[ SECRET POST #6018 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #6018 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 16 secrets from Secret Submission Post #860.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

It's in the secret.

"He's so well set up as an underdog - unwanted child who has to work hard for everything, but is doomed to be overshadowed by his golden child prodigy step-brother... his entire family is dead, his clan barely hanging on, he has no support, his only alliance is a tenuous one with the most asshole clan - he has to rebuild everything with nothing but handicaps on his side. And then post-time skip we find out he succeeded."

woobify. to make a character that is canonically morally wrong or grey into a cute little guy that you feel sorry for.


Ok, so there's a lot to unpack here.

"unwanted child" - This is a very common reading, and I mostly agree. That Jiang Cheng himself is unwanted by his father - but not by his mother. It strikes me as interesting that they only have two children, and the eldest is a girl. Given the relationship between JFM and Madam Yu, I have no doubt that they specifically were trying to a male heir. So in that sense, JC is wanted, but no one is gonna all the Jiangs the parents of the year. Also, JFM never actually adopts WWX. For all that we keep calling them brothers, no one outside of Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli actually considered WWX anything but a servant. He is not in line to inherit anything, so Jiang Cheng cannot be passed over.

"underdog" "who has to work hard for everything" - Now that is just wrong. Dude is privileged. Dude is the heir to a major sect. He's GOING to be sect leader no matter what happens. Yes, he works hard, especially with his mother breathing down his neck. But he's not working hard to be a good sect leader, or to be able to defend the common people. He's working hard to try and beat the competition, to win fame and respect. This is why he always loses. When he becomes sect leader, he doesn't direct his sect into protecting his people, or securing his territory from monsters and walking corpses. He only takes the jobs that will give him fame. That's why he's feared instead of respected by his civilian population.

"his entire family is dead" - Eh, he loses his parents to war. His sister gives her life for his brother. And he blames all of those deaths on said brother, who actually had nothing to do with it, and would have given his own life to stop any of those deaths. And that blame is what leads him to try to kill the last person of his family (aside from Jin Ling). So I rate this: Mostly true, but lacks context.

"his clan barely hanging on, he has no support, his only alliance is a tenuous one with the most asshole clan - he has to rebuild everything with nothing but handicaps on his side." - His clan is barely hanging on in that he has no heir, but his SECT is still a major sect. The novel also directly states that the Jiangs were in a very good position and were considered very strong post-war thanks to WWX's contributions to the war. Not exactly nothing but handicaps. Yes, Jiang Cheng rebuilds Lotus Pier, but he rebuilds it with what WWX won for him.

Jiang Cheng is a very morally grey and complex character who really caused a lot of his own problems. A lot of this secret is overlooking a lot of this in order to make him seem more stoic and worthy of sympathy, a victim of circumstance instead of his own decisions. They woobify him.

[(Anonymous)]

I say this as someone whose absolute fave is WWX, king of bring blamed for things he wasn't responsible for, but man you are supremely uncharitable to JC in every instance. Holy bad faith, Batman.

[(Anonymous)]

I think you're really misapplying the wooby term here. Acknowledging that someone is an underdog character who's had a lot of bad things happen to him in the past and faces challenges in the present isn't the same as trying to woobify him. That's like... almost every character in MDZS/TU. Because they had complicated background histories and all that.

I don't think woobification is what OP is proposing at all. Obviously it's cool if you dislike JC, but this doesn't seem like a legit issue here.