Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)
- Thread starter yrsillar
- Start date
- Original Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
And, like, let's not hold any illusions about this: Meizhen would totally be a war criminal if she was in a war. She would have absolutely zero qualms about this, and would in fact consider committing war crimes to be a good idea.
That being said, my preferred description for her is "a nasty piece of work".
(also Zhou was a war criminal and totally had it coming)
That being said, my preferred description for her is "a nasty piece of work".
(also Zhou was a war criminal and totally had it coming)
- Location
- Greece
Ok, I may be wrong. I'll concede that in this instance, it is probale that I am.
Doesn't really change things. I had allready aknowledged the action itself as evil, it doesn't matter if it is a litle eviler than I originally thought. A single evil action that causes no permanent harm (cultivators heal fast) does not make a person a villain, especially if it is cultural. And the Sect treats all cultivators as de facto combatants anyway, so these guys aren't dishwashers, but that is an entirely different rabithole, especially since I elieve the Sect to be wrong.
The thing that makes Bai goodish is that she is raising above the Bai morality, more so as time passes, and only falls back to it when she is given ample justification, as opposed to Liling, who uses her jungle morality to bludgeon others, and Zihao, who uses his as an excuse.
I am not a fan of the "product of culture" as an excuse to things, but she wouldn't be a war criminal because in a culture with the concept of war criminals she wouldn't pick up these extreme behaviors as pragmatic. Meizhen is becoming better because she slowly gets rid of her evil Bai roots, and in a more moral culture she'd have gravitated even earlier and even more towards caring for others.
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Varder
Tired Cultist
- Location
- Hell
Protecting your friends and family is a selfish reason though, if you love them at all.
Classical justification of a sympathetic villain. "For the greater good/for the bright future/for my people I will do this horrible thing, but I'm not a bad guy..."
Reread the Interlude. Those were not combatants, they were not attacking her or LQ and they already surrendered. If you find that behavior not evil or villainous, then I don't want to keep debating this because this is not a morality thread.
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- Location
- Florida
The distinction is the degree of evil I believe everyone is making, yes torture is bad but cats do it all the time and we still love them, Meizhen is a known quantity for where she falls in this regard whereas the... what was his name.. guy that attempted poisoning Zhengui is not and a more dangerous concern cause he was out for blood when we just decided to have a little look-see in his base.
Varder
Tired Cultist
- Location
- Hell
Hey, I like Meizhen too. That doesn't change who she is though.
You mean after we stole all his shit
Granted, the fucker tried to set us up and therfore deserved it, but it doesn't change what LQ did.
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This seems like a pretty bad example to make your point for many reasons. One of which is that cats get a pass since they, being animals, can't know any better. Another reason is that's probably an aspect of housecats that people would prefer not to exist since it can be disturbing. A third reason is that the argument being made seems effectively, 'Sure it's bad, but people like them, so it's okay.'
- Location
- Greece
Ah, yes, by the semantic meaning of selfishness one could qualify any behaviour in the world as selfish. But that is not what selfish means in a moral context (as opposed to the semantic or self depreciating context). Just so I am clear with my definition, "selfish" in my book means "to put oneself above all others" and no, the fact that in a cost benefit analysis you know you'll get hurt more if you lose your friends than if you get hurt does not apply here.
Bai Meizhen went out of her way to help a friend who had spurned her love. Her action may be evil but it was genuinely selfless in every nonsemantic way.
As for the justifications of sympathetic villains... you are aware many people root for them for that reason, right? Often, what makes them evil is that they are wrong, or that they cause greater harm they resolve, or that they act hubristically. AAnd admitedly, the two first stuff may apply, but...
Finally, I'd appreciate if you didn't misrepresent my argument. I have repeatedly stated, without prodding and as a de facto assumption, that Meizhen's ACTION at that moment was evil. I just disagree that people are defined by who they are at their worst. Instead, I am arguing a) that there were some mitigating circumstances around that action (desire to protect, cultural background, sect philosophy about cultivators etc) that do not make it nonevil, but rather, they mitigate it into lesser evil, b) that a person is not villainous if they keep trying to rise above their background, but rather if they sink below it and c) that a person is not solely defined by who they are at their worst or their best.
- Location
- Florida
But that's the beauty of it! If you think of all the Snake People in the Thousand Lakes like cats it suddenly makes so much more sense.
Their like cats that somehow turned to people then had a whole bunch of snake babies but now they have a spy network (which cats totally have)
Plus they got that whole "I am better than you but I will stay here because there's fish"
Naw, she had a good reason, she couldn't let the Bai win the politics, so seeing no option out of that mess she tried to explode it.
Keeping in mind that these are very much premodern societies, where being good to your outgroup is seen as a luxury of the powerful, but failing to maintain the position of your ingroup is a sin which marks you as unworthy of loyalty.
The Bais are worse, because they arose in the Bronze Age and still have bronze age power structures baked in. They don't do senseless violence, so much as build a deterrent reputation to protect their own.
After all you can't be everywhere at once, so the best defense you can give to your family is a reputation that would ensure that any attackers would go after the most powerful and most able to contest them, or not attack at all, because retribution would be inevitable from the powerful.
Reixiang admited that Duchess gave her mission to take control of outer sect. It was obvious since she become leader of the council. Liling was heiress of ducal house and had no reason to submit to Reixiang , and couldn't do it without looking weak.
DaBlueSky
Writer's Block Incarnate
- Location
- South Dakota
Are we riding CRX now? It's so weird to me that the person who has almost been stripped of their humanity is the "good" person. She speaks of societies as things that must be "fixed" , like someone putting a cog back into a broken machine. "Goodness" here is so relative.
- Location
- Greece
Fact 1: she clearly went law of the jungle because she believed it
Fact 2: her actions harmed her ingroup
Fact 3: CRX's council was technically a council of equals exlicitly for this reason . (CRX's voice only seemed asolute because for a variety of reasons people didn't object, but she equally didn't object to most other people's suggestions) Her being in the student council wouldn't make her weak, but by revolting and losing, she made it CRX's council by removing all the different voices from inside it and then she made herself look weak by losing on every possible level.
A Duke doesn't look weak when sitting in a council with other Dukes, even if he gets outvoted, especially since his voice is always considered, so why would Liling?
Again, it only became CRX's council because Liling removed all CRX oppossition, as everyone else either didn't care or agreed with her policies, but neither Han nor Bai nor even technically Ling Qi were subordinate to her and that was obvious. (Ling Qi became subordinate to her later, but not on accord of the council)
I am having a hard time parsing that argument. Are you saying that people that are broken due to abuse cannot be good? CRX is very much human (well, at least, as far as any Green is), her behaviors are very much similar to a trauma victim and not really unemotional (until/unless she cuts that while cultivating up).
As for fixing society... did you miss the part where she wants to fix it for the benefit of the PEOPLE rather than for some abstract ideal of purity? It is the whole reason she is conflicted about her mother. She doesn't talk as if society is a broken machine, that is her mother or maybe the tropes some people think define every character that acts even somewhat similar to an archetype, she talks as if society is an imperfect institution that fails people that could otherwise be saved, that could otherwise live happy lives as members of society.
And yes, I am riding her since the discussion at the carriage, because it was the point she showed for definite that she wasn't the inhuman optimization for optimization's sake monstrosity people mischaracterize her as, but rather someone who genuinely cared about genuine injustices.
Nor is CRX a dictator, at least, not anymore than the power and political system of her world forces a feudal lord with supercomputer brain to be. She consults everyone and ponders carefully the needs of even the smaller folk, and while she doesn't always think of everyone and everything, she is more than willing to implement suggestions when she doesn't see an angle someone else does.
Bai, I am admitting falls in goodish because of some genuinely horriffic actions , with her saving grace being that she tries to be better/ uses said actions for altruistic purposes. But CRX? she is good, no question about that.. at least, until/unless she cuts something essential on the way up.
DaBlueSky
Writer's Block Incarnate
- Location
- South Dakota
Because it's not really an argument, it's a jab at the person who had no problems with declaring Bai Meizhen as evil. Bit of an asshole? Sure. Evil? Doubt it. I tend not to hold teenagers to their political beliefs because they're in their formative stages, just as I'm not willing to believe that CRX will stay a force for good simply because she told us.
Don't disagree with the rest.
Varder
Tired Cultist
- Location
- Hell
Your definition applies mostly to childish villains who don't get any characterisation whatsoever so that kids know who to root for. This definition also implies that nepotism is not a selfish thing.
People root for them, but they are still villains. One can root for a villain, I certainly do often enough. If people deny that the villain they are rooting for is indeed a villain, then they delude themselves, usually.
But the problem is that Meizhen was not at her worst. She didn't torture them because she was distressed by her relationship with LQ, or because she was overwhelmed with fear for her friend/herself. She was calm and collected. She planned to do it, didn't hesitate and doesn't regret that. That's her standart tactics toward her enemies or anyone who relates to them.
It was not her worst, that was her usual. With Ling Qi, it's her best.
Also, I went back to our argument, and realised that I indeed never called her a villain. I made an example of her attacking an innocent (arguably innocent, but still) and called what she did evil and then was provoked into defending a point I've never made.
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- Location
- Greece
First of all as for you never calling her a villain... I sincerely apologise. I was grouping responses together to defend my point. You are right, I really shouldn't have done that, and you are right her action then was evil even with mitigating circumstances.
That said, I do disagree with some of your points.
Firstly, I never stated that selfish= evil or altruistic = good. I just said they factor in. But a person can be villainous and altruistic e.g. if he considers every person on the outgroup a non factor compared to the in-group and aggressively and purposslessly hurts them.
Secondly, its funny, but in reality you more often find cartoonish villains than nuanced ones. Reality is unrealistic and all . Far too often you find people engulfed with all consuming greed, pride, hate or hypocrisy and rarely you find well intentioned extremists.
Thirdly, nepotism, although harmful is often (not always) rooted in altruistic insticts, which is why it requires political theory and/or a culture of egalitarianism to uproot. It is not one of these actions people of any culture should indtictually know better about.
As for villain rooting, it depends on the villain. Thanos is genuinely insane and wrong despite being sympathetic, but can one genuinely claim the same for, say, Klaus Wulfebanch? (At least during act 1)
Lastly, how do you know Meizhen was not at her worst? The narration was Cui's. People do not always show what they feel, and falling back to famillial patterns that teach you to be unfeeling is easy when you are hurt, easier still when you rationalise they deserve it. Sure, it is the Bai's usual and they taught it to Meizhen, but how often has she done it? Does she truly believe in it? Did she just fall back to it because Ling Qi's way has recently dissapointed her? Hard to say.
- Location
- The Space Between
it is easy to be biased towards our friends. It is easy to rationalize grey morality with context and relative morality. Let's talk about Bai and Sun in their contexts, and then our local reps as we have seen them.
The White Caste of the Bai are in a protracted state of decay. They are losing power, losing understanding that their power is only superior to the combined other 6 sisters when the 8th and youngest daughter is respected and upheld by them. They have suffered multiple catastrophes lately, and from this interlude it seems that Suzhen is underestimating the many waves that corrode even iron wills. Civil war amongst the sisters, populist revolt amongst the commoners, invasion by west province maniacs supported by the Demon Sunflower, and potentially a punitive strike from Heavenly Peaks who is losing their grasp on the empire. If the White Caste can be reminded to care for the smallfolk the Civil War will be much easier to win, the invasion will be easier to resist, and Heavenly Peaks will have a harder time justifying, on top of the fact that there will be no populist revolt to fight against.
Meizhen was a medium-strong member of the White Caste. She is authoritarian, oppressive, vindictive, brutal, scheming and cruel. These are traits that are accurate to apply to our friend, because regardless of rationalization the results are the traits indicated. Despite this, she didn't stand out to the White Caste Bai at large because there are likely siblings or cousins who are more brutal, scheming, cruel or oppressive. Meizhen lacks the sadism to truly push the bounds of those traits, but that might be why Suzhen took a liking to her.
Meizhen is more than just an average White Caste, she is also kind and our friendship allowed her to explore her better self despite the socialization of her home. She chose to be good, not because we changed her but because we gave her the opportunity to change herself. And she took it. Through this kindness and selective Oppression, Vindication, Brutality and Cruelty she may find the White Clan's strength in alliances again and assist in shoring up 1000lakes against the coming calamity. would she have had this space to excel without us? Perhaps, Suzhen appears to favor her. But it would have been a longer road more fraught with failure, as we can see with Liling.
Sun is a militant leader without peer. Sun inspired loyalty in his troops to the degree that they volunteered to fight the 8 Sisters and pursue justice deep into the jungle. Sun is an incredible state-crafter, carving an alliance of vassals strong enough to split away from the decay of the Bai and strike out on their own into new territory. The one flaw to Sun, is that despite military strength and strong statecraft and rigorous training it still wasn't going to be enough and he made a deal with the Sunflower Demon. This is a death world, and the odds that the Sunflower Demon is an entity that wants to enslave and devour the children of The Two is non-zero. It's possible that this parasite isn't anti-human, but even in that case it definitely is pro-self-propagation and expansion at the expense of human lives. Law of the Jungle isn't fair, but it might be more fair than the corrupt White Caste. Should the White Caste reform though, they will lose the moral highground because Law of the Jungle sucks haha.
Liling is a medium-strong member of the Sun clan. She is fierce, driven, bold, flexible, quick-witted, unafraid and militarily without peer. Unfortunately, she was previously untempered by serious loss or pushback and fell into the trap of Might (of arms) makes Right (of statecraft). Reverse of CRX in some ways. She has repeatedly figured out the optimal play in an extremely short amount of time and adapted to the new paradigm, militarily. A surplus of action without consideration. As I stated, she underestimated the necessity of words and politics in a violent world and lost to Bai in part because she slighted us instead of embracing us. Seeing only the power of Yang is a trap we may have given her the perspective to see if we had been with her what with our heavy Ying bias.
After her loss to Meizhen, she has since recognized her over-reliance on Yang/Acting as a weakness and has begun attempting to fix that without over-pride or over-regret. This is a good trait. She has successfully incorporated Ji Rong into her circle, and he too has seen the power of Ying and will likely be equipped with a much more rounded kit the next time we see him. Together, they will need to navigate the Sunflower Plot largely offscreen and without our involvement (or even knowledge, potentially). I like to think of Ji Rong as the protagonist of the other YRS quest in which his vote won. The one that looks like it's going to be all about Yang Power Fantasy and then their side loses and it's like "shit we have to learn about Ying" and then they start to see the Sunflower Demon's Plot and it all goes increasingly nuts. In that quest I probably wrote an effort post about the cool mysteries LQ and her strange moon patron bullshit haha.
what's fun about this setting is that any of the starter characters could have made interesting stories. All have plot hooks into positions of power that are seemingly going to be in dire straits in the near future, likely in need of reforms or grand reinforcement to survive the coming tragedies. The only one that missed the mark originally imo was BadBat. But that was miscalculation on YRS part in terms of how many readers have collective trauma from characters/people like that blindsiding us in stories/reality especially in Xianxia.
anyway. All of the kids are just that, kids. We shouldn't be hanging good or evil signs on them, everyone can pretty much change and shift with relative ease until Cyan. Even Kang Zihao or Yan Renshu can potentially help the human cause until they have gone beyond the point of return.
Characters would have changed if your interactions were flipped. Meizhen if left alone and friendless in the sect, constantly under attack, would have probably curdled into a more 'standard' Bai. A Sun Liling who was doing well and winning would have just remained spoiled and thoughtless without turning cruel out to anger and frustration. Kang was... always pretty bad, but in theory could have been Xiulan'd. Ji Rong is a straight up shonen archetype played straight in a world that doesn't necessarily cooperate with that.
So I can't really say how it would have turned out, it would be an entire different story with entirely different development.
Cai is Cai, she'd be hard to budge, but 'losing' last year... well who knows how that would turn out, when Shenhua came calling.
So I can't really say how it would have turned out, it would be an entire different story with entirely different development.
Cai is Cai, she'd be hard to budge, but 'losing' last year... well who knows how that would turn out, when Shenhua came calling.
- Location
- Florida
I agree with the cactus, dunno what BadBat is though.
This is just more fuel for the fire of what Li Suyin is gonna make with her little hero project, which reminds me did we ever check with her on our little rotten pod?
Im not 100% sure if its actually dead and not in a dormant state and going to hatch at this point with what little we know about the Gnawing Ones.
Oh and small nitpick but I think our domain is rank E but in our cultivation stats its F.
This is just more fuel for the fire of what Li Suyin is gonna make with her little hero project, which reminds me did we ever check with her on our little rotten pod?
Im not 100% sure if its actually dead and not in a dormant state and going to hatch at this point with what little we know about the Gnawing Ones.
Oh and small nitpick but I think our domain is rank E but in our cultivation stats its F.
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Hey guys I kind of just started this recently and I was really enjoying till ..... Bai Meizhen was rejected ....
Fuck that really hurt my soul, sorry yeah I'm trash I love Yuri and I was pretty fucking sad that nothing came of it.
Anyways just wanted to ask if that Yuri option was never even open ? I'm new to this whole quest stuff (came from Royal Road and damn this place look interesting had never heard about it) so just wondering if it even was an option or something sigh it truly hurt my soul seeing nothing come of that since I already know that the best end won't happen ......
Well if anyone can clear it up I'll be happy, please and thank you.
Fuck that really hurt my soul, sorry yeah I'm trash I love Yuri and I was pretty fucking sad that nothing came of it.
Anyways just wanted to ask if that Yuri option was never even open ? I'm new to this whole quest stuff (came from Royal Road and damn this place look interesting had never heard about it) so just wondering if it even was an option or something sigh it truly hurt my soul seeing nothing come of that since I already know that the best end won't happen ......
Well if anyone can clear it up I'll be happy, please and thank you.
Aranfan
Team Plasma Grunt
Ling Qi is straight. The Questers were not given a chance to decide her orientation. Meizhen's confession and rejection were not separated by a vote.
Staff Notice - Please keep in mind the age of the characters you're commenting about
So just like that, poor Meizhen never even had a chance hu ? Tbh at the beginning I didn't really care about if LQ entered a relationship at all the story is pretty engaging and that had me hooked but ....
Damn Meizhen just became my favorite character and seeing that Yuri dream maybe come true just for it to come crashing down was hard ....
Is that set in stone ? No way she ever forgets the footlong double meat special in favour of the clam surprise ?
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Like mentioned above LQ was always straight, mostly comes up in story with hormonal ogling of the beefcake eye candy, so it was not that unexpected from a story perspective. LQ just never had a friend so her attempts to get closer to her best friend ended up looking like something else to Meizhen. Sadly stuff like that happens.
Tho any relationship like that would probably be far of due to LQ's hangups with relationships and physical relationships. She got some serious trauma and trust issues due to growing up in a brothel and then the street.
SV as a quest culture leans heavily towards yuri relationships so if it had been a vote LQ would probably have gone for Meizhen. Some mentions made about going for a Meizhen route (this was if we picked to follow her as a handmaiden or something and not romance so take it with a grain of salt) begs the question of how healthy it would have been tho, as the rest of the Bai as a rule are horrible ppl. Codependency was the word used.
Diomedea
A piece of the continent
- Location
- The interblag
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It's pretty much set in stone, but as fellow yuri trash, I really encourage you to continue just for the friendship that develops between Meizhen and Ling Qi. Incompatible orientation is a subject that's usually not really explored well, and it's something that I feel a lot of folk either can relate to, or something they should consider. I think their relationship in the quest is an interesting one, and a deep and heartstring tugging one, even if it doesn't end up in blissful yuri schoolgirl love and just stays in the friendship zone.