lrt arguably, it’s even WORSE, because lxc knows the absolute horrors, the festering rotting not-yet-skeletons, but he doesn’t actually have the full story

for example, the explanation that JGY gives for why he went through with marrying QS — JGY sells the hell out of it, and I legit believe that he did love her in his way, but you’ll notice that he doesn’t specifically explain the “getting your sister pregnant” part

The wordless scene where they’re in wedding gear and he takes off her veil — it’s a not very subtle metaphor for sex, with her veil as a standin for her hymen lol, but at that joint, JGY knew they were related, would’ve had his fears about a kid born of incest

So it’s just??? Maybe they got real unlucky from one fuck, which happens, but a better explanation IMO is that it’s a lie — that the book’s explanation is the true one, in that they fucked before marriage when engaged and she was pregnant by the time

Of the wedding itself. And that JGY refused to leave her pregnant and unwed and shames, like JGS had done with his mom.

There is a similar sort of — explanatory gap, really, with thre question of why it was so important for JGY to get his mom’s body. Like, sure, he was going to flee to Japan with it, but WHY? Why is her actual body so important?

@sir_rates blew my goddamn mind when she pointed out the narrative path for the possibility that xue yang wasn’t the only one who wanted to raise loved ones from the dead using Stygian tiger nonsense and demonic cultivation.

That Xue Yang and JGY were both working on their resurrection projects. JGY going to the temple to dig up his mom’s coffin so that he can take it with him to a Japan does NOT make sense — sure, veneration of the ancestors is a thing, but you don’t need their actua BODY

JGY running the risk, committing to the delay makes 0.00 sense — unless he actually needs the body. Unless he wanted to try and physically raise her from the dead, and then take her to live in Japan in exile.

And yes, it’s speculative and not explicit in canon, but I will argue that is not the standard applicable. Fandom is sitting around a campfire and telling ourselves stories that move us, trying to figure out ways to push canon to be MORE interesting, MORE affecting

And that’s what “Meng Yao needed to raise mom from the dead, even if it cost him his life and chance at escape” hits for me.

There are in-show nods to how the story articulated is not the full narrative that JGY knows — for example, @sir_rates who is a GIFT figured out that in show canon, the temple is built on the exact same ground where he murdered his dad

So it’s there for the taking that LXC doesn’t know the full story. And it’s notable that each of these stories has things that most people in that society would find objectionable and raising people from the dead is PROBS not okay with lxc

You tell me that he wouldn’t emotionally understand wanting to raise your mother from the dead.

You tell me he wouldn’t understand JGY not wanting to repeat the sins of his father on an innocent woman and child.

He wouldn’t agree with them, and I don’t think he’d forgive JGY — but it would move him to pity. It might soften the anger and cast what JGY did in a different light. But JGY does not tell him. He takes those things with him to the grave, letting a worse characterization prevail

AND LXC STILL CHOOSES TO DIE WITH HIM.

the end, the end, im not crying, u are not crying, @sir_rates is the best for letting me put her genius into the world, the true silver light in this gray world