rheaitis (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
toujours_nigel) wrote2018-12-16 05:21 pm
toujours_nigel) wrote2018-12-16 05:21 pm
Entry tags:
December Discourse: 6
selenak asked for favourite fictional mothers. My current favourite is Concubine/Consort/Empress Dowager Jing, from Nirvana in Fire, which is a show that will eat your life if you let it. Jingmum, as fandom has largely dubbed her, is someone to whose given name the audience is not privy, who comes from a family without wealth and has lost her sponsors and supporters outside and within the harem to treason charges, and whose only child is rarely allowed to visit her. She ends the show with her son the Crown Prince, and herself the favoured Royal Consort, and all of it without particularly harming anyone. The Empress describes her as a cotton ball, bouncing back from any attempts at repression.
I love her. I would have anyway, because she's so much a Good Slytherin, down to being a deft cook and medic. But she's also extremely compassionate and sincerely kind to people who need her, from another--higher-ranked--Consort, through her long-lost nephew, to of course her son, who is one of the main characters of the show. Now NiF as a whole is very much a story about mothers and sons, so it's not surprising that Consort and Prince Jing are a Mutual Devotion Society. But it's... you know the Slytherin&Hufflepuff duos? These two are that way, and Jingmum sweetly, sincerely coaxes and manipulates her way from a low level concubine to highest consort and effectively Empress in, uh, less than two years. After having been a concubine for thirty years or so.
And she does it, obviously for her son but not on his behalf. There's no Mummy Knows Best going on; they're explicitly a team, and as long as they're together, they can withstand whatever comes. Since they've withstood the wrongful deaths of practically everyone they loved (Jingmum's adoptive brother and nephew and sister-in-law, her adoptive sister/co-wife and married nephew/step-son with his entire household), it's nothing like an empty boast. I love her, and while
selenak said this could be irrespective of relevant children, I do very much love Prince Jing and his obvious love and respect for his mother: one of the only moments we see him really gloriously happy is upon being granted permission to visit his mother whenever he wants. But if he's only thinking he wants to see his Mum more often, she's definitely awake to the political implications and advantages. Consort Jing is one of the best political minds on this extremely political show, and once she gets going you can see she never really put in an effort before this. All of it, of course, with lowered eyelids and a sweet smile, because that's how you survive your husband being omnipotent and increasingly nuts, your surviving co-wives being power-hungry and/or terrified, and your son being stubborn and incapable of misdirection.
-
Consort Jing also fits my general favourite model for fictional mothers, especially in historical texts: ones who are very concerned about their children, but not necessarily every last detail of their daily lives. I adore Kunti from the Mahabharata; the Dowager Duchess of Denver from the Wimsey mysteries: mothers who are allowed to let go without being seen as abandoning, who effectively fulfill the 'distant but loving' parental role usually reserved for fathers in fiction.
no subject
no subject
There are other playlists as well. This is quite good also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D13EhOAhCrA&t=1957s
no subject
(2) I don't know if the license is available in Germany, but I watch on Viki: https://www.viki.com/tv/22943c-nirvana-in-fire
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
She's an interesting mirror for Jingyan in that, I think: they both have the capability to seek and hold power, and use it well, but until MCS comes along, neither of them take action towards that -- which is both a function of their close history with the executed 'traitors', and their distaste for the people who have the power after that -- and for both of them, it's a path chosen for *other* people's sake. I love their little family.
no subject
I had the feeling that they were also holding off from trying for power for each other's sake, because of course it was better for themselves if they kept their heads down but also it was safer for the other person as well. They're such a Good Teamtm.
I also wonder whether Jingmum was a Consort to start with and then demoted to Concubine, because if I understand what I've read, Concubines weren't allowed children or uh the sort of sex that led to children. If she's a Concubine consistently pre-show, someone else would have raised Jingyan, the way the Empress raised Prince Yu.
no subject
Haha, did you also read that meta about the 'fuck rules'? I enjoyed that for a historical perspective, but it seems like the show didn't really have that kind of strict rule structure for the Emperor's sex life, given some of the canon dialogue. I've been going on the assumption that he acquired a bunch of women that he wanted without consideration for their happiness (i.e. Consort Chen) and had a bunch of babies on them, and then ignored the ones he didn't want/trust anymore. He's the worst.
If she's a Concubine consistently pre-show, someone else would have raised Jingyan, the way the Empress raised Prince Yu.
I've seen enough fanon that this might be book-canon, but I think Consort Chen was given responsibility for raising Jingyan? Which explains his closeness to both Jingyu and his mother, because Consorts Jing and Chen acted like sisters and I expect they practically lived in each other's pockets during that period. By the time Consort Chen died, Jingyan had already moved out of the Inner Palace.
...well, that makes another extended family member lost in a horrible way for Jingyan, now that I think about it like that. :(
no subject
Yup! But ITA, Emperor Worst Dad almost certainly grabbed women as and when he wanted them and then proceeded to ignore them if his interest faded. Obviously the ones with important clans couldn't be entirely ghosted, but even the Empress he's pretty obviously a bad husband to.
I think Consort Chen was given responsibility for raising Jingyan?
I gathered that was the case, yeah. And it adds another layer to being close to the Lin fam, right, cause Consort Chen is Lin Xie's sister, and Jingmum is their foster sister/protege. I also read, but can't remember whether it's fanon or canon, that Jingmum moves into the Inner Palace to care for Consort Chen, at the start.
no subject
Definitely canon! Consort Chen had bad health of some vague variety after having Jingyu, so the Lin family sent Jingmum to stay with her, and the Emperor called dibs and knocked her up. (such a DICK, ugh. It's almost astonishing the Lins didn't rebel, in hindsight.)
no subject
But ITA, absolute bag of dicks ohmylordy.
no subject
no subject