Saw a clip from 2.5 patch

[cashew]

Dan Heng telling Taoran even after reincarnation he will still be the same person.

The fuck is miHoyo trying to do here?

Are they having trouble keeping their own lore straight or are they ret-conning? Is there some extra context that's missing? (I know that this is on context of the memory potion, which Dan Heng also experienced. But Dan Heng insists he is not the same person while claiming Taoran will remain the same, so which one is it you fucking tsundere? And no, individual variation in response to the treatment isn't enough to explain the difference, because Dan Heng is saying he's speaking from personal experience.)

I agree with the OP, Jing Yuan needs to call Dan Heng on his BS. Are you or are you not the same person?! (But this also feeds into the interpretation that Dan Heng is jealous of Dan Feng when it comes to friendship with Jing Yuan given how insistent he is about keeping the identities separated while also apparently internally accepting he's...the same? I swear miHoyo storytelling drives me up a wall.)

Comments

[cashew]

Dan Feng likely didn't argue on behalf of himself. So any bargaining done on his behalf by others probably used the fact of his multiple generations of loyal guardianship of the Arbor to mitigate his sentence.

Coming back to this point, why are you assuming the reason Dan Feng's execution got reduced was due to his service? That's merely the "public" excuse, not the actual political bargaining that happened behind the scenes.

The Ten Lords need to give a publicly acceptable reason for letting Imbibitor Lunae live, and "we made some under the table deals" obviously isn't going to fly. They even brought in 冱渊君 to give the final sentence more political weight among the Vidyadhara populace.

Given Taoran's comment that he knows the inner workings of the criminal punishment system, he's obviously saying Imbibitor Lunae survived through a series of tit-for-tat favor trading, probably more along the lines of "if you kill him now, the Preceptors will riot and that will break the alliance apart". And maybe some bribery on top of everything else.

[tanithryudo]

It's possible there was trading involved but we aren't given the details of the whole thing. So I was just going by the official line.

But, if that wasn't at least a factor in the decision, it would make the alliance a pretty ungrateful bunch, from a narrative overwatch POV.

[cashew]

if that wasn't at least a factor in the decision, it would make the alliance a pretty ungrateful bunch, from a narrative overwatch POV

I mean good people are still constrained by the politics of social interaction. And as I recall the final judgement involved the entire alliance governing body, so that's 十王司、六御、四龙尊(minus the one on trial)、七天将. (According to lore explainer, Jing Yuan was crucial in getting the Ten-Lords to agree involving input from the other powers that be.) And at the very least according to one egg memory, one Preceptor of Fanghu wanted even more fellow Vidyadhara punished for the Sedition.

这颗晶莹剔透的持明卵中有奇光游移，吸引着你的目光。 你抚摸持明卵，聆听它微不可查的细语。它借你之口低声轻叹，故土不在此处，故土不在此处…你生于遥距罗浮千万光年外的方壶仙舟。 身为方壶龙尊「冱渊君」的龙师，你以耿介自守，犯颜直谏，劝那位大人施雷霆震怒，降罚于掀起罗浮饮月之乱的同袍。 「既如此，就派你去宣读判罚，只你一人，如何？」龙尊的声音一如她的冰山龙座，没有丝毫温度。 你就此被贬斥他乡，孤苦如异类，唯有丹鼎司中一个女孩在你蜕生前给了你一丝温暖的安慰。 (Source)

This suggests that even Vidyadhara on other ships were ready to cut ties with the IL faction. So lowering the sentence from death to molting was probably not favorably received overall, even knowing IL guarded the Arbor for thousands of years. With that political environment...well, I wouldn't say it makes the alliance ungrateful (also the Alliance is very much Not A Monolith) so much as there were far bigger political interests that needed balancing than "guy was useful, we should show mercy". Mercy and gratitude are rarely factors when it comes to big political trials.