Sect Architecture and Power Structures

Every CQL sect other than Lan has thrones and a dedicated throne room for audiences. (excaliburedpan observed that this distinction marks all the major sects as of a piece barring Lan, which is clearly Other.) Lan's closest approximations seem to be Qiren’s meeting room (in his private residence?) and the shared dais in the teaching pavilion. The former seems to host the majority of their political business meetings, while the later hosts ceremonies like the students’ reception. Both seem primarily used for quotidian business within the sect: domestic conversation and teaching, respectively. Obviously these staging choices are shaped by budgets. The Cloud Recesses already requires the construction of roughly as many sets as Lotus Pier, making it the perhaps most densely ‘set’ location of the novel. But taking that consideration into account, these are both world building choices the design team felt comfortable making and, ultimately, signifying visual markers in CQL’s text. 

Cloud Recesses' architecture seems of a piece with Lan’s structural power-sharing. While Xichen is heir, he and his brother are both styled as the Twin Jades (a gesture Wei Wuxian thoughtfully attempts to copy, in order to reassure Jiang Wanyin that they can share power in a way that doesn’t undermine him as sole heir: a sort of failed New Coke re-branding effort). Wangji’s position in the clan seems significant and imbued with responsibility rather than a simple recognition of his status as Xichen’s heir-apparent. His character aside, Wangji's position within Lan as a main line family member or inner disciple seems to entail more responsibility than Huaisang’s comparable position within Nie. That’s textually quite evident, but if you pull back and consider it structurally, it’s rather a striking difference. Lan Qiren is either a or the sect grandmaster. A body of Lan elders seems to meet in council, and to exercise its own power over even Xichen and Qiren. CQL clearly identifies Lan’s client sects in a way it doesn’t identify those which might be associated with other great sects. All of this indicates a more developed political system than the other clans seem to employ: something like a constitutional monarchy, with power sharing within and outside the family, and/or clearly designated responsibilities (such as Wangji’s discipline master role).

Despite Madam Yu’s evident power as a cultivator (a more successful fighter than Fengmian in CQL, seemingly in charge of training activities in the donghua, and the line manager for talented private guards across all canons), Jiang seems to struggle with diversified power structures. Their fundamental model of governance is as unitary as their singular throne: where is Madam Yu supposed to sit, when her husband is present? Jiang struggles to incorporate a prominent Wei Wuxian, whose existence is destabilising because they have no structural affordance for their already-multivalent power distribution. (In a Doylist sense, this also calls attention to MDZS's unusual choice of a clan versus sect model: in a traditional wuxia sect, the more talented Wei Wuxian is the obvious succeeding disciple.) Perhaps this underlies some of the tension in the marriage of Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan. Yu Ziyuan is the only furen not to be subsumed wholly into her husband’s clan. This includes her own sworn-sister, Madam Jin, who grew up with Yu Ziyuan, is presumably also of Yu clan, and might thus share their naming conventions, including retention of one’s birth name after marriage. 

excaliburedpan suggested that in some ways, the clan most similar to Lan is actually Wen. Wen Mao elected to prioritise his clan over his sect, which seems to align him more with the monarchy models of Nie, Jiang and Jin than Lan's 'monastic order' design. Yet the Dafan Wen also have prominent positions in the clan hierarchy while not being a part of the main family, which is the sort of power-sharing move only Lan has textually shown itself capable of. Wen has, and brandishes, a ‘little red book’ in an indoctrination ceremony, but I’m honestly not sufficiently au fait with post-Maoist representations in Chinese popular media to guess whether this is supposed to signify. To excaliburedpan's thoughts, I would add that Lan Yi’s having been drawn to the yin iron further parallels her with Wen Ruohan, even as Wen Ruohan’s downfall is twinned with that of the Xue before him and the Jin after. Wen is also the only sect other than Lan to have on-screen, codified rules of conduct, and to have stipulated consequences for their violation. 

By the time we meet the Wen, however, their code of laws and power-sharing feel as vestigial at Roman senators under Emperors. Ruohan severely undermined his brother and the Dafan; it’s possible that his brother ‘defected’ by marrying out to the client-sect. excaliburedpan commented that Wen now can’t recognise its own sect rules, while the Lan honour theirs to the point of stagnation. 

Yet because we know so much more about Lan over time than the other clans, I’m tempted to offer a more historicised reading of their culture. In CQL, we're introduced to Lan slightly over a decade into its recovery from Qinhengjun’s marriage crisis, when the succession suddenly shifted, de facto, onto Qiren as regent. The earlier leader Lan Yi was considered very progressive, but faced a lot of resistance. There is a fairly inherent rebellion in Lan An’s having left his monastic orders to found a cultivation sect with his lover. Taken all together, this represents a shifting ebb and flow, or a political responsiveness, in how legalistic Lan is. It’s possible that since Lan Yi and the Xue crisis, Lan has calcified as a protective response. In that climate, Qinhengjun’s lashing out would function as a return of the repressed. Qiren augments the rules by a full 25% in one generation as a crisis response in the face of a new form of cultivation (a wild reaction, considered in terms of pure numbers alone, that nevertheless shows Lan's 'set in literal stone' legalism to be reactive and mobile).

(excaliburedpan believes the new rules are all “you shall not befriend the devil’, just more thoroughly explicated. ‘You will not date the devil. You will not take the devil out to dinner in Caiyi Town. You will not adopt a child with the devil. You will not brand yourself in the chest, Lan Wangji!” Do not sigh gayly. Stop That. (Stop That is it’s own rule.) No Face Journeys. Conceal, Don’t Feel—you get the idea.)