dude sometimes I just come across such bad meta. it's even worse if it starts off good and turns bad.
• The Lans really love younger child Wangji (no pets allowed, but wangji can have them. Wangji wants lotus pod seeds and gets them etc.)
• Instead of giving agency to his actions and thoughts, they think he's being influenced or corrupted by others to act in such ways (especially Lan Qiren.)
• Lan Wangji is spoilt, similar to Nie Huaisang or Jin Zixuan.
• Gets the lowest punishment at all times (pfft.)
• "I get it you waited 13 years but you fucked off into the sunset with your husband leaving your emotionally unstable brother and duties"
• "Good to see people talking about Lan Wangji's flaws" - mentions him being spoilt and demanding instead of his actual flaws.
Like... you cannot seriously point out how he gets to have rabbits as a point of him being spoilt. Lan Wangji has made like one error in his life in his studies. He's assigned himself punishment for stuff that wasn't even done by will (coughs, wwx). He's made his decisions and lived with the consequences.
Despite what you say, Lan Xichen isn't a terrible brother to Wangji. Neither is Lan Wangji a selfish brother.
Sibling relationships are complex, and between two individuals with their own set of values. Lan Wangji is totally righteous, even more than Nie Mingjue. He can't stand exaggerated, political loopholes and unrighteous acts. He does what he can do, working on the ground level.
Lan Xichen isn't Lan Wangji. He knows the world is filled with corrupted people, and challenging each and every one of them would lead to your own devastation (read: Wei Wuxian's biography). Thus, he tries extending his sympathy to all, and draws conclusions that allow the least possible damage. He does think Lan Wangji made a dire mistake with Wei Wuxian, because if not, he will have to face the fact that the world punished his brother for his righteousness and it would shatter his whole foundation (like it does).
But despite that, both of them share similarities. They both want the better of the world. Lan Wangji is brave enough to challenge the whole foundation of the cultivation world. Lan Xichen is brave enough to lay down peace even when it's so painfully obvious there's no option of it.
Lan Wangji trusts his brother enough to bring Wei Wuxian back to Cloud Recesses after getting stabbed at Jin Tower. Lan Xichen lives up to this trust and helps them investigate the matter. Lan Wangji even assures Wei Wuxian that his brother would not stand for Jin Guangyao if his crimes were true.
See, you don't have to completely have the same sort of sets of beliefs to be siblings. Sibling relationships are complex. Both these brothers know each other, their strengths and their weaknesses well. They may be exasperated at each other's insistence, yet they are well aware that they both have to walk their own paths.
Lan Xichen could never take away Lan Wangji's pain or fix him. Neither can Lan Wangji fix Lan Xichen.
But both of them will always have each other's backs. They are each other's families. Each other's brothers for life.
But at the same time, they have each their own paths to walk. People need to understand that it's not about a lack of sense of responsibility on Lan Wangji's side, but the realization that if he went back home, he may lose Wei Wuxian again. His uncle wants to take him back, lecture him and lock him into seclusion. His uncle wouldn't accept his proposal to be married to Wei Wuxian.
He doesn't give his uncle the chance to "accept" or not.
And he literally returns three months later.
I can't help but feel that those who say he was selfish do not have siblings. Or have bad sibling relationships. I'd say Lan Wangji and Lan Xichen have a perfectly good relationship if despite their differences, their terrible parentage, their opposing personalities, the roles they both played in each other's life (with Lan Xichen being sworn brothers to Jin Guangyao who played a major role in Wei Wuxian's fall, and Lan Wangji being Wei Wuxian's husband, who in turn, set the case back onto Jin Guangyao, thus hurting Lan Xichen), the things they couldn't help each other out of, but yet, they do trust each other and love each other.
And I trust that Lan Xichen will one day figure stuff out. There's a lyric in this MDZS song called unfettered. It is like:
The past is akin to dew in the morning. Even if it can be comprehended, it lays under layers and layers of fog.
In the end, hatred, love, resentment, debts and regrets all come to pass.
Just like how Lan Wangji is not his father, Lan Xichen will also not be his father. I don't think both of them had hurtful intentions towards the other at any point.
It's not like "Yunmeng bros" where JC intentionally wishes to cause pain to Wei Wuxian. It's not like the Nie bros, where NMJ has to be super over-protective of Huaisang.
It's just two siblings with their own lives choosing to be with each other, in happiness and in grief (mostly in grief uhm) in a terrible world where the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
