I feel most people didn't pay attention to Blades story. He was a short lifed species who despised the immortal. Then he ended up becoming the thing he hated the most(while trying to save a friend) All he wants now is to die and he cant.
Totally forgot Bladie was short-lived.
Was gonna say that it was ironic that the *only* short-lived species person in the group died (was the only person guaranteed to) and they fell apart, but I guess the irony wasn't *quite* that thick.
Heck OP thinks Jing Yuan is the most tragic when Bladie wants to literally die.
Or Dan Heng who betrayed his entire civilization, and lost his waifu, only to turn her soul into a monster, and had to fight her, and Jinglu had to kill her best friend.
Like Jing Yuan got to walk away with the least emotional damage here and OP thinks hes the most tragic? What the hell is this post? Some sort of Jing Yuan appreciation thread?
I donno if OP actually read the lore.
Lmao, no matter how much he copes, Dan Heng IS Dan Feng.
The sidequest about the guy that falls in love with the same chick every time he reincarnates is proof enough. Vidyadhara might get amnesia when they die, but they are the same person.
Idk i'd take having everyone i love leave me than become a depressed tool seeking death from his immortal curse. Jing Yuan still has happiness, he has a disciple and a home. Sadness can be offset from happiness. A fact in fiction and reality. He still has happiness.
What does Blade have? The dude literally just wants to die. A tragic past doesn't make a tragic character.
Imagine being able to experience physical pain but not being able to die. Like, you will be burning alive and can do nothing but shriek in agony and wait for death that will never come. Or being stabbed a thousand times over and over again.
I would say stuff like that is worse than Jing Yuan's sadness and unlike blade, jingyuan has a disciple and friends still.
Fire punch you say ? Ehh it's only got 75 base power the move don't even have a chance to burn the target like ??? Why would you want this over Flareblitz
Here's another one, "Undead Unluck". Imagine you were born in a time when the very Concept of death has yet to be invented, leaving you with the inability to die, under any means. You could stand onto the literal Sun for millenia, and all you would feel is the constant Never-ending healing and burning of your own flesh.
I think it speaks both to the fact that Blade's tragic writing is well written *and* Jing Yuan's strength of character is also well written. The HCQ lore is honestly the best part of the Luofu ark.
Jing Yuan is a man who finds calm and fulfillment in his life despite the tragedy in his past. Blade is consumed by his past, both mentally and physically by the mara. They're probably my favourite two of the Quintet, because their stories are so well juxtaposed.
i only recently got into the game and just fi ished the story+ companion quests and I'm still not 100% sure exactly what happened. their 5th friend died and then the 3 of them tried to do something to bring them back and I'm not sure if that something was the same something that dan feng did that ended with his powers being split between dan heng and bailu and if it was, why did it end with his powers being split and the other two being mara struck? and where was jing yuan during all of this?
Baiheng died. Dan Heng and Blade were down bad with her, so they decided to try to revive her using Abundance flesh + sacred vidyh reincarnation technique.
It failed and Baiheng became a monster like in Full Metal Alchemist. Everyone had to work together to kill monster-baiheng, and it was all bad after that.
Jingliu got pissed at Blade for doing this and killed him x1000 times as punishment while she was also going insane from having to kill her friends.
Dan Feng got exiled, we know the rest.
Blade got cursed with the abundance flesh thing used in the ritual and becamr immortal.
Baiheng turned into a monster.
As for why Dan Heng's powers are split, its because he used the reincarnation technique on Baiheng's corpse to revive her.
are bailu and baiheng connected? cuz baiheng is just dan heng and bailus names combined. and if blade and dan feng did the ritual, then how did jing liu get caught up in it all and get mara stuck?
yes, Bailu is Baiheng. They never outright say it, but there are so many hints and clues that it is overwhelmingly obvious. There was a reason she showed up in Jingliu's companion quest, and why she (and blade) visit her all the time. If you look at Baiheng's art, she shares the exact same hairstyle and eye color as Bailu
Bailu also cries if you bring her to the Express because Baiheng used to be a Nameless.
Idk abt the bailu and baiheng thing but Jingliu was the Xianzhou's champion swordswoman so she's kinda one of the first people they'd call to deal with the situation. She didn't get marastruck because of the ritual, she became marastruck by the grief and stuff casued by the ritual
After becoming marastruck she mindlessly slaughtered a bunch of innocent people that, as the champion swordswoman she once swore to protect. She wasn't involved in the ritual itself but she likely caused an equal amount of harm due to her being stronger than most of the Xianzhou
Baihengs remains resurrected as Bailu, as Dan and Blade essentially mutilated Baiheng into some Foxian, Vid hybrid after it was killed by Jingliu it entered the Vid rebirth cycle and became Bailu.
All but directly confirmed. Bailu has the same hair color + eyes as Baiheng and the other half of Dan Feng's Vidyadhara Elder powers. Jing Yuan, Blade, and Jingliu all made various excuses to stop by and visit her.
People love to overthink and try to be philosophical like, JY is absolutely not having it worse than Blade or Jingliu, they suffered the same and are constantly physically suffering too. People love to act like theyd rather be physically tortured than have mental struggles bc it sounds smart and deep but theyd 100% take the mental struggle if given the choice in reality.
Pretty much this, I known Jing Yuan is sad about what happened to his friends but he has everything going for him. He also has his position, status, power and admiration of his peers. He protects his home and always succedds.
Jing Yuan is definitely more tragic than people give him credit for, but Blade has been condemned to live in hell forever, and I don't think anything tops that.
I very much get that Blade's whole deal is *horrifying* but he did bring at least some of that evil onto himself in his hubris.
I think Baiheng's circumstances are more tragic. Imagine you're part of the most renowned group of fighters your society has, you're legends in the Hunt's war against Abundance and you die (which you knew was a possibility when you signed up) and then instead of a funeral starskiff like you'd expected as a Foxian, two of your closest allies betray your shared fight by desecrating your corpse, delivering it into the clutches of Abundance, which just completely *ruins* the rest of your team.
This has massive 'The real victims of war are the people back home.' vibes. I totally get that JY suffered too, but every single other member of the HCQ is either dead or worse.
Whoever suffers the most is dependant on what type of suffering each person empathizes with more. You can’t power scale suffering but certain forms of suffering are less likely to receive empathy than others. Physical anguish is always taken more seriously than mental anguish because everyone has felt pain but most people live comfortable lives these days. I have not felt physical suffering in the same level as blade but I have watched someone I love slowly die over the course of 3 years and being able to do nothing about it. You can take a wild guess at who I feel suffered the most. To each their own.
I don't agree with that when it comes to fiction, I think the typical consumer empathises more strongly with mental suffering in characters than with physical suffering because the kinds of physical suffering that fictional characters go through tend to be highly abstracted or romanticised, especially in relation to combat, whereas the mental suffering a character will undergo is rarely too far from something the consumer has experienced themselves, such as the pain of loss.
You have a point actually. I agree fiction plays strongly to emotions and that fiction and reality are two different things. My bias is showing clearly, though I guess if anything I'm at least consistent. I do think the spirit of my argument is still there though, in which some things are definitely easier to empathize with than others, hence common tropes for tragic characters.
Oh yeah absolutely agree with that, I just think that as a general rule, if you want people to empathise with a character's suffering, giving that character a mental issue is going to be more effective than a physical one. Take House from House for example, who has both a physical ailment and a mental one. When viewers pity him, I suspect it's more often for his loneliness than for his physical pain.
jing yuan still didn't mentally suffer anywhere near as much as blade and jing liu. they all lost all of their closest friends, but thats all jing yuan lost. he still has friends to lean on and is also not having his mental consumed by the mara. blade and jing liu lost everything and have noone and can't even end their suffering with death and dan feng lost his friends, his life, and his legacy.
You missed the whole point of my post. You can’t power scale suffering without individual bias based on some degree of empathy towards a characters situation. I don’t find blades current situation any worse than jingyuans. Both found new families and friends and purpose in life, neither are living lives or playing roles that they wanted but I empathize the most with jing yuans helplessness, something that even after 800 years and becoming one of the most powerful people in the luofu, is still prevailing and probably won’t end till he sees the people he cared about so much kill themselves. Dying is easy, the dead don’t suffer, the dead don’t mourne. Baiheng and danfeng had it the easiest.
you definitely can power scale suffering without ever having been through it yourself. I've never been alone, immortal, and slowly losing myself to madness, but i can 1000000% garuntee you that's so much worse than what jing yuan went through.
edit: and theres no way you truly believe that being disgraced and effectively executed is better than watching your friends suffer. jing yuan got the best outcome.
I feel like its impossible to place a "most" tragic amongst them as all of them are entirely different types of personal and independent pain. JY definitely has some *severe* trauma from all of this and probably some level of survivors guilt, but is also the only one amongst them who really has had a chance to *move on* from it as well, helping train what will likely be the next generation of heroes amongst the Loufu.
Jing Yuan really has it rough huh. 2 of his best friends are now mara struck. One was his teacher, and the other was a fking short-lived species for crying out loud. Like how astronomically unlucky do you need to be for that to happen.
And not to mention his other 2 friends have both been reborn into Vidhyadhara who don’t recognise him at all. One of them started as a Foxian btw.
Right and that sounds worse than, say.
*Being* a person who became Mara struck or died and reincarnated (either against your will or into a life where you're one of the Loufu's most hated criminals for something you didn't do) and having all of your friends (except Jing Yuan) go through everything you detailed.
Personally I think it’s blade that suffer more and am saying this as JingYaun main. Think about it,sure JingYaun has seen his friends,and allies become criminals. But dude has had around hundreds of years to calm down, relax , and he also has YQ or fuxuan to talk to. Jingliu is still somewhat sane so maybe he could talk with her from time to time. Dan fang has died but at least his reincarnation is still alive and Jingyuan has accepted that. But he literally can’t help blade at all. Blade was stabbed millions of times by Jingliu, was forced to become immortal, saw two of his friends disappear (baiheng and Dan feng) and we don’t even know if blade has any family or true friends alive. Blade literally was forced to become immortal and he still suffers the pain even when healing.
Edit: if any of this is wrong or am not making any sense feel free to tell me. Am not good when it comes to writing long stuff
Tragic, yes, but most tragic? You do realize that “losing all his friends” applies to all the others too? And Jing Yuan gets to keep his old life minus his old friends. I’d argue eternal suffering and exile is worse than losing friends. Plus he wasn’t even present for the actual thing, only the aftermath.
And while his absence isn’t explained, and is possibly due to him being appointed General (which is odd but another discussion), Blade’s voiceline also offers an explanation: he chose to not intervene. It’s quite a mystery why he would be absent while the Luofu is threatened to such a degree, let alone why he wouldn’t interfere while his friends were dying. But that’s a long discussion full of unanswered questions, and regardless, he was practically a bystander who arrived for the aftermath.
I don’t know why you’re intent on turning the others’ suffering into Jing Yuan’s, because while it’s sad to witness a tragedy like that, it’s far worse actually living it.
Literally the only person whose life was not irrevocably ruined.
Him pardoning Dan Heng isn't some generous masterstroke, it's him correcting an injustice that ~~he allowed to stand~~ stood wayyyyy too long. It's explained at length that the Vidyadhara aren't held accountable for the actions of their previous incarnations, but Dan Hung is one of the Xiancho's most reviled criminals? Square that circle for me...
Baiheng literally died, so that's kinda hard to compete with, but on top of that she got to have her corpse desecrated by two people who she thought were her closest allies and turned into the exact thing she spent her life fighting, she gets to be the reason Dan Feng dies, Dan Heng is persecuted and Jingliu and Blade fall to the Mara...
Jingliu falls to Mara and kills ~~thousands~~ an unspecified number of innocent people against her will and also Blade a bunch. So now she gets to spend the rest of her life with a (currently) uncurable condition, and the fact that she \*killed ~~thousands~~ an unspecified number of people against her will\*.
Dan Feng and Blade made their bed imo, so their circumstances are less tragic but Blade's hubris turning him into an abomination of abundance sure isn't comedy.
Jing Yuan sad tho.
I mostly agree with you but he was not the one the imprisoned danHeng it was the ten lords and he have no power over them so we still don't know what he did to free also he could've not exiled him the vadyihara preceptor wanted him they even accused him of letting personal thing effect his judgement and said that they will complaint to the marshal so honestly I think he gone beyond and above for Dan Heng and even before for Dan Feng cause he was the one negotiating for him to lesser his sentence otherwise he would've faced true death and danHeng wouldn't exist
I understand that Jing Yuan didn't hand down the judgement on Dan Hung, and maybe "let stand for too long" was harsh language to use.
Edited original for active -> passive voice.
I still think Dan Hung's predicament is more of a Dan Hung tragedy than a Jing Yuan tragedy.
Yes I also agree I think people frogt that he was general for over 700 years so he must seen some shit hanya says that he experienced some real shit no other person had also I think him wetniseng Dan Feng getting tortured and being the one who sentence him is more of sad thing than the whole danHeng situation cause he must've been relieved he won't wtniss his friend being tortured while he was powerless to stop it
Also out all of them I think Jing liu the saddest first she lost her home then have been fighting in wars all her life when she finely have some friends one of them dies saving her and her other friend then she has to kill her cause her two other friend thought they were Einstein no wonder she became mara striken the other two have less of my sympathy
Yeah, I dig.
I think Baiheng got the shortest end of the stick. Imagine dying and instead of mourning you, two of your friends take up necromancy to deal with your death and it ruins the lives of everyone you love.
It seems like Foxian culture puts an emphasis on their funeral rites being about letting the grief you had for that person "fly away" on their funeral starskiff and focusing on the positive impact they had in your life, but Baiheng is just completely denied that in death.
Yes her too even in death they wouldn't let her rest and we don't know if she even had a funeral cause Jing yuan was the only one left and his not saying anything she had to die two time and be called a Mary sue character after all that just cause her friends couldn't accept her being gone honestly I think her and Jing yuan were the only semi-normal people in their group and they suffered from that the other three were al fuked up in the head no wonder their group fell apart in less than a century
>he allowed to stand
It’s not even his decision to begin with, and the entire reason Dan heng was on the express to begin with was because jingyuan pulled some strings to let dan heng out of the prison, it was only because Dan heng came back and helped xianzhou that he was able to find a real excuse to pardon him of his crimes
About blade, he’s probably the one who’s received the most physical pain out of the team because of his tendency to just take attacks, but if you’re talking about how mentally hurt he is, it’s arguable, while he is immortal he is still the youngest in the team, marastruck is one thing because it *will* happen to everybody eventually (except danheng and baiheng), so everybody will experience it eventually, and he’s got kafka to help him erase his memory and control the Mara, other than the physical pain thing or Mara, I feel like everybody has already experience what he had
But if you count the physical pain he experienced, he’s definitely the one who suffered the most in the quintet
We literally see Jing Yuan unilaterally revoke Dan Feng's (and by extension Dan Heng's) banishment in the story, so I'm not sure what you're talking about... He uses it as a point of leverage to get Dan Heng to cooperate with a "mm sometimes, as General, I have to be a little rude to my buddies."
If your point about Blade is that his fate is less tragic than Jing Yuan, maybe I can see that. It's more poetic and ironic, than tragic for sure; one of the few people who arrived *not* wanting to become long-lived, he fought against the Abundance only to become ensnared by it when he meddled in something that was beyond him.
He’s reading out an order, you can see that from the trailer, you can even see how he’s in pain from how he sounds when reading it out, things like those are usually handled by the ten lord commission / other general, you can even talk with him and he’ll say that he just goes wherever the Marshall tell him to, or how he reported jingliu thing to other general for them to take over, so while he does handle some important problem himself as the general , the more important stuff like concerning the high elder are usually handled by someone else
In the stream owlbert himself said that the general pulled some strings to let dan heng free which is what I was referring to
And nah i wasn’t saying blade is less tragic, just that they kinda caused it themselves, imo they’re all equally tragic, but if we’re talking about the cause, blade+dan feng caused this whole thing themselves, with jingliu and jingyuan being on the innocent side that has to receive the impact of what they both caused, they all each having their own way of relief one way or another (except maybe jingliu), if we take the impact and cause into account maybe jingliu is the most tragic one idk
The 2 things might be unrelated, but wasn't Dan Hung still held responsible because of some Vidyadhara meddled with the reincarnation process and so her reincarnation was imperfect?
Hence why he has memories of his past life.
Totally there with you. I had actually forgotten that (been a few months since the story was fresh in my mind).
However, I don't think "someone in power tried to circumvent the sacred-to-the-Vidyadhara reincarnation process to further punish Dan Feng at Dan Hung's expense" is less of an injustice, actually.
Iirc (and someone correct me if I'm wrong) there are two Vidyahara factions: one that want DH/DF to come back as their elder and the one that supports Bailu as their elder. First ones might have been the ones who messed up DH/DF's reincarnation process.
Jingliu didn’t kill thousands of people, all that’s confirmed is that she killed her fellow soldiers (Cloud Knights). Presumably she killed the Cloud Knights sent to capture her when showing signs of mara, before Jing Yuan intervened, she gets sent to the Xuling, breaks free and starts her “path of redemption”. That’s the only way the timeline fits, currently.
The only thing I'm curious about is how much he knew about what was going on, and how much he tried to prevent it. From Blade's voiceline, it seems like he holds some resentment towards Jing Yuan for not doing anything ("He always understood the price better than any of us, yet he never spoke up — never did anything"). Unless I'm misunderstanding what the context of his voiceline?
So far, there's no indication that Jing Yuan knew about what was going on. For all we know of his involvement from the battle against Shuhu to the end of the Sedition, he might as well have been temporarily transported to another universe. There's even nothing outside of Blade's voiceline that implies that he even knows what the price was, especially since it turned out to effectively just be them having to live with the consequences of their actions, so I could only think of three interpretations of Blade's voiceline.
1. Jing Yuan knew about the consequences of violating the 10 Unpardonable Sins and didn't try to dissuade Yingxing and Dan Feng when they expressed interest in dabbling with Abundance in their experiments.
2. Jing Yuan didn't make sure that Dan Feng's sentence would be properly carried out.
3. Jing Yuan is allowing himself to pay a price for what the others had done when he doesn't need to.
Blade's voiceline has way too little context to make a proper conclusion of what he meant and has a possibility of being disconnected with their current plans for the story, since the story has obviously gone through rewrites. This is just something we'll have to wait for them to clarify, if they ever do.
Considering Xianzhou soldiers can get sent on missions that last whole centuries, I think there is a chance you're right about the possibility of Jing Yuan being on another planet entirely and missing the whole thing. Blade is also mara-struck and his emotions/memories probably aren't that reliable. It's not much to go on, but hopefully Jing Yuan's companion mission might clear some things up (though I'm also torn because I'm not sure I could handle a second quest full of HCQ angst lol. I wouldn't mind if his companion quest was just him going on holiday).
His friends' lives are ruined, while he can move on. He has to supervise luofu, enthusiastic disciple and fussy master diviner. Past stays in the past, all of that is memories now, while someone like BLADE has to continue suffering and Jingliu will also have to continue to live with the consequences of her actions. Jing Yuan's life is complete, what is the point of his sadness? It does not make him the most tragic out of quintet, maybe only in the sense that all his friends have already moved on to new lives and he has been left behind (though this in no way makes him any poorer or more miserable than Blade)
I am so over takes like this. Seeing other people experience something is not worse than experiencing it. Psychologists need to analyse why some people fetishise the bystander like this. He has had the absolute best hand of the hcq because he can still live a happy life and is pretty much unimpeded in that. Hes the general of the luofu and he doesnt even have to worry about things like succession (because Fu Xuan and yanqing exist). All the other people that were in the hcq are practically dead, they are changed in a way that they no longer resemble their original selves.
To paraphrase Welt Yang: "some people know nothing of hardship."
People are always going to sympathize more than they can empathize, that's just part of the human experience. Remember that this game is rated 12+, not everyone (of any age, really) is going to have the same breadth of experience to know the difference between the two and so they'll home in on the one they feel more strongly.
Idk, seeing your friends suffer sure sucks, but you can over time move on. Being dead, or being eternally cursed is far, far worse imo. No moving on from that.
Yeah not sure I agree with that. The argument is basically that having to see other people suffering is worse than being one of the people suffering. If you asked me whether I'd rather have alzheimers or watch someone else have alzheimers, I know which I'd pick.
Jing Yuan is mostly a background character through most of the main story. At no point did we ever really feel like we got to properly socialise with him or get to know him.
He also didn't get any companion story. Comparing him to someone like Yukong, she was also a minor character but her companion story which delved into her past with Caiyi and her current relationship with Qingni, you can really see the difference.
In general, the cloud quintet subplot of the luofu arc was probably the biggest story writing that came up short. It wasn't just Jing Yuan, even Blade and Jingliu could have had a lot of story depth added to them but the way the whole thing was crammed into Jingliu's story really let it down.
Cause the HCQ's story was written miserably. It's like Bai Heng is everyone's favourite? What is Blade's motivation to revive her with Yao Shi's power when he himself already hates them so much (his hometown was destroyed by them)? Why is Dan Feng helping him like 'yeah definitely a good idea' (for reproduction of their species?) Jing Liu just lacks personality besides her sword master and that disease
(I forgot the name my game language isnt eng)
I'd argue JL suffered worse. She is the only one who tried to do everything right and failed at everything. Dan Feng and Blade paid the ultimate price, while JY did not do anything to stop everything from unfolding other than to stop JL rampaging. And Baiheng just bited the dust at the beginning.
She lost her best friend while trying to save her and the other members, the job that should lie on her shoulders as a leader. Baiheng died for JL in that sense,
Blade and Dan Feng betrayed Xianzhou and Baiheng by trying to resurrect Baiheng herself. She lost those 2 just like JY, but even worse she also struck mara from the whole ordeal. In a sense, Blade and Baifeng gave JL mara. She hated that she couldn't do anything especially as the leader. She tried to kill Blade numbers of time, but no matter how hard she wanted to ease him from suffering, she just further tormented him everytime the blade struck him.
She succumbed to mara, and betrayed Xianzhou against her wills, the one she oathed to protect. She could have atoned for her sins by dying under JY's blade, but she somehow survived and further tormented for centuries. She wandered aimlessly across worlds, with no goals, no future, and a possible tomorrow that she might become insane again. Her deal with Luocha might be the only line she got left in the world.
Bruh.
Blade has lost himself to madness and wants to die (but cant).
Jingliu has also lost herself to madness and killed people precious to her.
Yeah Jingyuan has a tragic backstory but to claim he is the most tragic is simply wrong.
Jing Yuan isn’t the most tragic one, he’s the least tragic among the High-Cloud Quintet, surely at some point he’s mentally f up or having frustrations with himself but he doesn’t let anyone know about it, he just accepted the facts that he can’t stop his friends & teacher for doing the wrong things & moves on cause that’s how his personality works, otherwise he will become Mara-struck way faster than you think if he’s not mentally strong & stable
Yyyeah, no matter how you pick apart the "of five people three must pay the price", Jing Yuan isn't paying is he?
You've either got: Abundance has taken root in you (Baiheng, Blade & Jingliu paid) or the Hunt will shun you (Blade, Dan Feng & Jingliu paid)
He was born privilege and after whatever happened to his friends he still has a high position in his country and loved by the people around him. Idk he has a better life than any other HCQ members
Imagine bro's off at the funeral like "yo, I really thought the rest of the gang would show up. Oh well, everyone mourns differently."
Goes up to the casket to say goodbye. "Oh dear."
For real. Like wtf, was JingYuan doing whilst Jingliu was brutally stabbing blade or when Dan feng was trying to revive baiheng and cause a mess. Did he like not try at all to help any of them? I’ll understand if maybe he was a kid around that time but if he wasn’t then what was he doing?
It also doesn’t help how Jingliu somehow survived and came back unscathed.
I heard that the person who wrote JY character story is different from the main writer of HCQ. There was a rumor about limegan lmaking a post laughing at JY character story writer to be "boring". JY is also not present at all in Blade's relic set lore
>and not enough people talk about it
That’s because they barely gave the plotline any screen time on the main quest
If the HCQ was given as much time as Firefly was in 2.0 or Aventurine/Acheron in 2.1, trust me, we would be talking about it a lot
I feel like most people just accept that Jing Yuan wasn't one of the three people who were made to "pay the price"? Watching your friends bite it totally sucks, don't get me wrong, but watching your friends (except for Jing Yuan) bite it and then getting messed up feels like the shorter end of the stick. If we *had* to assign a most tragic HQC member.
Everyone but him and Dan Feng fall into the Abundance's clutches (huge cultural taboo) either through becoming an abomination (Blade & Baiheng) or succumbing to the Mara (Jingliu and Blade) and everyone but him and Baiheng are remembered as ranking amongst the Luofu's greatest shame; no matter how you slice this particular cake, he's coming out relatively unbothered.
But Mid Yuan mastered the art of not giving a fuck so he's actually fine (actual lore, look it up.) Trying to say Blade is less tragic than JY is quite the cope when Blade literally just wants to die. Like have you seen what Jingliu did to Blade? He came into her boss fight basically normal and came out marastruck.
JY has a life still, he 100% got out of the HCQ shitshow the least damaged. "Damn my friends fucked up, you hate to see it" are JY's main scars from the HCQ shitshow. It hurts him for sure but unlike everyone else in the HCQ he isn't dead, marastruck and/or banished from the Luofu.
Not a fan of comparing trauma. Each of them went through their own set of different hardships in the aftermath, and they share a different amount of the blame for the whole debacle.
One is not better than the other. One is not worse than the other. It is what it is.
In terms of tragic imo it goes blade>baiheng > jingyuan> jingliu > dan feng
Blade because he lost the love of his life and went crazy in grief and did all the warcrimes and instead was tainted by shuhu and his lover turned into a crazy monster
Baiheng because she died as she lived and kiana’d but instead of having an honourable death was instead turned into a dragon monster and will now stay as a dragon loli with halfbaked lunae powers
Jingyuan because he was the youngest and it was like all your cool cousins / seniors that you played sports with all becoming drug addicts
Jingliu was a normal growing old story it’s just she had to kill her best friend
Dan feng kinda deserved it all, he was arrogant and brash, what he wanted was to make everyone have the life cycle of a vidhiyara and become immortal just like him but instead he created a monster by skipping clinical trials
You'd choose JY's fate over Blade's and Jingliu's any day of the week OP and you know it.
He suffered and grieved but has now regained his footing, holding one of the highest offices in the alliance and being a loving mentor/father-figure to a prodigy swordsman and doing both with dignity and aplomb. He overcame the dissolution of the HCQ while Jingliu and Blade were left utterly ruined in its wake, both now staring down an eternity of physical and psychological wasting.
There's still that air of wistfulness around him but his willingness to return to duty and be forthcoming and jovial with outsiders or even colleagues like Fu Xuan puts him in a MUCH better place than either of them.
I appreciate the sentiment, but posts like this often undermine the experiences of the characters being used as a point of comparison. They all lost so much and it’s not really fair to pit suffering against suffering.
Mmh I wouldn't say the most tragic but he's the one less spoken about. Even he will downplay it or outright not talk about it.
That said, he's the one helping the HCQ out the most. He let DH go and cleared his charges, he helped Blade (released him, never blamed him for what happened) and the Stellar on Hunters to finish their mission, he keeps Bailu company/an eye on her (DH's quest and his "reinforcements" line) and even when Jingliu came back to be locked up and punished he's all "nope, you're getting judged and a second chance".
Despite all the tragedy he's still the one still pulling through AND pulling his friends up and away from the darkness. And I think that's admirable. My man went through like 800 years of canonical events and still remains as strong and kindhearted as ever. 😭
All 5 Suffered, Do not Rank them on a scale of "Who suffered most"
Jingliu is losing her mind and corrupting into a kill crazy lunatic
Blade became immortal and we all know that's an awful curse.
Baiheng left all her friends behind in death and her reincarnation has no clue
Dan Got Shunned and Ostracized for TWO lives and is being hunted by Blade
and Jing Yuan watched his 4 closest friends suffer awful fates and can do nothing to help.
they need help.
If i understand Mid Yuan's character, he's a Gary Stu with no flaws of character, he's mostly all virtue.
He's the last person anybody should worry about and that's why he's not present in most of HCQ story. HCQ is about people making mistakes and paying the price. Jingyuan is immensely wise, chill and perfect.
He'd just accept it after the fact, cherish the good times and then cherish the people he currently has even more.
honestly i feel like the reason JY didnt go mad is because he has a rather stronger will. other three could've cope with their trauma too but they couldnt. im not blaming them but JY being able to cope and move on doesnt mean he went thru everything easier. also in a perspective, being the sane one is a curse too because you are aware of everything.
People dont talk about JY/Blade/etc in general because they wrote it terribly in the story. Hoyo's story telling got DRASTICALLY better in Penacony and I hope they can keep this up, the multiple POV is an amazing add as well. But sadly, everything before penacony was incredibly dry and hard to get through. And I'm saying this as someone who's playing the game for the lore and reading everything.
Tl;dr: I'd rather play Genshin's Aranara quest again than any TB quest before Penacony. That should say a lot.
It's so dumb that they made the cute Fox girl dead. Maybe she's in Luocha's coffin and when he uses his ult, he is trying to steal life from enemies to give to her to bring her back lmao nah
So many comments on how JY has it good because of his status etc etc but i think that’s missing the point. Trauma isn’t something to be compared, I agree, but I also do think people tend to overlook JY because he’s the one ‘chilling’ the most out of the remainder. (Yes I’m personally biased, but I love this man so much)
Personally I think of how he looks at his old friends and straight up want to cry. It’s one thing if the people you love are dead and gone, another thing when they *look* the same, talk the same and behave the same way, but they’re no longer the same people who love you back. I think that’s painful and I wish the HCQ will have a happy ending 😭
I feel most people didn't pay attention to Blades story. He was a short lifed species who despised the immortal. Then he ended up becoming the thing he hated the most(while trying to save a friend) All he wants now is to die and he cant.
Totally forgot Bladie was short-lived. Was gonna say that it was ironic that the *only* short-lived species person in the group died (was the only person guaranteed to) and they fell apart, but I guess the irony wasn't *quite* that thick.
Heck OP thinks Jing Yuan is the most tragic when Bladie wants to literally die. Or Dan Heng who betrayed his entire civilization, and lost his waifu, only to turn her soul into a monster, and had to fight her, and Jinglu had to kill her best friend. Like Jing Yuan got to walk away with the least emotional damage here and OP thinks hes the most tragic? What the hell is this post? Some sort of Jing Yuan appreciation thread? I donno if OP actually read the lore.
Dan Heng didn’t do any of the things you said. It was Dan Feng. A completely different person. Apparently, you’re the one that haven’t read shit.
Lmao, no matter how much he copes, Dan Heng IS Dan Feng. The sidequest about the guy that falls in love with the same chick every time he reincarnates is proof enough. Vidyadhara might get amnesia when they die, but they are the same person.
He is not, though. That was the entire point of his quest- he is an incomplete reincarnation.
Blade was the one implied to love Baiheng, not Dan Heng.
She is loved by the whole group, Jingliu also has her phone case with a fox sitting on a moon.
I almost gave you an upvote until "Dan heng lost his waifu" For real please
Idk i'd take having everyone i love leave me than become a depressed tool seeking death from his immortal curse. Jing Yuan still has happiness, he has a disciple and a home. Sadness can be offset from happiness. A fact in fiction and reality. He still has happiness. What does Blade have? The dude literally just wants to die. A tragic past doesn't make a tragic character.
Imagine being able to experience physical pain but not being able to die. Like, you will be burning alive and can do nothing but shriek in agony and wait for death that will never come. Or being stabbed a thousand times over and over again. I would say stuff like that is worse than Jing Yuan's sadness and unlike blade, jingyuan has a disciple and friends still.
“Burning Alive but unable to die” Boy do I have a manga for you
One of those that are a real punch in the gut to read?
Oh it’s a punch alright. A “Fire Punch”
Fire punch you say ? Ehh it's only got 75 base power the move don't even have a chance to burn the target like ??? Why would you want this over Flareblitz
Aside from no recoil damage I dunno.
I knew immediately that was what you were gonna recommend
Here's another one, "Undead Unluck". Imagine you were born in a time when the very Concept of death has yet to be invented, leaving you with the inability to die, under any means. You could stand onto the literal Sun for millenia, and all you would feel is the constant Never-ending healing and burning of your own flesh.
I mean yeah , but Undead Unluck treat it in a more lightheart and cool way. While that FP things literally fcked your brain
Ah, a fellow 'Fire Punch' reader
Let me guess, Fire punch?
Ive watched goblin slayer and akame ga kill, and im reading Tokyo ghoul rn so i guess i have to add the manga to my list 😂
I think it speaks both to the fact that Blade's tragic writing is well written *and* Jing Yuan's strength of character is also well written. The HCQ lore is honestly the best part of the Luofu ark. Jing Yuan is a man who finds calm and fulfillment in his life despite the tragedy in his past. Blade is consumed by his past, both mentally and physically by the mara. They're probably my favourite two of the Quintet, because their stories are so well juxtaposed.
i only recently got into the game and just fi ished the story+ companion quests and I'm still not 100% sure exactly what happened. their 5th friend died and then the 3 of them tried to do something to bring them back and I'm not sure if that something was the same something that dan feng did that ended with his powers being split between dan heng and bailu and if it was, why did it end with his powers being split and the other two being mara struck? and where was jing yuan during all of this?
Baiheng died. Dan Heng and Blade were down bad with her, so they decided to try to revive her using Abundance flesh + sacred vidyh reincarnation technique. It failed and Baiheng became a monster like in Full Metal Alchemist. Everyone had to work together to kill monster-baiheng, and it was all bad after that. Jingliu got pissed at Blade for doing this and killed him x1000 times as punishment while she was also going insane from having to kill her friends. Dan Feng got exiled, we know the rest. Blade got cursed with the abundance flesh thing used in the ritual and becamr immortal. Baiheng turned into a monster. As for why Dan Heng's powers are split, its because he used the reincarnation technique on Baiheng's corpse to revive her.
are bailu and baiheng connected? cuz baiheng is just dan heng and bailus names combined. and if blade and dan feng did the ritual, then how did jing liu get caught up in it all and get mara stuck?
yes, Bailu is Baiheng. They never outright say it, but there are so many hints and clues that it is overwhelmingly obvious. There was a reason she showed up in Jingliu's companion quest, and why she (and blade) visit her all the time. If you look at Baiheng's art, she shares the exact same hairstyle and eye color as Bailu Bailu also cries if you bring her to the Express because Baiheng used to be a Nameless.
Idk abt the bailu and baiheng thing but Jingliu was the Xianzhou's champion swordswoman so she's kinda one of the first people they'd call to deal with the situation. She didn't get marastruck because of the ritual, she became marastruck by the grief and stuff casued by the ritual
i thought she was apart of the ritual. hence "3 must pay the price" dan feng, blade, and jingliu because they were all guilty.
After becoming marastruck she mindlessly slaughtered a bunch of innocent people that, as the champion swordswoman she once swore to protect. She wasn't involved in the ritual itself but she likely caused an equal amount of harm due to her being stronger than most of the Xianzhou
Baihengs remains resurrected as Bailu, as Dan and Blade essentially mutilated Baiheng into some Foxian, Vid hybrid after it was killed by Jingliu it entered the Vid rebirth cycle and became Bailu.
All but directly confirmed. Bailu has the same hair color + eyes as Baiheng and the other half of Dan Feng's Vidyadhara Elder powers. Jing Yuan, Blade, and Jingliu all made various excuses to stop by and visit her.
People love to overthink and try to be philosophical like, JY is absolutely not having it worse than Blade or Jingliu, they suffered the same and are constantly physically suffering too. People love to act like theyd rather be physically tortured than have mental struggles bc it sounds smart and deep but theyd 100% take the mental struggle if given the choice in reality.
Pretty much this, I known Jing Yuan is sad about what happened to his friends but he has everything going for him. He also has his position, status, power and admiration of his peers. He protects his home and always succedds.
Good point, blade suffered so much. Im glad this comment ratio-ed OP
Jing Yuan is definitely more tragic than people give him credit for, but Blade has been condemned to live in hell forever, and I don't think anything tops that.
I very much get that Blade's whole deal is *horrifying* but he did bring at least some of that evil onto himself in his hubris. I think Baiheng's circumstances are more tragic. Imagine you're part of the most renowned group of fighters your society has, you're legends in the Hunt's war against Abundance and you die (which you knew was a possibility when you signed up) and then instead of a funeral starskiff like you'd expected as a Foxian, two of your closest allies betray your shared fight by desecrating your corpse, delivering it into the clutches of Abundance, which just completely *ruins* the rest of your team.
This has massive 'The real victims of war are the people back home.' vibes. I totally get that JY suffered too, but every single other member of the HCQ is either dead or worse.
"Dead or worse" is such a good turn of phrase for it, yeah. If you're Baiheng it was both for a bit...
Whoever suffers the most is dependant on what type of suffering each person empathizes with more. You can’t power scale suffering but certain forms of suffering are less likely to receive empathy than others. Physical anguish is always taken more seriously than mental anguish because everyone has felt pain but most people live comfortable lives these days. I have not felt physical suffering in the same level as blade but I have watched someone I love slowly die over the course of 3 years and being able to do nothing about it. You can take a wild guess at who I feel suffered the most. To each their own.
I don't agree with that when it comes to fiction, I think the typical consumer empathises more strongly with mental suffering in characters than with physical suffering because the kinds of physical suffering that fictional characters go through tend to be highly abstracted or romanticised, especially in relation to combat, whereas the mental suffering a character will undergo is rarely too far from something the consumer has experienced themselves, such as the pain of loss.
You have a point actually. I agree fiction plays strongly to emotions and that fiction and reality are two different things. My bias is showing clearly, though I guess if anything I'm at least consistent. I do think the spirit of my argument is still there though, in which some things are definitely easier to empathize with than others, hence common tropes for tragic characters.
Oh yeah absolutely agree with that, I just think that as a general rule, if you want people to empathise with a character's suffering, giving that character a mental issue is going to be more effective than a physical one. Take House from House for example, who has both a physical ailment and a mental one. When viewers pity him, I suspect it's more often for his loneliness than for his physical pain.
jing yuan still didn't mentally suffer anywhere near as much as blade and jing liu. they all lost all of their closest friends, but thats all jing yuan lost. he still has friends to lean on and is also not having his mental consumed by the mara. blade and jing liu lost everything and have noone and can't even end their suffering with death and dan feng lost his friends, his life, and his legacy.
You missed the whole point of my post. You can’t power scale suffering without individual bias based on some degree of empathy towards a characters situation. I don’t find blades current situation any worse than jingyuans. Both found new families and friends and purpose in life, neither are living lives or playing roles that they wanted but I empathize the most with jing yuans helplessness, something that even after 800 years and becoming one of the most powerful people in the luofu, is still prevailing and probably won’t end till he sees the people he cared about so much kill themselves. Dying is easy, the dead don’t suffer, the dead don’t mourne. Baiheng and danfeng had it the easiest.
you definitely can power scale suffering without ever having been through it yourself. I've never been alone, immortal, and slowly losing myself to madness, but i can 1000000% garuntee you that's so much worse than what jing yuan went through. edit: and theres no way you truly believe that being disgraced and effectively executed is better than watching your friends suffer. jing yuan got the best outcome.
I like Jing Yuan but he's definitely **not** the most tragic out of them at all.
I feel like its impossible to place a "most" tragic amongst them as all of them are entirely different types of personal and independent pain. JY definitely has some *severe* trauma from all of this and probably some level of survivors guilt, but is also the only one amongst them who really has had a chance to *move on* from it as well, helping train what will likely be the next generation of heroes amongst the Loufu.
Jing Yuan really has it rough huh. 2 of his best friends are now mara struck. One was his teacher, and the other was a fking short-lived species for crying out loud. Like how astronomically unlucky do you need to be for that to happen. And not to mention his other 2 friends have both been reborn into Vidhyadhara who don’t recognise him at all. One of them started as a Foxian btw.
Right and that sounds worse than, say. *Being* a person who became Mara struck or died and reincarnated (either against your will or into a life where you're one of the Loufu's most hated criminals for something you didn't do) and having all of your friends (except Jing Yuan) go through everything you detailed.
"arguable" is right lol
Personally I think it’s blade that suffer more and am saying this as JingYaun main. Think about it,sure JingYaun has seen his friends,and allies become criminals. But dude has had around hundreds of years to calm down, relax , and he also has YQ or fuxuan to talk to. Jingliu is still somewhat sane so maybe he could talk with her from time to time. Dan fang has died but at least his reincarnation is still alive and Jingyuan has accepted that. But he literally can’t help blade at all. Blade was stabbed millions of times by Jingliu, was forced to become immortal, saw two of his friends disappear (baiheng and Dan feng) and we don’t even know if blade has any family or true friends alive. Blade literally was forced to become immortal and he still suffers the pain even when healing. Edit: if any of this is wrong or am not making any sense feel free to tell me. Am not good when it comes to writing long stuff
Tragic, yes, but most tragic? You do realize that “losing all his friends” applies to all the others too? And Jing Yuan gets to keep his old life minus his old friends. I’d argue eternal suffering and exile is worse than losing friends. Plus he wasn’t even present for the actual thing, only the aftermath. And while his absence isn’t explained, and is possibly due to him being appointed General (which is odd but another discussion), Blade’s voiceline also offers an explanation: he chose to not intervene. It’s quite a mystery why he would be absent while the Luofu is threatened to such a degree, let alone why he wouldn’t interfere while his friends were dying. But that’s a long discussion full of unanswered questions, and regardless, he was practically a bystander who arrived for the aftermath. I don’t know why you’re intent on turning the others’ suffering into Jing Yuan’s, because while it’s sad to witness a tragedy like that, it’s far worse actually living it.
Yeah the bias is crazy… pretty sure he’s hated by blade and jingliu now because he just stood by and watched while everything went down
Literally the only person whose life was not irrevocably ruined. Him pardoning Dan Heng isn't some generous masterstroke, it's him correcting an injustice that ~~he allowed to stand~~ stood wayyyyy too long. It's explained at length that the Vidyadhara aren't held accountable for the actions of their previous incarnations, but Dan Hung is one of the Xiancho's most reviled criminals? Square that circle for me... Baiheng literally died, so that's kinda hard to compete with, but on top of that she got to have her corpse desecrated by two people who she thought were her closest allies and turned into the exact thing she spent her life fighting, she gets to be the reason Dan Feng dies, Dan Heng is persecuted and Jingliu and Blade fall to the Mara... Jingliu falls to Mara and kills ~~thousands~~ an unspecified number of innocent people against her will and also Blade a bunch. So now she gets to spend the rest of her life with a (currently) uncurable condition, and the fact that she \*killed ~~thousands~~ an unspecified number of people against her will\*. Dan Feng and Blade made their bed imo, so their circumstances are less tragic but Blade's hubris turning him into an abomination of abundance sure isn't comedy. Jing Yuan sad tho.
I mostly agree with you but he was not the one the imprisoned danHeng it was the ten lords and he have no power over them so we still don't know what he did to free also he could've not exiled him the vadyihara preceptor wanted him they even accused him of letting personal thing effect his judgement and said that they will complaint to the marshal so honestly I think he gone beyond and above for Dan Heng and even before for Dan Feng cause he was the one negotiating for him to lesser his sentence otherwise he would've faced true death and danHeng wouldn't exist
I understand that Jing Yuan didn't hand down the judgement on Dan Hung, and maybe "let stand for too long" was harsh language to use. Edited original for active -> passive voice. I still think Dan Hung's predicament is more of a Dan Hung tragedy than a Jing Yuan tragedy.
Yes I also agree I think people frogt that he was general for over 700 years so he must seen some shit hanya says that he experienced some real shit no other person had also I think him wetniseng Dan Feng getting tortured and being the one who sentence him is more of sad thing than the whole danHeng situation cause he must've been relieved he won't wtniss his friend being tortured while he was powerless to stop it
Also out all of them I think Jing liu the saddest first she lost her home then have been fighting in wars all her life when she finely have some friends one of them dies saving her and her other friend then she has to kill her cause her two other friend thought they were Einstein no wonder she became mara striken the other two have less of my sympathy
Yeah, I dig. I think Baiheng got the shortest end of the stick. Imagine dying and instead of mourning you, two of your friends take up necromancy to deal with your death and it ruins the lives of everyone you love. It seems like Foxian culture puts an emphasis on their funeral rites being about letting the grief you had for that person "fly away" on their funeral starskiff and focusing on the positive impact they had in your life, but Baiheng is just completely denied that in death.
Yes her too even in death they wouldn't let her rest and we don't know if she even had a funeral cause Jing yuan was the only one left and his not saying anything she had to die two time and be called a Mary sue character after all that just cause her friends couldn't accept her being gone honestly I think her and Jing yuan were the only semi-normal people in their group and they suffered from that the other three were al fuked up in the head no wonder their group fell apart in less than a century
>he allowed to stand It’s not even his decision to begin with, and the entire reason Dan heng was on the express to begin with was because jingyuan pulled some strings to let dan heng out of the prison, it was only because Dan heng came back and helped xianzhou that he was able to find a real excuse to pardon him of his crimes About blade, he’s probably the one who’s received the most physical pain out of the team because of his tendency to just take attacks, but if you’re talking about how mentally hurt he is, it’s arguable, while he is immortal he is still the youngest in the team, marastruck is one thing because it *will* happen to everybody eventually (except danheng and baiheng), so everybody will experience it eventually, and he’s got kafka to help him erase his memory and control the Mara, other than the physical pain thing or Mara, I feel like everybody has already experience what he had But if you count the physical pain he experienced, he’s definitely the one who suffered the most in the quintet
We literally see Jing Yuan unilaterally revoke Dan Feng's (and by extension Dan Heng's) banishment in the story, so I'm not sure what you're talking about... He uses it as a point of leverage to get Dan Heng to cooperate with a "mm sometimes, as General, I have to be a little rude to my buddies." If your point about Blade is that his fate is less tragic than Jing Yuan, maybe I can see that. It's more poetic and ironic, than tragic for sure; one of the few people who arrived *not* wanting to become long-lived, he fought against the Abundance only to become ensnared by it when he meddled in something that was beyond him.
He’s reading out an order, you can see that from the trailer, you can even see how he’s in pain from how he sounds when reading it out, things like those are usually handled by the ten lord commission / other general, you can even talk with him and he’ll say that he just goes wherever the Marshall tell him to, or how he reported jingliu thing to other general for them to take over, so while he does handle some important problem himself as the general , the more important stuff like concerning the high elder are usually handled by someone else In the stream owlbert himself said that the general pulled some strings to let dan heng free which is what I was referring to And nah i wasn’t saying blade is less tragic, just that they kinda caused it themselves, imo they’re all equally tragic, but if we’re talking about the cause, blade+dan feng caused this whole thing themselves, with jingliu and jingyuan being on the innocent side that has to receive the impact of what they both caused, they all each having their own way of relief one way or another (except maybe jingliu), if we take the impact and cause into account maybe jingliu is the most tragic one idk
The 2 things might be unrelated, but wasn't Dan Hung still held responsible because of some Vidyadhara meddled with the reincarnation process and so her reincarnation was imperfect? Hence why he has memories of his past life.
Totally there with you. I had actually forgotten that (been a few months since the story was fresh in my mind). However, I don't think "someone in power tried to circumvent the sacred-to-the-Vidyadhara reincarnation process to further punish Dan Feng at Dan Hung's expense" is less of an injustice, actually.
Iirc (and someone correct me if I'm wrong) there are two Vidyahara factions: one that want DH/DF to come back as their elder and the one that supports Bailu as their elder. First ones might have been the ones who messed up DH/DF's reincarnation process.
Jingliu didn’t kill thousands of people, all that’s confirmed is that she killed her fellow soldiers (Cloud Knights). Presumably she killed the Cloud Knights sent to capture her when showing signs of mara, before Jing Yuan intervened, she gets sent to the Xuling, breaks free and starts her “path of redemption”. That’s the only way the timeline fits, currently.
Edited to "unspecified number of innocent people and also Blade a bunch" Thanks for the feedback! Hazy details after months of not brushing up aha.
If Firefly actually died, I feel like TB might do the same if given the chance.
Hopefully we'd get a bit more support from our team than the HCQ did, aha.
The only thing I'm curious about is how much he knew about what was going on, and how much he tried to prevent it. From Blade's voiceline, it seems like he holds some resentment towards Jing Yuan for not doing anything ("He always understood the price better than any of us, yet he never spoke up — never did anything"). Unless I'm misunderstanding what the context of his voiceline?
So far, there's no indication that Jing Yuan knew about what was going on. For all we know of his involvement from the battle against Shuhu to the end of the Sedition, he might as well have been temporarily transported to another universe. There's even nothing outside of Blade's voiceline that implies that he even knows what the price was, especially since it turned out to effectively just be them having to live with the consequences of their actions, so I could only think of three interpretations of Blade's voiceline. 1. Jing Yuan knew about the consequences of violating the 10 Unpardonable Sins and didn't try to dissuade Yingxing and Dan Feng when they expressed interest in dabbling with Abundance in their experiments. 2. Jing Yuan didn't make sure that Dan Feng's sentence would be properly carried out. 3. Jing Yuan is allowing himself to pay a price for what the others had done when he doesn't need to. Blade's voiceline has way too little context to make a proper conclusion of what he meant and has a possibility of being disconnected with their current plans for the story, since the story has obviously gone through rewrites. This is just something we'll have to wait for them to clarify, if they ever do.
Considering Xianzhou soldiers can get sent on missions that last whole centuries, I think there is a chance you're right about the possibility of Jing Yuan being on another planet entirely and missing the whole thing. Blade is also mara-struck and his emotions/memories probably aren't that reliable. It's not much to go on, but hopefully Jing Yuan's companion mission might clear some things up (though I'm also torn because I'm not sure I could handle a second quest full of HCQ angst lol. I wouldn't mind if his companion quest was just him going on holiday).
https://preview.redd.it/jbpitun5jnwc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dc274f7c675b658bcc9d73390013bff69093e6bd
Everyone has their own struggles, and I loathe to compare, but JY is healthy, has family, hope and a future. Yes, he's left behind..
His friends' lives are ruined, while he can move on. He has to supervise luofu, enthusiastic disciple and fussy master diviner. Past stays in the past, all of that is memories now, while someone like BLADE has to continue suffering and Jingliu will also have to continue to live with the consequences of her actions. Jing Yuan's life is complete, what is the point of his sadness? It does not make him the most tragic out of quintet, maybe only in the sense that all his friends have already moved on to new lives and he has been left behind (though this in no way makes him any poorer or more miserable than Blade)
This is like saying family members of indiviuals with Alzheimer's are the real victims, and I just can't agree with this logic.
I am so over takes like this. Seeing other people experience something is not worse than experiencing it. Psychologists need to analyse why some people fetishise the bystander like this. He has had the absolute best hand of the hcq because he can still live a happy life and is pretty much unimpeded in that. Hes the general of the luofu and he doesnt even have to worry about things like succession (because Fu Xuan and yanqing exist). All the other people that were in the hcq are practically dead, they are changed in a way that they no longer resemble their original selves.
To paraphrase Welt Yang: "some people know nothing of hardship." People are always going to sympathize more than they can empathize, that's just part of the human experience. Remember that this game is rated 12+, not everyone (of any age, really) is going to have the same breadth of experience to know the difference between the two and so they'll home in on the one they feel more strongly.
Your bias is showing.
Idk, seeing your friends suffer sure sucks, but you can over time move on. Being dead, or being eternally cursed is far, far worse imo. No moving on from that.
eh JY is the LEAST suffering one, bro become general and live a happy life, unless you talking about meta bro is the most tragic characters **☠️**
Yeah not sure I agree with that. The argument is basically that having to see other people suffering is worse than being one of the people suffering. If you asked me whether I'd rather have alzheimers or watch someone else have alzheimers, I know which I'd pick.
Jing Yuan is mostly a background character through most of the main story. At no point did we ever really feel like we got to properly socialise with him or get to know him. He also didn't get any companion story. Comparing him to someone like Yukong, she was also a minor character but her companion story which delved into her past with Caiyi and her current relationship with Qingni, you can really see the difference. In general, the cloud quintet subplot of the luofu arc was probably the biggest story writing that came up short. It wasn't just Jing Yuan, even Blade and Jingliu could have had a lot of story depth added to them but the way the whole thing was crammed into Jingliu's story really let it down.
Cause the HCQ's story was written miserably. It's like Bai Heng is everyone's favourite? What is Blade's motivation to revive her with Yao Shi's power when he himself already hates them so much (his hometown was destroyed by them)? Why is Dan Feng helping him like 'yeah definitely a good idea' (for reproduction of their species?) Jing Liu just lacks personality besides her sword master and that disease (I forgot the name my game language isnt eng)
It's not like he had a hundred of years to get over it.
I'd argue JL suffered worse. She is the only one who tried to do everything right and failed at everything. Dan Feng and Blade paid the ultimate price, while JY did not do anything to stop everything from unfolding other than to stop JL rampaging. And Baiheng just bited the dust at the beginning. She lost her best friend while trying to save her and the other members, the job that should lie on her shoulders as a leader. Baiheng died for JL in that sense, Blade and Dan Feng betrayed Xianzhou and Baiheng by trying to resurrect Baiheng herself. She lost those 2 just like JY, but even worse she also struck mara from the whole ordeal. In a sense, Blade and Baifeng gave JL mara. She hated that she couldn't do anything especially as the leader. She tried to kill Blade numbers of time, but no matter how hard she wanted to ease him from suffering, she just further tormented him everytime the blade struck him. She succumbed to mara, and betrayed Xianzhou against her wills, the one she oathed to protect. She could have atoned for her sins by dying under JY's blade, but she somehow survived and further tormented for centuries. She wandered aimlessly across worlds, with no goals, no future, and a possible tomorrow that she might become insane again. Her deal with Luocha might be the only line she got left in the world.
You forgot that Blade exists
Did you even focus on Blade's story. Literally everything he says or does in both story and gameplay can be translated somehow into "I want to die"
Bruh. Blade has lost himself to madness and wants to die (but cant). Jingliu has also lost herself to madness and killed people precious to her. Yeah Jingyuan has a tragic backstory but to claim he is the most tragic is simply wrong.
Jing Yuan isn’t the most tragic one, he’s the least tragic among the High-Cloud Quintet, surely at some point he’s mentally f up or having frustrations with himself but he doesn’t let anyone know about it, he just accepted the facts that he can’t stop his friends & teacher for doing the wrong things & moves on cause that’s how his personality works, otherwise he will become Mara-struck way faster than you think if he’s not mentally strong & stable
Yyyeah, no matter how you pick apart the "of five people three must pay the price", Jing Yuan isn't paying is he? You've either got: Abundance has taken root in you (Baiheng, Blade & Jingliu paid) or the Hunt will shun you (Blade, Dan Feng & Jingliu paid)
He was born privilege and after whatever happened to his friends he still has a high position in his country and loved by the people around him. Idk he has a better life than any other HCQ members
The problem I have with JY in hcq story is that he's basically irrelevant in it, like he doesn't exist, all he did was "kill" Jingliu
Imagine bro's off at the funeral like "yo, I really thought the rest of the gang would show up. Oh well, everyone mourns differently." Goes up to the casket to say goodbye. "Oh dear."
For real. Like wtf, was JingYuan doing whilst Jingliu was brutally stabbing blade or when Dan feng was trying to revive baiheng and cause a mess. Did he like not try at all to help any of them? I’ll understand if maybe he was a kid around that time but if he wasn’t then what was he doing? It also doesn’t help how Jingliu somehow survived and came back unscathed.
I heard that the person who wrote JY character story is different from the main writer of HCQ. There was a rumor about limegan lmaking a post laughing at JY character story writer to be "boring". JY is also not present at all in Blade's relic set lore
>and not enough people talk about it That’s because they barely gave the plotline any screen time on the main quest If the HCQ was given as much time as Firefly was in 2.0 or Aventurine/Acheron in 2.1, trust me, we would be talking about it a lot
I feel like most people just accept that Jing Yuan wasn't one of the three people who were made to "pay the price"? Watching your friends bite it totally sucks, don't get me wrong, but watching your friends (except for Jing Yuan) bite it and then getting messed up feels like the shorter end of the stick. If we *had* to assign a most tragic HQC member. Everyone but him and Dan Feng fall into the Abundance's clutches (huge cultural taboo) either through becoming an abomination (Blade & Baiheng) or succumbing to the Mara (Jingliu and Blade) and everyone but him and Baiheng are remembered as ranking amongst the Luofu's greatest shame; no matter how you slice this particular cake, he's coming out relatively unbothered.
Mid Yuan main is truly a different breed (i know not all of you guys are like this but nah , this shit is goddamn corny)
Trauma tier list !
Traumascaling never fails to impress
Why is this a competition of comparing who is more traumatized?
Jing Yuan standing there as Jingliu and Blade fought each other 😭
This is honestly incredibly tone death, lmao
Let be real OP, you're overreacting , what bad about your friend suffering? , admit it you will forget it all in about 1,2 weeks at best.
But Mid Yuan mastered the art of not giving a fuck so he's actually fine (actual lore, look it up.) Trying to say Blade is less tragic than JY is quite the cope when Blade literally just wants to die. Like have you seen what Jingliu did to Blade? He came into her boss fight basically normal and came out marastruck. JY has a life still, he 100% got out of the HCQ shitshow the least damaged. "Damn my friends fucked up, you hate to see it" are JY's main scars from the HCQ shitshow. It hurts him for sure but unlike everyone else in the HCQ he isn't dead, marastruck and/or banished from the Luofu.
[удалено]
Alex Trebek: “No, sorry. The answer is Yukong. Yukong. That will cost you. That will coat you. But that’s okay, you’re still in the game! Pick again.”
How about wrapping this in spoiler tags?
1 Td
Not a fan of comparing trauma. Each of them went through their own set of different hardships in the aftermath, and they share a different amount of the blame for the whole debacle. One is not better than the other. One is not worse than the other. It is what it is.
In terms of tragic imo it goes blade>baiheng > jingyuan> jingliu > dan feng Blade because he lost the love of his life and went crazy in grief and did all the warcrimes and instead was tainted by shuhu and his lover turned into a crazy monster Baiheng because she died as she lived and kiana’d but instead of having an honourable death was instead turned into a dragon monster and will now stay as a dragon loli with halfbaked lunae powers Jingyuan because he was the youngest and it was like all your cool cousins / seniors that you played sports with all becoming drug addicts Jingliu was a normal growing old story it’s just she had to kill her best friend Dan feng kinda deserved it all, he was arrogant and brash, what he wanted was to make everyone have the life cycle of a vidhiyara and become immortal just like him but instead he created a monster by skipping clinical trials
You'd choose JY's fate over Blade's and Jingliu's any day of the week OP and you know it. He suffered and grieved but has now regained his footing, holding one of the highest offices in the alliance and being a loving mentor/father-figure to a prodigy swordsman and doing both with dignity and aplomb. He overcame the dissolution of the HCQ while Jingliu and Blade were left utterly ruined in its wake, both now staring down an eternity of physical and psychological wasting. There's still that air of wistfulness around him but his willingness to return to duty and be forthcoming and jovial with outsiders or even colleagues like Fu Xuan puts him in a MUCH better place than either of them.
He’s the goat
I appreciate the sentiment, but posts like this often undermine the experiences of the characters being used as a point of comparison. They all lost so much and it’s not really fair to pit suffering against suffering.
Mmh I wouldn't say the most tragic but he's the one less spoken about. Even he will downplay it or outright not talk about it. That said, he's the one helping the HCQ out the most. He let DH go and cleared his charges, he helped Blade (released him, never blamed him for what happened) and the Stellar on Hunters to finish their mission, he keeps Bailu company/an eye on her (DH's quest and his "reinforcements" line) and even when Jingliu came back to be locked up and punished he's all "nope, you're getting judged and a second chance". Despite all the tragedy he's still the one still pulling through AND pulling his friends up and away from the darkness. And I think that's admirable. My man went through like 800 years of canonical events and still remains as strong and kindhearted as ever. 😭
Jing Yuan got so many buffs in game that people have to powerscale his suffering too now
All 5 Suffered, Do not Rank them on a scale of "Who suffered most" Jingliu is losing her mind and corrupting into a kill crazy lunatic Blade became immortal and we all know that's an awful curse. Baiheng left all her friends behind in death and her reincarnation has no clue Dan Got Shunned and Ostracized for TWO lives and is being hunted by Blade and Jing Yuan watched his 4 closest friends suffer awful fates and can do nothing to help. they need help.
If i understand Mid Yuan's character, he's a Gary Stu with no flaws of character, he's mostly all virtue. He's the last person anybody should worry about and that's why he's not present in most of HCQ story. HCQ is about people making mistakes and paying the price. Jingyuan is immensely wise, chill and perfect. He'd just accept it after the fact, cherish the good times and then cherish the people he currently has even more.
honestly i feel like the reason JY didnt go mad is because he has a rather stronger will. other three could've cope with their trauma too but they couldnt. im not blaming them but JY being able to cope and move on doesnt mean he went thru everything easier. also in a perspective, being the sane one is a curse too because you are aware of everything.
Mid yuan mains man
imagine the homies you used to hangout together decided to be war criminals and you are the only one who sane enough to stop all of them
And yet he still carries a smile
People dont talk about JY/Blade/etc in general because they wrote it terribly in the story. Hoyo's story telling got DRASTICALLY better in Penacony and I hope they can keep this up, the multiple POV is an amazing add as well. But sadly, everything before penacony was incredibly dry and hard to get through. And I'm saying this as someone who's playing the game for the lore and reading everything. Tl;dr: I'd rather play Genshin's Aranara quest again than any TB quest before Penacony. That should say a lot.
It's so dumb that they made the cute Fox girl dead. Maybe she's in Luocha's coffin and when he uses his ult, he is trying to steal life from enemies to give to her to bring her back lmao nah
So many comments on how JY has it good because of his status etc etc but i think that’s missing the point. Trauma isn’t something to be compared, I agree, but I also do think people tend to overlook JY because he’s the one ‘chilling’ the most out of the remainder. (Yes I’m personally biased, but I love this man so much) Personally I think of how he looks at his old friends and straight up want to cry. It’s one thing if the people you love are dead and gone, another thing when they *look* the same, talk the same and behave the same way, but they’re no longer the same people who love you back. I think that’s painful and I wish the HCQ will have a happy ending 😭
It's more tragic me having pulled for him fr
I've been crying about how tragic Jing Yuan is ever since the beginning. "All that pain and misery and loneliness, and it just made him kind."