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actuallyvady · 3 years

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Vady Reads MDZS - Arrogance, part 2

An explanation of these posts can be found here

Wei WuXian meets Jing Ling, Jiang Cheng, and Lan WangJi while out looking for an evil thing to do his bidding. Jin Ling recognizes Mo XuanYu, Jiang Cheng wants to murder anyone who cultivates the demonic path, and Lan WangJi meddles because apparently it’s what he does.

More after the cut.

YAY WE MEET SOME IMPORTANT CHARACTERS!

… after a bunch of chapters where we don’t learn a lot, this feels overwhelming, but we’re meeting new characters and getting a lot of insight into who they are. Let’s break it down into a few categories:

The Jin Sect

Very wealthy

More powerful than the other sects

Known for being arrogant

Jin GuangShan:

Had a fuckton of bastard children because he slept around

Mo XuanYu was one of those bastards

The current sect leader, called Jin GuangYao, is also one of them, but is the only one that was ‘brought back’

Died in bed with a bunch of women and everyone knows it, despite the sect’s efforts to quiet the rumors

Was second to Jiang Cheng in contributing to WuXian’s downfall

Jin Ling:

Obviously highly ranked member of the Jin clan

Jiang Cheng is his uncle and they look a lot alike

Knows Mo XuanYu and is disgusted by him

Young and arrogant and angry

Has a very fancy and expensive sword that WuXian thinks is somehow familiar

Jiang Cheng

a n g e r y

Seriously that seems to be his most defining characteristic at the moment

Hates Wuxian and anyone who even vaguely reminds him of Wuxian-- hence the murder of anyone who follows the same cultivation path

Spoils Jin Ling. Like a lot. But in an angry way.

Also handsome? WuXian comments on him being young and handsome.

Has a ring on his finger that he strokes when he is feeling especially murderous

Lan WangJi

We now have three names for this man: Lan WangJi, Hanguang-Jun, and Second Young Master Lan

Incredibly beautiful, which our narrator (WuXian) spends a lot of time contemplating

Dresses all in white-- WuXian thinks of his garb as mourning clothes

Wuxian thinks his expression makes him look like his wife died

Doesn’t talk much but his disciples seem to understand him anyway

Uses the Lan silence spell on Jin Ling-- which is probably really rude, given Jiang Cheng’s reaction

Incredibly powerful; his strike completely overpowers Jin Ling’s, in spite of the fancy sword the kid has, and he destroys all of the nets on the mountain

Carries a very powerful and very pretty blade

Has fought both beside and against WuXian

Known for ‘being wherever the chaos is’-- he shows up to help even when the prey is too weak to help his own reputation

… that’s still a lot even broken up like that, lol. Okay, so, a lot of things happen here, some of which seem more important than others. Trying to be concise means a lot of bullet points, and only discussing some things.

First of all, WuXian’s actions. Last chapter he mentions that he has been digging up graves in search of powerful things to do his evil bidding; here, we see the result of that. He has a bag of spirits, one of which he uses to pin down Jin Ling. This works because it was someone who died “of gluttony.” WuXian puts a little paper man on Jin Ling’s back, and suddenly Jin Ling is weighed down by this spirit. Neat! So demonic cultivation doesn’t just involve raising and controlling corpses, it also involves using spirits as weapons. I love the tidbit that WuXian is very practiced at tripping people and slapping talismans on their backs. It’s not a particularly honorable way of fighting. But also-- he doesn’t harm Jin Ling at all. Once again, his narration talks a big game about wanting evil things, but his actions here are: humiliate the boy without hurting him, and free the helpless cultivators who would probably die if left alone.

Swords! We see two new fancy ones-- the sword Jin Ling carries (which WuXian feels like he’s seen before, but he’s seen a lot of fancy swords) and Bichen, Lan WangJi’s sword. For the first: it is fancy and expensive and exactly what WuXian needs to cut through the net! Convenient! WuXian is very familiar with Bichen, and the narrative calls it “one of” the most famous swords in the world-- WuXian’s own is probably on that list, given that he mentioned it was likely hung on a wall as a trophy at this point. Bichen is also excessively pretty. Fine and delicate and looking like it is made of ice but also incredibly heavy and only able to be wielded by someone incredibly strong. (We’ve already had WuXian comment on the Lan arm strength; here’s more evidence of it.)

Also, I am a slut for significant names, so let’s talk briefly about Bichen. Its name is 避尘, or Bìchén, which means “avoid dust” or, as one translation would have it, “dustproof.” The idea here is not that it literally doesn’t get dirty, but rather is a phrase talking about avoiding ‘worldly matters’-- it is a daoist idea, if I recall correctly. WangJi almost certainly named it (given what we later learn about how WuXian’s sword is named) which means it is an ideal he aspires to, and is probably something he learned growing up in the Lan clan. It therefore gives a bit of context to the Lan sect all running around in white-- if their ideals are about avoiding ‘dust’ then their appearance is an extension of that. They are all in white, pure as snow, and do not get involved in the messy business of worldly life.

Jiang Cheng is, of course, a character we’ve already had named (in the prologue), whose relationship to WuXian is known, and most of what we see here confirms what we heard in the beginning. He hates WuXian, a lot. WuXian knows it, and is afraid of him. He also does not care about any of the other cultivators on this hunt: he is there to make sure Jin Ling gets the prey, and he doesn’t care how much he has to spend or who he has to scare off to do it. It’s… sweet. In an angry way. I think the most important things revealed by that are that he will do anything for Jin Ling (in spite of how angry he seems, he cares a lot for the boy) and that he is definitely not above doing what others consider cheating if it means he gets what he wants.

Lan WangJi… oh, Lan WangJi, I love you so much. Let’s look at what we know about him from his introduction here. He is pretty, but austere; every descriptor is about ice and snow and moonlight, all things that are cold and distant. He looks like he is carved from jade, but his demeanor is cold, stern, unwavering. He doesn’t speak, in this brief introduction; he communicates through his actions and a significant glance at one of the juniors, who is apparently so accustomed to this that he knows exactly what WangJi meant. His actions, in this brief scene:

Stop Jin Ling from attacking Mo XuanYu, who is a complete unknown to him

Object to Jin Ling (and Jiang Cheng) ‘cheating’ at this night-hunt, though this is expressed by SiZhui

Destroy every single net Jiang Cheng placed on the mountain

Silence Jin Ling when he’s defending making the competition unfair

He is, in every way, portrayed as good and righteous, if cold and distant. His reputation, ‘being wherever the chaos is,’ supports this. WuXian counts him among his enemies, though he mentions having fought at his side before as well. WuXian thinks he is incredibly unlucky to have run into both Jiang Cheng and Lan WangJi; the former’s hatred makes it clear why, but the latter? WangJi is just… good, and therefore aligned opposite WuXian.

OH BOY I HAVEN’T EVEN TALKED ABOUT THE JIN CLAN YET.

The Jin clan, according to WuXian, is arrogant, flamboyant, thinks of themselves as being the greatest… and ultimately has an incredibly messy reputation, despite their best efforts. Jin GuangShan was a womanizer who died in an embarrassing way and left bastard children all over the countryside. His heir, the current sect leader, is one of those bastard children-- no mention is made here of any children by his wife. Mo XuanYu’s story now has some context; Jin GuangShan met the young lady of Mo, was smitten for a little while, then got bored and disappeared even though she had his son. He may have accepted Mo XuanYu as a disciple, but he did not give him the family name, as he did with Jin GuangYao.

If the Lan sect’s all white uniform is a reflection of the value they place on avoiding worldly matters, young Jin Ling showing up in flamboyant robes of gold is a reflection of the value of the Jin Clan: splendor, extravagance, arrogance. He does have a very powerful fancy sword, and the Jin sect is the one on top of the cultivation world at the moment, but we have seen disciples of two clans, and one came to Mo village to help while the other covered a mountain in nets so he would be the one who caught the prey. (Technically, we have also very briefly seen a Jiang disciple, but mostly he came to deliver bad news to his grumpy sect leader.)

Also, moments that are significant but we don’t know it yet: WuXian insulting Jin Ling by saying he has no mother, and asking why his uncle and not his dad. Ooooooops... but we’ll find that out in like the next chapter.

#VadyReadsMDZS #I am trying to be better about capitalizing both halves of two character names #like the translation does #anyway there is a looooot here and it's real hard to stick only with what has been shown so far lol #also i'm sure there are other things i could comment on but this is already very long

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actuallyvady · 3 years

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Vady Reads MDZS - Reincarnation

An explanation of these posts can be found here

Wei Wuxian has been resurrected by means of a dark ritual. He has been offered a body in exchange for revenge, but the details of that revenge are unknown to him. He must follow through anyway, or he will be destroyed, never to be reincarnated. He learns what he can of the person who gave him his new body.

More under the cut.

We get more infodump here, mostly about Mo Xuanyu’s background. I don’t think the specifics are important to record, but there are some important pieces of info.

The Mo family are not cultivators, and regard cultivators with awe.

Mo Xuanyu was crazy, but only after he was thrown out-- “as if his life was scared out of him.”

Mo Xuanyu was gay.

Mo Xuanyu was bullied by his family to the point of sacrificing his own life in order to get revenge.

The story of Mo Xuanyu continues the theme of reputation, and adds a layer of the fickleness of people’s esteem. His mother was the child of a servant, and looked down on. She then attracted a cultivator’s eye, and gained esteem for it-- the family took pride in her. Then he left her and their attitude changed again. Their regard for her, and for her son, changes easily.

The divide between the Mo family and the cultivation world is an interesting contrast; the prologue was all from the perspective of the cultivation world, and these people… what does the Mo family even know about Wei Wuxian? Would they recognize the name? What rumors would they have heard? Mo Xuanyu would have heard it from his time as a disciple, but the rest of them? This is probably the last place anyone would look for the fearsome YiLing Patriarch, though-- why would he be reborn in this backwater hicktown?

I love the detail that the family thinks Mo Ziyuan could have been a great cultivator-- Wuxian seems real dismissive of that. Does a person have to be born with a talent for it? That may be something that is known to those who are familiar with the genre. Based on Wuxian’s response to the idea, though, it seems like becoming a cultivator requires being born to it, in some way, and that Mo Ziyuan-- a child with no cultivator in his ancestry-- would likely not have it, where Mo Xuanyu-- whose father was not merely a cultivator, but the leader of a prominent sect, and presumably very powerful-- did.

This is the first time homosexuality is mentioned, and… it’s not entirely clear to me whether it is itself something shameful, or whether the shame was that he “harassed” other disciples. Probably both-- if he had “harassed” female disciples, that would have been normal, not scandalous. Textually speaking, though, that’s not really made clear. He also is wearing makeup-- badly applied, horrible looking makeup, but makeup. Is that supposed to be because he was gay or because he was crazy?

(I have some thoughts about Mo Xuanyu being crazy, but as I am attempting to keep this centered only on what I have read so far, I won’t mention them-- they’re based on stuff we find out later. I want to see, with this re-read, whether that headcanon holds up.)

(Speaking of things we don’t know yet: let’s start tracking characters that are bullied, picked on, or treated terribly! The count so far is just Mo Xuanyu, and his response was to sacrifice himself to summon the most evil spirit he could think of to kill his entire family. Also, he is treated this way mostly for shit that’s not his fault-- while his disgraceful return to Mo Village was due to his actions, he’s mistreated because his family hated his mother, because they think he ‘stole’ Ziyuan’s chance to be a cultivator, and because he’s crazy. Also, there’s the very real possibility that he was kicked out of the sect because he was gay-- yes, the scandal was due to his actions, but would the same thing have happened if he had been harassing women? Let’s keep an eye on people who are bullied, why they are bullied, and how they respond.)

In this chapter we already start to see cracks in what we were told about Wei Wuxian in the prologue.

That one of his first thoughts is “when did I do something as immoral as…” is telling. The people celebrating Wei Wuxian’s death certainly would not have put stealing a body past him, but he himself thinks it is immoral and that he wouldn’t do it? His first thought is basically “how dare you!” but after that he’s… confused, groggy, and not at all the terrifying YiLing Patriarch that we heard about last chapter.

He does realize what happened almost immediately-- he recognizes the array, or is able to decipher it enough to know what it did. It is an “ancient, forbidden technique” that he presumably had studied at some point, to figure it out right away, which does align with what we’ve heard, at least as far as his skills and abilities are concerned. Turns out the talk of his doing evil magics was at least partially true!

… but he “refuses to accept” the whole deal because he is not, in his mind, an “extremely villainous ghoul.”

I have to laugh at the phrasing here (and I wish I could read the original to know if the tone is the same) where he thinks “his reputation wasn’t great.” My dude, we just had a whole prologue in which the entire cultivation world celebrated your death. Whether or not you were “extremely villainous,” your reputation was way worse than “not great.”

It is interesting that he says he was a harmless ghost-- that he did not seek vengeance. That goes directly counter to one of the things we were told last chapter, that if he was ever to return he would unleash hell.

I absolutely adore that he whines “how could this happen to me…” about being given a body (do you not… want to live again? Or is it the requirement to take revenge that you don’t want to do? In any case, you are the fearsome YiLing Patriarch, stop whining like a child), and that the last thing in this chapter is “you’ve got the wrong person.” Wei Wuxian knows exactly what they said about him-- he lists off several things-- but he also tells us, with that last line, that he is not what Mo Xuanyu thought.

So, what do we know about Wei Wuxian, now that we’re in his head?

Whiny*

Does not think of himself as particularly evil

Would not have stolen a body

Experienced with dark, forbidden magics

Thinks he is the wrong person to call on for revenge

Now, looking at this chapter in terms of how it functions… it’s a jarring change. The prologue had no characters; it was all dialogue from unnamed cultivators. It also spoke of great and important events, and the narrator was distant, telling the audience things but not from any one perspective. Here we are in Wei Wuxian’s head, seeing things from his perspective, and the events are… mundane. An asshole cousin beats him up and trashes his room because he complained to his parents. There’s obviously more going on-- a dark ritual, an array painted in blood, a tragic backstory-- but we are thrown into this scene that is very petty.

Having our viewpoint character not know what is happening is a useful device; we don’t have to be told things he already knows because he doesn’t know what’s going on. We get to figure things out along with him. At the same time, we have this setup where we have been told a lot of things about who our viewpoint character is, and we can immediately see that the grandiose caricature presented in the prologue is… not particularly accurate. The fearsome YiLing Patriarch, whose power could level mountains and empty seas, is confused and annoyed at having been forced into a body to enact someone’s revenge.

Two chapters in, and we have been shown: do not believe what the rumor mill says, it’s almost certainly exaggerated, and potentially entirely wrong.

*okay, that might be a bit harsh, but seriously, he repeats “how could this happen to me” several times as he figures out what happened. Still, it’s definitely not the sort of behavior I would have assumed from the prologue’s descriptions of him.

#VadyReadsMDZS #this whole trying to only address what i have read and not what i know thing is hard lol

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actuallyvady · 3 years

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Vady Reads MDZS - Prologue

An explanation of these posts can be found here

Okay, so, here we get our backstory: Wei Wuxian, the Yiling Laozu, was a very bad, very evil person, and he has just been killed, a cause for great celebration.

Here’s what we are told, in this brief prologue:

The general setting: we know there are great cultivation clans and rogue cultivators, so we know the genre.

Wei Wuxian’s “den”-- his home base, as it were-- was LuanZang Hill. This is relatively meaningless at the moment.

Wei Wuxian is called the YiLing Patriarch, though we also have no context for that.

Who the four Great Clans are, though nothing in detail about them. Still, we are given their names: Yunmeng Jiang, Gusu Lan, Lanling Jin, and Qinghe Nie.

He was adopted and raised by Yunmeng Jiang; Jiang Cheng is referred to as his shidi. We also know that before he was adopted, he was homeless, a beggar on the streets.

He defected from the clan, and he is blamed for their near extermination.

A lot of people believe that Jiang Cheng killed Wei Wuxian himself, but that in actuality, Wei Wuxian was destroyed by a blowback of the evil power he wielded.

Jiang Cheng led the assault in which Wei Wuxian died-- targeting his weaknesses.

Wei Wuxian possessed an “item” of great power (it is not named or described) but he destroyed it (himself) before he died.

He once killed thousands of cultivators in a single day-- three or five thousand, depending on the rumor.

He was once regarded as a promising young cultivator.

He did not cultivate the “right” path-- his skills are frequently referred to as evil.

He himself is regarded as immoral, apart from his cultivation path.

Everyone is happy that he is dead-- but also “unconventional” opinions are quelled “immediately.”

In spite of him being dead, people are worried that he will come back.

He was incredibly powerful, and if his soul was not destroyed, he is expected to return to life.

If he returns to life, it will be bad for everyone-- revenge and chaos.

That thirteen years have passed since his death.

This prologue is mostly an infodump-- a way to give us all that background so we can get into the story. (I will probably not do quite so many bullet points in future chapters, but like. This is an infodump, so.) Also: there is no reason to say “he can’t return… or can he?” unless he is absolutely going to return.

I have read the book before, and I watched The Untamed before I did so, so obviously I know a lot more than has been presented here, but I’m going to try to keep my commentary based only on what I have read thus far in my re-read. Still, there is something I would like to comment on, prompted by on my own thoughts about themes in the book:

So much of this is about reputation and what people think. We are introduced to Wei Wuxian via his reputation in the cultivation world-- people celebrating his death and talking about how he deserved what he got and was a terrible person. But there is a brief line that says “unconventional” opinions were silenced. There were people who disagreed, but the court of public opinion had ruled, and therefore those people were not listened to-- and likely ostracized or shamed until they fell in line with what everyone else thought. That is a through thread I know exists, so it is interesting to see it show up immediately.

Also, just… what a fantastic setup to make the readers question literally everything stated in this prologue? To have it framed as rumors being passed around, not by anyone in particular, just by society at large-- we even get some contradictions within what is being said, about whether Jiang Cheng is the one that killed him and how many died, three or five thousand. These are presented not as facts, but as what people say. And using that framing for the prologue infodump sets up the idea that all of this information is suspect beautifully. It is hard to separate myself from what I already know, but just speaking in terms of literary devices… if you hand me a book in which the prologue is a bunch of rumors being shared, I am going to assume that some or all of them are straight-up wrong. It creates interest in this universally-reviled character, certainly, and a whole lot of skepticism.

#VadyReadsMDZS #when i watched the show and we got this infodump #all i really noticed was wei wuxian's face #... in terms of his emotional state not like how pretty he is #he *is* very pretty but like #the contrast between what was being said and what we were shown was what grabbed me #it's why i was invested in the show right away #i wanted to know why they said all these things about this man #because what we were shown was not the man they were describing #here we obviously do not get xiao zhan's beautiful acting #so it's less 'they are obviously all wrong about him'#but there is still that huge grain of salt bc of the framing #while the untamed had me ready to die for wei wuxian in the first 30 seconds #here i am not in love with the character yet-- i haven't met him #but i *am* intrigued

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actuallyvady · 3 years

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Vady Reads MDZS - Arrogance, Part 1

An explanation of these posts can be found here

Wei Wuxian is out on his own, having fulfilled the curse’s requirements entirely by accident. He decides to go looking for something really powerfully evil to do his bidding, finds out there’s a spirit-consuming monster causing trouble for a local town, and goes to investigate.

More after the cut.

What’s a poor, down on his luck, recently resurrected demonic cultivator to do? He needs minions! And not just any minions-- the low-level corpses collapsing at his feet prove that he needs a really evil minion!

I kind of love that we don’t know what he wants to do once he has acquired said minion-- he just wants a soldier to “do evil for him.” What’s your plan, Wuxian? You’re unexpectedly alive, therefore you must go do bad things? You had an opportunity to do bad things back in Mo village and you didn’t! You didn’t actually harm anyone! You actually helped protect a lot of people!

Anyway. Things we learn here:

That Wuxian’s sword was likely claimed as a prize after his death

Wuxian thinks he was charming and courteous towards women-- the first positive thing he has thought about his personality

What night-hunting is, and that a clan’s reputation is based on capturing particularly strong foes

Wei Wuxian invented Compasses of Evil, and people still use them and talk about him

Lots of details about what has happened at Dafan Mountain (which won’t remain relevant for much of the story)

Wei Wuxian’s birth name is Wei Ying

That everyone is afraid of Jiang Cheng

… it is very hard not to comment on the first mention of the sword. I know I am trying to do this whole project as if I don’t know anything that follows but. The line about the sword directly follows him complaining about how annoying the donkey is. With what we have learned so far-- what kind of person Wuxian insists on telling the reader he is-- the random swerve into thinking about his sword kind of comes off as “I wish I had my sword so I could kill this stupid animal.” Given only what I have read so far, that’s what I would assume that line was. It feels incredibly out of place if I think about it, but is mentioned so casually that it seems unimportant.

This is my favorite thing about re-reading! It’s why I re-read, re-watch, or re-play anything I really like-- because of casual, seemingly unimportant lines that have so much more meaning once they are given context. Since I am attempting to pretend I don’t know better, I am just going to point out that he thinks of his sword directly after calling the animal “useless.”

Not a lot actually happens in this chapter, but we do see Wuxian being clever again. Some evidence:

More things he invented! Plus his kind of chagrined thoughts about how the ones people are still using and relying on are version 1.0 and not as good as they could have been. I love that-- to the rest of the cultivation world they’re one of the most useful things out there, a must have for any night-hunt… to Wuxian, they’re a vaguely embarrassing prototype.

Gathering information and coming to a different conclusion than the others on the night-hunt

Realizing the donkey wants the apple and using it to make it go faster

He does think of himself as hard to please, liking the finer things in life-- while he is complaining about the donkey, he compares its picky eating to himself. That’s hilarious with context, too. But for now, it just adds to our picture of Wei Wuxian: evil, violent, vengeful, (but actually none of those things-- his first instinct is to help), accustomed to luxury, (but actually perfectly at home sharing an apple with a donkey, even if he does complain about doing so), incredibly clever, felt constrained by having to behave, enjoys being perceived as a lunatic, seems amused at his ongoing reputation and the fact that people still use his creations, courteous to women (apparently).

So, names are a thing, and for a non-Chinese reader, much of it is new and different. We have seen our lead character called Wei Wuxian, YiLing Patriarch, and now Wei Ying. The translator notes that “Wei Ying” is something that only those who were very close to him would call him-- family and close acquaintances of similar age. You would never refer to an elder by their birth name-- unless you wanted to show your disregard for that person. So… people still use Wuxian’s inventions, but don’t particularly think he is worthy of respect? Wuxian doesn’t seem to care-- people are still talking about him, and that amuses him.

There’s a bit here that amuses me because I have started trying to learn Chinese. Wuxian heard the cultivators say “Dàfàn Shān” and assumed it was 大饭山-- three characters I have already learned! So he calls it “Rice Mountain” in the translation, because those three characters mean “big” and “rice” and “mountain.” What it actually is I have to guess (since I don’t have the original in front of me), but given the context it’s probably 大梵山, which sounds identical (even the tones are the same) but 梵 refers to Brahma or is related to Buddha (depending on which source I go to) and that’s why he realizes his mistake when he sees the mountain and realizes it looks kind of like Buddha.

The translator explains this a bit in their notes, but I’m commenting on it specifically for two reasons: I am amused that I already know what he assumed the mountain was called (大饭山) because hey, I know those characters! And because the linguistic ambiguity inherent in a language with so many homonyms is amusing to me. There’s a moment in The Untamed where Wuxian tells the Lan juniors that the sword told him where to go, and the juniors are confused… and it’s because the word for “he” and “it” (and “she” for that matter) sound identical. So Wuxian says “it told me” and the juniors heard “he told me” because context is the only way to tell those pronouns apart in spoken Chinese.

Anyway. Chinese is fun. (Actually, though. Of all the languages I have attempted to learn over the years, it is my favorite.)

Okay, back on topic: hey look! The other cultivators had a run in with Jiang Cheng!

We have heard the name before. We know Jiang Cheng was Wuxian’s shidi, we know they were raised as brothers, we know Jiang Cheng stabbed (but did not kill) Wuxian when Wuxian defected, and we know that Jiang Cheng led the assault on the burial mounds, but despite what rumors say, he did not actually kill Wuxian. Still-- based on what we were told in the prologue, he’s clearly an important person, and it’s probably not great for Wuxian that he’s in the area. Remember Wuxian getting the fuck out of town when Wangji showed up? Jiang Cheng likely knows him better than Lan Wangji. That’s not great for our newly resurrected villain. Too bad he didn’t stick around to overhear those cultivators complaining about him!

#VadyReadsMDZS #holy shit it is hard to not talk about stuff i'm not supposed to know yet #but seriously that nonsequitor about his sword #so casual #so random #fun fact: jiang cheng is his birth name #his courtesy name is jiang wanyin #the fact that no one calls him that is never addressed

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actuallyvady · 3 years

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Vady Reads MDZS - Aggression, Part 3

An explanation of these posts can be found here

Wuxian figures out what is killing people, drops hints to get the Lan kids to realize it on their own because he wants to stay in hiding as a lunatic. He then secretly commands some corpses to fight it before running away when Hanguang-Jun arrives.

More after the cut.

Details we learn:

Lan disciples have incredibly strong arms

Wuxian created the criteria for ferocious ghosts

The Lan uniform has protective talismans stitched into it

Wuxian can raise and command corpses

A whistle is more effective than a spoken command

The Gusu Lan sect has music techniques that are very powerful

Making noise is against Gusu Lan’s rules

Wuxian knows Lan Wangji and is afraid of being caught by him

This is the first time we see Wuxian really do anything, and I’m going to now mention the thing I pointed out in a previous post: walking corpses are the “most obeying puppets,” are they? That’s cute-- the low-level corpses at Mo manor are so afraid of him they’re useless. He does mention in the narration that there are things he could do, if he had the time and materials, to overcome this. I just think it’s hilarious that he tries to command them and they fall down, terrified.

More important than his actual involvement, though, is that he figured out what was happening before anyone else. He did have extra information-- he knew, thanks to the curse, that Madam Mo was already dead-- but he put it together very quickly. And that, paired with other information from this chapter, gives us a very important part of Wuxian’s real personality, rather than his rumored one: he is clever.

Let’s look at some factual things we have learned:

He invented lure flags, and could check the Lan disciples’ work with little more than a glance

He came up with the definition for ferocious ghosts

He recognized the array Mo Xuanyu used to summon him

He was able to figure out what the curse wanted from him without being told

He recognizes the talismans the Lan disciples are using, and he realizes that they have not reacted as they would if the thing was a ghost or spirit

He figures out what is actually happening before anyone else

He comes up with a lie-- ‘they always beat me with their right hands!’-- to get the boys to figure out the situation on their own

He sees that SiZhui is about to get his neck broken and quickly shoves JingYi in the way

All of this adds up to: he is incredibly intelligent, to the point where even with his monstrous reputation people still use what he invented, and he is able to very quickly piece together information and react to it.

He is also shown to be powerful-- we don’t know how much his reputed power is exaggerated, but he is definitely too powerful for the weak walking corpses to handle, and he can raise and control the Mo family corpses with just spoken words. We haven’t seen anyone else do this, so we can’t say yet whether that marks him as particularly special, but the thing about the corpses falling down at his feet seems to imply that he’s unusual.

What we have not seen is any evidence that he’s as evil as the prologue would have us believe. He expends a lot of effort helping these kids, and while he immediately fucks off when Hanguang-Jun arrives, he was prepared to expose his own involvement in order to help. He didn’t want the kids to know that he was the one who had commanded the Mo family corpses (understandable) but he was willing to do so-- and was physically prepared to do so-- if they were unable to subdue the evil arm. Also the whole bit where he kicks JingYi to save SiZhui and then is just like “it wasn’t me” so they don’t realize he is competent? Priceless.

We’re also getting a clearer picture of the Lan sect: they’re strict, conservative, and have a lot of rules about showing disrespect or even making noise-- Wuxian thinks the kids will be punished for cheering. That they have talismans sewn into their uniforms is also a fun fact, mostly because Wuxian knows it. Recognizing a visually distinct sect uniform is one thing-- who else wears all white, with forehead ribbons and cloud patterns?-- but how on earth does he know about the talismans invisibly stitched inside? Or, for that matter, why does he know all about their arm strength? Not making a sex joke here (though I could), it just shows a lot of familiarity with the sect in general. We were told in the beginning that he’d be adopted into the Jiang sect and raised as part of the family; it would make sense for him to know all of that about the Jiang sect. But what is his relationship to Gusu Lan? (pretending for the moment that I don’t know, obviously. The narrative is setting them up as important, and showing us that Wuxian is familiar with them.)

I love battle music as a thing, and I love that this evil corpse arm that gave this group of juniors and the newly resurrected YiLing Patriarch such trouble is subdued by exactly three strums of the zither by Hanguang-Jun. We’ve not been told much about him yet, but that tells us that he is powerful. Wuxian notes that the technique is powerful, and that is also true-- but none of the kids used it, so it’s obviously not something that everyone in the sect can do.

The way that Wangji is name-dropped right at the end of the chapter, and Wuxian thinks it is more unfortunate that it was him specifically than any other Lan cultivator, marks him immediately as someone important. All Wuxian says about him is that they had fought-- he refers to Wangji as “one of” the people who fought him, but it feels more significant than just any of the disciples who happened to be part of the siege-- this is someone he knows personally. And absolutely does not want to know that he is back.

Wei Wuxian in Mo Xuanyu’s body looks like Mo Xuanyu-- so it would take someone who knows him well to recognize him, and Wuxian fucks right off as soon as he hears the sound of Wangji’s guqin. You really think you couldn’t just be like “oh hi, I’m Mo Xuanyu, we’ve definitely never met before and anything I say that is odd is because I’m crazy”? The Lan kids would back that up, they’ve seen that he’s “crazy.” You’re clearly a clever man, Wuxian-- why are you so worried about running into Lan Wangji? Do you think he is going to take one look at this lunatic (who is still wearing the horrible makeup, at this point) and immediately recognize that it’s actually you? Why would he know you that well?

Also, an unimportant but amusing detail: he is “touched” by the donkey having contempt in its eyes. Is it just that he likes things with attitude, or…? In any case, it makes me laugh.

#VadyReadsMDZS #i had forgotten how much fun wuxian is as a narrator #partly because he's hilarious #but mostly because his view of himself is at odds with who his actions show him to be #later on it becomes hilarious because it takes him so long to figure out his own feelings #but here...#at some point he started to believe what people said about him #he thinks he is self serving and uncaring #but his every action is either harmless or helpful #it's fascinating #and sad

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actuallyvady · 3 years

Text

Vady Reads MDZS - Aggression, Part 2

An explanation of these posts can be found here

Something worse than walking corpses has shown up and start killing the people Mo Xuanyu wanted him to kill. Conveniently, the curse accepts that anyway. Less conveniently, the Lan kids have called for help-- and anyone who might show up is far more likely to have known him.

More under the cut.

Wuxian is grabbed and dragged back into the family’s presence at the end of the last chapter, with people blaming him for something (he doesn’t know what) and wanting to kill him. Given that last chapter I was musing on the possibility of him messing with the lure flags, I’m really amused that that’s his first thought, too. Also: confirmation that he was checking to make sure nothing would go wrong.

... kind of a shitty coincidence that he threatened to cut off a hand and then this thing shows up stealing people’s hands, starting with the person he had threatened. I mean, like, it’s actually not surprising that she suspected you, buddy. But he seems genuinely to not know what’s going on, and besides, the threat was “if he steals from me again” and that didn’t happen.

A thing I love here: the moment Madam Mo starts in on the Lan kids, Wuxian leaps to their defense. He can talk all he wants about being evil (though he himself admits much of it was empty words, in the past), but the moment someone is mean to these children, he steps in. Sure, he does it with some snide thoughts about the uselessness of the Lan sect’s strictness, but he sees them not being able to stand up for themselves and decides he must defend them.

Of course, as dismissive as he is of her, he catches her as she faints. So heartless.

And he won’t leave. He hears that the disciples have called for help, realizes that it might be bad for him to be around someone who might have known him, but he decides to stay and try to resolve the whole situation quickly… because if he leaves, a lot of people will die, including some of the Lan kids. He does consider briefly that he can’t go too far-- the curse requires him to stay here until the revenge is complete. But he could potentially run and hide while the help that has been called for deals with the evil spirit and then come back to finish off anyone it didn’t get, right? Keep himself safe from whatever the thing is and the risk of discovery, hope that among the dead are all those he’s supposed to kill? He dismisses the idea, apparently because he doesn’t want too many innocents to die. Fearsome YiLing Patriarch, indeed.

The Lan kids won’t leave either-- and Wuxian’s narration gives the reason as not wanting to disgrace themselves or their clan. Again, we’re back to reputation. At least in Wuxian’s mind, they are more afraid of bringing shame to their good name than whatever evil spirit is killing these people. Is that true, or are they actually just good people who won’t leave helpless folk to die? Hard to say. But Wuxian seems to have some baggage to unpack, there.

Not a lot of new information this chapter, though we start to learn a bit about the principles of the Gusu Lan sect-- namely, self restraint and a prescription against violence against the helpless, which apparently includes being disrespectful. Again, Wuxian seems mostly to find them laughable; he thinks the self-restraint is stupid in this situation. And he bears them no ill will. Even though whoever might arrive to help could potentially have been part of the siege against him, it never occurs to him to take revenge, only to hide.

#VadyReadsMDZS #i feel like maybe i should do the chapters all at once #rather than by parts #simply because there isn't actually a lot here?#but these posts would be excessively long if i did #so i guess the last bit in every chapter will have more #anyway #i am deeply and thoroughly amused by wuxian pretending to himself that he's big and scary #and actually being such a softie

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actuallyvady · 3 years

Text

Vady Reads MDZS - Aggression, part 1

An explanation of these posts can be found here

Wei Wuxian figures out a little more about his circumstances, whines about it, then has fun pretending to be a madman. Mo Village has a zombie problem, and some young Lan disciples have arrived to help with it. Wuxian decides that he will, in fact, have to kill the whole Mo family.

More under the cut.

This Wei Wuxian seems slightly more in line with what we heard in the prologue, at least as long as he is whining about how unfair it all is-- there should be blood and gore and slaughter! Instead I am being kicked and given leftovers. Again, whining. But! At least now he actually seems interested in doing all the things he was known for?

Except that as soon as he’s out he just… messes with people. He has a lot of fun being a known lunatic, so he freaks people out, acts out, embarrasses people who are mean to him. He does not read as particularly ruthless, even if he is enjoying causing discomfort.

(I am going to point out here that he calls walking corpses “the most obeying puppets” to him. I am pointing this out because I know something that happens in the next few chapters that makes that hilarious to me. I will hopefully remember to call it out when it comes up.)

We learn some stuff here:

What walking corpses are, and the fact that Wuxian can control them

That Wuxian immediately recognizes the uniform of the Gusu Lan sect

That he has some feelings about Gusu Lan-- though they seem more mocking than anything else

That Wuxian is absolutely not ashamed to play up the fact that Mo Xuanyu was gay

What lure flags are and that Wuxian invented them

Wuxian enjoys fucking with people. A lot.

We also get a little more insight into Wuxian as a person: while he utterly enjoys making a scene, he has no interest in doing anything to harm the young cultivators. In his narration he says this is because they are too young to have been involved in the siege where he died, implying that he would like revenge on those who were involved. Also, his actual threat to Mo Ziyuan is that he will cut off one of his hands-- again, this doesn’t exactly sound like the YiLing Patriarch we heard about in the prologue.

While he doesn’t read as a particularly virtuous person-- he is very much enjoying fucking around and shocking people-- he also isn’t… actually… doing anything evil. He checks to see if his fuckery did anything to help the wounds from the curse, and concludes that he will, in fact, have to kill them-- he already had pretty much decided that would be the case. If he were truly all that evil, why not just start with murder? Especially given his whining while he was locked up and hungry.

I find the whole scene with the lure flags interesting, for a couple of reasons. One, he steals one seemingly to check the Lan disciples’ work? Like, he looks it over, decides that it’s made properly and will work, if not as effectively as it could, and then he lets them have it back. Why? It occurs to me that if he really wanted to just wipe out the whole family, fucking with the lure flags would be a good start. Sure, it would probably end with a lot more than just the family dead, but why should the YiLing Patriarch care? Maybe it would just be too much work to do it without the Lan kids noticing?

Secondly, he kind of scoffs at the fact that they’re using the lure flags at all, because he invented them. He seems to feel like this is hypocritical of the cultivation world-- if they condemn him and his cultivation methods as evil, shouldn’t a clan whose motto is “righteousness” also shun his creations? Also, I love him saying “I can draw better than this!”-- well, yeah, you can, you invented them. He might be playing the lunatic here, but he’s also not wrong about that.

Third, he approves of SiZhui. This is mostly entertaining with spoiler knowledge, but also he wonders at such a promising, respectful young cultivator being raised by the Lan clan. He really doesn’t seem to like Gusu Lan at all. We haven’t seen anything about how he feels about the other great sects that participated in the siege, but as for the Lans, he seems to find them ridiculous. There’s a bit of a disconnect-- he thinks that he shouldn’t direct his hatred towards the young disciples because they couldn’t have been involved in the siege, but his other thoughts about the Lans do not convey hatred, really. He’s not fond of them, but he doesn’t seem to hate them.

This chapter mostly serves, I think, to flesh out Wuxian’s personality. On the surface, he’s occasionally thinking about slaughtering and how easy it would be to murder the whole Mo family. In his actions, he’s just… messing around and having fun with it, and deliberately not messing with the poor innocent children of the Lan sect. It’s interesting to note the disconnect between his thoughts and actions-- in this chapter, at least, he seems to believe his own myth, at the conscious level, but deep down he doesn’t actually want to do any real harm.

We do have a continuation of rumors, reputations, and public opinion as a theme-- in this case, it’s the gathered crowd, who are there because cultivators visiting is exciting, and who are just as excited to watch the humiliation of the Mo family as they were to see the young immortals. Madam Mo is perfectly willing to try to cozy up to the Lan kids via Mo Xuanyu having been a disciple once, despite the fact that he’s actually a disgrace. And Wuxian playing at being Mo Xuanyu-- he has a reputation for being a lunatic, so he runs with it, and is allowed to get away with a lot that he couldn’t have, bound up in the expectations of being Wei Wuxian. We don’t yet know what that means-- we don’t know what he felt trapped by-- but he’s enjoying the freedom from having to keep his status in mind. Status as something that binds, not something desirable, is interesting-- and puts Wuxian in contrast with… well, so far with the Mo family, because we haven’t met anyone else yet.

#VadyReadsMDZS #xiao zhan had such fun with this bit #it's a pity they stopped doing it after episode 1 lol

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