So a lot (MOST) of these were kinda spoiler-y so have been hidden below as usual
Spoilers past Ep.2 below
I was able to predict a heap of stuff but DID NOT get that LWJ recognised WWX because of their song until it was spelled out in front of me (like the moment WWX was like so I get it now) so I hid it like my shame for not realising sooner
Most will be in chronological order (in the episode) but also who knows please enjoy rewatching without actually watching because I have no chill and meme it all
There’s something deeply wrong with mdzs fandom lately
I have the impression that many of you are losing the deep meaning of mdzs (and, yes, cql) in order to follow wholesome headcanons and fanon conceptions of characters.
Let me explain.
There’s a reason for all this hate against Wei Wuxian, wangxian, even the concept of “yep they’re all equally flawed” or “Wei Wuxian is morally grey” (and i would appreciated it if it was true, but it simply isn’t). The reason is to depict Jiang Cheng as a better person, belittling his mistakes or, at least, placing him (morally) on the same level of Wei Wuxian, through the protagonist bashing or wrong interpretations of his character.
It’s not that I hate Jiang Cheng so much I couldn’t stand a wholesome headcanon in which he’s a cute tsundere protective brother. I could *write* an entire Fanfiction in which he’s the best friend of Wei Wuxian, a supportive brother and so on. I don’t need you to point out, every two minutes, that the canon is different and Jiang Cheng would not behave like this in the novel.
the problem is: maybe, some of *you* need a reality check. Because when you write metas based on a completely errate vision of a cute, supportive, tsundere Jiang Cheng, when you talk about your headcanon like it was just canon “behind the scenes”, when, suddenly, people has to EXPLAIN that Wei Wuxian was morally right all along and the cultivation wold is corrupted (which is the meaning of the novel) like it was a hot take, when, also suddenly, you become the bad guy because you answer those delusions about Jiang Cheng pointing out the FACTS… Like it was morally wrong of you to talk about canon Jiang Cheng, well. There’s a problem.
I repeat. I don’t mind headcanons that are treated like headcanons.
I don’t mind even some critical view on the novel, or canon complaint. A sane “I’m sorry mxtx, I know that your values are these, but I have some other values and I think…” Which at least TAKE IN ACCOUNT what the writer want and this is positive.
What bothers me is that: lately, many of you don’t talk about actual mdzs, or even the drama. You talk about some other thing, a thing in which Wei Wuxian is morally grey (or a shit) and in which Jiang Cheng is a tsundere character. Even wangxian shippers, who are not Wei Wuxian haters, depict Jiang Cheng like he was well intentioned. And they act all offended when you say: no.
No, Jiang Cheng was not willing to help Wei Wuxian with the Wen remnants at all, it’s not like he had no money or something like that. He tried to kill Wen Ning. He led the siege against burial mounds.
No, the thing about Jiang Cheng torturing random people is not a rumor. He tortured Mo Xuanyu even if Zidian proved he was not Wei Wuxian. Jin Ling freed Mo Xuanyu because he knew that his uncle did to that people.
No, Jiang Cheng didn’t hug Jin Ling when no one was watching. Because it would have been ooc, and because it doesn’t make sense to Jin Ling character. Jin Ling struggles because he has no family figure to help him grew emotionally.
No, Lan Qiren would not like Jiang Cheng, they would not get along well just in name of their mutual hate for Wei Wuxian. Maybe Jiang Cheng stans are not ready to hear this, but there are things called values, that Lan Qiren has and of which Jiang Cheng lacks. Lan Qiren maybe cannot exactly love Wei Wuxian, but, for his righteousness, he would totally like him better than Jiang Cheng. Jiang Cheng doesn’t incarnate at all Lan Qiren’s values. Not all people are toxic and comfortable in bonding on the basis of hatred for someone else. Some people have moral standards.
These are all cold takes I actually read about mdzs world. And they’re really an absurdity, and the fact that you can’t even answer back with facts, like it was rude or something… These people even answer with other even more delusional and stupid headcanons, shitting on the novel like the metaphorical pigeon on the chessboard.
Maybe some of you brag about being woke, cultural relativity, open minded, social justice or something. Yet here you are, disrespecting an author and the values of her people, because (I repeat, I think it’s important because some of you can’t read properly) the fact it’s not that you’re CRITICAL of her thinking, which is a honest confrontation between two people (or two cultures). You’re not even acknowledging her values and her culture, you appropriate her work. You’re awful people and it’s not a surprise that you stan an awful person.
I think a non-negligible amount of fandom misunderstandings stem from the misconception that demonic cultivation is Good And Fine, Actually and everyone is just scared of innovation or something
like it definitely is bad, both morally and physically for the practitioner (though some fanfic writers have found really clever ways for WWX to use it to help the dead! but that’s very much not what he’s doing in 99% of canon)
okay i did not realise this was fandom specific at first and was like. the cause of fandom misunderstandings is WHAT-
didn’t you know, all fandom misunderstandings are due to using dead people for nefarious purposes
Gideon the Ninth fandom, please come to the white courtesy phone.
I have previously looked into this discussion, because it really interested me! so I have meta to add to this, and
first of all “is demonic cultivation inherently harmful” actually depends on which adaptation you’re talking about.
CQL and the donghua both indicate that demonic cultivation is indeed harming WWX’s temperament and body, CQL much more so than the donghua.
the novel indicates that WWX’s cultivation does not in fact harm him. not unless he reaches very far very fast, which would be true of any sort of cultivation or practice, much less one WWX pretty much just invented.
(WWX also actually never calls it demonic, himself! whenever it’s named within the novel it’s called the “Ghost Path” gui dao rather than “demonic” mo dao)
the only times we see WWX’s cultivation go out of his control are:
- the death of JZX, where WWX was under attack from all sides and on a hair trigger, very specifically told JZX to stay the fuck away from him, and then had JZX lunge at him
- the death of JYL, during which the situation was even worse, except WWX was now controlling an army of the dead instead of focusing on just WN
- WWX’s own death, which he tells WN was due to “backlash”
all other changes to WWX’s attitude, actions or behavior are pretty natural and expected given what he’s been going through. they can be variously attributed to the trauma of the situations he’s lived through (the massacre of Lotus Pier, the whole damn war, the secret surgery, his following lack of a golden core and the actions he took to hide this), and environment (the pressure he was under, the way other people were treating him, etc).
that’s why once WWX has been given his second life he goes right back to unorthodox cultivation, with no apparent drawbacks. his cultivation was never what hurt him in the first place. the problem was everything else
the thing with all this is that MDZS the novel is a deconstruction of its genre. “demonic cultivation harms the body and the mind” is a genre convention. so the Chinese readers go into it with the expectation that, yes, demonic cultivation did drive WWX to depravity and madness in his first life, and then the novel gradually reveals that he was good and righteous all along, and his cultivation was fine, actually.
the twist is that he’s telling the truth when he says he knows what he’s doing.
so why did CQL and the donghua change this to any extent? basically, censorship, and rewriting the story to be more mainstream so it’d be more widely acceptable!
Exactly!It’s not actually demonic cultivation in the novel. It is called that only a few times, including in the title, but mostly is called “guidao” or ghost cultivation as moonbelowsea notes. This is key to how it subverts the common and even popular tropes.
MDZS is based on subverting a ton of popular tropes for xianxia and danmei web novels. And Wei Wuxian as the main character is the centre of a lot of subversions.
Wei Wuxian is not some sad angsty boy pushed into practicing demonic cultivation because of trauma and dark backstory reasons; he invents ghost cultivation to survive a dangerous situation and, secretly, because he gave up his golden core as a selfless sacrifice for the sake of his childhood friend and the future of the sect he owes as a disciple as debt of honour towards.
Neither is he an ex-villain; the backstory instead reveals Wei Wuxian is an optimistic hero and does the best he can in a corrupt and classist society, trying within the limits he is given to make the correct moral choices.
He is not the top; his character archetype is usually the top and he is happily canonically the bottom in the novel (with MXTX even making multiple comments in the notes early on, stressing that WWX is not the top but the bottom character in the relationship). To see how this subverts common dynamics, all you got to do is look at the other novels by MXTX; BingQiu and HuaLian follow the more common dynamics for danmei romances compared to WangXian.
His rebirth isn’t a second chance in a “clean body”; instead it’s the culmination of his good karma from his first allowing him to have a second chance to have his happily ever after with his husband.
MDZS is about the subversion of common tropes and character archetypes. Deconstruction too but mainly subversion.
As a result “demonic cultivation” isn’t that but “ghost cultivation” and not harmful to Wei Wuxian or anyone more than normal cultivation; which, per xianxia tradition, can be harmful to others and the users too!
You can see normal cultivation being put to evil within MDZS even with the Collection of Turmoil and how Jin Guangyao makes use of it; assassinating someone certainly is not a “good” way to make use of cultivation, same as how Xue Yang makes horrible use out of ghost cultivation compared to what Wei Wuxian does after the Sunshot Campaign (because in war he did do some horrible things but certainly not more horrible than the genre allows for war to be awful; there’s no Geneva Convention in xianxia fantasy China).
The existence of “ghost cultivation” ties into how Wei Wuxian is a purely heroic character within the narrative of MDZS and is in fact key to how the narrative tells the theme of how reality often is compared to legends, rumours, and gossip. In other words, you can’t just take the tropes at face value within the novel MDZS; the point lies in the subversion, deconstruction, and reconstruction of many many popular tropes.
