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.
Man, I'll have a hard time answering this point for point without snakeposting.
Firstly, I accept that it is easier to forgive and accept our friends, warts and all, than our enemies. But I am not Meizhen's friend, Ling Qi is. There are tons of "good aligned" literary characters people hate or consider villains or hypocrites, despite the story being told in such a way as to elicit sympathy for them. A prime example would be most sociopathic xianxia heroes: the story bends around to justify their actions, but I would not bat for them despite the fact that the authors pull every trick to make them sympathetic or justifiable.
Second, I have no objections to your characterization of the White Bai as a state. I do , however, disagree with your characterization of Meizhen. Being part of a family that acts villainously does not automatically make you like them. However, the only trait of the ones you defined that applies to Meizhen regardless of definition is "brutal" , with "vindictive" and "cruel" depending on how you define them and the rest not applying at all. Let's go through them one by one.
Brutal: Yes. Brutal refers solely to behaviour rather than personality, so no definition problems here.
Authoritarian: she actively avoids being in a position of authority, even though she knows she'll eventually have to be. This doesn't apply at all.
Oppressive: Not really. She never deals with anything with a heavy hand, unless provoked (see vindictive)
Scheming: No. She was taught to scheme, sure, but she never uses it for any reason other than defending herself from other schemes.
Vindictive: Maybe. Her behaviour does fit the bill, but it is born out of clan pragmatism, not a personality trait.
Cruel: same as vindictive.
Now, you also said regardless of rationalization, but the rationalization here matters a lot. Her reasons for adopting these traits was always because it was drilled into her head that it was the best way to protect others in cultivator society, because people otherwise never stop trying to hurt you. She hates the Sun rebels because they hurt mortals, if inadvertedly. She hates Zihao because she wants to protect herself, her family and Ling Qi. She hates Renshu because she wants to protect Ling Qi. As far as she is concerned, the best way to protect is to make sure no one dares to hurt those that are close to you. In tthat sense, she immediatedly goes nuclear out of perceived necessity, not callousness or sadism, and that matters, because it shows her traits in a different light. If I wanted to describe her worst qualities, I'd call her brutally cynical (under the philosophical definition of distrust of other's motives, not the definition of making a selfish move), although she'd probably call herself pragmatic.
I have no objection to your grandpa Sun analysis. We still do not know enough about him to judge him morally, but I do not think he is a villain.
I do however have to add that, unlike grandpa Sun, Liling's law of the jungle philosophy is not viewed through the lens of kindness or pragmatism, but rather selfishness. She only appears to like these kinds of laws when she ends on top. Desperation may have played a part, but when one creates enemies so that they may be trampled underfoot and supports policies that are incredibly unfair to those that are poorer, it is hard to feel for her when on the receiving end.
It is possible she has experienced character development post forge, but we have barely seen her enough to say. I should note that all my comments refer to forge Liling.
I also completely agree that people change, maybe even post Cyan. We do have an Elder that changed a lot in Prism, after all. Yes, it hurt his prospects, but that doesn't change that he changed.
