#and this frequently does create emotional conflict for JC

[ouyangzizhensdad]

Some of the anti - mdzs posts frequently state that LWJ taking WWX to the cloud recess against his wishes at the beginning to save him from Jiang Cheng is the same as his father locking his mom. The reach aside, it is regarded as him violating his consent once again lol

Hi anon, 

It’s a topic I’ve talked about before, including in the refutation to common accusations against the novel post, so I won’t go into it too much. 

I find it funny to a degree because while in the novel WWX actively doesn’t consent the entire way there and keeps trying to find ways to escape, it’s not like CQL!WWX initially provides consent? He just passes out, dreams about 31 episode worth of flashbacks (which was.... a choice), and then wakes up in LWJ’s bed in episode 33, only realising where he is when he sees LWJ. CQL!LWJ didn’t wait to ask him his opinion before protecting him and taking him to the CR we don’t get to see at all what happened between LWJ and JC and how LWJ got to take WWX back to the CR: WWX wakes up from his terminally-long flashback to have a short flashback of what happened in episode 2--since no one would realistically remember much by that point--but the flashback ends at him being hit by Zidian. And episode 2 ended with JC asking MXY!WWX ‘who the hell are you’ and WWX passing out--because of the....??? emotional weight of seeing JC or something??????. So we just.... are told.... nothing, as an audience, about what took place once CQL!WWX passed out? Somehow, although JC wanted to take the modao user, LWJ made it happen? Even JC doesn’t bring it up when he captures CQL!WWX later on which could have been an opportunity to mention what went on.... Choices). I’m not going to say it is portrayed the same in CQL vs in the novel, but at the end of the day both include getting protected without consent to a degree. CQL!WWX doesn’t have the lights on to give an opinion on the whole thing, while WWX just makes a scene the whole time--but both LWJ take WWX back to the CR without getting first his consent 🤷‍♂️.

But the thing that annoys me about these critiques is that they are completely uninterested in asking, does the author do something with this? Does it have a point, character-wise, narrative-wise, theme-wise? Does it make sense within the ecosystem of the story? Does the conflict this might create has consequences? And it’s not like the story has anything to do with a kidnapped-into-love-plot, and very soon the misunderstanding that caused the lack of consent in the first place is resolved so the rest of the story doesn’t have to continue on this basis while at the same time keeping the consequences of this moment of conflict until almost the very end of the story. Moreover, it relies imo on pushing the frameworks of consent far beyond their actual ethical utility in order, generally, to moralise a work over another.  Also, saying that LWJ ultimately did the same thing as his father by artificially stopping the story in the first chapters as if nothing else happened after is hilarious but consistent with how these people seem to be unable to do a thematic analysis adeptly. Hearing them talk WWX spent years in the CR, not a single night.

The whole point seems to just be to cherry pick things that they will be able to call problématique in order to justify their hatred for the novel. You can literally take any work and any scenes to argue it is problématique by spinning things right--I’ve done it as jokes and it’s very easy. But it doesn’t make for strong, compelling arguments or for arguments that people who are not terminally online would find convincing.

#anon ask #brine corner