What disadvantages does the Serpent have?

Things often have two sides — while the Serpent displays wisdom like focus, sharpness, flexibility, and leveraging momentum, its unique form and mythological setting also destine it to carry extremely distinct, fatal disadvantages. In traditional divinatory prophecy and social-psychology contexts, the Serpent is often classified as an inauspicious deity precisely because, once these disadvantages develop to their extreme, they evolve into mental exhaustion, interpersonal crisis, and self-imposed confinement in action.

First, the Serpent’s most deeply rooted disadvantage lies in “excessive sensitivity and suspicion, leading to serious mental exhaustion.” In mysticism, the Serpent specifically governs fear and doubt — this stems from its unusual perceptiveness toward the surrounding environment. This sensitivity is a weapon for survival amid crisis, but in tranquil daily life, it alienates into pathological suspicion and being jumpy at every little thing. A person with Serpent traits, or whose fortune is accompanied by the Serpent, finds it hard to build lasting trust in the outside world. They’re accustomed to viewing everything around them with suspicious eyes, always feeling there’s deep meaning in others’ looks, subtext in others’ words. This mentality of “there’s always a treacherous subject trying to harm me” keeps them in a state of high tension and anxiety for a long time. Because they daily deduce various persecution scenarios in their mind, engaging in unnecessary psychological defense, their spiritual energy is greatly drained, ultimately leading to insomnia and excessive dreaming, neurasthenia — the classic psychological phenomenon of “self-generated mind demons” caused by excessive defensiveness.

Second, the Serpent represents “hypocrisy and deceit, lacking openness.” The dragon travels through wind and rain, openly upright; while the Serpent’s travel must “ride through mist.” Although mist can provide it cover for leveraging momentum, it also exposes a dark psychology afraid to see the light. The Serpent’s style of conduct often lacks righteous, firm energy — it likes to hide its true intent, skilled at releasing smoke bombs to confuse an opponent. This “skilled at disguise” quality, projected onto interpersonal relationships, is a lack of sincerity. Dealing with a person with overly heavy Serpent traits makes one feel like looking at flowers through fog, unfathomably deep, even sending a chill down one’s spine. Because to achieve their goal, they don’t hesitate to use deception, concealment, or misdirection. Over time, this openness-lacking conduct leads to their connections being completely ruined. Once everyone sees through the scheming behind the mist, they keep a respectful distance, causing them to fall into an isolated, unsupported situation.

Furthermore, the Serpent has the character flaw of “fickleness and unresolved entanglement.” A snake’s nature is winding, its body soft and liking to coil and entangle. This physical characteristic, corresponding to thinking and conduct, is extreme indecision and dragging on. The Serpent lacks the White Tiger’s swift decisiveness, and also lacks the Azure Dragon’s decisive power — when facing a major choice, it often repeats itself, changing orders overnight. Today deciding to go east, tomorrow, at the slightest disturbance, wanting to go west, ceaselessly wasting the opportune moment in self-entanglement. At the same time, the Serpent also represents an “entangled low pressure.” Whether facing an already-rotten relationship or an already-valueless project, the Serpent finds it hard to decisively cut things off. It’s like a snake firmly coiling around the past person or matter, impossible to cut, in a tangle that’s hard to sort out. This procrastination and entanglement not only drains its own youth and energy, but also drags people around it into an endless quagmire of torment.

Furthermore, the Serpent has a notable tendency toward “opportunism and extreme pragmatism.” When expounding on the Serpent, Han Feizi mentioned that once “the clouds disperse and the mist clears,” the Serpent falls to the mortal world, no different from an earthworm or ant. This reveals the Serpent’s pathological dependence on an external attachment (such as power, a platform, background). The Serpent itself is “footless” — its soaring is entirely built on exploiting and leveraging “mist.” This attribute leads to it being extremely utilitarian in survival philosophy. When there’s power to borrow, it’s radiant and domineering; but once it loses the support of a platform or background, it often instantly loses its fighting spirit, falling into the abyss, even displaying an extremely humble, servile side. This elasticity of “arrogant when in power, opportunistic when out of power” lacks the pride and steadfastness at the core of a scholar or hero. It only recognizes the times, not moral principle — when facing a test of major right and wrong, it extremely easily becomes a fence-sitter following whichever way the wind blows, for the sake of survival or interest.

Finally, the Serpent’s fatal disadvantage also shows up in its “narrow pattern and self-imposed confinement.” Although Xunzi praised the Serpent’s focus, from another angle, the reason the Serpent can only focus on one thing is also because it has no four legs, no wings, lacking the hardware conditions to explore a diverse world. It spends its whole life circling in mist and shadow — its vision and pattern are naturally limited. Compared to the Kun-Peng’s ninety-thousand-li wingspan, or the Azure Dragon’s swallowing and exhaling the cosmos, the Serpent’s focus is often limited to immediate gain and loss of interest, personal safety and grudges, and those complexly intertwined small interpersonal circles. It’s too skilled at calculating details, too obsessed with the labyrinth of thought, to the point of often “seeing the trees, not the forest.” This narrow pattern causes it, even if it achieves momentary success relying on cleverness, to find it hard to reach a higher spiritual realm or achieve a truly great career, often trapping itself within a net of suspicion it wove itself.

In summary, the Serpent’s disadvantages are an interlocking psychological and behavioral vicious cycle: extreme suspicion due to lack of security, choosing disguise and deception due to suspicion, interpersonal entanglement and repetition due to disguise, and dependence on external power to find a sense of existence due to a narrow pattern. This footless snake advancing through mist, though extremely clever with countless tricks up its sleeve, often, because it can’t restrain the darkness, anxiety, and utilitarianism within its heart, ultimately becomes a victim of its own character flaws.