A strong core

[athousandwinds]

There's an idea that I've seen from time to time about Nie Huaisang and his secret talents and how he might lead the Nie to a gentler cultivation path, usually involving fan cultivation as opposed to sabre cultivation. This is a really cool idea and if anyone has recs I'll take 'em, but...

...one thing that I find gives a lot of depth to MDZS is that the strength of a character's golden core has very little to do with their talent. Wei Wuxian is a genius with or without his core and indeed is forced to greater heights of innovation by losing it. Jin Guangyao has a weak core and thus supplements his cultivation with versatility; his meteoric rise has very little to do with his cultivation one way or another. I'm not even sure Xue Yang has a golden core, but he's nevertheless one of the most dangerous people in the novel. And Nie Huaisang, who was always a late bloomer at best and didn't even form a golden core until Sunshot, destroys his enemy without ever drawing a sword or humming a note.

On the flipside, the great and terrible Wen Ruohan, the most powerful cultivator of his generation, isn't defeated by the rising bull Nie Mingjue, or even one of the Jades of Lan, but his unassuming lieutenant, so weak in his cultivation that he needs Wen Ruohan's help to beat a shackled prisoner, but who has the brains and the cunning to get the drop on him.

Thus I don't love secretly powerful Nie Huaisang. It's more interesting to me if he's exactly as low in cultivation as he appears, because it strengthens the parallel with Jin Guangyao, who also faced an enemy who was much stronger than him (two, in fact) and destroyed him with guile and not power.

Comments

[hugseverycat]

This is a really interesting post! You know, I somehow never really managed to think about how Jin Guangyao & Xue Yang have weaker/non-existent golden cores. Obviously it's true, but I had never really thought much about the implications of that for the wider world. Although I suppose the Lans might just say that their earthly power won't grant them immortality so how much does it really matter :)

[athousandwinds]

Hahahaha I would be fascinated to know a bit more about who does cultivate to immortality - we only ever hear about one person (more legend than woman) who actually manages it, though it does seem to be possible (both WRH and JGS are described as looking much younger than their actual ages, though obviously they're still mortal). The Nie, ah, don't seem to cultivate to immortality at all.

Spiritual power just doesn't seem to do much for anybody except grant them social status. Time and again we see the strongest of them fall to someone considerably weaker in cultivation (JGS, XXC/SL, NMJ). Meanwhile, the most memorable time we see the exemplary First Jade of Lan in action he...kills someone he didn't want to kill, who is considerably weaker than he is, because he was tricked into it.