First of all, a big ol’ disclaimer: I am working from a translated text where I do not have access to the original language. That generates a gap where potentially a great deal can be lost or altered in translation; hence, I’m going to avoid as much as possible attempting to do a close reading or lean too hard on language or word choice in my assessment of the novel, speaking in broader strokes. 

Additionally, I am coming at this from a perspective where I am predisposed to feel sympathy for villains/antagonists in a story, and I recognize that potentially creates a bias in my assessment. That being said, I think it’s a fair reading at the very least, if not an authoritative one. This essay will include spoilers for the entirety of the Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (MDZS) novel, as well as The Untamed (CQL), and minor spoilers in footnotes and a brief additional section for MXTX’s other novels.

I will be touching on CQL in an appendix at the end, though to a lesser degree because analyzing visual media is less of my strong point. Nonetheless I think it is relevant that, despite the alteration of story details to arguably make the morality of the story more black/white, certain thematic resonances remain. 

All that being said, my point here is: MXTX (Mo Xiang Tong Xiu) as an author, and MDZS in particular, is at best skeptical of punitive justice; to put it more bluntly, the concept of characters “getting what they deserve” is, if not directly repudiated, then certainly not the point. To put it even more bluntly, MDZS doesn’t want to punish its villains, it just kills them, which (importantly) isn’t the same thing.

For three of the major antagonists in MDZS, and (I would argue, but not at length) to a lesser extent the others, when they are defeated and killed in the context of MDZS, the emotional valence does not suggest a victory – a moment of triumph or satisfaction. The scenes land differently: as moments of tragedy, or pathos, or at best a mixed blessing – perhaps the solving of one “problem” that goes on to only make things worse. Rather than a “win,” the death of an enemy is likely to be written either in a way that is meant to evoke sympathy (what I’m going to focus on here) or else in a way that hollows out the victory, rendering it in one way or another less than satisfying. The latter can be done either by making the character so wretched at the end that their death is more whimper than bang (i.e. Wen Chao), or by having it happen entirely off-screen (i.e. Wen Ruohan).

I think it’s further pertinent to look at the role that punishment/the question of justice plays more generally in the narrative as a whole, most clearly articulated in Wei Wuxian’s fall and the fate of the Wen after the Sunshot Campaign. It would seem there’s little doubt, given where the narrative’s sympathies lie, that we aren’t meant to believe that Wei Wuxian’s death was just, righteous, or “what he deserved.” In the opening lines of the novel, the reader is introduced to Wei Wuxian with the relief from society at his end (““Wei Wuxian is dead. Rejoice!”), along with the sense that his untimely end is only what he deserved (“I must say some fair words: good riddance.”). The narrative goes on to describe the horrible result that would inevitably come from his resurrection:

If in coming days his spirit were restored, if he forcibly possessed a body and were reborn, then not only the cultivation world, but all of humanity would inevitably meet with an even greater frenzy of vengeances and curses, sinking into a chaotic age of foul winds and bloody rains.

Chapter 1: Rebirth, trans. Yumei Translations

However, the reader very quickly, upon meeting Wei Wuxian himself and beginning to get to know him, comes to recognize that this wasn’t the whole story and maybe something else is going on. As the novel unfolds, that only becomes more clear, with gradual revelations revealing not only how he got there, but why, and complicating the ‘evil Yiling Laozu’ narrative the reader initially received.

In the first flashback, the reader is introduced to Wei Wuxian as a young man: feckless, perhaps a little over-confident, but very close to Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli and certainly not considered evil by society at large. Later on, we go on to see him suffer at the hands of the Wen Sect, who are the undeniable antagonists of this part of the book. He nearly dies at their hands, emerging changed and significantly darker, but his mysterious new powers make him a war hero, not an outcast. 

However, after the end of the war, a gradual escalation of tension between Wei Wuxian and cultivation society at large follows, in tune with Wei Wuxian’s increasing instability and disregard for societal norms. The final turning point comes when Wei Wuxian goes against cultivation society at large in order to free the remnants of the Wen sect after their defeat, specifically the siblings Wen Ning and Wen Qing, who acted to rescue him and Jiang Cheng from the fall of Lotus Pier. He removes them to the Burial Mounds where nobody else dares to come, and this is the point at which people turn against him. The dark power that formerly made him a valuable asset in wartime now becomes a threatening force, one that ultimately must be eliminated. 

While it is true that family annihilation was a historical reality for certain crimes, the fact that our protagonist is opposed to doing so, and that the reader is shown the faces and identities of the people being condemned, suggests that we as the reader aren’t meant to believe that standard should apply without question in this fictional universe. On the other hand, Nie Mingjue – a character who has a reputation of being morally upright – argues in favor, indicates that in-universe it is broadly accepted. This creates a tension between the understanding of the way a fictional world is constructed and its moral standards, and the recognition of the reader that their own don’t necessarily match. That dissonance paves the way for a separation between the reader’s own moral judgment and the in-story judgment of the characters themselves.

Thus, the presentation of justice in the cultivation world as a whole is demonstrated to be flawed at best. In accepting that what happened to Wei Wuxian was unfair, and what happened to the Wen was unfair, it opens a question about whether and if there is such a thing as fair punishment within the system, and if that punishment is a good or valuable thing at all, as opposed to something that just leads to tragedy and suffering, as well as unexpected and unwanted collateral damage (for instance, Jiang Yanli’s death). 

In more specific terms, for this essay I’m choosing to focus on three of the characters I’d mark as  “sympathetic” villains of MDZS: Su She, Xue Yang, and Jin Guangyao. As noted, I think the pathetic, wretched nature of Wen Chao’s death is meant to temper satisfaction over it, but I’m setting that aside as less significant, particularly since Wen Chao’s character depth as given is negligible in comparison to the other three. I’m beginning with more general observations about overarching themes that run through all three characters; then I will be zooming in on the death scenes for each character to examine how they problematize the concept of punitive justice.

With each of these three characters, MXTX takes pains to provide the reader with signals that invite sympathy. Each of them is given a background that might be dismissively called a “tragic backstory” – a way in which they have been wronged by the society they live in that frames the actions they take in response. Whether or not one believes those actions are “justified” is beside the point; they are meant to indicate that those actions are, at the very least, understandable. Understanding a character’s motivations brings the reader a step closer to them, rendering them more three-dimensional and therefore more “human” (as it were). By providing the context she does for where Xue Yang, Su She, and Jin Guangyao come from, MXTX pushes a closer look at those characters, making it more difficult to dismiss them out of hand as simply evil to be destroyed.

Furthermore, present in all of those stories is the concept of lost opportunities or missed chances – a note of the ways that specifically an external denial contributes to their character arcs. All of them are hurt or blocked at various points by society at large and its strictures, hierarchies, and expectations. Not only does this invite the what if question (fodder for many a fanfic), but also underlines the consistent theme in MDZS (and throughout MXTX’s works) that society creates its own enemies through cruelty or neglect to others.

Another complication is the ways in which both Xue Yang and Jin Guangyao function as mirrors or shadows of Wei Wuxian himself. All three of them rise from a low status origin to a position in one of the sects – with Jin Guangyao and Wei Wuxian, positions of some prominence. Jin Guangyao’s ascent from a low level servant to, eventually, Chief Cultivator, is probably the most obvious of the three, but the others have their own journey. Wei Wuxian is brought into the Jiang Sect as a child by Jiang Fengmian, and while he isn’t formally adopted he is separated out nonetheless by his close relationship with Jiang Yanli and Jiang Cheng, not quite an equal but somewhere above an ordinary disciple.¹ While he doesn’t occupy a traditional position of power, even before he breaks off ties with Jiang Sect he does have an unusual amount of authority, leverage, and independence relative to other disciples. Xue Yang goes from a child of the streets to a position where he is protected by the authority of a major sect, and Su She starts as a low level disciple and eventually becomes a sect leader in his own right. 

There are numerous other parallels between these characters that connect them in one way or another at various times over the course of MDZS, in big and small ways: for instance, him and Xue Yang by their unorthodox cultivation practices and work with the Yin Tiger Seal specifically,  Jin Guangyao by their uneasy relationship on the fringes of (and ultimately outcast from) cultivation society,² Su She establishing his own sect after publicly breaking off from the Lan Sect.³ 

There are many functions that a shadow figure may have in a story – sometimes they serve to challenge the protagonist, to force a closer look at themselves by confronting their dark side to either ultimately overcome or integrate it as a means of character growth. They can simply serve as a compelling antagonist – the ‘we’re not so different’ speech might be overdone, but having characters on parallel tracks facing off can make for a compelling match-up. It can also serve as a “there but for the grace of god” illustration of what the protagonist might have been, if they made different choices. 

I would argue that Xue Yang and Jin Guangyao are both performing something similar to the third function, but slightly altered. In particular with Jin Guangyao’s downfall, Wei Wuxian specifically remarks on the similarities with his own situation – one minute you’re the hero, the next the villain everyone is keen to denounce. Of course, since the way Wei Wuxian was treated is presented unjust, it invites comparison to at least consider the question of if the cultivation world’s reaction in this case is really better.

In the past few years, the words ‘ungrateful’ and ‘immoral’ had been almost synonymous with ‘Wei Wuxian.’ At first, he even thought that they were criticizing him again. He only belatedly realized that even though the same people were using the same words, the object of their criticism had already changed. […]

In the hall full of cheers, Wei Wuxian thought, Before today, he was still the Lianfang-zun who everyone praised. Just one day, and everyone wants to beat him up. […] Although somebody had finally inherited his position as the enemy of the entire cultivation world, Wei Wuxian didn’t feel any happiness, much less any warmth from finally being accepted.

Chapter 85, trans. Exiled Rebels

Xue Yang, meanwhile, serves as illustration of what becomes of a child living on the streets who is not fortunate enough to be adopted at a young age by one of the sects. He parallels Wei Wuxian in terms of his demonic cultivation work. His relationship with Xiao Xingchen is a distorted mirror set against Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji’s relationship, in particular in the portrait of obsessive (or nearly obsessive) devotion. One can also set Xue Yang’s massacre of the Chang Sect alongside Wei Wuxian’s vengeance against the Wen at the beginning of the Sunshot Campaign, particularly Wen Chao – while it may be difficult to feel sympathy for Wen Chao, Wei Wuxian’s methods are patently grotesque and extreme. Again, the close associations with Wei Wuxian urge the reader to place them alongside each other, and to consider how much of a difference, beyond circumstance, there is between them – not just in terms of character, but in terms of narrative positioning. 

If the narration suggests a world where Wei Wuxian easily could have been in the position of a Jin Guangyao or a Xue Yang, it also contains implications of the opposite: a simple twist of fate could bring one of them into Wei Wuxian’s ultimate “good” end. It suggests that perhaps there isn’t necessarily something inherent to a person that makes them more “worthy,” but rather a fine line of circumstance and surroundings. At the very least, it invites readers to take a closer look at the character in question – to examine them more closely, in a way that, like knowing their histories, makes them a more fully realized character – more fully “real.”

The assertion may arise, considering the ultimate fate of these characters, that their eventual (rather awful) deaths are clear enough repudiation and condemnation. Doesn’t that, in and of itself, serve as a punishment for their misdeeds? I’d push back against that as a read on what MXTX is doing here, in part because of another rather spectacular character death it overlooks (namely, Wei Wuxian’s, however temporary it turns out being) and the fact that death in this narrative overall, even hideous and painful death, does not necessarily indicate moral indictment (Wen Ning, Jiang Yanli). 

Furthermore, and on a deeper level, there is a fundamental difference between the death of a character that is meant to make the reader hurt, and the death of a character that is meant to satisfy or create a feeling of justice being served. For an easy and well known example from a Western perspective, consider the difference between the death of Darth Vader (presented as tragic and moving) and the death of Palpatine (a victory for the rebels). Or, if one feels that Darth Vader “gets away with it” because he turns at the last moment, consider Killmonger’s death from the Black Panther movie. All character deaths are not created equal. 

So when I talk about how MXTX is pushing back against that, what I mean is that, rather than reaching for that victorious, satisfying, ‘the good people have won’ feeling, she consistently presents the deaths of villains as more complicated than “they got what was coming to them” – and in the case of the villains I’m considering, as moments of pathos, meant to evoke a different emotion in the reader.

So, with that background on some more general read of what’s going on in MDZS thematically speaking, I’m now going to turn to a deeper examination of the final scenes of Xue Yang, Su She, and Jin Guangyao and note some cues in each scene that undercut the concept of “just punishment” in context. 

Su She

Of the three characters I’m focusing on here, Su She arguably gets the least “page time” – but he is nonetheless integral to the plot as the long-unnamed gravedigger and the executor of the near-disaster of the second siege of the Burial Mounds. His character is defined enough, his motivations significantly elaborated, and (relevant to this essay) his death scene is defined enough, to warrant examination. The fact that it occurs on page, and is given more elaboration than the death of Wen Ruohan (a major antagonist of the initial timeline), also lends it, and him, some weight.

In Guanyin Temple at the end of the book, facing Nie Mingjue’s raging, reassembled corpse, the reader witnesses Su She’s last moments as he attempts to defend Jin Guangyao:

Su She dodged sharply to the side. With the tip of his foot, he picked up his fallen sword and concentrated all of his qi into a single thrust towards Nie Mingjue’s heart. Perhaps because of the dire situation, the attack was abnormally swift and ruthless. The blade glowed brightly, brimming with spiritual energy, enveloped by swirling radiance. It was so much better than all of his previous elegant-looking attacks that even Wei Wuxian wanted to praise its excellence. The explosive attack even forced Nie Mingjue to take a step back. 

…Nie Mingjue’s punch landed right in the center of Su She’s chest. Su She’s splendor left as quickly as it had arrived. He couldn’t even spit out a mouthful of blood or say a few last words, either with dignity or cruelty, before the life in his eyes faded away.

Chapter 107-108, trans. Exiled Rebels

In this passage is visible some of what I propose are the hallmarks of the complication involved in the deaths of antagonist characters in MDZS. To put it simply: in the face of a monstrous, undead foe, Su She dies with bravery and pathos. 

I think it’s important to remember that, while Nie Mingjue as a living character may be positioned as a “good guy” (though I think that perspective itself stands to be interrogated), Nie Mingjue in death is a mindless and bloodthirsty corpse. Wei Wuxian indicates to the junior disciples that this corpse would tear off their heads to try to replace its own if it had the chance; in this scene the reassembled corpse doesn’t just direct its attacks at Jin Guangyao but also at other targets, including Jin Ling. In this context, Su She’s attempt at defending against this undead creature is more complicated than just “villain attacking hero.” Furthermore, Wei Wuxian in the narration expresses admiration of the technique of Su She’s attack, and it isn’t entirely fruitless – the delay it causes is momentary, but nonetheless Nie Mingjue is forced backward a step. 

A momentary detour into language (sorry!) notes the translation’s choice of words like “radiance” “elegant-looking” and “splendor” to describe Su She’s actions – if this translation echoes the sense/implications of the original language, that further marks them as at least containing elements of the praiseworthy.

This is, of course, quickly countered by the death that immediately follows, and this is where the pathos comes in. He’s killed by a single blow from Nie Mingjue, striking him down without, the narration notes, the opportunity to speak any last words. While on the one hand this absence of voice robs Su She of the opportunity to have last words (potentially a very significant and impactful thing to give to a character, imputed with more weight by virtue of their lastness), it also contains elements of what I discussed above: it’s a little bit pathetic, or anticlimactic, in a way that undermines the potential satisfaction of Su She’s death. There is neither “dignity or cruelty” in his end – just an emotional hollow and a sudden absence. 

This doesn’t, I feel the need to clarify, read as the summary discarding of a character the author doesn’t care about. If it is a summary discarding, then it is a very deliberate and narratively pointed one. Amid the drama of Guanyin Temple, the narrative crafts Su She’s death as a footnote, an afterthought – and in light of his previous courage and moment of nearly heroic spotlight, there’s something potentially disquieting about that transition, and how easily it occurs. The texture of the scene and its presentation isn’t framed as just punishment for Su She’s misdeeds; rather, he’s collateral damage in the face of Nie Mingjue’s unreasoning, indiscriminate anger.

Xue Yang

Over the course of the Yi City arc of MDZS, Xue Yang tricks Xiao Xingchen into murdering innocents as well as his best friend, drives him to suicide, and kills and mutilates a young woman. On top of that, we learn that prior to the beginning of the present-day portion of the story, Xue Yang was responsible for the massacre of an entire family. He is, pretty incontrovertibly, someone with a great deal to answer for. 

This makes the final moments closing out his appearance on page all the more significant. 

Aside from the matter of Xue Yang’s backstory – not a detail necessary to include, but one that MXTX builds into the narrative and spends page space developing – there are other cues that complicate Xue Yang’s death as simply the deserved end of an irredeemably bad person. There are arguments to be made about how the reader is meant to read Xue Yang’s story, and how sympathetic it’s meant to be, but I’m going to leave that aside entirely to focus instead on Xue Yang’s death itself.

First of all, it is notable that the reader doesn’t actually “witness” Xue Yang’s death. Wei Wuxian assumes that he has lost too much blood and was too severely injured to survive, but the reader doesn’t actually experience those moments as part of the narrative itself. In the context of a death framed as “justly deserved” by the narrative in some significant form, the reader might expect to see it presented in some fashion; that it isn’t here empties out the potential “satisfaction” of the demise of a villainous character. If nothing else, it gives the scene a feeling of unfinished-ness- a lack of fulfillment that suppresses the ability to dwell on or savor a character’s death.

Even more significant, however, is what could be called the final “appearance” of Xue Yang, after he’s been swept away to perish offstage:

Just as they were about to leave, Wei Wuxian abruptly stopped. “Wait.”

In the pool of blood nearby, he’d caught a glimpse of a lonely object.

It was a severed left arm. Four fingers were clenched tightly – the little finger was missing.

The fist had a grip like iron. Wei Wuxian squatted down, and only after considerable effort did he manage to pry it open, one finger at a time. Once he was done, he discovered a small piece of candy lying in Xue Yang’s palm.

It was definitely inedible – it had started to turn black.

On top of that, it had been held so tightly it was almost crushed.

Chapter 42, trans. Fanyiyi

Here, Wei Wuxian pauses the action from moving forward to return to reexamine the remaining piece of Xue Yang: the arm Lan Wangji cut off. It holds back the forward motion of the plot – and the characters – to provide the reader with this final image: a piece of rotted candy clutched so tightly that Wei Wuxian struggles to pry the hand open. The candy, of course, is a remnant from the time before Xiao Xingchen’s death – a gift that he gave his anonymous friend after hearing Xue Yang’s abbreviated story of what happened to him as a child. 

Closing on this moment ends the tragedy of the Yi City Arc not with the defeat of a fiendish foe but with pathos. It’s not a necessary image to provide, but rather than closing out this portion of the scene with a reminder of Xue Yang’s wrongdoing, the lingering “memory” carried away from the scene is of a tragedy that wasn’t simply caused by the character but encompassed him. It peels away the sinister villainy to place front and center the image of someone clinging to a remnant of someone absent and, if we connect the piece of candy back to Xue Yang’s origins, lost innocence, bringing the cycle of violence back to its beginning.⁴

Jin Guangyao

To close with the final antagonist of MDZS, let’s talk about Jin Guangyao. 

Jin Guangyao is, arguably, the main antagonist of the story as a whole.⁵ Certainly his actions propel the plot of Wei Wuxian’s life after his resurrection, and structurally speaking the confrontation with him is the final climax of the book. He is, then, particularly relevant when it comes to any argument about what MDZS is doing with its villains. If both Su She and Xue Yang can be argued to be minor antagonists, less important to the story and therefore less weighty in the thematic underlayers of their fates, that is unquestionably not the case with Jin Guangyao. 

And equally, the pattern carries on in his final scenes, where the drama and emotional tension is situated less around the need to defeat Jin Guangyao and more around…a number of other things, including Wei Wuxian finally recognizing and confessing his love for Lan Wangji, but also the final confrontation with Nie Mingjue’s corpse – a tenser and more dangerous situation, arguably, than the threat posed by Jin Guangyao. Even in the scene where he is the Final Boss, as it were, he isn’t the biggest threat in the room – and in fact, that larger threat is specifically aimed at him.

The point of Guanyin Temple isn’t primarily to punish Jin Guangyao for his villainy, and when it comes down to it his death is presented as less victorious than tragic.

It’s significant too that even when it comes to the person for whose sake this revenge is taking place – i.e. Nie Mingjue – Jin Guangyao’s death isn’t going to give him peace or free his soul. This isn’t a case where Jin Guangyao dying will appease his anger and let him move on, as is the ideal outcome (as we learn early on – appeasement, suppression, elimination, in that order). After the end of the book, it’s clear that Nie Mingjue’s corpse is still just as volatile, violent, and angry as ever – it has a target to vent that anger against, but killing Jin Guangyao doesn’t actually solve a problem in the sense of freeing Nie Mingjue, rather just continuing the violence that defined their relationship in life after death.⁶

Rather than a fix that rights a wrong, then, Jin Guangyao’s death is the perpetuation of a tragedy – his death doesn’t mark the ending to the violence, just a new phase.

But to zero in on the particulars of Jin Guangyao’s death scene, as previously with Su She and Xue Yang, I again want to look at how the depiction of his death further complicates a reading of “just desserts” or, at least potentially, the reader’s ability to take pleasure from his defeat.

To quote:

Yet, just as Nie Mingjue was about to grab Lan Xichen’s neck, Jin Guangyao used his one remaining hand to strike Lan Xichen’s chest, shoving Lan Xichen away. 

It was then Jin Guangyao himself who Nie Mingjue grabbed by the throat and dragged into the coffin. Nie Mingjue lifted him high, as if lifting a rag doll, framing a terrifying scene. Jin Guangyao’s remaining hand pried at Nie Mingjue’s ironlike grip, struggling through the pain. He struggled on, hair in disarray and eyes flashing with fierce light, voice tearing from his throat as he cursed, “Fuck you, Nie Mingjue! You think I’m actually afraid of you? I–“

He coughed out a choking mouthful of blood, and all those around heard a particularly cruel and clear cracking sound.

Jin Guangyao’s last breath escaped his throat with a sob. Jin Ling’s shoulders trembled, and he closed his eyes and covered his ears, not daring to look or listen a moment longer.

Chapter 108, trans. @neuxue.tumblr.com

Several things are immediately noticeable in this section of the text, and the choices made of how Jin Guangyao’s final death is represented. 

First, and perhaps most obvious, is the action he takes to save Lan Xichen’s life – just as Nie Mingjue is about to grab his neck, Jin Guangyao shoves him out of the way. While arguments can be made about the motivations for his doing so, the inarguable fact is that Jin Guangyao does, despite his previous statement, ensure that Lan Xichen survives and doesn’t go down with him. This, as a final living act, is unquestionably significant – what a person does in their last moments can, right or wrong, often carry a great deal of weight to indicate their personality and values as a whole, particularly in a narrative, and here Jin Guangyao falls on the side of choosing to save Lan Xichen.

A second is the description of Jin Guangyao’s death itself. At the risk of, as I’ve mentioned, reading too much into a text I only have access to through translation, the depiction of Nie Mingjue’s killing Jin Guangyao is one of grotesque violence. There’s nothing glorious or thrilling in the image of Jin Guangyao “like a puppet” or the “abnormally clear and brutal” sound of his neck breaking. It’s horrific. This is underlined by Jin Ling’s reaction to look away and cover his ears, unable to bear witness.⁷

Furthermore, the choice to mention Jin Ling’s reaction is itself meaningful, in that it provides the reader with the perspective of a character who is emphatically not enjoying this – who is, in fact, actively distressed by what he sees happening. Jin Ling is, at this point, aware of everything Jin Guangyao has done; he’s even been personally physically threatened. And yet, the fact is that Jin Ling’s reaction here is one of horror and upset: the chapter ends on that note, leaving his distress as the final image before the scene breaks. Choosing to follow the description of Jin Guangyao’s demise immediately with this response, rather than that of another character, including Wei Wuxian, who might be less sympathetic, underlines the ways in which this death is, even if one doesn’t find it tragic, not glorious or valorized.⁸

Again, as is the case with Su She and Xue Yang’s deaths, MXTX doesn’t linger on the sense of a villain defeated by the heroes, but on the horror of death and the humanity of the dying. There is no grand triumph for the downfall of Jin Guangyao: that’s not the point. The emphasis on justice being served is minimal. It’s just sad – the continuation of a miserable cycle of violence that will continue beyond the grave.⁹ The narration states that Jin Guangyao and Nie Mingjue go on fighting in the coffin as corpses: there is, literally, no peace or catharsis to be found in Jin Guangyao’s death.

There’s not necessarily anything wrong with taking an amount of vindictive pleasure in the death of a character that you hate. My goal here is not to convince anyone to change the way they feel. My goal here is, rather, to point to the ways that MDZS as a text questions vindictiveness, declines to “punish” its villains, and interrogates the relationship between vengeance and justice. So what is the alternative? How do we seek justice?

If we accept the parallelisms between Jin Guangyao and Wei Wuxian, and Xue Yang and Wei Wuxian, as I think we must regardless of what we make of them, then I think the answer is that, within the structure of the world as MXTX has built is, we can’t. Wei Wuxian’s happiness at the end of the novel doesn’t require acceptance from society as a whole, only the unconditional love and acceptance he receives from Lan Wangji. Wei Wuxian finds happiness by, essentially, exiting the cultivation world entirely, and in the arms of someone who grants him that love without conditions – right or wrong, as Lan Wangji says. There is, fundamentally, no justice to be found in the confines of cultivation society: it is fundamentally unjust and cruel to those who exist, in one way or another, outside of the strict bounds of respectability.

The real villain, MXTX says, is the system.

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Appendix: A Note on CQL/The Untamed

“Okay,” you might be saying, “what about CQL?” Isn’t it different there? Certainly the drama does make some effort to push a more black-and-white morality, particularly with the “Villain Edit” of Jin Guangyao that attributes more and worse deeds to him, including some added only in the drama. However, ambiguity persists, and there are still powerful visual cues in the framing of the drama versions of the three scenes above that render them tragic – a site of grief more than triumph.

To begin chronologically with the Yi City arc – CQL makes a few changes that arguably enhance the tragic framing of Xue Yang’s death rather than detract from it. The choice to have Song Lan kill Xue Yang on screen, for instance, adds to the visceral nature of the whole miserable arc, closing it with one final act of violence (and, moreover, with a Song Lan who looks less victorious or even angry than just miserable). More than that, however, the closing out of this story-within-a-story, before rejoining the main characters and the main plot, is focused on Xue Yang as he dies. The voiceover narration refers back to Xue Yang’s story of his childhood, and specifically a childhood wistfulness and wish (per the subtitles, “And so every day he thought, if only there’s someone out there who could give him a piece of candy every day. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”), and a shot of Xiao Xingchen gently placing two pieces of candy on a bed, smiling. Then the scene cuts back to Xue Yang, dead, and revealed in his hand a piece of candy. 

The tone here isn’t one of vindication or punishment – it’s of tragedy and sadness, and specifically not just for a-Qing, Song Lan, and Xiao Xingchen, all of whom were unambiguously victims of Xue Yang’s violent actions. The final moments with Xue Yang, lingering on his death itself, on the flashback to the sweetness (pun intended) of Xiao Xingchen’s gift, and tying that back as the last “action” of Xue Yang’s life, alongside the wistful, childish sentiment of the voiceover, all add together to mark Xue Yang’s death as a sorrowful moment rather than (or at least, rather than purely) a victorious one. 

Furthermore, the music that accompanies Xue Yang’s death and the following flashback is the same as that which plays during the end of the fall of Lotus Pier, as Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan die. Then, later, it recurs in Jiang Cheng’s dream during the core transfer where the happy image of his family together turns to a nightmare of their eyes bleeding and Lotus Pier burning. The musical cue underlines the presentation of this moment as a tragedy: it positions it alongside two other moments of death and loss, where childhood innocence collapses.

Secondly, Su She: in his final moments in Guanyin Temple,  in the novel the emphasis is placed on his loyalty and devotion to Jin Guangyao, reaching out to him in the moment before his death (and cutting to Jin Guangyao’s expression of pain as he witnesses). In CQL, Su She dies not for something he actually did but for something he didn’t – Nie Huaisang specifically cuts himself and accuses Su She of doing it in order to bait Baxia into attacking him. Su She spends his last couple seconds before he’s struck down protesting his innocence of what he’s been accused of. (This plays into a definite throughline of MDZS as a whole where even when people who have done bad things suffer, their suffering is often not tied to their actual worst deeds but rather to something else. See this post and this post for elaboration.) 

And finally, Jin Guangyao. While there isn’t the same visceral, graphic depiction of his actual death in this version of the story, that does mean that his final acts on screen are to push Lan Xichen away, saving his life. There are arguably a range of different motives that can be ascribed to Jin Guangyao’s doing so, but Zhu Zanjin’s acting in the scene places the emphasis on Jin Guangyao’s looking at Lan Xichen with yearning and distress.¹⁰

Then, he turns and faces his fear (in the form of Nie Mingjue) with defiance and bravery at the last.  Whatever your opinion on his relationship with Nie Mingjue, it is clear in these final scenes that Jin Guangyao is terrified of him. The quality of facing death with dignity and courage is one that comes with a certain whiff of nobility – admirable, if not heroic. That Jin Guangyao in the end chooses to confront his enemy head on, and that we don’t actually see his demise on screen – undercuts a sense of his death as a defeat by our heroes – and perhaps even more so, Lan Xichen’s reaction (misery and exhaustion) further undermines the suggestion that viewers are, or should be, rejoicing at his end. 

Lastly, and perhaps most pointedly, the last actual shot we see of Jin Guangyao is a flashback shown as Nie Huaisang holds his bloodstained hat – a flashback to Jin Guangyao as a child, with his mother. Again, as with Xue Yang above, there’s a hearkening back to a more innocent time – and making that nostalgic and peaceful moment the final image the viewer has of the defeated antagonist.

It’s hard, one thinks, to feel particular joy over the death of a character when you’re watching them as a child while their mother straightens a hat on their head.¹¹

So as in the novel, in CQL (one could say even in CQL), the deaths of these antagonists are still presented as sites of pity, sadness, or even grief rather than triumph.

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A Note on TGCF

I mentioned that I see something in TGCF that I feel affirms the point I made in the prior essay, given that MXTX clearly has a set of themes she likes to explore and develops over the course of her novels read chronologically in order of release. Specifically, I’m referring to the end of the novel and the defeat of Jun Wu.

Jun Wu is, unquestionably, the main antagonist of the novel. His actions lie at the root of much of the suffering throughout, especially Xie Lian’s – and yet, at the last, not only does he not die, he is given a moment of grace and compassion from Xie Lian. After he is beaten, Xie Lian notes that 

Jun Wu laid sprawled on the ground while Xie Lian stood watching him from above, and he actually noticed a trace of relief on Jun Wu’s face, as if a heavy burden was let go.

He couldn’t help but wonder – perhaps, to be defeated by someone, to end these relentless days of brokenness and madness, was possibly Jun Wu’s wish deep down.

Chapter 240, trans. by Suika

Xie Lian notes, with at least some sympathy, that Jun Wu’s bad actions were perhaps as much of a burden to himself as to the others – including Xie Lian – who suffered because of him.¹² He doesn’t perceive Jun Wu as simply a tyrant or evil warlord who needed to be destroyed; his defeat is, in this framing, actually an act of compassion.

Then, before departing, Xie Lian gifts Jun Wu with the bamboo hat he wears. That hat is a weighted symbol of the kindness from a single person that stopped Xie Lian from destroying the people of Yong’an at the end of Book 4; here, Xie Lian is passing on that gesture to his greatest tormentor. 

Jun Wu is defeated, but vitally, he isn’t punished, or at least not destructively (he’s neither killed nor made to suffer). Instead, the protagonist’s choice is to offer the same kindness that once saved him, and that served as proof that the world was not so bleak and hopeless as Jun Wu wanted him to believe it was. This is not presented as foolish or misplaced compassion, either, as such gestures often are (for instance, by being returned by a rejection or the villain trying to use it against the protagonist); it is, rather, just a moment of kindness in the aftermath of an exhausting battle. If MDZS shows punishment as empty of satisfaction and catharsis, merely a continuation of a cycle of suffering, here the cycle becomes one of compassion rather than punitive violence.

That is a significant choice on the author’s part, and I think says a great deal about how MXTX treats her antagonists: it’s a turning away from a model that insists on punitive justice, offering instead a glimpse of something kinder – and the implied potential for that to make a real difference. It did for Xie Lian, after all; maybe him passing on the gesture can change someone else’s life, too.

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1. Yu Ziyuan speaks sharply to Jiang Yanli for peeling lotus seeds for Wei Wuxian (“Who are you peeling them for? You’re the mistress, not somebody’s servant!”), emphasizing the way in which Wei Wuxian, despite his origins, has been placed on a social level with her own children.
2. Even after Jin Guangyao gains prominence/authority, he is still treated by cultivators as a marginal or tainted figure; see the scene in Chapter 48 where some cultivators refuse to touch teacups he served them because they might be contaminated by the touch of a “son of a prostitute.”
3. Regardless of the fact that Wei Wuxian wasn’t truly establishing his own sect in the Burial Mounds, the perception was that he was doing so, and the reality not so far off. The common “Yiling Wei” sect trope in fandom illustrates the proximity effectively.
4. I’d connect this both with Lan Wangji’s physical “memento” of Wei Wuxian in the form of the brand, and Jiang Cheng’s retention of Chenqing, in the category of “bonds beyond death represented by retention of symbolic physical representations of the person who died.” To venture outside MDZS: [SPOILERS FOR SVSSS] Luo Binghe’s retention of Shen Qingqiu’s literal corpse is a backwards echo of Xue Yang’s retention of Xiao Xingchen’s; I point this out as a counter to arguments that this is a negative illustration of obsession rather than what MXTX shows as a (complicated but ultimately heartfelt) expression of devotion.
5. I would argue the main antagonist is “society and mob mentality” but that’s not what I’m interested in hashing out here.
6. And, in fact, making it worse: “After he killed Jin GuangYao, his killing intent would definitely become stronger, and he’d be more difficult to subdue!” (Chapter 107, Exiled Rebels Translation)
7. This is one of the places where I’m most curious about the word choice and structure, and how much/if it matches the abrupt, violent feel conveyed by the English translation I quoted here.
8. To emphasize this point even more, Jin Ling’s POV directly expresses his inability to hate Jin Guangyao (or Wei Wuxian, or Wen Ning, and the fact that the narrative groups the three together is telling): “There seemed to be no one he could blame, and no one he could hate. Wei Wuxian, Jin Guangyao, Wen Ning — each bore some responsibility, great or small, for his parents’ deaths; each, he had some reason to deeply despise. But for each, there seemed to be some reason he could not hate them.” (Chapter 109, trans. Exiled Rebels)
9. “No matter how powerful that Jin Guangyao was, right now he’s stuck in a coffin brawling with Nie Mingjue…The resentful energy in that coffin was so strong that no life can grow within half a li. I wonder— Can that coffin really seal them for a hundred years?” (Wangxian Part 3, Exiled Rebels Translations)
10. Rather than, for instance, spite or anger (at forcing Lan Xichen to live with what he’s done) or triumph (for leaving Lan Xichen with a debt that he can’t repay). There are, of course, multiple interpretations that are possible to take, but a reading of the scene as it is acted, I would argue, compels the primacy of the one I’ve suggested over others.
11. Or maybe that’s just me.
12. Hot take: Xie Lian is a Jun Wu apologist. At least a little. MXTX definitely is.