1/1.5/2-person theory

[cashew]

Preamble (more like pre-ramble):

I'm going to switch to using 丹枫 and 丹恒 rather than English names because I realized the two names look too much alike in English and I keep accidentally mixing them up. There's more obvious visual distinction in Chinese, so.

On the subject of 1/1.5/2-person discussion

This entire discussion is purely driven by ship goggles. I wish fangirls would recognize that canonically there is only one interpretation: 丹枫 and 丹恒 are 2 separate people. The story is unequivocal about this, even with 2.5 patch's terribly inconsistent writing.

Why? Because the story is 100% behind the belief that 丹恒 is innocent of any wrong doing. 丹恒 is the victim, has always been portrayed as the victim, and the narrative never wavered on this point. While 丹恒 the character might be waffling back and forth about who he is and how he interprets himself, the narrative has not.

Because if the narrative actually agreed with 丹恒's logic, then the story would not allow 丹恒 to continue being a free person. The meta-texual ethical justification for 丹恒's continued participation as a member of the MC's party is because the narrative has always treated 丹恒 as a separate entity from 丹枫. The canon simply does not support an alternative interpretation.

With that said, the entire argument regarding 1/1.5/2-person interpretation is driven solely by shipping, specifically the type of romance that can be written depending on where one stands in the 1/1.5/2 debate. Are we good? All right, then on to the actual discussion.

1-person theory

The driving impetus behind the 1-person theory is because 景元/丹恒 shippers want to avoid the very awkward replacement goldfish situation. The majority of 景元's feelings toward 丹恒 is unequivocally driven by his interest in 丹枫. The deep history 景元 and 丹枫 shared in the past, the 700+ years of 景元's non-stop effort to clean up the political mess that is 饮月之乱, the continued protection 景元 offers 丹恒 currently is all owed to 丹枫. Without 丹枫, 丹恒 would be nothing to 景元. Without the history of 丹枫, 丹恒 will mean as much as MC or March 7 or Welt. A useful ally, but only a useful ally, nothing more.

Everything that makes 丹恒 special to 景元 is because of 丹枫. This is the inescapable truth.

So 1-person theory gets around the problem by simply making 丹恒 the continuation of 丹枫. If they're the same person, then all the emotional hangups are gone. 丹恒 has served his sentence, both in prison and exile, he completed the duty 丹枫 had abandoned while in prison (by reinforcing the seal on 建木), and he's legally been absolved his past crimes by doing a good (by helping to fight Phantylia) of equal magnitude and has made up for the deaths caused by the taboo experimentation 丹枫 committed.

1-person theory seems to fix all the problems stopping the ship, except for how it throws canon out the window. It's also ethically unsound, since this implies somehow one can make up for killing (at least) 4000+ lives by saving others in the future. That's villain logic, and everyone knows it.

This is probably why 1-person theory fic tends to lean towards less heroic portrayals of 丹枫/恒. He can't escape his guilt, and he has to make up for it by suffering emotionally forever, often putting people he loves into danger and whatnot. Or, 饮月之乱 never happens, so we don't have to deal with the problem at all. So AUs are the other out from this ethical conundrum.

1.5-person theory

1.5-person is an attempt to have one's cake and eat it too. 丹恒 inherits all the good stuff, such as memories of 丹枫's relationship with 景元, and forgets all the bad stuff, such as his motivations during 饮月之乱. This way, the shippers can keep the emotuonal history of 景元 and 丹枫, while getting around the criminal liability of directly causing 4000+ people to die. The foundation of 1.5-person theory is the belief that one can only be held responsible for what one remembers.

So like...here's the problem. Forgetting does not absolve one of one's liability towards an action. Like, as a society, we have agreed upon this. This is precisely why companies push so hard for the subscription model of business. Just because you forget you subscribed to a service doesn't mean you're not still liable for paying for that service. Similarly, just because you forgot everything associated with a crime doesn't mean you aren't still liable for that crime.

(Sidenote: don't bring in statute of limitations into this. The statute of limitations is a practical issue about the fairness of who gets to get away scot-free and how long a person can be held for processing when there's limited resources to pursue and process liability. The ethical liability remains regardless of how much time has passed.)

As most law books indicate, amnesia in of itself is not substantial mitigation of criminal responsibility. However, if there is enough evidence to consider the cognitive alteration constitutes an entirely new person, then there can no longer be grounds for prosecution.

So yes, legally, we (the human society) have in fact wrangled with the issue of memory vs identity, and our unanimous agreement is "memory loss = responsible, completely new identity = not responsible". In other words, 1.5-person theory does NOT allow 丹恒 to circumvent the liability of 饮月之乱. Sorry fangirls, there is no happy ending here.

2-person theory

This is the canonical reading. Since 丹恒 is so altered by his new life and forgot so much of his past life, he is considered a completely new person. His personality and identity is different enough from 丹枫 that he's not 丹枫. 丹枫 is, at best, someone who is related to him, like an identical twin, but as far as personhood is concerned, they are two separate people.

This is the most ethically sound outcome. But this is also the most emotionally complicated, because, as mentioned before, the entire emotional foundation between 景元 and 丹恒 is built on 景元's feelings for 丹枫. 丹恒 hasn't done anything to warrant real emotional investment from 景元. He is no more special than MC, March 7, Welt, etc. So unless 丹恒 does something really huge to change the dynamics, he will not be able to escape the replacement goldfish conundrum.

This puts a lot of burden on shippers to try and find hints and clues that 景元 and 丹恒 are emotionally growing close because of their current situation rather than the result of continuing a previous emotional connection to which 丹恒 has no rightful claim.

The canon...does the shippers no real favors in this sense. This is why I'm surprised that miHoyo keeps trying to sell this as their BL bait when there's basically nothing there.

In conclusion

1-person theory is doomed to tragedy or ignoring 饮月之乱 via AUs. 1.5-person theory cannot absolve 丹恒 of criminal liability via memory loss excuse. 2-person theory absolved 丹恒 of 丹枫's crime, but turns him into a replacement goldfish.

Every version has problems, but the 2-person theory is the most ethically sound. But also maybe y'all should try shipping 景元/丹枫 instead, since that's where the actual emotional foundation lies.

Comments

[cashew]

(Followed up on the other post you made so I'll just address the one point...)

Writing from a thesaurus is better than writing with no vocabulary at all. -_-

Yeah, I'm not sure that's true. Like, unequivocally both are terrible, but writing from a thesaurus can lead to cases of people using words they have no idea how to use and conveying a comically wrong meaning. When using netspeak, at least the word is used correctly and is conveying what the author wants to convey.

But I'd rather neither happened. The difference is too small to be of significant value. :p