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Hualian's red thread is a great symbol of Hua Cheng's love. It's reminiscent of the red thread of fate, but Hualian weren't exactly fated--actually quite the opposite, they were kept apart. By putting the red thread himself, Hua Cheng forces fate to never separate them again. It symbolizes all the hard work he's put in to search for and find Xie Lian. He literally creates his own fate, their own fate, with pure will, just like he doesn't pass away out of pure will. It's his love and immeasurable strength and will power.
Expounding a little on why Jun Wu is obviously a demonic cultivator since my last post just dropped it in without backup and tgcf tap dances around what Jun Wu was doing with the kiln… It says it plainly without actually saying it.
Starting at the the low hanging fruit, Jun Wu’ first sacrifice:
“He set up a ritual site near the Kiln, and I accompanied him there every time, both of us enduring the curses and thrown rocks of the refugees as we conducted services to try to suppress the volcano’s fury.”
“Conducted services” lmao.. fancy way of saying “ritual sacrifice.” and “enduring the curses and thrown rocks” is nice way of saying “against their will”
“…but an infinite darkness is suppressed deep within his heart. Resentment, pain, anger, hatred…he must release those poisonous emotions to maintain his internal balance, lest he go berserk and slaughter everyone around him.”
Yeah um.. you say that like it’s a regular Tuesday therapy session, but it sounds a lot like ‘how to avoid yin-poisoning’
“He regularly releases his dark emotions into the Kiln, using the millions of Wuyong souls within as kindling to stoke the flames of hell and forge many malicious things..”
Oh ok. So he’s practicing his hand at twisting the souls of the dead. Nbd- wait. What?
“…Supremes came later, since he…changed the refining method…”
By.. “changed the refining method” you mean “perfected soul corruption”.. right? The way you say it is a bit umm-
“…In the early days, he’d have a session every few years, and each time the results would be different—endless batches of dark beings poured from its depths.”
✋ MNQ, please stop. That’s.. worse than demonic cultivation-
“Perhaps that had something to do with his unstable emotions-”
No. Shut up. This isn’t about Jun Wu’s feelings.
“…it produced nothing but monsters forged from his hatred and resentment. There are probably a few familiar names among them—”
It produced monsters because he was there to produce monsters. wtf are you on? I’m leaving.
And this is without getting into how he rearranged Heaven, the fact that the shackles aren’t a function of heaven but something dark and parasitic, what the heavenly capitol actually is etc etc etc.
This isn’t even a “theory” fam. This is the book.
Why do so many fans think Jun Wu has no control over who ascends? Like, yes.. people ascend without his permission because there really is a cosmic order in this universe but he literally only needs to fill the slot to prevent randos from ascending.
And YES he CAN artificially ascend people and he DOES. I’m fr about to write up a whole essay on ascension this weekend istg.
The man literally says:
“Even fates can be swapped. Why not spiritual power?” Jun Wu said. “There are many things that are hardly as difficult as you assume. It is only a matter of a few words and a few brush strokes from a few great heavenly officials.”
Right after he sucks out one homies spiritual power and injects it into another.
And let’s be real.. Do y’all really think Jun Wu actually ascended a second time using his own power?
The dude who has the suffering souls of his first attempt at human sacrifice plastered on his own face and.. screaming?
Hell nah. This dude became the grandmaster of demonic cultivation. He experimented on fetus spirits like some mad scientist interested in unethical stem cell research. He probs invented the damn fate swapping ritual himself.
He has an entire fucking Burial Mound volcano where he vents his resentful energy. You think all that energy is accumulating just cus he’s mad? Or from just the three faces?
No way fam. This man is actively cultivating the dark arts and probs needs so many followers just to help balance the yang to his yin.
I mean.. c’mon. You fr think Feng Xin and Mu Qing ascended back to back naturally? And just after they left Xie Lian? There’s a whole damn arc about how unusual it is for two people so close to ascend so fast and so young
Jun Wu gifts Feng Xin a bow called Fengshen which is a homophone for the name of an entire Chinese myth about appointing mortals to godhood for political reasons.
Blows my mind to see that so many collectively deny the possibility when the narration is screaming clues from every digital and physical page.
TW : discussion of death and suicide. I know these themes are present in TGCF, but this post delves further into them and broaches the subject in a way that might be triggering, so please proceed with caution.
When you think about it, what drove Xie Lian mad during his first banishment wasn’t the Temple. It wasn’t his friends leaving him, it wasn’t the blessed land incident, nor was it his parents’ suicide. It wasn’t even Bai Wuxiang (at least not directly).
No, what really drove him mad was his inability to die, and the complete loss of the ability to choose his own path.
When Xie Lian returns home after the 100 swords, he has no intention of turning to BW. He has no intention of taking revenge on Yong'an (not seriously, anyway), let alone considering anything close to a genocide.
It is only after trying—and failing—to commit suicide that he loses himself entirely. Because the shackle took the last shreds of control he had over his existence from him. Of course, the fact that he heard festivities going on in Yong’an didn’t help, but it was no more than a trigger, I think
The shackle strips Xie Lian of his right and capacity to dispose of himself, which is one the worst thing I can imagine happening to someone. And after his only way out is taken away from him, Xie Lian is left with literally no possible course of action. He cannot live because Bai Wuxian won’t let him, he cannot die because the shackle makes it impossible.
He is stuck in an impossible position. So of course he snaps.
Note : That is not to say that suicide is okay or should not be actively prevented. But the way Xie Lian is kept alive is a terrible violation of bodily autonomy. People experiencing suicidal thoughts need help so that they no longer want to die ; forcing them to remain alive by force alone, and without doing anything to help them get better, is not only a terrible idea but outright torture, and complete lack of consideration for human dignity.
If any phrasing I used was insensitive, please let me know in the comments and I will correct it: English is not my native language and I make mistakes sometimes. Take care 🤍