Jiang Cheng Rocks: What Exactly Counts as Yeeting your Brother off a Cliff?

[x_los]

 with Bonus Wei Wuxian's Culpability for the Jiang Raid (None)

As a fandom, I wish we still had coms and their attendant discussions. There are a lot of canon moments where I’d like to not so much thrash out a definite consensus as to what exactly happened as simply to articulate the range of possible interpretations, and why we think given readings are likely or compelling. One such problem spot is CQL’s rendering of Wei Wuxian’s death. The adaptation team was tasked with rendering the book’s somewhat confusing and drawn-out timeline screen-legible and emotionally cogent in a new medium, while also integrating the drama’s new focus on the Wen refugee crisis (at the expense of MDZS’s focus on demonic cultivation and hubris). More prosaically, you can’t have zombies rip your protagonist to shreds on live television. Accordingly CQL stages a very different death scene, and more depends on exactly how you read what Jiang Wanyin does on the cliff than fandom typically addresses. 

My partner believes Jiang Wanyin stabs the rock, and thus chooses not to stab Wei Wuxian. I also believe Jiang Wanyin chooses not to stab Wei Wuxian, but that he simultaneously chooses to splinter the rock. This decision has consequences. Lan Wangji is balanced on that rock, and is holding onto Wei Wuxian's hand. Because Jiang Wanyin stabs the rock, the part of the cliff they’re on starts speedily splintering and crumbling away. The fissure is visible, audible, and must be palpable. Thus either 

1. both Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji will fall, because Lan Wangji is not letting Wei Wuxian go. Wei Wuxian will die, and will also be responsible for killing Lan Wangji. Or,

2. Wei Wuxian will be forced to actively choose, once more, to kill himself. In order to protect Lan Wangji, he will have to let go of him, rejecting his effort to save him. 

 

For me, choosing to strike the rock face and thus forcing Wei Wuxian to enact option two himself fits perfectly into Jiang Wanyin's ambivalence at important moments and regular deferral of responsibility (often specifically onto Wei Wuxian). Rather than an act of mercy (though it could be intended as one), this is a tiny sliver of possibly-accidental extra cruelty on Jiang Wanyin's part. His inability to kill Wei Wuxian forces Wei Wuxian to do this to himself and to Lan Wangji, and further forces Lan Wangji to watch. 

 

Lan Wangji’s unwilling involvement is additionally painful because Wei Wuxian walked into Jin Zixun’s ambush due to an invitation Lan Wangji wrote, starting the whole chain of events that led them here. I would further argue that Jiang Wanyin finds Wei Wuxian on the battlefield at this point because Lan Wangji is perched on the lip of the cliff in a conspicuously shiny robe and guan. Wei Wuxian has been hanging over the cliff side, not visible, for a few minutes. Thus Jiang Wanyin must have found him by tracking Lan Wangji.

 

I don't think Jiang Wanyin considered and elected this additionally-painful course any more than he actually thought, while choking his severely injured brother half to death in a field after the Wen raid on Jiang Sect, ‘I want a fellow victim who is also one of the two remaining members of my family to die, here and now.’ I’m just not sure that lack of consideration helps anything.

 

Yes, Jiang Wanyin was very upset at the time. It’s a genocide, everyone’s upset. It is, however, ridiculous to blame Wei Wuxian’s Attitude for Wen imperialism after they set up an indoctrination prison camp and attacked Cloud Recesses as proof of concept. I believe, at least in the donghua, there are mentions of the Wen having amalgamated many smaller sects over the course of the last decade, and beginning to style themselves in Imperial fashion; if so, the major sects have Neville Chamberlain’d about during the annexation of Czechoslovakia, hoping that the leopards eating faces party would not eventually eat their faces. In the drama, the Wen are setting up a system of supervisory offices. Wei Wuxian is, very obviously, just a label they’ve put on a massive and already in progress plan. 

 

While ‘this is all your fault, Wei Wuxian’ makes sense as a thing for Madam Yu to say in her rage, per Richard III, and/or in an attempt to emotionally manipulate her foster son into protecting her biological children with his life, I find it bizarre that fandom takes this claim at all seriously as a contention. Not even a slightly-calm Jiang Wanyin, when not actively trying to pick a fight, could believe something so self-evidently stupid. And if it had been true, somehow (though even holding this hypothetical twists my fucking brain), the Wen’s disproportionate response would still not be Wei Wuxian’s fault, because it is, in fact, the fault of the people who did the murders. 

Comments

[superborb]

I suppose the counterargument is that they can fly, and LWJ has flown while holding WWX before, so he must be strong enough to carry a passenger. Therefore, it is possible they could have survived falling off the cliff (and also no one dies by falling off a cliff ever, though that is not something they could know).

WWX gives the Wens a reason to attack, and perhaps they were hoping that another sect would be stupid enough to piss the Wens off enough to get horribly murdered and then allow all the sects to unify in the sunshot campaign. i.e. if instead the Jins/Lans got attacked, the Jiangs would come out of the whole situation much better off, the way the Jins did in canon.

[x_los]

Hasn't LWJ already taken a severe hit to the arms/fingers by then though? There's a lot of blood on his white outfit and fingers, and the fight has gone on for some time, so idk what his qi is doing/what they think it's doing, the way he's lying down, idk if he would be able to like--swoop and catch WWX before the ground/volcano?? got him.

I mean at that point it's hot potato and they know they're the smallest great sect. Lan and Nie have already been raided in CQL at least (and without particularly pissing off the Wen so far as we know), so like, the only defence Jin has is size and money. If Lan and Nie have already been taken over/made puppet supervisory offices, like, what did Jiang think was coming? Was this really their max-preparation war footing?

[cats_eyes]

By the time the Wens came to Lotus Pier, the Yao sect had already been destroyed (I think the three people who came to LP were the only ones left?) and I'm pretty sure it was mentioned that a few other smaller sects were attacked, so if they were waiting to band together over the destruction of a sect it apparently had to be a great sect. The Nie and the Lan sects had already been attacked, and the Jin were closely allied to the Wen, so they were less likely to be targeted. I'm pretty sure the Jiang sect was the only great sect left *to* be attacked.

[x_los]

I don't think we textually know the Jin and the Wen are close? But that's a good point re the Yao.

[solo]

During the indoctrination chez Wen, Mianmian points out that the Wens and Jins have always had a good relationship, and Wen Chao echoes it when he decides not to punish Jin Zixuan for holding on to his sword.

[x_los]

Good points I did not remember!

[allycat796]

I don't have much to add re: Jiang Cheng at the cliff except that I definitely don't think the sadistic choice he forced wwx into was deliberate. Imo a strategy like that would require a level of empathy and planning ability that Jiang Cheng isn't capable of when he's dealing with fresh grief, so I tend to read him as just flailing around hoping something ends in wwx's death without him having to do it directly. I don't really blame him for this; from his pov it does seem like wwx has flown off the handle for no real reason, but I do think it'd be a difficult thing for both him and wwx to work through if they ever tried to reconcile. Or, if wwx didn't have any difficulty with it that would make me concerned for him, and if jc didn't have any difficulty with it I would think they're just better off apart, because yikes.

Just Jiang Cheng's lashing out during difficult situations in general is something I would hope they'd work on, actually. Like, I don't think it's just how he shows his love or whatever, given how often he does it when he's really angry at wwx, and even if it is I did not get the impression that wwx gets that, or likes to be shown love that way. I don't think it's on wwx to get better at reading love into things he finds hurtful, so that means Jiang Cheng needs to find a different way of communicating.

I actually wrote a whole thing re: wwx and his culpability for the Lotus Pier attack but then deleted, because I'm always sort of worried, like, am I defense lawyering too hard for this character? Am I blinded by the fact that he is my fave? And this debate really, really brings out the wwx defense lawyer in me. But I do agree with you; I was legitimately blindsided the first time I saw serious takes claiming this was wwx's fault.

[x_los]

Yeah, I also think--it's not a conscious huge plan to make this worse, so much as 'I don't wanna be the one to do it, but I want him DEAD, gege do it for me!'

In general, I'd like to see fandom like--expect anything of Jiang Cheng, rather than just saying Oh But His Personality, like that's immutable law? It's weirdly coupled with 'WWX should appologise' (For WHAT, exactly? We're all sorry Yanli's dead, sure, and he can feel and say it, but in part that was Yanli's call).

Yeah I don't even get it you'd think the 'attacking a small child with a kite' would like, tip you off that they are crazy??

[allycat796]

Ha, yeah, I actually brought up the kite thing in the bit I deleted, but that's the main thing that established the Wens in my mind as people who were willing to really reach for "justifications" for things they were going to do anyway.

[x_los]

The kite thing is interesting to me because it's so wildly, stupidly unnecessary. You're here to conquer, just say it? It's extra infuriating in the post-truth batshittiness of it, and it's a moment where CQL feels weirdly in conversation with the manifest absurdity of the contemporary politics it can't help speaking to.

[solo]

Imo a strategy like that would require a level of empathy and planning ability that Jiang Cheng isn't capable of when he's dealing with fresh grief,

I completely agree.

I tend to read him as just flailing around hoping something ends in wwx's death without him having to do it directly.

I'm not even sure of that. He goes there with the intention of killing him, but I also think he stops himself because deep down... he just doesn't want him dead.

[x_los]

Yeah, even I think it's Also True that whatever Jiang Cheng is doing, strangling him, rock hitting, etc., he also pulls back/doesn't really want him dead/is cut through with ambivalence (as in a deep division, not apathy, as the term is sometimes misused).

[solo]

ambivalence (as in a deep division, not apathy, as the term is sometimes misused).

It is? I can just say I'm lucky enough not to have come across that. :)

[x_los]

So much so that there is a scene (0:56) in "Girl, Interrupted" about how it's misused: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvNA2JkMfSI

[allycat796]

Jing Cheng comes off to me as generally conflicted enough I can buy that he really, genuinely wanted wwx dead and really, genuinely didn't want wwx dead at the exact same time, honestly. I think my tentative read on him at the cliff is that he thought he wanted/should want wwx dead enough that it didn't make that much of a functional difference how he felt deep down? Like it made it so he couldn't just stab wwx but it didn't change what he was trying to get out of that interaction. His face as he walks away after wwx falls strikes me as more like the grim satisfaction of someone who's just successfully completed an unpleasant task than the distress I'd expect from someone who 100% didn't want the guy dead (which lwj is helpfully displaying right next to him). And then I figure the "oh god oh fuck this is not what I wanted, yes it is, no it's not" came a little later. But that's just what I find most compelling, and I think any argument that relies on reading facial expressions is kind of subjective anyway so I definitely don't think that's the only valid interpretation.

[cats_eyes]

I was discussing the rock stabbing scene with someone else, and I'd wondered if he'd stabbed the rock as a way to try to get Lan Wangji to let go (mostly because of Jiang Cheng's habit of going for the cruelest option possible, and having the *one* person trying to save Wei Wuxian be the one responsible for his death seemed... pretty close to that). But yeah, Jiang Cheng's face as he's backing away from the cliff didn't seem horrified, it seemed resolute.

It's honestly kind of enraging that Madam Yu blamed Wei Wuxian for the attack, considering that there was a point where Wang Lingjiao would've been satisfied just turning the sect into a supervisory office - *Madam Yu* was the one who escalated things by attacking Wang Lingjiao and calling her a social climbing whore. (Although to be fair, Wang Lingjiao was probably also looking for an excuse to escalate things)

(Editing again because I forgot to mention this part: The Wens had *just* taken a child into custody because he shot down a kite that kinda sorta maybe-if-you-squinted resembled the sun, and that meant that this twelve year old was conspiring against the Wen sect. Their reasoning isn't exactly the most credible!)

The fact that Jiang Cheng keeps blaming Wei Wuxian whenever he wants to win an argument is honestly the biggest reason I think that Wei Wuxian should maybe cut ties with him. It's almost *worse* if Jiang Cheng doesn't really believe it? Like, if he's willing to say the cruelest thing possible, regardless of whether or not he believes it, and he's not willing to try to change that about himself at all, why should Wei Wuxian have to put up with that just because 'that's how Jiang Cheng expresses his love!' Frankly, Wei Wuxian deserves better than that.

[x_los]

Yeah at that point Madam Yu realised that the price to pay for appeasement was too high and meant slightly slower death, I think/strangulation, and was like, well we have to TRY to make a stand, then. And she's not really wrong about that, it's a calculated choice.

Exactly, 'that was a provocation!!'. Er, okay.

I think for fic where we honestly work through shit with Jiang Cheng, it's like, important to hold 'not fucking with him anymore' as an *option* for WWX. Like, he doesn't have the self-love to reliably make that call, but maybe post-canon he could find that self-preservation? I don't even think necessarily that's The Best Answer to their relationship, just that it sort of has to be An Option, so that choosing not to do so is an active choice and puts them on an equal footing, rather than a weird one-sided assumption of fault.

[cats_eyes]

That's a good point about the slower death thing. I was thinking in terms of fending off the Wens temporarily so they could live to fight another day, but that probably wouldn't have been guaranteed and I'm not sure that Madam Yu is built for that.

I'd also really like for fic where Jiang Cheng goes too far and someone steps in and like. Makes him leave? And for Wei Wuxian to eventually get to the point where he can draw his boundaries himself against Jiang Cheng. Because I don't really trust Wei Wuxian to be able to do that at the end of canon, and I sure as hell don't trust Jiang Cheng to stop himself/apologize if he crosses a line.

(I'd also like more fic where Sizhui straight up Does Not Like Jiang Cheng. I think it's surprisingly rare for that to happen in fic and it just feels *way* more likely to me than him accepting Jiang Cheng as an uncle)

[solo]

I'm with your partner on Jiang Cheng not deliberately stabbling the cliff to shake anything loose up there. In fact I'm going to be even more obstructive and say that that little chip also did not presage in anyone's mind that the entire cliff might collapse.

My personal reading: Wei Wuxian wanted Lan Zhan to let go of him. Then he hoped Jiang Cheng would kill him. When none of that was going to happen, he used Lan Zhan's distraction to tear himself free. He was done, quite simply.

I totally agree with you though regarding Jiang Cheng's 'ambivalence at important moments'. I just don't see the consequence here the way you do.

As for Lotus Pier, of course that wasn't Wei Wuxian's fault. The Wens had already been to the Lans and the Nies, the Jiangs were the only main sect left that wasn't Jin. I kind of understood Jiang Cheng parroting his mother the night of the fall - she'd accused Wei Wuxian of it just that morning, Jiang Cheng is traumatized, he has to lash out at someone. What I find deeply puzzling (read: fucking annoying) is that he keeps bringing it back, even as far down the road as the Guanyin Temple, where I just want to ask him whether he lost his brain cell along with his core back then.

[x_los]

I would agree with you on WWX's motivation at that point. Regardless of what Jiang Cheng does, that's WWX's position in the moment. Like he's already made Attempt One, and LWJ's effort is Nice but not an offer I think he seriously considers taking him up on.

Yeah at that point I wonder whether:

1. It's become emotionally true for him somehow, despite being nonsensical and not seeming emotionally true to him for the bulk of the Sunshot Campaign and the immediate aftermath, or
2. The narrative thinks there would be a more elegant balance of culpability and elements if it were true, and so is sort of pretending it is/saying it several times to make it stick?

[solo]

Hm, I'd pick door 1, and not just because I tend to prefer the Watsonian approach. I could completely see how Jiang Cheng with his love/hate for his brother and posssibly survivor's guilt and also, ignorance about why things fell apart so dramatically... how he'd latch on to a thing that gives him a 'solid reason' for hating Wei Wuxian, rather than the much less tangible 'you drifted away from me and I don't know why and then you protected other people' which is clearly what hurts him most deeply.

[x_los]

That kind of Emotionally True thing also works for his response to Wen Qing and Wen Ning, who he really can't reasonably blame for passive complicity when they did The Most to help the Jiang survivors, even without JWY's knowing about the core (and yet he does kind of seem to, but right after the massacre and even to an extent later on, in his treatment of Wen Ning before and after Zixuan's death--though you could say it's response to an abomination and then to Zixuan's death).

It's interesting because after the war, a LOT of people must be packing trauma and processing it in different ways. JWY must *see* people becoming withdrawn and turning to drink. But he doesn't seem to consider it possible WWX is just responding in that way, now that the adrenaline rush of the campaign itself is over, and isn't able to be a big, active help to him at present?

[solo]

Oh, don't get me started on Jiang Cheng and the Wens. But yeah, I guess he's made himself a convenient narrative there, too, so he could bow to the pressure of the other clans (I see how he wasn't in a good position if he wanted to defend them) and still feel righteous. But that he would seriously argue with Wei Wuxian that they should be handed over...

(I am much, much more lenient on Jiang Cheng than I used to be but oh boy...)

Point, with the trauma and stuff, that could have occurred to him. But in fairness, I can also see how that might not have occurred to him, given how Wei Wuxian himself likes to give the impression that he's essentialy invulnerable. People fall for that all the time.

[rosadina]

This is going to sound really dumb but I think fandom is so willing to forgive Jiang Chen because he superficially seems to fit so neatly into the jerk with a heart of gold/tsundere, it's not like i like you or anything baka!, archetype. I think this is why fandom tries to do a "JC was right and did the best he could for WWX!" type of rationale because for the jerk with a heart/tsundere archetype to work, the character's exterior anger has to hide interior caring. The problem is that JC was not given the actions of this "ally to the MC" archetype, he was written as the novel's secondary antagonist.

The way I see it is that fandom is used to having an "angry character" that is actually not angry at all. Lots of bark, no bite. The classic tsundere's angry exterior is just a cover for their embarrassment at acting sweetly and protectively towards the people they love. Here, on the surface, JC "acts" like most common depictions of tsundere (anger hiding embarrassment over loving WWX) but his in text actions are only protective of WWX when it won't cost him much. Clearly JC loves WWX but his love is conditional on WWX acting in a way that JC deems societally appropriate and whenever he is called, by the narrative, to stand with WWX, he fails to.

I don't think it's intentional but I think that fandom is viewing the JC-WWX relationship through character archetypes we are used to. We are used to the MC having relationships with jerks with hearts of gold. We are not used to MC's having relationships with people that love them but not enough to ever put themselves at risk. For lack of having that framework, fandom instead tries to fit JC into pre-existing frameworks that are much kinder to JC than his actions would merit.

[x_los]

And he doesn't just fail to, he's not like--weighing the costs, finding he can't support WWX and Jiang, choosing his loyalty and sorry about it? Bc I *could* understand that.

I do really see your point about archetypes.