#mimetic doubles be doubling mimetic crisises be needed surrogate victims the grass is green the sky is blue what else is new

[frodo-of-the-nine-fingers]

the question of whether or not Jin Guangyao killed Qin Su or Jin Rusong is so deeply unimportant to me and also misunderstands, i think, the framing of these murders in the text. in the end, it doesn't actually matter if he killed them or not, it doesn't even matter if he feels like he did or feels ultimately responsible for their deaths (both of which are not necessarily the same thing as having capital M murdered them). what's important is that people think he did. what's important is that all it takes to destroy a man & make him the next surrogate victim is a few well placed rumors, whether or not they're true. it happened to Wei Wuxian and then it happens to Jin Guangyao. it doesn't matter, ultimately, if he killed Qin Su or Jin Rusong, the only thing that matters is that people think he did and that they were so easily and vindictively swayed is one of the themes of the story. Jin Guangyao uses this against Wei Wuxian and then Nie Huaisang uses rumors and gossip against him because the only murder that actually matters in the story is the one that starts the story, the one we know Jin Guangyao did for certain, the founding murder if you will.

#tldr who cares if he killed the baby/j #i do think we need to stop obsessing over it tho l #it's ambiguous! let it be ambiguous! #you can't ever prove that he did you cant ever prove that he didn't let it goooooo #tldr go read violence & the sacred #sry if this is rambly & contradictory & doesn't make sense i am who i am there’s no fixing it now #im not saying that their deaths are less important than nmj (except like narratively speaking they are so) but i am saying that #if you're so hyperfocussed on whether or not these 'acts' prove jgy is 'good' or 'evil' you are missing the point #mimetic doubles be doubling mimetic crisises be needed surrogate victims the grass is green the sky is blue what else is new