Post I just saw made me think of this again: Wei Wuxian does not have self-esteem issues.
He thinks he's amazing, because he is.
His sense of his own value is a little fucked up, and tied up in demonstrating how amazing he is by fixing all serious problems and mocking all stupid ones, and when his methods stop working and he can no longer prove this to his own satisfaction he has a profound crisis about it, which he's still shaking off when we meet him.
But self-esteem is super very much not a thing he struggles with. He is a genius who received regular validation about his excellence in a form that satisfied him both as very a small child and from the ages of ~8 to ~17. He has a clear system of ethics which he is most of the time able and willing to act on; he feels really good about himself as a person whenever severe trauma is not actively making that very hard to do.
His default state is obnoxiously high self-esteem.
In-story accusations of arrogance are strictly speaking correct, it's just that most of the inferences about the rest of his character people draw from this trait are deeply wrong.
His willingness to self-destruct is at least as heavily wrapped up in his conviction that because he's so awesome and tough and clever he can handle things other people can't, as it is in the idea that he's disposable.
So yeah the thing is. He really genuinely actually did sacrifice himself for Jiang Cheng in part because he thinks he's better than Jiang Cheng. Stronger, braver, smarter. More adaptable.
And he was right! And Jiang Cheng knows he was right!
Which I love because like. That's not a relationship conflict you can fix, exactly. You really do have to just...get over it, or don't. And one of the things Wei Wuxian was demonstrating his (well-founded) lack of faith in Jiang Cheng's ability to do was. Getting Over Things.
