Mao Dao Zu Shi - Blog Posts

Xue Yang: A Tragic Study in How Not to Empathy

Or really, the two-way nature of empathy and importance of communication, in which Xue Yang gets an F.

Me: I’ll wait until the donghua’s second season to write on Yi City so I can use gifs.

Me five seconds later: I have major Yi City feels, too bad.

So let’s talk Xue Yang, who at first glance seems the series’ most repugnant character morally (besides perhaps Jin GuangShan). And yet he’s such a direct contrast to Wei WuXian, Jin GuangYao, and Jiang Cheng that on further reads I was struck by how desperate and sad his life was. Not that any of it excuses him, but his motives were not simply “evil for evil’s sake.” As we learn later on, pretty much no one in MDZ (and irl) is evil for evil’s sake, but Xue Yang is absolutely one of the more… chaotic and petty ones. That being said, Xue Yang’s actual motivations were not remotely petty at all. 

(art here & elsewhere in this meta is official art from the audio drama; quotes are from the novel’s translation by exiledrebelsscans)

Afficher davantage