Jin Zixuan Meta

[x_los]

 CW: mention of shit Jin Guangshan gets up to.

MDZS says Jin Zixuan had the hardest time at Wen indoctrination of all the young people, because he'd been so coddled by his parents. Translation renders that statement’s meaning somewhat ambiguous: was Zixuan personally indulged, or simply rich? I don’t know that CQL’s Jin Zixuan comes off as coddled, per se. Arguably, he was sheltered (but only arguably). Zixuan’s mother is interested in his well-being as a person, at least where Yanli is concerned, and she seems to mourn him deeply. But is his father particularly interested in Zixuan, other than as an heir? Even directly after Jin Zixuan’s death, we don’t see Jin Guangshan personally discomfited. 

Snooty and awkward, CQL Jin Zixuan’s only actual friend seems to be Mianmian. Does he perhaps think everyone else around him is ‘fake’, a la Holden Caulfield, and only interested in his influence and money? Perhaps the is a reasonable conclusion for someone raised in Koi Tower to come to. When Jiang Yanli makes him soup, Zixuan immediately concludes that the whole thing is a ploy. Someone with a drop of real self-esteem might arrive at the simpler and more flattering notion that a girl likes him. Zixuan’s suspicion is especially odd because while Jiang is discomfited when the event happens, Yanli is the sole daughter of another great sect. She has no real reason to aspire to Jin Zixuan’s station. Additionally, Yanli is not especially personally ambitious: the material advantages that have rendered Jin Zixuan officially more eligible even than her brothers are of limited interest to her. 

Jin Zixuan disdains Jiang Yanli for being relatively plain, and not a particularly strong cultivator. But what would he even do with a strong cultivator? If he’s concerned about his potential heirs being talented enough to hold Jin, Yanli comes of excellent stock. If Jin Zixuan is simply looking for a girl who can keep up with him on night-hunts, that seems uncharacteristic of his parents’ marriage. His father seems disinterested in active, interventionist cultivation. Zixuan doesn’t seem particularly driven in that capacity himself. (He’s hardly Wei Wuxian, whose Tindr profile is actually just for night hunting buddies. You swipe right on Wei Wuxian thinking you're going to cottage, but the cottage is haunted. You meet him in the moonlit woods and he’s like, “YEAH BOIII, I HOPE YOU BROUGHT UR SWORDDDD!!”. He is just fucking lucky Lan Wangji understood the assignment.) 

I wonder whether, when they’re in the same room at the Cloud Recesses for the presentation of the sects’ gifts, Jin Zixuan even knows who Meng Yao is? Other disciples gossip about Meng Yao parentage, but does Jin, given that it’s their own scandal (however accustomed to such things Jin Guangshan has rendered them)? Further, does Zixuan have any idea about Qin Su or Mo Xuanyu? Having lived in Koi Tower during the relevant period, he’s in a better position to have seen or heard about his father’s affairs than most. Mo Xuanyu’s conception must have occurred roughly when Jin Zixuan was getting married and his wife was having a baby. I believe Xuanyu is older than sixteen when he offers Wei Wuxian his body. He was youngish when expelled from Koi Tower, but didn’t immediately turn to demonic cultivation: he was abused for a few years in Mo Manor before making that choice.

 

If I follow up Praying for Cleverness, I want Zixuan to know about Qin Su. The rape that occasioned her conception happened after a public banquet young Zixuan may well have been at, and he can hear, see and count. His knowing something of that nature is honestly as likely as not. The reveal scene makes it seem as though no one was previously aware of Qin Su’s real parentage. Perhaps no one has put it all together, but servants exist, see things, and manage the clean-up for messes like these. Some of them were probably also subjected to Jin Guangshan’s advances, and some of them may well also be his bastards, born into service. 

 

Jin Guangshan’s macho image is undercut by his evident failure to make any significant male friends. Despite all his wealth, power, and the toadying he seems to encourage in and expect from, for example, Guangyao, Guangshan has so few friends that we see him bragging to random sex workers about how he was terrible to Guangyao’s mother, a woman in their own position. That is not a conversational topic to pursue with these sex workers? Guangshan really should be able to muster up some form of male stooge to complain about bitches with. Perhaps he is where Zixuan gets his much more benign form of awkwardness from. Zixuan’s mother is chiefly characterised by her affection for Zixuan, for Yanli, and her deep, decades-long friendship with Yu Ziyuan. 

Comments

[cats_eyes]

I think it's possible that Jin Zixuan subconsciously based his 'type' off of Mianmian. I don't think that he really has romantic feelings for her, but given that she's both his closest friend and likely the only girl his age that he interacts with regularly, she might be the best person he could use as a guide for what he wants in a partner.

Meng Yao went to Koi Tower to try to be recognized by Jin Guangshan before he started working for the Nies, didn't he? Or was that after Nie Mingjue cast him out? If it was before, then I'm sure Jin Zixuan knew who he was - I can't imagine that they would've been able to keep his visit a secret, given that he uh. Got thrown down the stairs.

God, being able to figure out which women your father assaulted would be the *worst* super power.

Honestly watching Jin Guangshan interact with men his own age who are on equal footing with him is kind of awkward? That conversation that he has with Jiang Fengmian and Lan Qiren where they break Zixuan/Yanli's engagement he seemed a little outclassed. And then he wasn't even included in the meeting about the Yin iron despite being a sect leader. Presumably he was friends with Wen Ruohan before he went downhill, but that doesn't really say a lot about his interpersonal relationship skills given that Wen Ruohan didn't seem capable of it either. I know a lot of people consider him shrewd given how he manipulated the other sects after Sunshot, but I'm really starting to think that he just got *extremely* lucky that none of the other sect leaders were experienced enough to realize how awkward he was.

[x_los]

Yeah, like Jiang Wanyin's 'requirements' are for a girl to be Yanli, when I'm not sure he actually wants to marry someone much like Yanli?

In CQL Koi Towers happens first, I'm not sure about MDZS. And like yeah, it was a scene, but I guess how many scenes does Jin Guangshan make, and do people always know why? Like if once a week a servant is sent flying for 'fucking up'/there are a hundred cover ups for women Guangshan's fucked, do people know or bother to know this one? Or was Jin told this kid had said something else unreasonable or insulting?

The fact that Fengmian and Qiren go off to have a serious conversation without him is pretty telling, I think, regarding their lack of trust in or closeness to him. For real, serious, delicate business, they don't involve him, and they're right not to, because of how limited his willingness to help (even in his own long-term interests! even after his son was a foster-hostage!) proves in the Sunshot crisis. Just politically as well as personally, Fengmian is right to use the window Wei Wuxian's minor spat provides to sliiiiiide Jiang Yanli out of this arrangement. Marrying her off to Nie or Lan, if she's going to be married off, seems a safer political and personal bet at this juncture. I don't think of Guangshan as shrewd, just provided with a firmer footing than the other clans that he never compromises by taking any risks at all. Guangyao does some work, but what does Guangshan ever manage? He just lets 'already murdered a sect leader and pissed off Nie' into the chambers of power and expects good shit to come of that.

[solo]

True, I had never realized he's essentially describing his sister. :)

And you know, I used to think that what he really needs is someone like Wen Qing. Only he was wayyyyy too immature for Wen Qing back during the days of puppy love, and, well. Too late now.

But maybe a Yanli type... would even work better because he'd try to be his best ever self for her jsut from adoring her so much, while a Wen Qing type would be a great partner to have, down to earth and no-nonsense and all that, but maybe he'd feel threatened by her. Oh dear.

Such a fragile soul.

[cats_eyes]

I think Meng Yao went to Koi Tower during a celebration for Zixuan's birthday, so on top of the 'how dare he think he'd be treated like a *real* son' outrage, I'm sure Madam Jin would've been insulted enough to complain about it where Zixuan could hear. Plus there could've been guests from other sects who *definitely* would've talked about it.

I mean to be fair to Jin Guangshan things were going *great* for him for a while - he just thought they were going great because of HIM, not because he had a highly competent son with few limits who was desperate for his approval. (And then he wasn't even smart enough to keep dangling his approval when he had the chance to insult Jin Guangyao.)

[x_los]

Yeah, I don't know how PUBLIC that celebration was and whether people were around to mark Meng Yao's inglorious dismissal, but it seems quite possible that it was a very blatant affair.

[solo]

I could totally buy that having been brought up at Koi Tower, Jin Zixuan basically distrusts anyone. It's such a highly politicised, scheming kind of place. And yes, I think as you say, this affects his judgement of well-meaning people, too. He's not giving anyone the benefit of the doubt, and that has to be a learned thing. (I wonder what Mianmian did to earn his trust. Maybe she was his friend before he was aware enough of all this stuff.)

I never got the impression that he knew anything of his siblings, and I could even imagine that his mother might actively have tried to protect him from that. It's one thing for her to know what her husband gets up to, but she wouldn't want her son to know.

Mo Xuanyu’s conception must have occurred roughly when Jin Zixuan was getting married and his wife was having a baby.

Yes, and here, I could understand if he was simply very distracted.

I read him as someone who does not actually relish the environment he lives in, though thinking about it now, I have no idea why I think that. Well, okay, yeah, because he doesn't make any friends in it. In that way, he's almost as lonely at Koi Tower as Lan Wangjhi is at the Cloud Recesses, if for different reasons. And he's be avoiding his asshole cousin.

The rape that occasioned her conception happened after a public banquet young Zixuan may well have been at, and he can hear, see and count. His knowing something of that nature is honestly as likely as not.

I don't want to argue with that as such, but if you're (a) young, (b) friendless, (c) not comforable around others, it's very easy to miss gossip.

What I find remarkable about Jin Zixuan is that despite his upbringing, he is actually a very genuine guy, and a very good guy, from start to end. We just don't notice because our opinions are shaped by Wei Wuxian, his resentment of arranged marriage, and then his shyness around Jiang Yanli.

[x_los]

That's a point, re: 'is he in on the gossip networks', and I also really see his mother protecting him from embarrassing information, or potentially his not necessarily knowing whether to believe rumours about his dad.

I feel like Zixuan, from the inn scene to the proper crediting of the servant girl who makes the soup, feels like things should be done Just So, as it says on the instructions. Like there's protocol to do things correctly, in a way that befits his station, and he's going to execute it (to feel in control, or to avoid uncertainty and awkwardness). The two times he doesn't quite do that, though, are:

1. Taking rooms Jiang had already claimed for his entourage, and
2. talking a bit out of turn about Yanli at Cloud Recesses, which is not proper regarding any girl, and especially so if you're engaged to the girl in question.

I could see him sort of defending both choices on those grounds, though.

[solo]

1. Taking rooms Jiang had already claimed for his entourage

Well no. Jin had booked the rooms. Mianmian decided she could give two rooms away to the Jiangs. Then Jin Zixuan arrived with a far too big entourage and did actually need all the rooms. The entourage is ridic but the rooms were already booked by him, so he was technically in the right.

Agreed about 2), but that was while he was still sulking about the arranged marriage thing. Which is probably unfilial and I'm disrespecting the cultural context, so yeah, he should maybe not have done that.

[x_los]

Yeah, I can see him being a stickler about 1 rather than getting his entourage to budge up and share, even if it does concern a lady.

[x_los]

By the way, I really wish we had what older fandoms did: script transcripts that I could double-check. I guess the way around that is to just start writing out the subs, but that seems--there must be a better way.

[douqi]

Last I checked, it's possible to download subtitles from YouTube, unless the episodes are hard-subbed, which I don't think it's the case for CQL. Could be a starting point?

[x_los]

Oh HUH, I'll have a poke around and see! That'd be so fucking useful, honestly.

[solo]

Yes, true, even though he was in the 'right' he could have been generous and he chose not to be. I wonder, did he fear it would be construed as weakness? (You do not want to be weak at Jinlintai.)

[solo]

Fair point.

[ann712]

I think I assumed he was brought up by his mother and separate from his father and his awful behaviour (though he would know about it by rumour which is easier to ignore than something you've personally witnessed) I kind of think of there being two separate households and him not seeing his dad much who leaves all the child rearing to his wife and lives apart from his family in his own quarters. I do wonder if Ji’s distaste for an arranged marriage stems from witnessing his mother’s unhappiness at her treatment by his father and a notion that marrying for love is the way to avoid such a disastrous uniion.

[x_los]

Yeah especially as his parents' marriage was probably similarly arranged?

[ann712]

In some ways Jin’s upbringing has always seemed to me to have to have been like that of the Lans, though the lessons he’d be taught would be pride in your sect, know your own worth (weighed in gold), dignity, entitlement. His contact with his parents would be strictly controlled. But just as Lan Wangi’s rebellion is born out of his relationship with his mother and his conflicted sense that the rules he was taught had actually damaged her and crushed her spirit - so Madame Jin’s predicament must have seared itself into his soul. Perhaps Jiang Yanli reminds him too much of his mother whom he loves but has also been taught to despise. That there is an underlying, partly loving reason for his rejection of her ( she’s not right for this life style, she lacks the grandeur the position demands (making soup like a servant for Gods sake) - it will make her unhappy - I will make her unhappy ). Just as Wei Ying reminds Wangi of his mother whom he loves but has been brought up to think of as a dangerous murderess who needs restraining (I am attracted to his free spirit but unless he curbs it he will commit dangerous excesses). So much of what they are is the conflict between what they have been taught about them and what their experience of their mothers has actually been like, and having to decide which is the truth.

[douqi]

I've tended to read the Jin Zixuan-Mianmian relationship as being similar to that of Baoyu and his handmaids in Dream of the Red Chamber, or Murong Fu and his two handmaids in Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils. Especially during the early scenes at the inn outside Cloud Recesses, when she's making arrangements for the Jin entourage, etc. I'm curious that this is a reading I've never seen come up in discussions. Of course, I'm CQL-only and don't do MDZS, so there may be something I'm missing.

[x_los]

I bet it's just lack of familiarity, even though they're such major texts even I'm aware of them (though I haven't read them, I was sort of hoping to eventually get a book club going).

[douqi]

There are lots of film adaptations as well, which might be an easier way in. The longest (735-minute) and most iconic one features mainly Chinese opera performers and does cross-casting for Jia Baoyu's role. I'll see if I can find an English-subtitled version.

[libitina]

I love this analysis. He's definitely a character that it took until the second viewing for me to accept that he'd actually changed and grown. I love how you take him apart.

I want so much more story for Madam Jin, and we don't know nearly enough about her.

[x_los]

Yeah I could believe a LOT about her and Madam Yu and what Meishan is up to. They seem totally absent in Sunshot?

[kiezh]

I think the other piece of characterization that we get for Madame Jin is that she's very into status and people staying in their place, and very hostile to people acting like they have higher status than (she thinks) they should.

Her attitude toward WWX is that he's an unsavory connection Jiang Yanli should drop, an improper person to be alone with, beneath proper ladies like themselves. And of course she loathes Jin Guangyao, which is partly misplaced rage about her husband cheating on her, but I think is also outrage that he (a bastard and son of a commoner) presumes to be one of the gentry. I forget, is that more explicit in the novel, that she hates him? It's all a blur to me now, and I can't remember any scenes of hers in the show except the one where she tells JYL it's inappropriate to be around WWX.

This status-obsession meshes well with her friendship with Madame Yu and her desire for JYL as a daughter-in-law; Madame Yu was also very into status and putting people in their place, and Jiang Yanli is the highest-ranking girl Jin Zixuan could possibly marry (and guaranteed not to be his sister).

I think Jin Zixuan was raised to think like that, and to treat basically everyone except his parents as rightfully below him; possibly that got cracked open by some combo of experiences during the war and a new awareness of Jiang Yanli's kindness and sweetness as a desirable and laudable thing. In the show there's also Mianmian, who was very firmly beneath him in status but also clearly the moral superior of basically every other cultivator in LanlingJin, so that might have eroded some of his certainties.

I don't know how much he knew about his father's misdeeds, but I think not much, and no details. He wouldn't have wanted to seek out that sort of information (compare how little he knew about the Wen prisoners, which he actually should have cared about, given that he led the Jin in the war!), and I don't think anyone would have actively told him - in fact his mother and father may have both, for different reasons, penalized anyone who upset him or told him unpleasant truths. (And it's amazing how much violence against women men can be oblivious to. I've known men with much higher moral standards than JZX who mysteriously "never saw" stuff that every woman in their workplace/social group/home knew was happening.)

Sheltered, sort of, but also fed a lot of bullshit about his place in the world and never told the truth by anyone, therefore finding it impossible to recognize sincerity in Jiang Yanli or her brothers. (I think even Mianmian in the show would have been very, VERY careful what she did and didn't say to her lord and master. She wouldn't have survived in the Jin sect if she went around telling truth to power all the time - she only did that when she decided she no longer WANTED a future with LanlingJin.)

[x_los]

This is all really salient, but I also think maybe in part she's status obsessed because she's from a smaller clan, married into the MOST status obsessed clan, and she's constantly disrespected by her husband and is *fighting* to retain her own status and her son's rights like it's a harem drama. Like you do not get that shit in Jiang. Even though NHS's mother was a concubine, the whole atmosphere seems approximately 100 times chiller than Jin. We don't even know whether the Lan think plural marriage/concubinage are real.

Madam Jin *is* harsh with Guangyao I believe in one other scene in the drama? Having trouble remembering the moment, I believe it's at the hunt. But also, he's been tossed out of Nie for treachery, was a back-stabbing spy during the war, and is currently pulling shit in Jin. She's being a snob, but also she's right to think he's slimy: his dad is a slimer, and he's inherited slimer tendencies.

Jin Zixuan's leading the Jin in the war is so interesting because it seems such a tiny contingent, like Zixuan and Friends, but he's definitely very present and personally involved, not even Jiangs Who Hate Him say shit about that. And then his dad and spy-brother sweep in to Manage the aftermath, and Zixuan probably shouldn't defer to his father, but materially, how much can he object? Like the man's trying to broker his marriage in front of the entire surviving cultivation world, seemingly without speaking to him, I don't know if he hears 'no'. I mean he sure doesn't hear it when women say it...

Yeah Mianmian I think gets to the top and is like '...is this all this is? Just this bullshit, forever? And to stay here, I have to keep carving myself out? But more and worse, in relation to my proximity to power? ...you know what I LOVE rogue cultivating, fuck it.'