Meta: Nie Mingjue
Apr. 16th, 2025 06:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silver_sunNie Mingjue thoughts, previously posted on Tumblr Feb 2024
It feels like so many people forget how young Nie Mingjue was. He was only old 6 years older than Nie Huaisang.
Which makes Nie Mingjue, Chifeng-Zun, who’s a well established leader in combat, all of 23/24 years old at the start of the Sunshot Campaign, and barely/maybe not even 30 at his death.
It’s so easy to see him as being of an equal age to the other sect leaders of the time - Wen Rouhan, Jin Guangshan, Jiang Fengmian, Lan Qiren (standing in for Qingheng-Jun) when he’s basically the same age their kids.
He probably around the same age as Wen Xu. He’s only 3 or so years older than Lan Xichen, about 2 or 3 older than Jiang Yanli.
In his early 20’s he had also been a sect leader for nearly a decade.
NMJ has such a rigid view of things and of right and wrong. Childishly simple seems an unfair way of putting it, but he was a child when he had to lead.
He was about 14 when Wen Rouhan, the chief cultivator had killed his father. He was left with a leaderless sect and little brother (nhs) who was about 8.
He’s tall for his age and strong. He knows he has to lead now. His childhood is over. He needs to be strong and decisive. He trains hard (he knows what this means for him, what it has meant for all the Nie sect leaders), he makes decisions and doesn’t back down (no weakness will be attached to Qinghe Nie because of him and his youth)
Qinghe Nie keeps in place in 5 great sects, despite its barely teenage leader.
There is nothing in his life apart from training and the determination to be strong enough to protect his sect and his little brother, and to finally avenge his father.
Perhaps there had been hope once that after it was done, after Wen Rouhan was gone, he could stop pushing so hard. After all he doesn’t want to leave his brother all alone too soon.
But the sunshot campaign happens. He’s betrayed, but told he hasn’t been, told he needs to put it aside. He sees cultivators from his sect die in front of him, unable to protect them, is tortured and unable to escape. He never gets to have his vengeance against Wen Rouhan in person.
Then the conflict is over.
Years of fighting, of pushing himself, of all that happened to him, means that there is no peace in victory.
He does not know how to come home. He's built for war, and can’t believe that another enemy won’t appear.
His health declines, physical he’s mostly fine, but he’s angry all the time, expecting attack, always alert to danger. It feel like there are enemies watching him everywhere. He can’t relax even for a moment. He’s tired, but he can’t rest. He’s exhausted, afraid (although he’d never say that aloud) and all comes out as anger. He shouts at Huaisang, pushes him to train harder, his own fear that all too soon he will no longer be there and able to protect driving a wedge between them.
Huaisang doesn’t seem to care, still acts like a spoilt child. And Mingjue breaks some of his fans, some of his books and paintings.
He knows he’s gone too far, but he doesn’t know how to stop. The only relief is that he didn’t harm Huaisang. He knows too that these outbursts will only get worse until he’s a danger to all those around him.
Lan Xichen offers a solution, not a cure, but a reprieve, a chance to buy him a few more years in which to get his brother ready to lead.
It’s not to be.
He doesn’t know why the music stops working as it should. It all sounds the same to him.
He endures it the best he can, until he can’t.
—
Later
Nie Huaisang turns 30, then 31, he’s older now than his brother ever got to be.
He has his plots and plans. The time will eventually come.
Even if it is years more in the making, he will never give up. His dage never gave up on ending wrh, even though it took him more than 10 years and his health.
Their methods are different, but their goal the same. They will end the chief cultivator who took away their family.
He’s never been more like his brother than he is now
It feels like so many people forget how young Nie Mingjue was. He was only old 6 years older than Nie Huaisang.
Which makes Nie Mingjue, Chifeng-Zun, who’s a well established leader in combat, all of 23/24 years old at the start of the Sunshot Campaign, and barely/maybe not even 30 at his death.
It’s so easy to see him as being of an equal age to the other sect leaders of the time - Wen Rouhan, Jin Guangshan, Jiang Fengmian, Lan Qiren (standing in for Qingheng-Jun) when he’s basically the same age their kids.
He probably around the same age as Wen Xu. He’s only 3 or so years older than Lan Xichen, about 2 or 3 older than Jiang Yanli.
In his early 20’s he had also been a sect leader for nearly a decade.
NMJ has such a rigid view of things and of right and wrong. Childishly simple seems an unfair way of putting it, but he was a child when he had to lead.
He was about 14 when Wen Rouhan, the chief cultivator had killed his father. He was left with a leaderless sect and little brother (nhs) who was about 8.
He’s tall for his age and strong. He knows he has to lead now. His childhood is over. He needs to be strong and decisive. He trains hard (he knows what this means for him, what it has meant for all the Nie sect leaders), he makes decisions and doesn’t back down (no weakness will be attached to Qinghe Nie because of him and his youth)
Qinghe Nie keeps in place in 5 great sects, despite its barely teenage leader.
There is nothing in his life apart from training and the determination to be strong enough to protect his sect and his little brother, and to finally avenge his father.
Perhaps there had been hope once that after it was done, after Wen Rouhan was gone, he could stop pushing so hard. After all he doesn’t want to leave his brother all alone too soon.
But the sunshot campaign happens. He’s betrayed, but told he hasn’t been, told he needs to put it aside. He sees cultivators from his sect die in front of him, unable to protect them, is tortured and unable to escape. He never gets to have his vengeance against Wen Rouhan in person.
Then the conflict is over.
Years of fighting, of pushing himself, of all that happened to him, means that there is no peace in victory.
He does not know how to come home. He's built for war, and can’t believe that another enemy won’t appear.
His health declines, physical he’s mostly fine, but he’s angry all the time, expecting attack, always alert to danger. It feel like there are enemies watching him everywhere. He can’t relax even for a moment. He’s tired, but he can’t rest. He’s exhausted, afraid (although he’d never say that aloud) and all comes out as anger. He shouts at Huaisang, pushes him to train harder, his own fear that all too soon he will no longer be there and able to protect driving a wedge between them.
Huaisang doesn’t seem to care, still acts like a spoilt child. And Mingjue breaks some of his fans, some of his books and paintings.
He knows he’s gone too far, but he doesn’t know how to stop. The only relief is that he didn’t harm Huaisang. He knows too that these outbursts will only get worse until he’s a danger to all those around him.
Lan Xichen offers a solution, not a cure, but a reprieve, a chance to buy him a few more years in which to get his brother ready to lead.
It’s not to be.
He doesn’t know why the music stops working as it should. It all sounds the same to him.
He endures it the best he can, until he can’t.
—
Later
Nie Huaisang turns 30, then 31, he’s older now than his brother ever got to be.
He has his plots and plans. The time will eventually come.
Even if it is years more in the making, he will never give up. His dage never gave up on ending wrh, even though it took him more than 10 years and his health.
Their methods are different, but their goal the same. They will end the chief cultivator who took away their family.
He’s never been more like his brother than he is now