I Am Always On Some Level Thinking About Lan Sizhui’s Trauma, And This Was Only Compounded For Me On

I am always on some level thinking about Lan Sizhui’s trauma, and this was only compounded for me on this rewatch, because I’d forgotten just how absolutely abysmal Wei Wuxian’s mental health is during the burial mounds farming commune stretch of the show. Just extraordinary emotionally volatile, prone to angry outbursts, and with the capacity to drop from soaring enthusiasm to plunging despair at the drop of a hat. And they’re all living in such close quarters that his erratic moods and unacknowledged trauma that he’s stewing in just kind of spills over into the overall environment.

And certainly Wei Wuxian is great with a-Yuan, and is a positive influence for him in many ways! But none of them are living in an optimal environment - they’re struggling to get by, and frequently short on food - and Wei Wuxian in particular has an entire festering host of Issues that the current situation is only exacerbating. He’s living in a place that traumatized him, and to some extent he feels trapped there - he chose to help the Wens, but now that he’s made that decision, there’s no going back, and he explicitly knows he has no other options at this point. He misses his family and Lan Zhan. He’s practicing a brand of magic that is wreaking havoc on his temperament and eating him from the inside, and he’s gone through a voluntary but nonetheless pretty traumatizing kind of body modification. He can’t be expected to function at his best, or do as right by the people in his life as he could if he were in a healthier place.

So of course a-Yuan is affected by this! He can tell that one of his favourite people is frequently stressed, that his moods are easily ruined by little interferences, and that he’s sad for reasons that are hard for a little kid to comprehend. a-Yuan gets yelled at for uprooting a lotus plant by accident - and sees Wei Wuxian, rather than try to replant it, declare the venture hopeless (you have to be careful what you do, all the time, because he’s always hovering over a pit of despair and any little thing could flip the switch!). a-Yuan witnesses Wei Wuxian become physically violent towards Wen Ning after the JZX stabbing fiasco. For most of that outburst, a-Yuan is crying in the background after getting a truly terrifying glare from Wei Wuxian. 

Sharing an environment with someone who does not have access to the kind of coping mechanisms they need - and compounded with the fact that a-Yuan has already gone through a considerable amount of trauma due to being a war crime survivor at an incredibly young age - is it really any wonder that teen Sizhui has so many people pleasing impulses? Is so accommodating and acquiescent and pacifying, so inclined to mediate and de-escalate? I see people saying that it’s a wonder that Sizhui turned out so well compared to everyone else, but imo the way he turned out makes complete sense, and I don’t think that his interpersonal behaviour is entirely healthy either.

For me, what exemplifies it the most is this little exchange when they’re at the restaurant with Lan Wangji:

Wei Wuxian gets upset when the topic of Jin Zixuan comes up and slams his jug on the table in a sudden burst of anger; a-Yuan reaches out and gently puts his hand on his arm. It’s a very sweet gesture, but in in the context of everything else, there’s also something unnerving about it to me, in the sense that this toddler really seems to have internalized that it’s his responsibility to manage the emotions of his caregiver.

Aaaand what do we seem him do, in episode 2, as a teenager? Once again feeling responsible for managing the emotions of people older than he is; jumping in to bail Lan Wangji out of his extremely petty vow of silence by engaging in diplomacy for him and defusing a conflict based on a grudge that he doesn’t have the context for. 

And I think that his relationship with Lan Wangji also compounded these same issues for him. When Lan Wangji comes out of seclusion and starts being a major figure in Sizhui’s life, he’s still pretty freshly grieving. Sizhui is likely one of the few bright spots in his life, and I’m betting Sizhui picked up on that, if perhaps only subconsciously, and developed a deeply protective impulse towards Hanguang-jun. Once again, feeling responsible for managing an adult caregiver’s mood. And again, of course Lan Wangji had plenty of positive impacts on Sizhui, and was overall a force for good in his life. But both Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji have their own baggage that they’re not super great at coping with, and that has an unavoidable impact on Sizhui’s development as well.