Twin Jades Of Gusu - Tumblr Posts

Honestly, I can't stress enough how important the theme of family is in mdzs. IMO it is the main theme of the book. Of course romance and devotion is important, but there's something so special about the way families are portrayed in mdzs and how important they are. (I watched donghua and read some of manhua btw)

Let's start with sibling relationships:

The whole plot started because of love for a brother and rage for how unjust his death was. The whole Cloud Recesses arc is an amazing set up for Wangxian etc, but it also shows the complicated yet sweet relationship between WWX and JC. How they both care so much about each other, how they tease each other. IMO JC did see WWX as a brother and loved him as such. Every time he scolds Wei Ying, it's always about Wei Ying's safety. Usually it's not "How dare you use demonic cultivation, you're gonna get our clan in danger", it's " If you keep it up, I won't be able to protect you". Even during the Wen invasion, the they're still together, they sacrifice themselves to save another. And don't get me started about Jiang Yanli, she loves her brothers very much. Despite Madam Yu creating a competition between the boys or Jiang Fengmian's lack of action and even enablement of WWX' dangerous and irresponsible behavior, they still love each other. I can ramble about yunmeng trio so much, but in short despite everything they went through, they cared for each other deeply. After Jiang Yanli's death everything changes, because imo the boys fully internalized Madam Yu's last words. WWX bring pain and destruction to Yunmeng. I think I need to stop, or we'll be here all day.

Or, another example: Nie bros. Nie Mingjue had to basically raise A-sang. They do deeply care about each other, and despite everything they'll be here for each other. Yet the desire to protect NHS from sad reality of golden core and qi deviation, their relationship soured a little. But it's obvious even for an outsider like WWX, that NMJ loves his brother. He pressures NHS, because he feels that he's starting to lose it. He wants to prepare his little bro to be a decent leader and to live without him. And NHS literally makes it his life mission to avenge his Dage even if it means having a blood on his hands.

Lan brothers show a good brother relationship. Lan Xichen supports LWJ in everything he does. Even his love for WWX. He gets protective, when he thinks WWX is laughing at LWJ's feelings. Lan Zhan is deeply saddened when his brother is missing and helps him discover the truth about his best friend's death. They're almost perfect siblings. (Plus they're super funny when drunk).

MXTX deserves an award for writing so many different sibling dynamics. And that's not all, she also portrays this different parental relationship so interesting.

Like, the nephews you didn't want, but care so much about, that you don't want them to suffer like their father did (Lan Qiren and this family drama); the kid of your husband's unrequited love, whom he seemingly loves more than your own children (Yunmeng Jiang happy house), JGS and the myriad of the kids he has ect. I love this variety so much.

I just love so much how MDZS has so much themes. Every time I think about MDZS, I find more and more interesting points and moments that change my perception of the characters. Every character is so humain and has their own motivation, that I can't truly hate some of them (apart from Wen Chao, his mistress and JGS, they suck).

TLDR: MXTX is a queen of writing complex human characters.

Thanks to you wonderful people tacking on your replies and thoughts onto this post, I got to thinking, not about LXC this time, but about LWJ, and what’s so intriguing about him to me - his ability to move on. Or his particular brand of it, anyway.

I get it, I love the romance of playing Inquiry for sixteen years straight until his fingers bleed as much as the next guy, but what intrigues me more is that he’s clearly shown to not repeat his father’s mistakes - he doesn’t, against all odds, spend all his time in seclusion, grieving his long lost love, doesn’t abandon his duties, doesn’t forsake his sect and his standing within it.

Thinking about WWX as the singular focus point of his entire life has sustained me on many a cold night, believe me, but the truth is, he lives on, and I find that astonishing. Does he live on hoping, since his Inquiry never gets a definitive reply, that WWX is still out there somewhere? Or does he live on in fear that the next fierce corpse he encounters, the next spirit resentful enough to bring an entire village to its knees, will speak to him in a voice he wishes he didn’t recognize? Isn’t that precisely why he can be found wherever the danger is, always preventing it, always resolving it, always searching, always coming up short?

Either way, he goes on. He doesn’t sit A-Yuan down and tell him of his past, he doesn’t tour the world trying to fix the Yiling Patriarch’s reputation, in fact I’m inclined to believe he rarely ever discusses WWX with anyone. Grief is a persistent beast, like a lead weight on your shoulders on a good day, enough to render you motionless and breathless on the worse ones. It’s written across his back in slow-healing gashes, and pressed into his fingertips where the strings of his guqin have left their thin indents, barely noticeable under stiff musician’s callouses.

Just the thought of him accepting this as a part of himself, putting on his grief like just another layer of his robes, but walking with it, carrying it, is something that, I think, speaks to who he is as a person, who he becomes, thanks to what he’s been through. Knowing WWX, learning what he believed in, what he meant to uphold, the hill he chose to die on, might well have left LWJ questioning, left him doubting and angry with the status quo, but does he become a rogue cultivator, going against the system, rejecting it? Does he disappear to start a sect of his own, does he break rule after rule again to stand up for what he believes in?

No, and I think it’s fascinating - I don’t think he regrets standing by WWX’s side for a second. The only thing he regrets is not being able to help properly, and him accepting he couldn’t have helped, now that’s for another essay entirely. For now, I think, he resolves that were he given a second chance, he’d walk down that single plank bridge without looking back, and it’s just a shame he couldn’t tell WWX that when it mattered.

It’s a good thing, then, that second chances have a funny way of coming about.

At one point Lan Qiren has held his nephews' hands, carried them in his arms, wiped their tears, picked them up when they fell, fed them, straightened their clothes, taught them to hold a brush, etc. etc.

I think about that a lot

And then I think about how Lan Qiren has just so desperately wanted his nephews to turn out well, how he wanted them to be different from their father.

And I wonder if Lan Qiren watches Lan Wangji get whipped 33 times and thinks about how once his little hand could only hold two of Lan Qiren's fingers at a time.

And I wonder if Lan Qiren sees Lan Xichen in seclusion and remembers when he struggled to hold chopsticks but tried again and again and again until he got it right.

If through everything, when he's scolding and punishing his nephews, he thinks back to their first days in his classes when they sat so seriously at the very front. Their chubby faces determined to do well.

Lan Qiren is definitely misguided and harsh, but I think he's also extremely motivated by his love for his nephews. They were thrust upon him, and he raised them the best that he could.

Because that's the other thing--Lan Qiren didn't decide to have these kids. They aren't his sons. But he did what he thought was best for them. He scolds them, he punishes them, but he's at least always there.