The thing for me is that JGY's choices? The ones he was born into? They were shit choices.

Like--a poor person in that society? They lead a very vulnerable life, right. Look at WWX on the street; look at XY.

JGY's mom was a sex worker. People looked down on her.

(to put it mildly.) He doesn't seem to /have/ any other family on his mom's side. Like, fuck! What an incredibly vulnerable position to be in!

Like his choices weren't "try to become a cultivator or enjoy a good middle-class life," right.

He was in an incredibly vulnerable position. Maybe--maybe!--he could have made it work with his admittedly incredible native wit and willingness to work and etc.

...or maybe not and he'd have ended up sick or starving or just dead. Like. Those are very real possibilities!

He would have been very aware of them! Yes, he's brilliant, but--I mean, I don't know about you, but the world of mdzs doesn't look like a perfect meritocracy, you know?

Like...I think it's really entirely reasonable that he want more security.

I mean like. Really stunningly reasonable. I think that would probably be most people's want in that same circumstance! Because there's nothing wrong with wanting to know you'll still have food tomorrow, next week, in a month or a year; wanting to be safe from physical attack;

wanting to know that if disaster comes, as it can come so easily, you won't lose everything; wanting to be less vulnerable to sickness and physical harm. I cannot stress enough how not wrong it is, to want these things.

So. Thanks to who his dad is--well--maybe he does have a way to get at least some of that.

And he does. Through three years of spying with the Wen, note. He gets--some of it. As Jin Guangyao, he probably doesn't have to worry about going hungry, at least.

Thanks to the cultivation he's learned, he's stronger than he was, he heals more easily and is less likely to fall sick.... though he's still a target of cruelty and abuse, in mdzs very explicitly physical abuse. Here, at least, if someone from another sect actually murders him

there will be political repercussions; at least the number of people who can attack him with impunity is smaller.

In many ways this is the most secure he's ever been in his entire life.

AND IT STILL SUCKS.

Granted, he doesn't seem to be mistreated by the servants; granted Zixuan is probably decent to him; Madam Jin, JGS and Zixun are all varying degrees of asshole. And--well. I don't think JGS plans on disowning him. But if he's not in danger from JGS unless he's useful,

I will eat my goddamn hat. If he tries to act against JGS--what do you think the chances are that JGS wouldn't have him killed, if it came down to it? Oh there are other options he'd pursue first, JGY is useful and brings an alliance with the Lan and to a lesser extent the Nie

But if JGS thought it was the best option for him--do you think he'd hesitate, even for a moment? He could do other punishments, too; he could injure him, he could make it safe for other people to be cruel to him, there's a lot of options.

JGY WAS NOT SAFE AT CARP TOWER.

JGY WAS NOT SAFE BEFORE CARP TOWER.

JGY HAD NEVER BEEN SAFE IN HIS ENTIRE LIFE.

so so so. If he displeases JGS too much--he might be killed or injured or even, yeah, thrown out again. And again! Wanting to know you'll have food on the table, wanting to know you'll

have a roof over your head, wanting to not be injured or killed? Are all perfectly normal motivation.

Almost every evil thing he does is done under some pretty serious constraint. Because his other options by and large really fucking sucked.

Along the lines of serious risk to his material security and of bodily harm, sucked.

(I'm not excusing the sex workers murder, that was genuinely fucked.)

Like--do I think he wanted power? Yeah, I do. But 1) that's not! actually! inherently wrong!, 2) I think a chunk of that is wanting to be safe! Because he was in very real danger for most of his life! And 3) what he does with that power, once he's not under any active threat?

Is pretty good, actually. *stares around at the watchtowers* He's not out here torturing puppies for kicks, guys. His choices really fucking sucked, and he made some awful ones but you know--there doesn't have to have been a better route, for him.

There don't have to have been better options. Every awful choice he made, he had strong reason to believe that not doing it would put him in real, serious danger. Danger to his life.

We can say he should have made different choices anyway. But I think we should be aware, not only of what it might cost him but of why it might cost him that: because he was born to a sex worker, because his father was awful,

because, frankly, that society gave him no other way out. And that really fucking sucks.