#I’ve been one of them | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

shinystealingbirb · 2 months

Text

Some thoughts on Yanqing

I don’t quite know how or if Yanqing was shown in Honkai Impact, but I’d like to talk about my understanding of him.

Biiiiiiig cut.

I assume many think he’s a flat character. He’s a child prodigy who arrogantly took on two immortals leagues more powerful than himself, and couldn’t get over his loss. Right? Who went out seeking some strange person, who Jingliu almost treats like an amusing pet, who tried to shortcut his way to total mastery. Who desires a title of a championship rather than the art itself. That’s the mark of a flat character- no displayed motivation, and traits we’re told, rather than shown, exist.

This is what the game explicitly tells us. In fact, it takes pains to push this narrative, and in my opinion, it’s specifically because he’s never in our party. To Stelle, or Caelus, or whoever you play as, Yanqing will always be on the other side. He faced Dan Heng and Blade, who we controlled. He duelled Stelle and Kafka. Faced us under the voluntary control of a heliobi. The only time we control him is when Yanqing battles Jingliu, and even then, he was canonically alone. To the Trailblazer, he is a child. An irritatingly strong one, but a child nonetheless, ultimately a footnote in their journey.

So that’s what the game says. But I want to talk about what the game doesn’t really put out there as much, but becomes more obvious the more we encounter Yanqing.

It’s a little hard to explain- I got a kick in the balls when I went through the Fyxstroll Garden quests and got to Yanqing, but I’ll explain that in a moment. For now, allow me to begin with a brief explanation of his character in the way I see it, rather than what the game has taken pains to show us.

He’s a winner- all he’s done is win, and he is young. It’s all he’s known, training and success. He’s showered with praise that he easily tires of, and the General is the only one he spars with that consistently defeats him. This praise is the expectation, the norm. You must win can be a hell of a motivator.

So when he loses to Dan Heng and Blade, it rocks his fucking world. He had no idea where he was in terms of power- really, the only thing he had to compare himself to was Jing Yuan, and the gap there is enormous. He got a taste of a true life-or-death scenario, as opposed to the competition he’s accustomed to, and according to the heliobus, the two immortals- who are way out of his league- left him teetering on the brink of death.

In an attempt to discover his prowess, something outside of the meaningless praise and predictable spars with Jing Yuan, he was absolutely ripped apart by an undead Hunter and a reborn Elder. The worst part? The heliobus in the Fyxstroll quest says he would’ve died “if the hunter’s blade pierced him,” which could quite possibly mean Blade was holding back. Given he was in a rush to beat the shit out of Dan Heng, I doubt it, but it is a possibility that would add salt to the wound- being defeated without being cut once by Blade, only using the flat side of his sword to almost kill him?

So he’s aching from that loss. He got fucked up and knows exactly where he stands, and that’s the single greatest defeat he’s suffered in his life.

For some children, for those who began or became skilled, who build and build and gather ourselves, trying to fight good to become great, a fear we have to overcome is failure. And failure is the single more horrifying concept to a gifted child, the absolute worst outcome.

A normal person fails. Oh well. Time to move on with life.

A competitive or gifted child fails, it means something. It means the effort put in, every single move spent in our lives, every thought, every moment of practice or rest, even if not working on that skill specifically, was a waste of a life, and as failures, that child, too, is a waste. Failure is like death. The way I can best describe the feeling… your heart clenches. Cold sweat, a sudden mental blank. A spider crawls up your throat, and with every step your throat grows tighter, the sense of dread closer and closer until the spider has made its way up to your stinging nose, your tearing eyes, and you are humiliating yourself with those tears.

It’s hard for people who do not understand this to be empathetic. To these people, a loss like this is just a loss. Things like “you’ll get them next time” or “they were out of your league” are said, and these things will never be consolations.

We, the Trailblazers, do not understand why Yanqing goes back to it in his thoughts so often, why it is a pivotal moment for him, why it appears in his character lines, and why he speaks about that battle so ruefully. It was inevitable, we think, that he would lose, isn’t it?

Shouldn’t he know he would never have beaten him?

Of course he knows.

But Yanqing is a child. For all his power, all his cheer and skill, he is a child. He’s gifted, and loss stings really fucking bad if you’re gifted, if you’ve won and won and already realized that praise is false and results are king (his trace voiceline sounds so sarcastic when he speaks of praise.)

Now: we can go over Jingliu and Stelle’s battles if you wish- more salt in the wound, to twist the knife just a little more(loser, loser, loser)- but by far our most interesting encounter with Yanqing is in the Fyxstroll Garden quest.

He’s possessed by a heliobi who claims- and delivers- that he can teach any weapon and advance the soldier to a warrior beyond compare. Despite the memory-wiping effects of the heliobi after possession, I believe said possession- at least for this one- is voluntary.

After all these losses, Yanqing finds a spirit who pushed a Cloud Knight into something lethal, and the spirit tells him, “I have seen your losses, I see them inside your head. Offer me your sword; offer me your allegiance, your body, and I will make you great.”

Knowing he was almost killed for his naivety, knowing he has been painted as the enemy, knowing he has won and won for his entire gifted life, right up until he hasn’t… why do you think he takes it? Of course he’s desperate, of course there’s a nagging doubt, a painful needling that tells him hes not enough anymore, nothing is enough. Of course he allowed himself to be possessed.

After all, praise is empty. Results are king.

The real kicker comes when Jing Yuan gets there.

I think Jing Yuan’s reaction to Yanqing’s possession says a lot. He’s not surprised it was him, nor how easy it was to get into his head. He knows these things, understands they are part of growth and motivation. He is only disappointed because Yanqing has allowed himself to cheat, to find the shortcut.

He arrives at the island, and so calmly he says “Yanqing would never lift his sword against me.”

Yanqing raises his blade. And then he turns to the heliobi and demands a duel. He proceeds to rip the false Yanqing apart with all the speed and precision that Blade and Dan Heng dueled him with.

I’ve seen people talk about how Yanqing was put in a loaded situation. That his choice was made based on disappointing one teacher over the other. It’s not an unreasonable claim, but a shallow one, i based on the surface teacher-student dynamic and taking nothing the heliobi or Yanqing said into account.

It comes down to the choices he has: in that example, his choices are loyalty to a heliobi he only just met, or a teacher he’s known since he was a little kid. In this perspective, the choice is obvious.

This one is not an incorrect perspective, merely an incomplete one. I think the complete choice was as follows: Instant power from an unpredictable, harsh master, one who is asking strange things of him- attack your friends, attack your previous master, don’t you want power?!- or turn back to the training he feels he’s outgrown, mentored by a man who he holds in such high regard and, if his voice lines are any indication, would trust with his life in an instant.

He’s braver than I am for choosing Jing Yuan’s side. Yanqing’s been shown to have an honorable teacher, but we have not seen him put in a situation where he has to prove it. We couldn’t confidently say what he’d do.

This quest displayed his desperate side. The heliobi had already exploited it, promised and delivered power. The heliobi proved it could be trusted, for that at least. Jing Yuan is a trusted mentor, almost a father figure, but those methods led to failure at the most critical of times. This undoubtedly crossed his mind- it certainly crossed mine as I played through that quest- and I genuinely thought I’d have to fight him again.

Frankly, I’m astounded he chose Jing Yuan, and that surprise made, at least to me, made him feel complete.

Yanqing is a child, with a child’s complex emotions and weaker understanding. He is cheerful and confident, a trait easily confused with arrogance. He is competitive. His worth is based on his prowess with a sword. He knows praise is empty and results are king. He is desperate, but more than that he is loyal beyond his own desires, honorable to a fault, which is more than I could say about most adults, much less myself.

He’s flawed and requires a certain prerequisite to understand. Yanqing feels childish in a different way than Hook and Clara, in motivations rather than actions. He feels human, and I really like his character