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Meatbun's characterization style plays with the varying and complex ways that power differentials exist in romantic relationships, all the while maintaining the agency of the protagonists amidst the themes of poverty, oppression, and the corruption of the upper cultivation realm.
Issues of age and status clearly play out between Mo Ran and Chu Wanning. Chu Wanning is 10 years older than Mo Ran, and, moreover, his Shizun. Shizun/disciple relationships are taboo, with age gaps and "cutsleeves" already being taboo in the xianxia world; the stigmas they face
are put on cruel, almost voyeuristic display in Tianyin Pavilion, when their romance is exposed to the cultivation world and Mo Ran is put on brutal trial for his sins. Not only does this cause them problems from a societal perspective, but it also causes internal conflict.
Mo Ran acutely feels this difference in status, especially given his impoverished background, and constantly externalizes those insecurities as Taxian-jun or represses them as Mo-zongshi. He's constantly questioning his place not just in Sisheng Peak/within the Xue family,
but also if he has the right to be Chu Wanning's disciple, romantic partner, and hold the Zongshi title. Chu Wanning feels agony because of his age and authority. He feels disgust at himself for falling in love with his younger disciple, thinking it a violation of conduct.
Chu Wanning tries to tamp down his own feelings because he feels that he has to protect Mo Ran from them, and further, that he has no right to be in love with Mo Ran. So there is a case of repression and internal agony here as well, in addition to the societal context.
While age, authority, and feudal status are traditional forms of power differentials in romantic relationships, Meatbun also explores power reversals, which is essentially what happens with ranwan. The disciple becomes emperor, the shizun is forced to become a captive concubine.
The power reversal does not equalize their relationship, which is one of my favorite messages of 2ha. The idea that just because someone who previously was disenfranchised gains power doesn't automatically mean that it's inherently empowering or even revolutionary; indeed we see
that what Taxian-jun does with the power he previously never had is violent, destructive toward himself and others, and fundamentally reactionary, an externalization of all his rage, trauma, and grief against the world. He uses Chu Wanning, the man who formerly had authority
over him, as well as the man who'd been his guidepost and savior, as a scapegoat for the losses he's experienced thus far, once again showcasing that a power reversal is not the same thing as the equalization of a relationship.
This is the other point to Mo Ran's redemption narrative. Equalizing a relationship, making it healthy, requires active effort, trust, and communication from BOTH Mo Ran and Chu Wanning. Love and passion aren't enough to create a healthy relationship; it takes time and effort.
By learning about each other's strengths and weaknesses, and actually communicating with each other, being vulnerable and honest and open, admitting their faults, Ranwan actively make a healthy relationship for themselves in the 2.0 lifetime. That is the critical difference.
As such, both Mo Ran and Chu Wanning have occupied the roles of person in the position of power vs. person who lacks power. This is one of the reasons why the power dynamic is more complex than a simple ratio or dichotomy between them; it's not a binary.
Both of them have contributed to the breakdown in their relationship, Chu Wanning because of his excessively rigid moral convictions interfering with the ability to see shades of gray and empathize as well as his fear of vulnerability. Mo Ran because of his selfish behaviors
and his 0.5 persona's tendency to blame everyone but himself for his own actions, as well as to hold the wrong people accountable for his traumas. Meatbun gives both of them accountability; though Mo Ran has the lion's share of it for rightful reasons, Chu Wanning gets it too.
Thus, it's not good analysis to state that Chu Wanning was coerced into loving Mo Ran; the root of the power differential is not in the romance itself, but in the circumstances of when it occurs, the surrounding societal factors that traumatize both of them, and their own flaws.
(spoilers going forward)
Chu Wanning and Mo Ran had met once before they actually met on Sisheng Peak; Chu Wanning had been the vaunted "savior-gege" that rescued Mo Ran from dying of starvation. Later, when Mo Ran (re)-met Chu Wanning, he was inexplicably drawn to him.
Chu Wanning and Mo Ran had met once before they actually met on Sisheng Peak; Chu Wanning had been the vaunted "savior-gege" that rescued Mo Ran from dying of starvation. Later, when Mo Ran (re)-met Chu Wanning, he was inexplicably drawn to him.
Mo Ran and Chu Wanning fell in love with each other at first sight, and grew closer during Mo Ran's disciple days. Chu Wanning, who is 10 years older and was the Shizun to Mo Ran at the time, was actually the one in the position of power when he fell in love with Mo Ran.
That is one of the many reasons why Chu Wanning hates himself and forces himself to repress his love for Mo Ran; he believes himself to be predatory for being in love with his younger student. Keep in mind that Chu Wanning is biased because of societal convention as well.
Especially for someone as rigidly moral as Chu Wanning, who'd go as far as to whip his 15 year old disciple over something that is, in the grand scheme of things, trivial, being in love with a teenager, who is both a man and your student at that, is horrifying for him.
So in the timeline of events, WHEN Chu Wanning falls in love with Mo Ran, it is indeed that HE is the one who "holds the power", so to speak. Not Mo Ran. It's impossible to say Chu Wanning has "Stockholm Syndrome" when the power differential was technically in his favor.
One may then argue that Taxian-jun "coerced" Chu Wanning into falling in love with him, and that this counts as coercion because in this case Taxian-jun is the one who holds power in that dynamic. This is also incorrect.
Taxian-jun is a biased narrator so he believed falsely that Chu Wanning hates him; and Chu Wanning didn't openly admit to loving him, or even not disliking him, until it was too late. But look past TXJ's biases and see all the actions CWN undertakes for TXJ, out of love.
(tw: rape, abuse, sexual violence)
Does TXJ sexually abuse CWN? Yes, he forced him to be his concubine, kept him captive, tortured him physically and sexually, used aphrodisiacs and drugs, raped him, and abused him. These are facts of the 0.5 tragedy.
Does TXJ sexually abuse CWN? Yes, he forced him to be his concubine, kept him captive, tortured him physically and sexually, used aphrodisiacs and drugs, raped him, and abused him. These are facts of the 0.5 tragedy.
(tw: rape, abuse)
However, CWN had already been in love with TXJ prior to TXJ's ascension. And the narrative does an excellent job of showing that just because TXJ and CWN love each other doesn't mean that what TXJ did to CWN is acceptable.
However, CWN had already been in love with TXJ prior to TXJ's ascension. And the narrative does an excellent job of showing that just because TXJ and CWN love each other doesn't mean that what TXJ did to CWN is acceptable.
Love is complicated. You can love someone as hard as you want but you can still be toxic toward them, or abusive. That's TXJ in a nutshell; he hurts and abuses CWN out of a twisted and dark love, and CWN hates every minute of what happens to him. It's not romanticized.
TXJ thinks that abusing and drugging him will make CWN soften toward him, in as much as he uses it as both punishment and to stake control over him; he foolishly even thinks, at one point, that if he had gotten CWN pregnant they may have been happier.
But again, keep in mind that both of our protagonists are biased! Just because TXJ thinks that doesn't mean that it's the truth. We the reader already know that CWN loved him even then.
Moreover, what Meatbun does is that she shows how in the midst of power differentials, corruption of human nature, the Upper Cultivation realm's feudalist hierarchy, and trauma, people are still responsible for their own actions, yet that those actions and their outcomes have
complicated explanations and roots that go beyond surface level expectations, stereotypes, or rigid moral binaries.
For example, when TXJ comes back in the 2.0 lifetime, CWN is both relieved and mortified. And even in spite of how much CWN loves TXJ, he still attempts to kill him for the greater good. Someone with "Stockholm Syndrome" wouldn't have lucidity of mind and independence to
try and kill that person. CWN still has his moral convinctions and priorities, and his love for TXJ may make him agonize over them, but it doesn't prevent him from making his own decisions, as painful as those decisions may be for both of them.
Consider too that even with the flower of hatred in Mo Ran's heart, Meatbun still makes it clear that rape is rape, and that what TXJ did in the 0.5 lifetime is violent and evil, that it is the whole reason he needs to be redeemed. Why redeem a character otherwise?
Any argument that posits that CWN was "unduly influenced" into loving Mo Ran because of txj's actions or some other effect takes away the agency that Meatbun so carefully gives to her characters. And it's a careful agency because so much is going against them and obstructing them
With things like aphrodisiacs and magical hate flowers, oppression, politics, and more, it's hard for the characters in the world of 2ha to make uncoerced decisions. And yet Meatbun gives them that tendril of agency to show that in spite it all, they still make their choices.
CWN willingly chooses to try and kill TXJ but he also willingly chooses to forgive both Mo Ran and TXJ, and he still willingly chooses to submit to them, just as Mo Ran willingly chooses to go on a path of redemption and become a better person again.
The maze of power dynamics, corruption, and trauma is intricate in 2ha; yet at the end of the day, our protagonists are still given their agency by the author, who can balance both sides of the landscape effectively.
