Luo Binghe & Tianlang-Jun: Origins. And a Bit of Projection.
Disclaimer: This is basically just a collection of quotes from The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System, Volume 3, accompanied by (adjective) thoughts, and then even more relevant quotes listed at the end. If I could, I’d paste the entirety of Chapter 18.
“As expected, I can’t bring myself to hate humans.”
— Vol. 3, Chapter 21: Always Together
I will always be conflicted on the topic of Tianlang-jun, and it annoys me. There is so much I could say about him, and so little I can successfully articulate. He is, to me, more confounding, complex and tragic than Shen Jiu.
He’s pitiful and awe-inspiring, wicked and affable, cunning and wide-eyed in his curiousity. He is a compelling, heartbreaking character. He alternates between emotionless wisdom and mournful apathy. I admire how his knees don’t buckle under the weight of his grief, but how he crumbles at the barest hint of hope. How rage claws at him and, still, he can’t figure out how to make it stick.
I empathise with him. I understand him.
But then, in the distance, Luo Binghe's indifferent voice disturbs the silence, causing me to drop my drink onto the floor and this post onto your screen:
“He’s not my father.”
It’s an interesting exercise, exploring their relationship in reconciliation fics. To see them interact (semi-)honestly, watch them take turns filling up the chasm between them. It’s wonderful. Every fic I’ve read centred around them was a delightful read that I still think about.
However. I cannot see Tianlang-Jun, as I understand him, as Luo Binghe’s father. And not just because of the 3rd Novel’s events.
But because Binghe had hoped for something; he did have that wide-eyed wonder. He did hold one last window open, for the sake of an improbability he couldn’t quite, just yet, dismiss.
It’s what (most) orphaned and/or adopted childred do.
Though Luo Binghe had never said a word about it before, Shen Qingqiu knew that he harbored some fantasies about his birth parents. […] In fact, he’d always secretly fantasized about whether his parents might still be alive, and how well they’d treat him, and how they’d never let him suffer the mildest slight.
— Vol. 3, Chapter 17: Tianlang
It is the most human thing; to want to be helped, accepted, invited by those given to you. A family is given to you. Whether you believe it an act of the divine, of nature, of coincidence, it isn’t something you fight for. It’s the first and, arguably, only thing you don’t have to fight for in life.
Depending on a multitude of factors, that can be a blessing or a curse; but where there is room for interpretation, questions left unanswered, most childred—Binghe included—will turn to their imagination, and try to make sense of it. Usually, to comfort themselves, to reassure themselves that surely, if their family could, they would have.
And, yeah. Most likely, if the Palace Master had gotten punted into the Sun like he fucking deserved, they would have. But does it matter?
In the face of a bleak reality, what comfort is a could-have-been?
He liked to call Luo Binghe “that son of mine,” but he didn’t seem to possess any concept of fatherly affection. […] Luo Binghe was in fact…someone who was unloved by even his own parents.
— Vol. 3, Chapter 15: Holy Mausoleum
What use are good intentions to an abandoned child? What consolation is it, to say, They gave birth to you, when that child has seen no evidence of their care? Does it dry their tears, that their mother can’t be here, but she surely would have wished to be? That their father would protect them, if only he knew of them?
(And don’t make me tell you about the visceral horror I felt reading the Origins chapter. I’ve yet to make my peace with it. MXTX, Airplane, whoever: you’ve ruined me.)
The washerwoman was and continues to be, to Binghe, his only mother. And I would argue, that’s healthy. Even independent of his other traumas (Abyss, Shizun’s betrayal, Xin Mo’s influence, living on the streets, etc, holy shit Binghe) Luo Binghe will not accept anyone else as his mother.
“Who is this Su Xiyan?” Luo Binghe asked coldly. “My mother was a mere washerwoman.”
— Vol. 3, Chapter 18: Origins.
It may seem callous. It probably even is! But it is a healthy line he’d drawn by his own initiative. It’s what helps him, what he feels he needs to do in order to do right by his mother, and his own heart.
And! Tianlang-Jun doesn’t seem to give much of a shit, either!
Won’t, probably, even in the future, once the dust will have settled. He is exhausted, weary with carrying the corpse of his love, the loss of his nephew. Whatever goodwill he shows, it’s a perfunctory sort, because he can’t afford more.
So. Uhh.
Tianlang-Jun is not a character I can love, nor one I can hate. Usually, I can’t help but be inclined to love complex characters. Like them, too—though that’s more of an action-based thing rather than just said character’s personality.
But with Tianlang-Jun, I’m stuck whichever way I turn. If I want to love/like him, I’m drawn back by Binghe’s pain and disappointment. If I try to hate/dislike him, I’m drawn back by his own history and grief.
In conclusion:
I don't know! I'm not really trying to, like, prove anything. I still love the aforementioned TLJ & LBH fics, I still love their dynamic. I started walking and ended up exactly in the same space. This, perhaps, could be considered a Heavenly Demon Family Mobius Strip!
I'm not really trying to say anything. It just… makes me feel conflicted, and angry, and whenever I allow myself to think about it a bit more, sad.
But.
However!
Alas.
Nonetheless, even.
As a reader and—on my better days—a writer, all I can say is:
As promised/threatened: some selected passages, for your reading pleasure:
So, it looked like neither the father nor the cousin had any intention of acknowledging Luo Binghe.
— Chapter 15: Holy Mausoleum
He liked to call Luo Binghe “that son of mine,” but he didn’t seem to possess any concept of fatherly affection.
— Chapter 15: Holy Mausoleum
Tianlang-Jun lifted his hand, took a look at Luo Binghe’s snow-pale face, and commented indifferently, “He looks like his mother.”
“His eyes look like yours,” came a chill voice from the side.
— Chapter 15: Holy Mausoleum
The faint hopes and dreams Luo Binghe had held in his heart for many years had been mercilessly pulverized into so much dust. […] [Tianlang-Jun] refused to speak a single word of their relationship and had been utterly ruthless back in the Holy Mausoleum. […] To his parents, Luo Binghe was an unwanted child.
— Chapter 18: Origins
“If he was my father, why didn’t he bring it up earlier? Why not tell me?”
The most Tianlang-Jun had said was that single line he offered while beating up Luo Binghe, devoid of either praise or criticism: “He looks like his mother.”
He looks like his mother. What of it?
But that was all. There was nothing more.
— Chapter 18: Origins
Luo Binghe was indifferent. “He’s not my father.” […] Luo Binghe shook his head. It was unclear what he was stubbornly clinging to, but he repeated, “He’s not my father.”
— Chapter 18: Origins
Luo Binghe raised his smiling face, his eyes shining brightly. “Mother was the kindest person in all the world to me.”
— Chapter 19: Shen Jiu
