Fandom nonsense: wuxia, xianxia, danmei, baihe, Kinnporsche. Also languages, writing, history, orchids. Yi Citizen. In my 30s.
AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katzenfabrik/pseuds/villainousfriend


Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils status: Duan Yu (nerrrrd) and Xu Zhu (cinnamon roll) have met, the attemped revolt of the 72 Island Masters and 36 Cave Masters at Misty Peak has been quelled with input from them both, and the two of them have got roaring drunk and decided to become sworn brothers.

Hooray for sworn brotherhood!

DGSD is the story of three sworn brothers and the trouble they get into, across not only the Central Plains but in the Khitan Empire, the Western Xia, and the Kingdom of Dali. I’ve been waiting for twenty or more chapters for a brotherhood oath since the first one! At least there will have to be one more, since Xiao Feng (utter heartthrob) was not present, and does not know that Duan Yu has acquired them both a middle brother.

Of course, I’m being facetious here, but I really do love to think about sworn siblinghood, as much in novels as in real life. I’m interested in the way it acknowledges that family ties of blood and marriage aren’t enough to account for all the loyalties a person will owe in their life, and provides a way to extend that relationship schema. Still, although sworn siblinghood makes the hierarchical family structure somewhat malleable, it’s done by means of a more or less elaborate ritual, and adds its own hierarchy to the mix. (It can even include other family members in this: cf. Nie Huaisang in MDZS considering Lan Xichen and Jin Guangyao as his older brothers, although it was his (blood) brother who swore brotherhood with them. I’m still not sure how typical this attitude would be, historically or in literature.)

Sworn siblinghood is a fascinatingly multivalent relationship. In different times and places, it can mean a bond of personal loyalty, deep intimacy and/or simply solidarity between families. There’s the Peach Garden Oath in Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Xiake in wuxia novels often swear brotherhood at the drop of a hat, for better or for worse. In danmei and dangai, sworn brotherhood is often a clear symbol of same-sex union, while in real life, it has sometimes been a conviently ambiguous cover for the same thing—I’m thinking of the sisters of the Golden Orchid Society in Qing-era Guangdong. Meanwhile, in Jing Wei Qing Shang, one of my favourite historical-fantasy baihe novels, a man and woman swear siblinghood specifically to allay any suspicions that they’re romantically interested in one another.

I enjoyed playing with these ideas a bit in my MDZS fic Redwood and Lotus Seeds, where the sworn brotherhood of the Venerated Triad is discussed in purely political terms, whereas wangxian eventually swear brotherhood to one another and it’s implicitly treated, by the characters and the narrative, as equivalent to Jiang Cheng and Wen Qing’s marriage. (Shoutout to Jing’s great thread comparing 3zun’s oath with the Oath of the Peach Garden, which helped me a lot to organise my thoughts on the subject.)

There’s still much more for me to learn, though. Hurry up and come back from Western Xia, Xiao Feng. Your brothers miss you and so do I.


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in reply to @villainousfriend's post:

Obsessed with sworn siblinghood, and everything I learn about it brings me deeper. It's just so exciting for me to see a deep and intensely intimate relationship that isn't blood family and isn't (necessarily) a sexual partner. I love the dynamics that can be explored and brought out. It really gets my brain moving!