Second thing is Wei Wuxian's self worth issues, the extent to which he does view himself as disposable.
I've seen a lot, and a few times already in the notes on this post, that the main reason he's like this is the Jiang family. They raised him, they had some serious toxicity in there, one of them hated him, etc. Obvious! We can all relate!
And I mean. That didn't help. The issues in that family certainly can be considered a major reason he didn't get past that idea as much as might be hoped!
But I really, really don't think they're the source of it--of his compulsion to be useful; of his deep seated belief that relationships and homes are things that can always be taken away if you fail to deserve them, and so forth.
I think that's because he had a formative experience of being disposable.
Of being a trash person. Someone already thrown away b society. Of knowing for a fact that he was the only person in the world who cared if he lived or died; that no one had any use for him and therefore he, a small child, had no value. Of living on anyway.
He internalized at a profoundly formative age that he was owed nothing, that being alive was something to work for and earn moment by moment.
And that most people placed in that position would die before long, and that he was unusually capable of surviving.
He was six tops when he was orphaned. Lan Wangji, whose life was otherwise stable if somewhat oppressive, was fucked up a bit for life just by losing his mom at that age and not being given the support he needed to process it.
Being homeless is not like. A self-contained Trauma Event. It's not separate from, or to the side of his life. It's foundational. It was formative. It was his life, at the exact age when people are learning to have abstract thoughts about the world in a systematic way.
He developed his identity to a considerable degree in the context of being given nothing without earning it, and having to seek out the opportunities even to do the earning, because no one was interested in offering them.
The Dogs Thing is not a traumatic event. It's part of the outcome of an entire lifestyle that was fundamentally traumatic. Years as a small child of contriving to get by in a world that was hostile to his existence, by default. Of having to earn every mouthful.
The thing about Wei Wuxian when we see him as a teenager is that he doesn't take this shit seriously because he knows it's not that serious. Not worth stressing about. Everything in his life as a prominent disciple of a major sect is fantastic.
Especially because his master spoils him! He doesn't have to earn his food. They just give it to him. They just...give it to him.
There aren't no strings, and on some level he takes those strings deadly seriously even more than is actually necessary, but his understanding of his position in the Jiang, after a certain point we don't see him arrive at because the time between the first night and the Cloud Recesses is not given to us in detail, is that he is safe.
And that this is an unbelievable luxury worth indulging in.
Having a problem like 'someone who isn't allowed to maim him trying to make him feel bad' might piss him off if he thinks they're being unjust about it, but for the most part it's a fun problem to have.
(This is a huge part of his and lwj's initial failure to connect; he seems as though he's frivolous because he's shallow, but he's actually like this because he thinks most of this surface-level stuff the cultivation world takes so seriously is what's frivolous.)
He's like this because, even after half a lifetime with the Jiang, his baseline for 'a problem' is set so high. The Abyss sequence in Caiyi isn't a serious situation because they could always just leave.
Sure they could die here, sure something has to be done about this by somebody, but they are all on flying swords and the problem is localized to a lake. If they wanted they could just leave, which means it's...not that bad.
A dangerous night hunt is like. It's a play-pretend at a traumatic situation, to him. It's like...it's almost exactly like how kink is rendered safe by the existence of safewords, of being able to stop, of the fact that you are in this situation on an ongoing basis of your own free will.
This is a huge part of why he's such a larger-than-life figure who's able to act so forcefully, and so on. But it is also the result of trauma, and if triggered correctly results in counterproductive behaviors, which is in some ways what gets him killed.
Madam Yu is being given way too much credit when centered in interpretations of Wei Wuxian's issues. She had a definite influence on him, but as a stressor she had nothing on just, like. Being alive in a world that was aggressively and unanimously indifferent to your desire for basic necessities, at the age of seven.
Jiang Cheng is the one she traumatized.
