>> hero | mdzs
Oct. 9th, 2018 11:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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noyabeansguess who spent her birthday writing chengxian angst! (yes, me)
actually, I was already done with 95% of the fic, because I did a brain dump over lunch yesterday lmao. when I came back to it today, I realised I'd ended it at a place where I didn't quite know how to continue because... what else was there to say? so all I really did today was to wrap it up, clean it a bit and post it.
(spoilers within!)
I was actually not intending to write anything for the idea of 'hero', because ewa and I have been discussing this topic for a while now and I was worried my fic would overlap with the things we've talked about. but inspiration came anyway when I was rereading the novel - particularly chapter 82, which I keep rereading because of... reasons.
I've wondered to ewa multiple times about jiangcheng's reaction to what fang mengchen says in the novel.
actually, I was already done with 95% of the fic, because I did a brain dump over lunch yesterday lmao. when I came back to it today, I realised I'd ended it at a place where I didn't quite know how to continue because... what else was there to say? so all I really did today was to wrap it up, clean it a bit and post it.
(spoilers within!)
I was actually not intending to write anything for the idea of 'hero', because ewa and I have been discussing this topic for a while now and I was worried my fic would overlap with the things we've talked about. but inspiration came anyway when I was rereading the novel - particularly chapter 82, which I keep rereading because of... reasons.
I've wondered to ewa multiple times about jiangcheng's reaction to what fang mengchen says in the novel.
人群之中，金凌握紧了拳，忽然肩头传来一阵剧痛，原来是江澄搭在他肩膀上的五指渐渐抓紧。
金凌看不清他的神情，低声道：“舅舅……”
江澄那边传来一声意味不明的冷笑。
In the crowd, Jin Ling clenched his fists. Suddenly, there was a sharp pain from his shoulder. Jiang Cheng's grip on his shoulder was tightening.
Unable to see his expression clearly, Jin Ling said lowly: "Jiujiu..."
Jiang Cheng let out a cold laugh, the meaning of which was unclear.
why would jiangcheng laugh like this? at first, ewa and I thought it was because despite it all, jiangcheng was still running in after wuxian and saving him, cleaning up after a mess wuxian had gotten himself into again. but it still didn't seem quite right for him to react like this, especially after what fang mengchen had said.
a few days ago, after a lot of discussion with ewa about the concept of being a hero, and how jiangcheng had accused wuxian of having 英雄病 in chapter 74 (?), I came back to this arc in search of something else that takes place a bit earlier in the chapter. I ended up rereading this part again, and it sank in then that his reaction was probably in direct response to fang mengchen's mock-naming of wuxian as a hero.
from fang mengchen's pov, wuxian was a villain trying to play the hero. he was evil, wicked, malignant - everything that the common folk thought yiling laozu to be. it was believed that he had killed so many people because he was evil, because he had stabbed jiangcheng and yunmengjiang in the back.
jiangcheng knows better. jiangcheng of all people knows that wuxian never harboured any ill intentions, that up to the end wuxian had never betrayed yunmengjiang. he'd only ever wanted to play the hero, to save those who needed saving.
but saving those people came with a cost: the people wuxian was closest to, the ones he'd wanted to protect too.
there are two things about chengxian that are irreparably different - their fundamental personalities, and their roles and responsibilities.
jiangcheng is a slytherin, wuxian is a gryffindor. and more than any chapter prior, chapter 74 drove this difference home.
even though jiangcheng knew they had been saved by wen ning and that he owed his life to him, there was no way he could put that debt over his own clan. he would not - he could never - justify placing yunmengjiang on the opposite side of the rest of the cultivation clans, he could not justify saving the wens and placing himself against what lanlingjin was doing.
wuxian could, because wuxian was not a clan leader. that responsibility was jiangcheng's to bear.
so wuxian had done it, because he had to, despite jiangcheng's protests, and that had caused strife between the two of them. he'd been furious at wuxian's hero syndrome. but even after they fought, it was clear that jiangcheng was still trying to support wuxian from lianhuawu. he knew wuxian had good intentions, that wuxian only wanted to do what he felt was right. and jiangcheng knew that what wuxian was doing was right, if this world were a fair and kind one.
and jiangcheng knew, he definitely knew, that wuxian would never have wanted to hurt jin zixuan or jiang yanli, or jin ling, or himself. they were brothers after all. despite all the secrets they kept from each other, despite all the tension between them, this he knew better than anyone. but in wuxian's attempt to be the hero, all those people - jin zixuan, jiang yanli, jinling, jiangcheng - ended up becoming collateral damage. even jiang fengmian and yu ziyuan were arguably victims of wuxian's heroism... as was wuxian himself, eventually.
what's interesting here about this whole... hero thing is that... once upon a time, when lianhuawu had not burned, when jiangcheng and wuxian were still brothers and best friends, wuxian had told jiangcheng that they would be heroes together.
and it's obvious that both of them were, at one point, heroes to each other. jiangcheng looked up to wuxian, wanted to be like him, wanted to surpass him. and jiangcheng protected wuxian too, so many times: bore the brunt of the insults from other clans for wuxian's sake, chased dogs away for him, defended him from his own mother.
yet at the end of it... yunmengjiang's twin heroes no longer existed. not just in name now that wuxian was dead, but in spirit too. neither of them had managed to protect the people they wanted to, not even each other.
wuxian had hurt jiangcheng so much, so much that even in the present day he avoids all contact with jiangcheng. I strongly believe wuxian would not avoid jiangcheng as much if it was as simple as jiangcheng hating him and being furious at him. there's guilt at play too. and of course, jiangcheng had lost wuxian long ago: to the wen clan, to the demonic powers, to death.
what heroes were they if they couldn't even do this?
not all of these things were what I set out to explore when I started this fic, but somehow it ballooned into what it ended up being.
In the crowd, Jin Ling clenched his fists. Suddenly, there was a sharp pain from his shoulder. Jiang Cheng's grip on his shoulder was tightening.
Unable to see his expression clearly, Jin Ling said lowly: "Jiujiu..."
Jiang Cheng let out a cold laugh, the meaning of which was unclear.
why would jiangcheng laugh like this? at first, ewa and I thought it was because despite it all, jiangcheng was still running in after wuxian and saving him, cleaning up after a mess wuxian had gotten himself into again. but it still didn't seem quite right for him to react like this, especially after what fang mengchen had said.
a few days ago, after a lot of discussion with ewa about the concept of being a hero, and how jiangcheng had accused wuxian of having 英雄病 in chapter 74 (?), I came back to this arc in search of something else that takes place a bit earlier in the chapter. I ended up rereading this part again, and it sank in then that his reaction was probably in direct response to fang mengchen's mock-naming of wuxian as a hero.
from fang mengchen's pov, wuxian was a villain trying to play the hero. he was evil, wicked, malignant - everything that the common folk thought yiling laozu to be. it was believed that he had killed so many people because he was evil, because he had stabbed jiangcheng and yunmengjiang in the back.
jiangcheng knows better. jiangcheng of all people knows that wuxian never harboured any ill intentions, that up to the end wuxian had never betrayed yunmengjiang. he'd only ever wanted to play the hero, to save those who needed saving.
but saving those people came with a cost: the people wuxian was closest to, the ones he'd wanted to protect too.
there are two things about chengxian that are irreparably different - their fundamental personalities, and their roles and responsibilities.
jiangcheng is a slytherin, wuxian is a gryffindor. and more than any chapter prior, chapter 74 drove this difference home.
even though jiangcheng knew they had been saved by wen ning and that he owed his life to him, there was no way he could put that debt over his own clan. he would not - he could never - justify placing yunmengjiang on the opposite side of the rest of the cultivation clans, he could not justify saving the wens and placing himself against what lanlingjin was doing.
wuxian could, because wuxian was not a clan leader. that responsibility was jiangcheng's to bear.
so wuxian had done it, because he had to, despite jiangcheng's protests, and that had caused strife between the two of them. he'd been furious at wuxian's hero syndrome. but even after they fought, it was clear that jiangcheng was still trying to support wuxian from lianhuawu. he knew wuxian had good intentions, that wuxian only wanted to do what he felt was right. and jiangcheng knew that what wuxian was doing was right, if this world were a fair and kind one.
and jiangcheng knew, he definitely knew, that wuxian would never have wanted to hurt jin zixuan or jiang yanli, or jin ling, or himself. they were brothers after all. despite all the secrets they kept from each other, despite all the tension between them, this he knew better than anyone. but in wuxian's attempt to be the hero, all those people - jin zixuan, jiang yanli, jinling, jiangcheng - ended up becoming collateral damage. even jiang fengmian and yu ziyuan were arguably victims of wuxian's heroism... as was wuxian himself, eventually.
what's interesting here about this whole... hero thing is that... once upon a time, when lianhuawu had not burned, when jiangcheng and wuxian were still brothers and best friends, wuxian had told jiangcheng that they would be heroes together.
and it's obvious that both of them were, at one point, heroes to each other. jiangcheng looked up to wuxian, wanted to be like him, wanted to surpass him. and jiangcheng protected wuxian too, so many times: bore the brunt of the insults from other clans for wuxian's sake, chased dogs away for him, defended him from his own mother.
yet at the end of it... yunmengjiang's twin heroes no longer existed. not just in name now that wuxian was dead, but in spirit too. neither of them had managed to protect the people they wanted to, not even each other.
wuxian had hurt jiangcheng so much, so much that even in the present day he avoids all contact with jiangcheng. I strongly believe wuxian would not avoid jiangcheng as much if it was as simple as jiangcheng hating him and being furious at him. there's guilt at play too. and of course, jiangcheng had lost wuxian long ago: to the wen clan, to the demonic powers, to death.
what heroes were they if they couldn't even do this?
not all of these things were what I set out to explore when I started this fic, but somehow it ballooned into what it ended up being.
