(no subject)

[superborb]

I saw a post where people were ragging on Yanli for being not politically savvy enough and like, I respectfully disagree?

She definitely took the "doomed older sister" role, but she was also like, a weak cultivator and her interests lay further in the caretaking aspects of life instead of physically fighting. Once the Jiang sect was rebuilding, the person most in danger was WWX, who could not be protected by the Jiang sect alone. Everyone was still suspicious of the close ties of WWX and the Jiangs, so JC's ability to move was curtailed. Military might alone through the Jiang sect wasn't enough, so she /needed/ the help and buy-in of the Jin sect in order to protect WWX. Her ability to protect her family thus lay in the marriage alliance she could make and maintain.

Through her influence on JZX, who now had expressed a willingness to protect her no matter what, and therefore to the Jins -- the only sect who was fully intact and also the one leading the call to destroy WWX and the Wens -- she could directly try to bring WWX and the Wens back into acceptability. Because of her expressed desire to bring WWX back, JZX asked JGS to agree to let WWX come to the one month celebration, and JGS even agreed to not continue the feud under certain conditions.

I mean, she wasn't successful in her influence campaign, but that was a pretty good attempt to play politics in the only way she could. (I guess also she married JZX bc she loved him or something...)

Comments

[cortue]

Whaaaat? It's hardly the wildest opinion I've heard in the fandom, but (at least from the show as that's the only thing that I've seen) just think about how she balanced rejecting JGS trying to get her to marry while she was still in mourning for Lotus Pier. And wow, that whole scene at the...hunt even I can't remember the name of where she balanced that shitty cousin and her future mother in law and basically the whole cultivation world being down on her brother. She knows what she's doing! her style is just not as flashy most of the time, and so it doesn't call attention to itself where everyone is pretty much extra all the time.

[lirazel]

Seconding all of this!

[superborb]

Yes, though those are definitely flashier and more attention calling vs more behind the scenes stuff! Which I think is what people are valuing more (I cut that part out of my post bc it seemed too accusatory...)

[cortue]

Oh for sure! I think it's just an external sign of what's going on under the surface that you can read into her other scenes that you pointed out. It's the sort of mental exercise that's done in fandom all the time for people who aren't, hmm, "nice" and quiet and female~

[superborb]

Yessss like I'm pretty sure it's that she's not a Strong Female Character TM so people think she's weak. I don't like it

[cortue]

Yeah, I was thinking about it and, as a generalization for how western fandom interprets characters, I feel like male characters can exist in any part of the story but women really need to join the kind of 'male sphere' of the story or it's there fault that they're not considered interesting, valid or even relevant? I'm on the side of JYL did understand politics because she grew up in a rocky household and that's political training in and of itself but! if she weren't? isn't it enough to write or care about that she's an incredibly emotionally perceptive person - pretty much the only person who approached WWX with the kind of tactic that might've gotten him to talk about his trauma eventually in a healthy way? She doesn't try to corner or force him, but supports him and tells him she's ready to hear it when he's ready to talk. and you know, if the rest of the everything didn't happen, I think it could've worked eventually. Idk, I feel like it's weird sometimes to defend female characters, because it feels like going in the same circle after circle.

[superborb]

Have you watched story of minglan? I think you'd really enjoy it!!!

[cortue]

I haven't yet but it is high on my list!