Wen Qing and the Siege on Cloud Recesses

[x_los]

In the CQL rather than MDZS timeline, is Wen Qing partly responsible for Cloud Recesses getting sacked or for the considerable success of the siege? She does test the ward defences in the back hill and tell the Wen about the weird three day disappearance of Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian in that area, which she correctly guesses might relate to the Yin Iron. Did she tell the Wen where those wards sat, and how to break them? Did she tell them about Cloud Recesses’ security and logistical arrangements in detail, based on her time there as a hosted student, diplomat and openly-acknowledged spy? Because if so, that’s a significantly higher level of coerced complicity with and responsibility for war crimes than fic often affords her.

Admittedly Wen Xu, the more competent Wen brother, was also around with his owl summoning device scoping things out, and he did the actual sacking. And granted, almost everyone in canon is responsible for war crimes to some degree. Even ‘war crimes’ is a term we’d have to define quite specifically, here, in terms of its relation to offensive strikes and actions beyond the shifting, shared framework of morally permissible combat in this culture.

Comments

[allycat796]

I think it's kind of choose your own adventure, honestly. The interpretation I tend to go with is that the Wens had already guessed the yin iron was at CR, and her job was to find it and steal it if possible and then, if that didn't work out, they would attack? So, if you go with that, she's either going to succeed and hand a huge chunk of power to wrh, which is pretty bad since I figure she knew what he wanted to do with it, or she's going to fail which results in CR getting attacked. No real good outcome. I think it's very possible she gave wrh other info about their defenses, but the presence of the evil bird thingies might mitigate that a bit since it might mean she didn't have as much new info to give them...and as for the wards, I honestly think that one's on the Lans. Like, I'm joking? But also not really bc Wei Wuxian got through them super easily with his sparkly little butterfly trick which makes it seem like they were just really bad. Too used to peacetime or something, got complacent, idk.

So with the siege on the Lans specifically I tend to view Wen Qing as not suuuper culpable (probably a little bit tho), but she's not off the hook for enabling "war crimes" because she was wrh's primary physician and I do feel like she could have done something with that. Like, poison the guy. Stick him with a needle in the "wrong" spot. My read is that her fear for Wen Ning and her residual loyalty to wrh for "treating them kindly" caused her to be at least a little bit complicit in most of the nasty things he did by virtue of being the one keeping him alive. Though again, I see most of this as really up to interpretation because honestly, I find most of the stuff surrounding the yin iron plot a bit hard to parse and so at a certain point I do just throw up my hands and say "this is how it is because I say so" as long as it doesn't flagrantly contradict what's there in the show.

As for fics not leaning into Wen Qing's potential culpability, the prevailing fandom narrative around her (and jyl and lqy) seems to me to be that she's the faultless holder of all the brain cells, so yeah, no war crimes for her. Like the relative lack of female characters makes people put them on a pedestal when they write them at all, to compensate? Idk, I'm just spitballing. I have some half-formed incoherent thoughts about female characters in this fandom but they shouldn't be inflicted on the world in their current state.

[x_los]

her job was to find it and steal it if possible and then, if that didn't work out, they would attack? So, if you go with that, she's either going to succeed and hand a huge chunk of power to wrh, which is pretty bad since I figure she knew what he wanted to do with it, or she's going to fail which results in CR getting attacked

This is a good reading I think? In a way it means she's kind of dicking around, delaying, trying to find any decent ways out of the situation or just endure it.

Re front wards, yeah, it seems like--easier for one twerp with no bad intentions than an ARMY to get in soundlessly up a mountain pass, I'm not sure whether there are ringed ward defences people are breaking through/a separate defence system on the back, if someone approaches via the mountain side. It's not something the adaptation team cares about (and you know, kind of fair, they have a narrative job to do that isn't this), but if you have to extrapolate it re how it works, stuff like that seems to be a natural 'make it work' answer.

It's interesting as well re Ruohan, because I tend not to think much about keeping him alive as a choice? Like, the alternative is active murder, and how does she get out with Wen Ning after she's done that, and evade retribution, and where do they even go, and is that putting Dafan at risk--but I think ultimately, because it's family and a domestic environment and she's youngish, what I'm doing there is reading the situation as DA rather than a public-facing political situation (and it's sort of both?).

Wen Qing

[ann712]

I think I see all the characters (well the ones not obviously boo hiss) to be in a ‘there but for the grace of God’ position. Wen Qing has no loyalty to the Lans. Their ‘‘neutrality ’ towards wrh’s atrocities is their choice but there’s no reason why those suffering under his brutal regime should feel that they should sacrifice themselves to keep the Lans safe. When she owes loyalty to Wei Ying she does just that- sacrifices herself to keep him safe. None of the characters, except Wei Ying (and Lan Zhan I think as he learns from Wei Ying’s death- example: agreeing to be chief cultivator against his personal wishes) are super admirable when it comes to the large political choices, but some are, in terms of personal loyalty and the sacrifices this leads them to make. Everyone in this universe is faced with impossible choices and in acting from personal loyalties (or even firm political convictions) can unleash unforeseen and sometimes terrible consequences. I don’t want to whitewash Wen Qing. She puts her loyalty to her brother (and to a lesser extent her sect) first and suffers the consequences of that in the backlash towards the Wens but she stoically endures those consequences and acts according to her conscience which I admire. In fact I wonder if it’s because Wei Ying is adopted into a sect rather than born into it, that enables him to resist sectarian interests and protect the Wens because that is the right thing to do- that he does not suffer the same degree of cognitive dissonance as those indoctrinated into clan loyalties from birth when faced with that choice.

Re: Wen Qing

[x_los]

All good points!

In a way I'm thinking about it also in terms--and I don't know how transferable this is, actually, culturally--of Host Violation? Like, hurting someone who took you in for a period while there or using knowledge gained as a Guest against a Host, has an extra layer of taboo in Greek and then in Medieval European tradition. So is there an equivalent cultural squick/moral imperative?

Re: Wen Qing

[ann712]

Yes I struggle with the notion that anyone can feel obligation to Wen Ruohan but the host thing definitely seems a possibility. And then of course there is the fact that he’s her patient, so she’ll care for him to some extent. Add all that to the threat that not complying poses to Wen Ning and it makes sense that such a pragmatic woman would make such a decision. Maybe she even justifies it as buying time until she can find a way to reverse his slide into madness.

[allycat796]

Yeah, re: wrh I definitely think her position was sort of damned if you do, damned if you don't don't so I'm certainly not on board with stuff like nmj's whole "they're cold watchers so it's totally fine to put them in inhumane work camps" position. I actually hadn't thought of the DA thing, which is weird because I certainly had that reading for other characters' situations and I probably should have thought to apply it to Wen Qing? I think that probably didn't occur to me because wrh is played as such an over-the-top cartoon villain (imo) that that was kind of the only context I thought of him in, whoops! Though now that you bring it up I definitely see it. But either way I see any possible complicity Wen Qing does have as more of an internal conflict for her/complicating factor for her personal relationships with ppl who were on the other side of the war than something to blame her for, because yeah, her situation was very terrible and I do get why "just murder wrh!" wasn't something she saw as a viable solution.