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hamliet · 5 years

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MXTX Ladies’ Week: Girls, Goddesses, and Ghosts

After writing about Scum Villain’s female cast here and MDZS’s here, it’s time to write about Heaven Official’s Blessing’s female cast... which is actually smaller than the other two in quantity but imo, in quality, is far greater. Most of the women do not die, and several have fantastic arcs. They’re allowed to be kickass, to make their own decisions, to be morally flawed, to be extremely feminine, to be emotional, to be ugly, and to even be villains--and the whole while, the story depicts them with empathy.

So let’s start with the mortals. This is again more a ramble than a direct meta.

The Humans:

Me, skipping happily into TGCF, immediately loving one character, and her dying like ten chapters in:

Yes, I’m talking about Xiao Ying. I also realize I said that most of TGCF’s female characters don’t get killed off, so I’m not leading off with a convincing argument (she is the only one who really does).

Little Ying’s role in the narrative is as a parallel to Xie Lian and a way to introduce the main themes of the story, which her arc encapsulates. A teenage girl who is noted to be physically unattractive, she’s introduced to us praying to Feng Xin for protection. The god who she prays to for protection from whomever is stealing the brides comments cruelly on her appearance, foreshadowing how corrupt heaven is, and Xie Lian quickly realizes that someone has tried to humiliate her already by cutting a hole in the back of her skirt, hinting at the theme of human cruelty and suffering. He is kind to her, and in return, she helps him prepare for his undercover mission to catch the bride thief, showing the the answer to her prayers is through her own work and kindness, and the connections she makes (with Xie Lian in this case).

The reader quickly learns that Little Ying might not be physically beautiful, but she has a beautiful heart, taking care of a scarred ghost who lives in the mountains (Lang Ying). Yet people turn on her and scorn her when she tries to protect Lang Ying, because humanity is often cruel to their own, and an orphan girl who is unattractive is a target. Yet, unlike the rest of the crowd gathered by the house where all the brides have been stolen away to, she wants to help. But her attempts to help, to save everyone, get her killed, and it’s noted that they do not actually help.

Softly, she said, “I feel as though my entire life, there weren’t many days where I lived happy.”

Xie Lian also didn’t know what to say, and gently patted her hand. Little Ying sighed, “Oh well, forget it. I might just be someone……born unlucky.”

This is something that repeats in Xie Lian’s arc as well: he often winds up hurting where he tried to help (as with Jun Wu, too), and sacrificing oneself is looked at, as it is in MDZS, with nuance in TGCF. Little Ying did not need to die. There’s a futility to human suffering in TGCF: it doesn’t bring a purpose, it isn’t glorious, and it doesn’t always make someone a better or worse person. It just is.

Yet it’s also worth noting that the story is asking: when society treats you a certain way because of things you cannot help, such as gender, appearance, and economic status, what power do you have to decide your fate? The answer is what brings comfort to Little Ying in her last minutes: she’s not alone. Xie Lian stays with her as she dies. Little Ying, too, made an effort to make sure others were not alone (Lang Ying). Suffering is unbearable, but if you’re not alone, there is comfort.

The Demons:

Two of the demon ladies are fantastic deconstructions of female character stereotypes: the crazed ex (Xuan Ji) and the evil seductress (Jian Lan).

(remember this meme? it plays into the crazy ex trope too)

Xuan Ji is the scorned woman who murders brides to vent her frustration at the world (and at Pei Ming, the lover who abandoned her). She is Little Ying’s counterpart in the first arc, in that while Little Ying is a Xie Lian parallel, Xuan Ji is a parallel to our main antagonist, Bai WuXiang, in that she’s determined to take out her misfortune on literally everyone around her. But she is in genuine pain, which the novel takes care to note:

Under her long hair, her tears started to fall as she said, “I’ve waited for him for centuries, what important matter does he have? Back then, in order to see me, he would cross half of the border in a single night, so what important matter could he have now? So important that he wouldn’t even be willing to see me once? An important matter? He doesn’t actually have one, right?”

It’s not portraying Pei Ming as a poor sad victim here; on the contrary, his treatment of Xuan Ji is condemned. She betrayed her army for him, and he doesn’t like her because, in many ways, he comes across as a chauvinist (at first. This is later unpacked too, but that’s for another meta).

“General Pei does not like strong-minded women, and Xuan Ji’s natural disposition is strong-willed. This is why they could not stay together for long. General Xuan Ji was unwilling to let go, so she said to General Pei that she was willing make sacrifices and change herself. Thus, she voluntarily abolished her martial arts and broke her own two legs. In this way, she did the equivalent of breaking both her wings and tying herself to General Pei. Despite all this, General Pei didn’t abandon her. He took her in and looked after her, yet, he still wouldn’t take her as his wife. Because General Xuan Ji’s long-cherished wish could not be fulfilled, she killed herself in hate. Not for any other reason, but only to make General Pei feel sad and aggrieved.

Again, harming yourself for the sake of someone else is not presented as a good thing in TGCF. The story does a good job of pointing out that both sides can be at fault; there isn’t a black and white, one is evil and the other good situation in the story. Because Xuan Ji then won’t give up and makes it her mission to torture and humiliate Pei Ming, which she does the former and tries for the latter on numerous occasions. Yet the conclusion to their arc is Pei Ming finally telling her:

...it was Pei Ming who abandoned Xuan Ji first, this female ghost also killed countless after, trying to kill them time and time again... looking like this, she was a little pitiful.

Pei Ming looked back at her, and in the end, he only said, “Xuan Ji, it’s time you wake up.”

“Wake up what.” Xuan Ji was confused.

“That you’ve become this way, I’m part of the reason, but a majority of it is by your own decisions. You’ve done so much but you can only move your own heart, I’m a steel-hearted man. Rather than love me, why don’t you go love yourself.”

He yanked back his robes from Xuan Ji’s hold, and left without looking back.

It’s not that he’s innocent in how he treated her (he isn’t), and it’s not that Xuan Ji’s pain isn’t real, but what we do with our suffering is the pivot on which everyone’s character arc in TGCF swings, and so just as Pei Ming finally decides to take responsibility for his actions, so does Xuan Ji. And after she finally lets go of her resentment, she is able to dissipate and leave the world, entering into a reincarnation cycle.

Jian Lan is originally portrayed to us as Lan Cheng, a vulgar-tongued prostitute who is the mother of a demonic murdering ghost baby, CuoCuo. Yet eventually the reader finds out she was actually a potential concubine for Xie Lian and, after the kingdom of Xian Le fell, she became a prostitute, and CuoCuo is actually the son of Feng Xin, one of Xie Lian’s best friends. Feng Xin promises to take care of them, but Jian Lan tells Xie Lian this in the end:

"having Cuo Cuo is enough for me. Who hasn’t made promises or swore to the mountains and the seas when they were young? Talking of affection, of love, of forevers. But, the longer I hung around in the world, the more I understand, something like ‘forever’ is impossible. It’s never going to be possible. Having it once was already good enough. No one can truly achieve it. I don’t believe in it anymore.”

It’s not that the story wants to imply that forever really isn’t possible (Hua Cheng and Xie Lian’s relationship counters this), but it also doesn’t invalidate Jian Lan’s choice.

“What you’ve said are all things of the past. What was love once doesn’t mean it’ll last. To be a charity case and a nuisance, I’m not interested.”

“Why would he think you both a nuisance?” Xie Lian asked, “Don’t you know the kind of person Feng Xin is?”

“You, His Highness the Crown Prince, you have never lived the common life, so of course you’d think things are that simple. He won’t now, and he won’t on the surface either. But once time gets dragged out, then nothing could be sure.

It’s her choice, and her choice not to risk trying love with Feng Xin again is respected by the narrative. Her choice parallels Xuan Ji’s, but unlike Xuan Ji, Jian Lan’s problem was never that she cared too much about a cast-off lover, but that she did not want to tell said lover the truth. Now that she has, her choices and her freedom to decide her fate remain. She too is not alone: she has her son.

The last demonic ghost character is Ban Yue, another Xie Lian parallel. She is an orphan girl, mistreated, and later a high priestess of Banyue. She states Xie Lian’s words “I, too want to save the world,” and says that she took his teachings to heart.

She’s noted to be very lonely, and after Xie Lian “died” saving her, she finds someone to cling to in Pei Su (Pei Ming’s descendent). Once they find out the kingdom of Banyue plans to destroy the city itself and everyone around it, Ban Yue opens the gates for Pei Su to slaughter everyone in the city--but at least the people outside it will survive. It’s a complex moral decision that doesn’t have an easy answer.

“You also said, ‘Do what you think is right!’” Ban Yue told him.

‘....what… nonsense! … Why did I keep saying those kinds of things… I’m nothing like that at all… am I??’ Xie Lian thought.

“But, I don’t know what’s right anymore.” Ban Yue said.

Xie Lian froze.

Ban Yue’s sulky voice buzzed from the pot, “I thought I was doing the right thing, but in the end it was me who opened the gates that let in the enemy who slaughtered my people... But if I didn’t open the gates, the Banyue people would terrorize the Midlands and hurt more people... I really wanted to do well as the Head Priestess. But, not only did I opened the gates, I killed them, and refused them human flesh. If they didn’t feed on human flesh they’d suffer, and I couldn’t relieve them of that suffering... It’s like no matter what I did, the result was going to be bad... I know I didn’t do things right, but can you tell me, where did I go wrong?”

Hearing her question, Xie Lian rubbed the back of his neck and said slowly, “I’m sorry, Ban Yue. The answer to that question, I’d not known it back then, and now… I don’t think I know the answer now either.”

The thing is, if Xie Lian hadn’t gotten himself “killed” saving her, the gates wouldn’t have been opened. Yet, if he didn’t sacrifice himself, she would be dead. There isn’t a right or a wrong choice; it’s complex morally. It also foreshadows what will happen in Book 2, when a flashback reveals to us that Xie Lian himself learned the hard way that there isn’t always a way to save everyone through the fall of his kingdom Xian Le.

The Goddesses:

My favorite female character in TGCF is YuShi Huang, or the Princess who Slit Her Throat. She’s not dead though; she’s a goddess whose quick thinking saved her family’s kingdom. She’s a Xie Lian parallel in that she is a laughingstock; Pei Ming is noted to have led a siege against her kingdom and have mocked her cruelly in her life. However, YuShi Huang, being the youngest of sixteen children, become the unlikely heir who saves her father and her kingdom, and later will grow to save those who laugh at her.

She has a kind, self-sacrificing personality like Xie Lian, but she does warn Xie Lian when she helps him by lending him her spiritual device to give his kingdom water that rain is a limited resource, and there’s only so much that he can do. She’s in other words a mite wiser than Xie Lian is at this point--if Little Ying can be seen as him in his childlike stage, trying to save everyone, and Ban Yue as his adolescent phase of character development when he’s started to question, then YuShi Huang can be seen as his parallel once he matures--which is why the reveal of just who the Lord Rain Master is comes very late in the story. Her wisdom is used to save and to heal what she can (such as smuggling Hua Cheng to Xie Lian), but she knows she cannot do everything.

She also foils Xuan Ji, in that both are from YuShi and were treated cruelly by Pei Ming in life. However, she ultimately saves Pei Ming several times, and when Xuan Ji passes on, she performs a passing service for the ghost. Pei Ming’s subsequent... embarrassment (schoolboy crush? It’s kinda questionable based on the explicit parallels with Xuan Ji, and Xuan Ji’s outright accusations of him liking her in dialogue with him) over how YuShi Huang saved him is also rather amusing.

Aaaand then there’s the other goddess. Ling Wen has the distinction of being the only complex MXTX character I struggle to like. (Jun Wu used to be on this list but. Writing him helped me like him. Not so much with Ling Wen--but I do think she’s a well done character so please note that my dislike is purely my personal opinion and not an accusation of narrative failing nor an implication that anyone should not stan her (by all means, do so!))

She’s a Jun Wu parallel in many ways, which is why she’s the only god who winds up on his side even after all he’s done comes to light. Her role in a corrupt and sexist court is also not unsympathetic: she’s often worshipped in her male form, so she adopts it, she was mistreated by the literature god before her, and she’s angry about it (every woman who’s seen men get promoted ahead of them in an office can feel this on a--hem--spiritual level). Her anger is justified, and it’s hilarious how the Upper Court cannot actually function without her and so her punishment for her crimes essentially amounts to “please just do your job.”

She’s also only character who does not have a close relationship with anyone, and this is almost certainly deliberate in response to the unfairness and the sexism and cruelty of the world and how it treats her, as a woman. She tells Xie Lian:

“Something like a genuine heart is made to be trampled...”

After a long silence, Xie Lian said, “You said ‘similar to him’. So, was General Bai Jing like this too?”

Ling Wen smiled lightly, “Why else would he be deceived by me?”

...

Xie Lian said, “… you wanted to help General Bai Jing in becoming a Supreme, and have him wake to his senses, right?”

Ling Wen gave a small laugh, “Your highness, don’t say it like I would do anything for him. After all, I’m cold-blooded and recognized no loved ones, so why would I do anything like that?”

Her closest relationship is with the Brocade Immortal Bai Jing, someone she transformed into an object. But if, as Xie Lian implies, she wanted to awaken Bai Jing again, it may imply that she might be lonely and long for connection after all, even if she is afraid to take the risks involved in human connection. Hopefully she’ll be able to connect again, now that the gods are incredibly grateful to her for doing the job none of them could do. Like Jun Wu, she has a chance.

#tgcf #heaven official's blessing #hob meta #tgcf meta #tian guan ci fu #mxtx meta #mxtx ladies week #ling wen #yushi huang #ban yue #xiao ying #jian lan #xie lian

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brontesdaughter · 4 years

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Anne Boleyn: from Protestant queen to usurping witch

The Malleus Maleficarum, originally published in 1487 by two German priests, was the official manual for hunt and execution of witches during 400 years in Europe. According to it, the signs that a woman shows for her witchcraft practice was have some kind of physical deformity, have a black cat as a pet, being born in february, being redhead, not being able to bare children or have a sexually impotent husband. Based on meaningless signs, the inquirors took to the bonfire more than two hundred women during centuries.

Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII of England, didn't die on the flames or was juldged by the rules of Inquisition - but almost. Being raised in the French court, Anne had access to an education much more abrangent than the English girls at the time. She was raised to being ambitious, determined and cunning, but not to be a witch. However, that did not prevented Henry VIII of charge her to bewitched him when she didn't gave him a son, an episode that marked Anne's fate when she had a miscarridge of a deformed fetus, in 1536 - continuing to be only a girl's mother, the queen-to-be Elizabeth I.

Such accusation can seen as a tiny thing right now but, at the time, beyong the fact that the word of a king possess undeniable weight - even more so if the word comes from a king like him, who broke with the Catholic Church, becoming absolute sovereing -, an accusation of witchcraft was taken very seriously. Henry stated that he had been "seduced and forced into his second marriage through spells and sortileges". It was the XVI century England, afterwall, and the witch hunt was already a reality. However not too strong as much would be in a few years, but certainly strong enough to end a woman's life. And Anne was not any woman: she was believed to be the responsible for the separation of the country from the Catholic Church and for the horrible persecution that many Catholics had suffer, also for the implementation of a new faith, the protestantism. The easist and more eficient way to stop the trajetory of a woman like that was accuse her of witchcraft.

We don't know for sure if Anne had the intention of influence Henry VIII to something on politics. What we do know is that her father and her uncle encouraged the flirt between them during the years when she was Queen's Catarina de Aragão chaperone. Once Catarina was gone, Henry took the power off the Pope's hand, becoming the one true power in the reign. But would have been Anne a true protestant, manipulating the king into modificate the country's situation or was she just a young woman very well educated, but just a puppet of her ambitious family? This question remains util today, however the fact is that she, being this manipulative woman or this political puppet, represented a power figure and, for that, was executed. Her enemies and all the court, who felt threatned by her, would never let her alive. As Jane Dunn, Elizabeth & Mary's author, said:

“It was in the area of sex that the activities of witches were most feared and decried. A witch was represented as the embodiment of the inverted qualities of womankind: where natural women were weaker than men and submissive, witches were harsh, with access to forbidden power; where women had kindness and charm, witches were full of vengeance and the will to harm; where women were sexually passive, witches were voracious in their appetites and depraved. Witches were privy to recipes for aphrodisiacs and could make men fall helplessly in love with the most unlikely of women – even with their own benighted selves.”

This is well shown in The Tudors: Anne was condemned not for acts of witchcraft, despite rumors circulating around the palace about her evil nature, but for being a woman with power. Submissive women were what was expected at the time and Anne broke with that, being who she wanted to be and speaking freely about politics and religion. The queen, previously only delegated to the heir's spawning post, was now also an active figure who opined about events and managed to get the almighty king of England to listen to her (to a woman!) and change things accordingly to her your wishes.

The TV show, however, does a historic disservice in showing Anne (Natalie Dormer) as a Machiavellian woman, even granting her a villainous soundtrack and conversations that probably didn't happen in which she plots against Henry VIII (Jonathan Rhys Meyers ). If Anne is a villain, then all the men featured should be too - including the good guy in the series, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk (Henry Cavill), who spread the lying rumor that Anne cheated on the king with several men, including his own brother (remembering that incestuous relationships were also considered a characteristic of witches, who supposedly acquired their power through sex with Satan and manipulated men with their charms in bed). But Charles Brandon had a relatively happy ending, dying of a common illness, while Anne was beheaded in front of everyone with the reputation of usurping witch, traitor to the king and prostitute.

The accusation that Anne had a sixth finger that she hid and warts on her body was also placed in the show, which seems to have endeavored to corroborate the lie of the witchcraft used to get her out of power. The Tudors, created by Michael Hirst, is a show of misogyny and favoritism to men, who are always forgiven, even if they behead their wives. However, the lesson is passed on: seeing the story of his mother, beheaded for being a powerful woman, and of her stepmothers, who had a fate as bad as Anne, Elizabeth Tudor (Laoise Murray), daughter of Anne Boleyn and future queen of England, decides that she will never marry and keeps her promise, reigning alone and never letting a man be more powerful than her.

In any case, Hirst's choice to present Anne according to the rumors that have been spread about her and vilify the historical character is a political choice. The story of the queen beheaded by her husband is tragic enough and arouses attention without the false rumor of witchcraft. It was not necessary to instill this approach in the plot.

This myth that Anne Boleyn was a witch has spread so strongly in pop culture that we have two well-known and very accessible examples: the portrait of Anne that appears on the walls of Hogwarts in one of the films of the Harry Potter’s saga, as well as the origin of Lasher, the demon that supposedly was the fetus aborted by Anne in 1536. Although Anne's representation is that of a witch in these two examples, neither vilify her in the way the show does - perhaps because they have the vision of a woman in creating the stories - JK Rowling and Anne Rice, respectively - and not that of a man, as in The Tudors.

Even if the witchcraft accusation is unfounded, she could be popularly called a witch (in the pejorative sense of a bad woman) for allegedly manipulating an entire court. The show leads us to feel pity, sometimes contempt, for Henry, but for Anne the audiovisual resources are used to densify the villainy of his personality. A man would never be portrayed like that in the plot. But a witch is this: a powerful and ambitious woman, characteristics so praised in men, but forbidden in women.

Originally published here.

#anne boleyn #the tudors #henry viii #michael hirst #natalie dormer #jonathan rhys meyers #anne rice #harry potter #j k rowling #charles brandon #elizabeth i #queen elizabeth i #tudor #jane dunn #history #english history #monarchy #witchcraft #witch

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