I feel like people still often think that Lan Wangji goes around helping people either because he was trying to find Wei Wuxian or "in honor" of him. But in canon, it was always his own thing. Even Wei Wuxian never adhered to it until he married Lan Wangji which he narrates in this excerpt from the Gate Crasher Extra:
One could say they had somewhat pulled away from the cultivation world. If they had nothing of importance to attend to, they would roam aimlessly for a few days, half a month, a whole month. Wei Wuxian had long known Lan Wangji’s reputation for 'appearing where there is chaos' and hadn’t thought it would be a tough job. But now that he was tagging along, he realized it was a test of patience—not because it was tough, but rather, it was too easy.
When he had gone on Night Hunts in the past, he’d favored strange and dangerous locations where he could experience a variety of adventures that were naturally full of turns and twists. However, Lan Wangji was not picky—he did what he ought to do, and it inevitably ended with some commonplace Night Hunt target that was unremarkable by Wei Wuxian’s standards. Case in point, this fierce corpse that had come knocking. Compared to the creatures Wei Wuxian used to hunt, it was boring indeed. Even other cultivators might consider dealing with it to be a waste of time and talent.
But even if the case itself wasn’t enticing, Wei Wuxian was with Lan Wangji. It was relaxing and idyllic to enjoy each other’s company.
This characteristic of his is also shown in the Lotus Seedpod Extra where he helps out an old woman to knock down a withered branch stuck on the eaves of her roof, helps farmers hold up a roof as temporary shelter from the rain, and takes note to report a harmless spirit for it to be exorcised later.
I think Lan Wangji's inherent kindness and heroism is still often overlooked in favor of the interpretation that he "learned how to be truly kind/genuinely righteous" from Wei Wuxian. But what people often fail to realize is that as Wei Wuxian was helping and protecting the Wens, Lan Wangji was fulfilling his own duty of helping and protecting his own people and the common people while also trying to speak up for Wei Wuxian and later on the Wen siblings.
I feel like people want Lan Wangji to have a character development where he does a complete 180, but what really happens is just that he becomes more comfortable in his own skin. He understands himself, his feelings, and his desires more. His morals, values, and principles are strengthened but they are the same as ever.
He had always had a mind of his own and had always been stubborn. This is the same person whom, as a child, against everyone's reprimands and scolding, kept visiting his mother's house and sitting outside of it for months. The same one who persuaded his sect leader brother and strict uncle to allow him to keep his rabbits despite pets not being allowed in the premises. The boy who walked a long way away from home and insisted on being allowed to pick lotus seedpods despite it being past the curfew for doing so. He protects an innocent girl and rebukes his own sect's disciple for trying to put her in harm's way even as his leg was broken, his home burned down, his father gone, and his brother missing. He bestows punishment upon himself alongside Wei Wuxian when the latter challenges if Lan Wangji would apply the same rules he enforces onto himself. Later on, after the massacre at Nightless City (in which he also tried to help as many people as he could), he implored to be punished for his actions as he knew, in the same way, Wei Wuxian was about to receive the consequences for his own. He's always understood that rules exist for a reason but are also made to be broken. And Lan Wangji's goodness, his righteousness, and his justness are the things Wei Wuxian admires and respects the most about him. It's what makes Wei Wuxian fall deeper in love with him over and over.
Lan Wangji in the present timeline is more decisive and a little less strict, a little more playful, but his pure goodness is all the same.
This meta on Lan Wangji & Lan An somewhat touches on what his character needed to go through. It's less of a moral change and more of him having to choose between staying on this path of asceticism that is believed to lead to spiritual immortality or to join the secular world and involve himself in worldly affairs, a choice between being godly or being human.
Side note: I like how in the donghua, many minor cultivation sects joined the Sunshot Campaign in gratitude and loyalty towards Lan Wangji who had helped them immensely in the past. In one or a few audio drama extras also, common people would thank Lan Wangji here and there for having helped them in the past. It's a nice illustration of how good and helpful Lan Wangji is, how he readily helps anyone no matter their status and no matter how big or small the problem.
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