[X] She would soar, one spark among the conflagration. Today she was a voice of fire and steel, better to embrace that.
The Crucible would devour them all, and let there be only one people, one DAWN, and one future. Tradition wields no swords, raises no shields, marshals no armies, fills no bellies, fulfills no lives. False comfort, aiding none.
It's interesting how much backlash there is to this; you can read this as positive.
All people are created equal is how I read 'one people', the idea that there are not better or worse peoples, just one people and we are all the same in the end.
We all face the same future. We all stand under the same sun. Honestly, swap devoured for connect and dawn for spring, and this could be a description of Ling Qi's way.
The breezes would connect them all, and let there be only one people, one spring, and one future. Tradition wields no swords, raises no shields, marshals no armies, fills no bellies, fulfills no lives. False comfort, aiding none.
I think the idea that we are all equal is so internalized that people are missing that SWD's way explicitly rejects it. SWD says the ones who matter are the descendants of the Meng and everyone else can go drown.
It's notable that being culturally 'modern' is usually about not having restrictions on your life about what you are going to do, who you are going to marry, where you are going to live. Which makes "chain-breaker" make a lot more sense. To get to a point where people can choose for themselves, there's a lot of metaphorical chains to be broken.
I think the thing that reassured me most was that there was no reference to a ruler or an empire or anything like that. It does not seem like the heron general's way is to impose governance.
Are we really not taking this into account? This seems important too.
This is interesting because on the surface, fire and steel are exactly opposite from ice and song.
But both the general's way and our way are about endings. In the same way that cold and isolation kill, flame and steel kill. So I think that 'bringing about the end' will resonate a lot stronger than ice and fire will cause dissonance.
It's an interesting difference between the two ways too: ling Qi has everything ending in winter, to clear away the old so the new can be born, but almost passively. Things end. She just encourages them to a bit. Xia Ren has (almost?) everything ending in fire, so that the reforging afterwards can be better. Very active, an attempt to shape the future.
