@moransumbrella Your tags XD I think if you knocked on little Hua Binan’s brain post his mother’s murder, you’d just find a seething mass of hatred and disgust and rage. Hua Binan may act fairly composed, but looking back on it he’s probably burning with loathing the entire time.
As for why he despised Mo Ran so much, I think it actually does have something to do with the fact that their backgrounds are similar? Losing their mothers unfairly at a young age, shitty, shitty fathers, and basically trauma after trauma when they were both kids. Even if Hua Binan got to Sisheng Peak after his dad killed his mom, he’s still a kid now saddled with the knowledge that his race is less than animals on most people’s eyes. Ignorance would have definitely been bliss in this case.
Mo Ran had a horrible childhood, too, but the thing is that he tries his best to put it behind him. He tries not to let anger and resentment get the better of him and poison his future actions. And he definitely succeeds! Despite all that he’s been through by the time he gets to Sisheng Peak, he’s a legitimately sweet and loving person still. (And then haha Flower go brrr.) As he is, without any outside tampering, when someone helps Mo Ran, he never forgets it - it’s one of his most defining traits, imo. He’s hopeful! No matter what he’s gone through, he never stops believing that there are good people who care about him.
Hua Binan, though - Hua Binan’s the exact opposite. Like you said, I think Hua Binan just… deliberately strangled any kindness and hope that was left in him. As far as he’s concerned, there are no truly good people, the world is an awful place, and he’s not going to let it scar him as badly as it did the first time, with his mother’s murder. He’s not going to let his guard down again. I think, just from a human-to-human perspective, that it began as a self-preservation instinct; I don’t think anyone can just wake up and decide that they’re going to be spiteful and cruel and vicious just for the sake of being spiteful and cruel and vicious. But it quickly escalated into cold-hearted and callous disregard for other people - and a lot of it was because Hua Binan himself didn’t attempt to rein it in. As I said in some tags, he saw the slippery slope and grabbed a sled. He immediately accepted that everything is horrible and unfair. He’s not going to trust anyone, he’s not going to let anyone in, and any kindness, genuine kindness, that’s given to him, is fake. (I think this is part of the reason why he never even considered opening up about himself? Like, even to Chu Wanning, whom he’s ~in love~ with? In his mind, no matter how well the people in Sisheng Peak treat him, they can’t possibly be sincere enough to still stand up for him if they find out he’s a Butterfly-Boned Beauty Feast. If his own father, his family, would murder his mother for that, then why would these random strangers, regardless of how nice they act when they’re unaware of his origins, do anything to help him if they knew?)
But then here comes Mo Ran! Lost his immediate family too. Has no one to look out for him too. But he’s… compassionate? He’s… genuine? Despite what he’s been through he wants to do good, he wants to help other people, he wants to form sincere connections with those around him? I think Hua Binan sort of saw an alternate version of himself, who still hasn’t learned anything despite his mother’s brutal death. Who’s still a naive idiot that actually believes that people can truly care about him. The way I see it, there’s almost a sort of disgusted pity in the way that Hua Binan regards Mo Ran - like, “people are only ever going to use you. Hell, I’m using you. And you - when are you ever going to learn?”
To put it in other terms, I think every time Hua Binan saw Mo Ran, he was reminded of all the (in his mind) weakness and stupidity that he pruned from himself. It’s fascinating to me that he hates Mo Ran with such passion, but he never actually acknowledges him much as his own person. It’s not the kind of hate that, say, Morgoth from the Silmarillion has for Varda, where he hates her but a part of that hatred is born from the fact that he knows she’s a competent, capable threat to him - it’s, instead, a much more scornful kind of loathing, the way you’d want to crush an ant beneath your heel. If Morgoth is glaring at Varda from across a table, then Hua Binan outright sneers down his nose at Mo Ran. At best, he’s an unwieldy tool to be used - annoying to be around, but he’ll have to put up with it. At worst, he’s an empty-headed little worm who can’t see what’s right in front of his nose. There’s such a condescending and intense disdain in the way he views Mo Ran, it’s really… interesting, honestly?
Mo Ran has suffered in horrible ways, he’s seen the worsts that people can fall to, but it’s precisely because of that that he understands the importance of kindness. He knows how precious lives are, he knows he has to treasure every good thing that he has. Hua Binan has suffered in horrible ways too (no one deserves to watch as his own father eats his own mother alive, and no one deserves to be treated like a piece of meat just for being born as a certain something like a Butterfly-Boned Beauty Feast), but that’s only made him believe that kindness is worthless and that lives mean nothing if he can achieve his aims. And the faith that Mo Ran has in the goodness in the world is something that Hua Binan willingly discarded long ago.
The thing about Hua Binan is that he completely internalizes the attitude that cultivation society has towards his people - and then spews it right back out at the world with a fury. Cultivation society says his people are livestock, just tools to be harvested, brutalized, and dehumanized for profit and to increase cultivation levels? Then Hua Binan says all other people are livestock, just tools to be harvested, brutalized, and dehumanized for his goals. The only exception, like you mentioned, is Mu Yanli, whom he definitely used but whom he also definitely loved. (And this is a side note, but every time I come across that scene when they’re contemplating what to do with Shi Mei 2.0, I snort, because Hua Binan is like “hey can you kill him for me” and Mu Yanli is like “no I can’t do that to any version of you” and Hua Binan is like “meh okay it was more of a personal favor anyway, it doesn’t have anything to do with our overall plans”… like… it simultaneously amuses me, as a person who has siblings, that Hua Binan gave in to his big sis so easily - and also terrifies me because it’s like he’s just… sitting there humming and flipping a coin with Shi Mei 2.0′s life. That’s a person you’re talking about! That’s literally another version of you for Christ’s sake! Anyway.)
I do think some part of Hua Binan cared about Mu Yanli as a fragment of his past before his mother died, because she’s about the only person left who knew him when he was just a normal kid. But I think the main reason he loves her is her willingness to go to extreme lengths to get the Butterfly-Boned Beauty Feasts to safety; both because it means she cares about his people and doesn’t see them as subhuman like everyone else does (or like he thinks everyone else does), and because he’s the exact same way. To Hua Binan, I think, it’s like a connection that they have. And since his most important motive in life is to open the Path of Martyrdom and get his people to the Demon Realm - Meatbun does a great job of establishing that nothing else will ever mean as much to him than that - that’s pretty much the strongest bond that Hua Binan could have with anyone. I definitely don’t think he loves her just because she’s his sister, though. I mean, do you think Hua Binan would have any trouble killing someone even closely related to him? Lmao. He’d be like, “Cool.” *stab*
So yeah, sorry for the rant! Hua Binan’s headspace is fascinating to pick apart in that I… kind of get how he got so far, but even as I’m getting it there’s a headache forming, lol. His worldview is so dark and messy and frankly, quite hypocritical in many ways; that makes him a great character, but man I would run awaaaaay from such a person in real life.
