Okay it’s a centralization of power, which you can maybe argue has proved a detrimental drive in human history, but it’s for the purpose of improving the general quality of life for people outside the cultivator class.

Well. Then there’s the other thing that stands out in-world: the ambition to leave the social class he was born into.  In-world, that makes lots of people angry.  But also when I pick things apart as a reader, it starts to feel like that’s...kind of what readers are blaming him for when they complain that “his problem is ambition.”  And there you are back at “Meng Yao from the brothel should have known his place.” 

Which I genuinely don’t think people intend to say, I’m not trying to be all GOTCHA YOU’RE BEING CLASSIST.  That’s a kind of fandom rhetoric I find harmful and unproductive.  But like...what are you saying if you say it’s bad for Meng Yao to be ambitious, and not everyone else?

* remember this asterisk from way up at the readmore?  it’s to say ahaha i lied there are no problems with jin guangyao he’s a precious angel who does nothing wrong not even once and he can have a little kidnapping as a treat