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the wind and water masters are just another example of mxtx’s excellent writing of visceral love between brothers and i think we as a community don’t appreciate their relationship enough!
i’m going to keep this strictly shi wudu-centric cause i feel like he best expresses what mxtx’s intention was for incorporating these characters in her story.
shi wudu grows up with the painful awareness that his brother has been robbed of his not-stellar-yet-still-promising future by this motiveless malign force he can’t possibly shield little shi xuan from.
his utter powerlessness against the source of his brother’s torment is what propels him to cultivate even more ardently, till he manages to ascend and bring shi qingxuan along to the middle court. however, that solution doesn’t turn out to be as effective as he hoped...
sqx needs to ascend himself in order to lift his curse. we all know exactly which means the water master employs to ensure his brother’s ascension, so i will not go into further detail.
the point of this thread isn’t to discuss nor to justify swd’s actions, after all, but to analyze the impact that his story (and sqx’s, by association) is supposed to have on us readers.
the picture mxtx paints of swd is extremely unflattering: he’s part of the three tumors, for one. he’s described as a tyrant, his power nearly as boundless as his pride. he’s merciless and cunning, and worst of all, doesn’t show any remorse for his actions.
there’s a specific passage where swd’s mentioned that really stood out to me, even though it occurs after his death, during the brocade immortal arc. mxtx points out that, if swd were still alive, ling wen wouldn’t have hesitated to go seek his assistance in that situation.
that once again proves how shi wudu values loyalty over morality (if he even has morals... but i’ll save you from hearing me ramble about that), and just how much he’s willing to sacrifice for the people he cares about, cause standing by lw’s side would’ve definitely put him in +
an awkward position with the heavens! but let us go back to the core topic of this discussion: swd’s adoration for his little brother. prideful and bad-tempered as he is, shi wudu attempts (and fails) to be hard on his brother, too, but sqx sees right through his pretences!
whether he regards his brother as inherently good or he believes swd to be partial to himself only, that’s unclear; but something we can see clear as day throughout the story is sqx’s need for his older brother’s approval, and his blind trust in swd.
he might fear disappointing his brother, but that’s got more to do with sqx being a people pleaser than with the water master being demanding. chances are he actually indulges his brother quite a lot, backing him up no matter the situation, +
which is why other heavenly officials wouldn’t dare mess with the wind master! swd is deadly as a tiger in the eyes of everyone, except for his brother, who sees him essentially as a kitten extending his claws.
yet everything sqx thought he knew about his brother seems to dissolve into thin air when the reverend of empty words exposes all of swd’s deceptions to his incredulous ears. he’s forced to face the fact that the person he trusts the most has been deceiving him for centuries, +
and worse still, that he himself has faked his way to the heavens to the expense of an innocent man. this breach of morality is what gets to sqx, cause perhaps he’d known his brother wasn’t the most righteous person, but he would’ve never thought him capable of such immoral acts!
nothing remains of the close-knit brothers we meet at the beginning of the novel at this point, as we can see in the scene where sqx, now a mere mortal, refuses to drink the concoction swd so benevolently brought for him.
however, sqx has no choice but to set his ethical concerns aside when swd’s heavenly calamity (and the subsequent black water arc) come on the scene. i also don’t want to go into detail about that arc, despite it being so pivotal to the story i’m telling, +
cause i don’t want to risk pushing my own narrative on it (like most everyone does). the one remark i want to make is that swd speaks his most iconic line in that passage, which is “我命由我不由天/my fate is up to me and not the heavens”...
it’s time to draw a conclusion to this (very extensive) analysis thread and answer the question i was asking at the very beginning, which is “why did mxtx even make these characters?”.
well, we all know that mxtx tries to make us readers question our views on absolute good and evil through her works. from my understanding, shi wudu is one of those characters that’s specifically designed to mess with us.
he’s committed unpardonable crimes and he’s all around just not a good guy. then why doesn’t his death feel right? he got what he deserved, didn’t he? yet we still sympathize with him, and part of us joins sqx in his mourning.
the complexity of his character lays in the contrast between his hardened, seemingly remorseless exterior and the actual selflessness of his motives. sure he often acted out of pride, but his most reprehensible deeds were performed in an attempt to protect his ill-fated brother +
and that’s what makes us feel for him despite everything. perhaps we’re putting ourselves in sqx’s shoes, thinking about how it’d feel to be left alone in the world, or maybe we empathize with swd himself, as we try to determine if, had +
we been in his situation, we would’ve acted the way he hid. i’ll end this thread by saying that i do not condone any of swd’s actions; i’m merely showing my appreciation for a character i believe to be extremely well-written. thanks for tuning in!!
