Locations in Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi and relevance to the plot.
in Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu ShiThe four famous clans in the novel are the Jin Clan of Lanling, the Jiang Clan of Yunmeng, the Lan Clan of Gusu, and the Nie Clan of Qinghe. All of them led the war against the Wen Clan of Qishan, with Wei Wuxian also contributing much in battle despite later becoming the villain of the cultivator world. There were many reasons why he became the villain, including the propensity to offend people at the slightest action, but the main crux of the story revolves around the cultivators’ fears which Wei Wuxian, titled the Yiling Patriarch, brings about with his very existence as a controller of corpses. So why and where do all these locations come into play?
The map shows the world of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi, as superimposed over northern (ancient) China. The historically rich eastern seaboard is controlled by three of the top four clans - the Jin, Nie and Lan clans, whereas the inner waterways of Yunmeng go to the Jiang Clan. In the plot we see that the Wen Clan of Qishan have their ancestral lands mainly in the West, but also the part which is analogous to China's historical Western Regions. From this, we can make a rough guess of the Sunshot Campaign being roughly analogous to an invasion which was then beaten back.
Who is invading whom?
The setting of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi takes place in a world where cultivators seem to reign supreme and the heavy bureaucracy of Chinese history is nowhere in sight. The organisation of cultivators into big clans in-story reflect the rise of noble clans throughout Chinese history – because they are far away from the central power and thus can amass strong provincial influence. Yet, from the same Chinese political rhetoric that all the lands under Heaven are the Emperor’s, all cultivators remain as subjects of the realm up to the point where they ascend to immortality.
Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi however does not emphasise or highlight that particular bureaucratic control – in fact, Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi on a whole can be read as a power struggle between cultivator clans which is very far removed from "average" society. The main character is, by all definitions, a mass murderer – yet, the problem of arresting the Yiling Patriarch falls not to the authorities, but to the combined forces of the four great cultivator clans. The main antagonists of the book also rob, murder, and mutilate with great impunity by virtue of their prestige and power – and in the end, the matter is settled extra-legally by a zombie murdering its murderer out of vengeance.
We therefore reason that the distance of the cultivator clans from the central power(s) is not only trying to separate themselves from the dust of worldly affairs, but also to maintain their own independence. With their eyes turned to the skies, it is a wonder that the cultivator clans spare a thought for those below their high peaks.
With consideration of the prestige and power commanded by these noble cultivator clans, we can also locate Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi around pre-Tang times, since the Tang dynasty was the last time when powerful nobles could reign independent from the Chinese emperor’s court. If we further consider that a powerful emperor would actually try to pressure these cultivator clans – being as cultivators command more awe and power than imperial prestige in general, having superpowers and a long life as well as great abilities – then Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi must assuredly take place in either 1) a time when there is no central power, such as the Spring and Autumn period, or 2) during a time when there are multiple states competing for supremacy, and thus little provincial control, such as the Warring States period. Money is therefore a key component of such regional and territorial control by the big clans, and why they seek Wei Wuxian's Yin Tiger Tally so desperately.
Classism in Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi as a core element of "demonic cultivation"
In Xianxia novels, the presence of other sentient beings (such as demons and fairies (yao)) are usually the enemies of orthodox cultivators. Borrowing from the tradition of Wuxia novels, though, the Final Boss is typically another cultivator: compare Hua Qian Gu, which details the Protagonist Journey to Villain. Here, though, all sentient beings are mainly human or were originally human (like Wen Ning), and hence the key conflict of class becomes more prominent in such clan-oriented schools of cultivation (where blood legitimacy is important to compete for the position of clan leader).
The Rise of the Cultivator Clans
In-story, one Wen Mao decided not to set up a sect based on recruiting his own disciples, but instead focused on the foundations of his family clan. This set up the beginnings of the Cultivation Families (玄门世家) and thus the current system of family clan-oriented cultivation, where the ancestors' teachings are passed down to blood-related disciples and blood legitimacy takes priority over ability.
We have repeatedly used the word "clan" because that is how the actual character used (氏) translates to. This is important to note, because the average {Wuxia} organisation is more accurately a school/sect/clique (派), where blood relations mean very little. In Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi however, a legitimate relation with a cultivator clan is everything – for instance, the main villain Jin Guangyao is always shamed with his origins as the son of a prostitute.
This is opposed to school-oriented schools of cultivation (compare Mo Xiang Tong Xiu's first work The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System: Ren Zha Fanpai Zijiu Xitong, which recruits its disciples by open trial and promotes according to disciple seniority), but the system confers the benefit of collating resources and ensuring much stability, in a mirror of how ancient Chinese aristocratic families would entrench themselves as the provincial elite in the absence of centralised political control. Since cultivation is, by its own nature, decentralised (because each family has its own expertise and own methods of cultivation) and the end goal of cultivation is immortality, it becomes much more important to establish the stability of one's clan as opposed to one's school (because blood is thicker than water).
The Four Occupations and Cultivation
This brings us to the concept of the ancient Chinese 'Four Occupations', which is as follows in descending order: scholar-gentry, farmers, artisans, and merchants. The common idea of a cultivator in Chinese popular culture is akin to a hermit in the mountains who stands alone - the origin of the character for 'immortal' (仙) is 'man on the mountain' (人 + 山). However, Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi constantly presents the book's cultivators as akin to the gentry-scholars (士) who train in the Chinese Six Arts. This places most cultivators at the top of the social hierarchy in this alternate-universe China. The system does not cover the broad category of peoples who fall through the cracks and are deemed lower than commoners - the "mean people" (贱民). Only three cultivators in the whole book come from "mean people", and all three are the so-called "villains" of the cultivation world: Wei Wuxian, Xue Yang, and Jin Guangyao.
Nature vs Nurture: Protagonist and Antagonist as Foils of Each Other
Wei Wuxian and Jin Guangyao are foils of each other. The only difference is their upbringing — this lends credence to the Nature vs. Nurture debate.
Wei Wuxian is the son of a family bondsman and a rogue wandering cultivator. His life was horrible up to the age of siz, where Sect Leader Jiang Fengmian took him in as the eldest disciple of that generation of the Jiang Clan. He grew up with Jiang Cheng and a loving older martial sister in Jiang Yanli, and makes friends all around despite being the son of "mean people". The enemy of his childhood becomes his dao companion/husband and he gets the Happy Ever After.
Jin Guangyao, on the other hand, is the illegitimate son of notorious playboy Jin Guangshan, leader of the Jin Clan of Lanling, and a courtesan. He entered the cultivation world late, and had to fight for the recognition of everyone around him. This results in his kills in the Sunshot Campaign being usurped by his superior, being forced to carry out his father's dirty work under threat of expulsion from his clan, and facing much oppression from his sworn oldest brother Nie Mingjue. The series of crimes that he does both by accident and by deliberation, and then more crimes to hide his earlier crimes, give him an air of the Tragic Villain who is constantly disparaged for his origins and upbringing. Jin Guangyao is the Foil that illustrates how hard it is to advance in the cultivation world without a solid background; Wei Wuxian had the support of Jiang Fengmian in his education, whereas Jin Guangyao was forgotten and then became The Unfavorite.
The Villain and Reputation
In comparison, Xue Yang illustrates how much further Wei Wuxian could have gone with his Face–Heel Turn. Xue Yang was unlike Wei Wuxian in that he chose to follow in Wei Wuxian's footsteps and cultivate in The Dark Arts of a Necromancer. He is a self-admitted hooligan, completely opposed to the ways of the orthodox cultivators. When people offend him, his solution is tokill their entire clan. The massacre of the White Snow Temple, blinding Song Lan, later fooling Xiao Xingchen as his Unwitting Pawn - those are only the more infamous crimes he did throughout the book, on top of the glossed-over turning people into corpses, studying how to make living zombies For the Evulz, etc.
So, why do the righteous clans gloss over him and go after Wei Wuxian instead? Xue Yang has the backing of the Jin family; in comparison, Wei Wuxian didn't have anyone to stand up for his reputation, and then died without clearing his name. The example of Xue Yang thus illustrates the Glory Seeker nature of cultivation best — not everyone can be Lan Wangji who goes out wherever there is chaos.
Furthermore, Wei Wuxian was the titular grandmaster of demonic cultivation. The path of cultivation that he founded was what Xue Yang was following. Given the ancient Chinese focus on the wisdom of the ancients, beating the founder of the path would invalidate everything else about this path of demonic cultivation, which was why so many people aimed for Wei Wuxian, who is the more well-known threat.
