Liyun, Imposed Standards, and Sacrifice: A Duxredux Essay (you have been warned)

[Duxredux]

You have been warned. I've been thinking about Yumi and the Nightmare Painter for a while now and have attempted several times to write down what some of the themes mean to me as I see them as echoes of my family. We'll see if the threads tie back together, but as of now it's a jumbled tangle and I'm not sure if they will. There's been several posts about elements of YatNP that people strongly dislike. My goal is not to persuade you or diminish your experience, but it would be very inaccurate to say that my thoughts didn't develop from reading your posts and pondering on why I didn't have the same dislike. This is me sharing my one data point, and I don't intend to diminish yours.

With the introduction and qualifiers that are practically reflexive done, I'll set a reminder for the conditions we find Yumi and Painter at the beginning of their stories, because I think a reinforcement of their environments is worth the time.

Yumi is a yoki-hijo. She is one of 14 girls in Komashi who have the power to bind spirits in a land where the ground literally boils water. Yumi travels from village to village performing ritual ceremonies to improve her ability to draw the hijo, spirits who can take the shape of just about any object if properly described. We first see her summon 37 spirits (undoubtedly her average was far lower 1700 years earlier) that she binds into items to provide the villagers with tools necessary to function and perform their professions - lights, lifters, fliers for farmers, etc.. One man had been without light for 6 years. This is Yumi's society where the yoki-hijo are integral to supporting the people. Think about the difficulties inherent to resource acquisition for mining, harvesting wood from floating trees, or watering crops when the ground would boil water. 

Nikaro is a Nightmare Painter. He is one in dozens if not hundreds of Nightmare painters, and his role is about as necessary as the mall security officer or the fire fighter. He reports to a foreman and walks his patrol looking for Nightmares to banish back to the shroud. His work is important, but dismissible. He can be put on probation or fired and Kilahito wouldn't suffer for it. No one would notice (so long as his patrol area was appropriately covered).

 

I'll get to talking about Liyun, but first some personal family history. I'm Yonsei, or 4th generation Japanese American. My grandparents were Nisei, or 2nd generation Japanese Americans living in America during WWII. If you have ever been to Manzanar, Topaz, or any of the other Japanese internment camps that were established in the United States after the attack on Pearl Harbor, you might begin to grasp what my grandparent's teenager years were like. If you haven't, then the conditions are a matter of public record, biography, video, and documentary, look up Manzanar. After the war, my grandmother was very strict when raising her four children, including my mother. She often cited her reason for her rules that "they needed to prove that they were good American citizens". My mother has... emotional baggage from growing up, and she made a point to not raise me under similar conditions. As an adult now raising my own daughter, I ask myself how I might have responded had I been in the situation that my grandmother found herself in a suspicious country following a world war. How would I have explained to my daughter that because of how she looks, she could be bullied and ostracized? That if we were to show hints of disloyalty to our country that we could be taken from our home and left in basically a prison camp? How would I explain to her that the choices she made as a child may impact far more than her but could impact the lives of all the Japanese Americans if suspicions arose that the Japanese immigrants were spies? In my family, through the grapevine with my point of contact being my mother, I heard snippets of how Manzanar affected the Nisei. There were many, many Japanese who were angry and bitter for years if not decades after Manzanar, but that was not my family heritage for two reasons. Reason 1: my grandparents said that President Franklin D. Roosevelt did what he had to do. They saw and understood that terrible circumstances had forced President Roosevelt to make a difficult choice and they did not begrudge him for the one he made. Reason 2: my grandparents and their families sought for and found opportunities precisely because they chose not to be bitter. I had relatives who served in the war including the 442nd Japanese Regiment. My uncle Taira became an army medic by lottery and while he had little to no prospects before the war, he used his military training to become a medical doctor. I heard stories of how some of my family had been living in poverty prior to the relocation and that some of the younger kids were delighted to be able to eat 3 meals a day and would sometimes run as fast as they could between the 3 meal tents to get seconds and thirds before the lines closed down. My family found opportunities because of the stringent circumstances imposed upon them.

Now let's actually talk about Liyun. Again I ask, how does a parent raise a child whose choices will impact your entire society? Liyun knew of the other 13 yoki-hijo, knew that they had reduced their standards, and that the average spirits summoned by other yoki-hijo was decreasing, yet the people relied on the summoning of those spirits to sustain their society's infrastructure. Liyun, held not only Yumi, but herself to an incredibly high standard to sustain the cities that needed spirits as they worked at a grueling pace, Liyun denying the visit to the festival to not only Yumi but herself. At Liyun's core, what she did was protect and care for the yoki-hijo. Please understand, I'm not condoning the way that Liyun raised Yumi, or necessarily the way my grandmother raised my mother, or even President Roosevelt's decision to place Japanese Americans in internment camps. I'm not condoning raising a child to adhere to a high standard at any cost, but I find myself being more stern then I want to be when I shout and jarringly grab my toddler to stop her from running into oncoming traffic. I know I don't give good explanations because I don't want to explain to a toddler in graphic detail what exactly can happen if she gets hit by a car. I have not yet found the knack for making fun games out of the rules I need to enforce for my own child's safety. I had known the pieces of my family history as it relates to Manzanar, but it was considering Liyun's motives that I now think that sometimes when parents hold children to high standards it's because they perceive harsh circumstances that will crush those who have not grown to those standards. This might be society, the job market, plague, or war. This is not always the case, sometimes forced obedience has nothing to do with helping the child grow or become a better person or more capable. Nor am I necessarily condoning forced obedience. Agh. Parenting is hard and I don't have good ways to explain it. I'll phrase it this way: Stormlight Archive spoilers:

Spoiler

Amaram was cited as an example of the fallacy of "abuse makes people stronger". What Amaram did was betrayal, enslavement, and abandonment, and nothing in what Amaram did was directly to help Kaladin become better or more capable. In contrast:

Liyun raised Yumi. (pretty sure) Liyun learned the principles of rock stacking and taught Yumi how to stack rocks. Liyun stayed with Yumi during the entirety of the first stacking we see (minus a trip to the bathroom) and was the one who would have brought Yumi home after she collapsed. I may be reading into it and extrapolating too far, but while Yumi bathed and prayed in ceremony, Liyun was presumably arranging passage to the next city and acquiring the necessary supplies to provide for Yumi's entourage. Liyun was training Yumi to be able to save her people, which she did. Yumi did what no other could have done because of how Liyun raised and trained her. Do I think that there are better ways to teach a child? Yes. Do I think there is emotional damage involved and that parents should not model Liyun? Absolutely. That said, raising someone to a high standard is not abuse, though the methods that people use can be abusive. I'm not a therapist, but the way I currently would check: is there a double standard that is not explainable by logical circumstance? e.g. Liyun cannot stack the rocks for Yumi, she is not the yoki-hijo and cannot summon forth the spirits. Is there an external stimulus that warrants adherence to the standard? e.g. mask compliance on air planes at the height of the pandemic. When someone is holding another person to a high standard these are some of the metrics I might use to try to understand why the standard exists in the first place. I also think that unless there is clear cause to believe that a person will have reduced autonomy (mental impairment for example), over time responsibility and the freedom to choose for themselves should be given to the person being raised. For me as a son, it means that when my parents give me counsel or impose standards on me, if I feel the urge to reject them then I need to stop and understand what the underlying reason for the standard in the first place.

 

Kind of a tangent from the rest of this post, but I do wonder if many complaints about Yumi, and Painter's behavior come down to how much you believe that the yoki-hijo had an indispensable role in aiding society. Yumi believed it. Painter didn't understand it, nor did he comprehend that his behavior in Yumi's body could leave villages without light or essential equipment. In contrast, no one cared if Painter didn't show up for work. While his profession was essential, his employment was trivial right up until stable Nightmares started trying to kill people. Yumi didn't really respect Painter or understand or believe that he did dangerous and vital work until the stable Nightmare almost killed her. Even the other Nightmare Painters didn't take the job too seriously up until the horde of Nightmares walked out of the shroud, why would Yumi think that what Nikaro did was important and vital if no one else treated it as such? I think as they understand each others' similar roles in society that they begin to better understand and respect each other.

 

Moving on, I'll address why I do think that Yumi coming back to life is a subversion of the trope, as well as why I'm glad it happened and why the trope gives me some concern in the first place. In many if not most religions, media, and stories we laud people who choose to sacrifice. We laud people who sacrifice time, energy, and resources to help the needy. We give honors and medals to people who sacrifice the lives in war or rescue situations. Media has hundreds if not thousands of examples of the heroic or noble sacrifice. In the Cosmere we have (spoilers of course):

Spoiler

• Taln
• Kelsier
• Vin
• Leras
• Lightsong
• Kaladin (without the Stormlight boost on swearing new Oaths, Kaladin would have died a long time ago)
• Wayne
• etc. These acts or learning about these decisions are some of the most powerful moments in these stories.

In YatNP, the singular act that made the escaped spirit choose to Connect Yumi and Painter was that Painter chose to risk his life to save a boy from a Nightmare. The same Nightmare that almost killed Akane, Tojin, and Yumi, Painter chose confront basically alone not once, but three times. I do think these choices to put the needs of another above your own are heroic, and are integral to some of the best people and stories we have to offer, and in no way do I want to diminish these people and the choices they made. What I worry is that heroic self-sacrifice of a life can be a subtle form of escapism. I worry that Painter's brand of disregard for personal safety comes from depression and passive suicidal ideation. As I heard described, passive suicidal ideation in some cases can be characterized by a person not planning out their death, but not being particularly upset if circumstances led to their death. I worry Painter patrols in solitude, "the lone warrior" consciously or subconsciously hoping to die heroically to prove he wasn't worthless to society. I worry that in other circumstances if he genuinely had been rejected from the Dreamwatch for insufficient skill he would have died trying to save that boy, or been consumed when he interposed himself between Akane, Tojin, and Nightmare Liyun. I worry that the reason that Painter so easily offers up his life in trade for others is because he believes his life is of little value, discolored copper coins offered in exchange for silver and gold. Yes, Nikaro hurt his friends deeply by his lies of omission (I could probably write a whole thread on how lies of omission and the lies we believe about others and ourselves are the real Nightmares, but I've rambled long enough). I'm not saying that Nikaro's friends had any responsibility to provide this, but by withholding their friendship and omitting their presence from his life they left Nikaro working a dangerous profession in isolation at times working totally alone. For this, I'm grateful for Akane who continued to keep tabs on him, even though she had been hurt by him.

I worry too that perhaps too much focus is placed on the people who suffered the result of their heroic sacrifice and not enough on the decision they made to sacrifice. Two firefighters run into a burning building, one dies, the other lives, should we honor either any less for the decision to risk their lives? Like Kilahito, we don't provide that much support for the emergency responders that live. For me, Yumi's choice to break the shroud and risk dissolution is not in any way diminished by her surviving to eat noodles the next day. I worry that both Yumi and Painter (less so Yumi) suffer from passive suicidal ideation, and I'm glad that Yumi chose to find and seek a meaningful life. I worry too many media sources offer heroic self-sacrifice as an escape that allows people to remember the dead fondly but still ends up with the person dead. The decision to run into danger without worry of risk to self is lauded in media, but when I received training for emergency disaster response, we were drilled repeatedly to check scene safety, precisely because in the event of a disaster like an earthquake, there's the initial mass injury and casualty from the event, and then there are not infrequently a spike injuries and casualties as first responders enter dangerous areas or overextend themselves and die. More tragically, with some simple steps like remember to turn off utilities, those deaths could have easily been prevented. Don't get me wrong, I would probably give up my life for my wife and daughter, and therein lies the danger to me if I should ever need to stop and check to see if there was a way to save all three of us.

If you're reading this, thanks for reading to the end. As always, I'm one point of data. My experience does not invalidate your own, I'm just speaking as a 4th generation Japanese American and deal with my own version of perfectionism, depression, and passive suicidal ideation. If anything strikes a cord, feel free to DM me. And yes, I already have access to my local suicide hotline, so we can pass on that. Thank you.

Edited October 4, 2023 by Duxredux
finished incomplete thoughts.

[Banazir864]

While I appreciate your thoughtful analysis, I disagree that there was any genuine love or kindness in Liyun's treatment of Yumi.  The fact that Liyun not only emotionally abused Yumi when she strayed from Liyun's standards, but even poisoned Yumi's successes (e.g., getting 37 spirits) to try to make Liyun feel guilty and ashamed makes her irredeemable in my eyes.  Liyun wasn't just "raising [Yumi] to a high standard" but raising her to a deliberately impossible standard where even when she performed above expectations, she was guilt-tripped to keep her self-loathing and subservient.  And it only gets worse when you discover that most of the other yoki-hijo are able to do almost as well without a lifetime of torture and isolation.  At best, she is a religious fanatic, willing to subject an innocent girl to a fate worse than slavery (at least slaves can usually have friends and family) and/or a Machiavellian who has no qualms about tormenting an innocent for the "greater good."

Liyun may have had some affection for Yumi, but the only way you could claim that she actually cared for her is if you assume that Liyun was similarly abused by her own parents or guardians and didn't know any better.  To Liyun, Yumi was just a tool to produce needed goods and prove that Liyun's denomination of their religion was superior.

[Duxredux]

12 minutes ago, Banazir864 said:

While I appreciate your thoughtful analysis, I disagree that there was any genuine love or kindness in Liyun's treatment of Yumi.  The fact that Liyun not only emotionally abused Yumi when she strayed from Liyun's standards, but even poisoned Yumi's successes (e.g., getting 37 spirits) to try to make Liyun feel guilty and ashamed makes her irredeemable in my eyes.  Liyun wasn't just "raising [Yumi] to a high standard" but raising her to a deliberately impossible standard where even when she performed above expectations, she was guilt-tripped to keep her self-loathing and subservient.  And it only gets worse when you discover that most of the other yoki-hijo are able to do almost as well without a lifetime of torture and isolation.  At best, she is a religious fanatic, willing to subject an innocent girl to a fate worse than slavery (at least slaves can usually have friends and family) and/or a Machiavellian who has no qualms about tormenting an innocent for the "greater good."

Liyun may have had some affection for Yumi, but the only way you could claim that she actually cared for her is if you assume that Liyun was similarly abused by her own parents or guardians and didn't know any better.  To Liyun, Yumi was just a tool to produce needed goods and prove that Liyun's denomination of their religion was superior.

That's a fair viewpoint. I'll also note that I never used the words love, kindness, or religion anywhere in my analysis of Liyun. This was my way of trying to explore perfectionism as it persists across generations.

May I ask how much you know about Eastern culture, particularly, Japan, Korea, or China? You have to understand that when I read about Liyun I see my grandma, or Obaa-chan. She's not particularly religious, she used to criticize my mom if she got anything less than A's in school, and my mom couldn't think of a time growing up when grandma praised her. Growing up, I had to reconcile the stories my mom told with Baa-chan remembering every birthday, driving in from out of state for Christmas and giving us lots of hugs, Pocky, and rice crackers, particularly when my mom would continue to note that she was still being criticized. I had a friend from Hong Kong who talked about how incredibly competitive the schools in Hong Kong were. He had a classmate who was about 5 feet tall who was on the basketball team because he had a 5' vertical jump and could jump over the opposing guard and dunk, that's how hard some of them trained. To give you an idea of how densely populated Hong Kong is, it wasn't until he was around 18 or 20 that he knew silence. The local competition is incredible, so much that when I was working as a janitorial supervisor for a U.S. university, I once interviewed a candidate from China that had years of managerial work history and two published research papers. He was applying to be a janitor while he worked on his PhD.

When we talk about perfectionism and incredibly high standards, I want us to keep looking past where we see the word "abuse" and have the discussion move towards what we do when we or those we raise are in circumstances that crush the undiligent. You don't have to be a religious fanatic or a Machiavellian to really not want your kid to have a dead end job for most of their life because they didn't take school seriously. Debt, compound interest, and the cost of living can be incredibly cruel task masters. I'm not touching work conditions in Asia because I don't think I can change that, but I can think about how I raise my own children.

[Banazir864]

To be clear, I don't mean to speak about Eastern cultures in general that put pressure on children.  I was talking about Liyun in particular, and her treatment of Yumi---particularly the way she shames Yumi even for succeeding.  I don't doubt that many parents (Eastern and even Western) are overly hard on their children out of a genuine desire to see them succeed.  I just don't see any concern about Yumi in Liyun.  Concern about the dignity of yoki-hijo, and maintaining traditional yoki-hijo against the reform movement and the machine, certainly, but that's the religious fanaticism I referred to, ruining an innocent's life to prove that your way of doing things is superior.  Liyun outright tells Yumi she's not really a person. 

While Liyun's treatment of Yumi may draw inspiration from certain Eastern parenting tactics, she goes far beyond that, effectively acting as a slaver who instead of telling the slaves "you don't get a life because you're subhuman" adds gaslighting by instead saying "you don't get a life because you're superhuman and you're a horrible person for not being grateful for that."  I can see how she might remind you of more well-intentioned women in your life, and there may be a superficial resemblance there, but I don't see anything to suggest that Liyun in particular cares about Yumi as anything more than an essential tool of her religion, and if maintaining the traditional yoki-hijo requires tormenting the actual person, Liyun is more than happy to do so.

Edited February 12 by Banazir864
Clarification