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nutcasewithaknife · 6 months

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Let's talk about Li Xiangyi and Control!

Thank you to @istgidek1234 for putting up with three weeks of screaming and also more-or-less co-writing this with me <3.

Short disclaimer before diving into it: This is going to be part 1 of a 3 part series, one for each of liansanjiao. It’s hard to think about control and MLC and not realise that all three are fighting to take control of their own lives. They all do it differently for different reasons but it is a crucial, defining feature for each of them. It inevitably makes their relationship with each other a delightful heartbreaking combination of understanding but also never really seeing each other.

For now, let’s begin with our protagonist.

Li Xiangyi, wunderkind beyond compare who crashes and burns and then walks away. Li Lianhua, a man determined to bury his past self and become a whole different person, a ghost haunting its own end. And yet! Neither Li Xiangyi nor Li Lianhua can exist without trying to stay in control in any given situation. This is me trying to slot together the pieces of how and why he’s like that.

[WARNING: long, long post ahead].

As Li Xiangyi, the world makes him its Hero. He goes with it, but he has his own standards of what he as a Hero must do. He creates and leads a whole new sect, befitting this image. But it's not just a generic Really Good sect, is it? It has purpose. The Sigu Sect is built to ensure the coexistence of the Empire and the Jianghu, to ensure justice in the latter without sacrificing its independence. Li Xiangyi does something far more nuanced than the Hero Figure ever needs to do - he looks at a system that needs fixing and decides he should be the one to do it. He's taking control of the story people fit him into by making it fit his own sense of righteousness, goodness and honour.

He may be doing that through a Sect, but he makes himself the keystone. Remove him, and it all falls apart. He makes decisions on the fly without consulting the people involved (not telling Shan Gudao aka his co-sect leader and founder about the treaty) because he is sure that he knows what's best. Imagine the kind of constant control he must have needed to maintain over any situation to be able to make such an impact on the politics of this world. But he doesn't stop being the one in charge. And most people just let him, see it as his natural place, so it's all good! He is stretched thin across a dozen different responsibilities, but they can never get the better of him, because he is Li Xiangyi.

It looks like arrogance, and to an extent it is. But it’s also more. Is it his reluctance to trust the abilities of anyone else more than he trusts himself? Is it habit? He grew up being pitted against his brother as proof of his Master's worth, the love he has known has always been tangled up with this burden of expectation, which he never fell short of. He is always the best. He is adored for it. A teenager who has never known defeat before, exalted by the world! Of course he went along with it, moulded his sense of self and worth around it. He has spent far too long defining his worth by living up to the expectations of those who love him. But that sort of adoration is always fickle, always conditional.

The thing about never losing is that you don't stop to consider what happens when you do. When the burden grows too much to stay under his control, it's because he has lost for the first time. Qiao Wanmian leaving hits him hard, I think, because he was doing so much! He was meeting every expectation of who he should be, was it still not enough to have her love? There is anger and doubt. He alone decides on the treaty with Di Feisheng. And then Shan Gudao is killed, Li Xiangyi is betrayed, and it's the last straw. Losing for the first time in such a terrible way makes him furious, at himself and at those who he thinks betrayed his trust. He doubles down. He tries to seize back the control he's lost - all by himself as always - because it's the only way he sees to fix anything. He does it when dealing with betrayal and grief and rage the likes of which he's never known. The only way to fix the grief unraveling him is to get his brother’s remains back at any cost. And it ends in a massacre of thousands.

Li Xiangyi thinks that his blunder was the arrogance in believing he could fix the world in any way. His answer is to walk away. He has caused enough harm to the world as Li Xiangyi, so he will no longer be him. He no longer can, not with this poison in his body and with how badly he's let everyone down. The poison limits his abilities and makes him terminally ill. He can no longer rely on or control his own body the way he always has been used to. Those first few years must have been awful, while he was still learning how to live in this new state. It’s no wonder he finds some peace in shaping his immediate environment, in building a new life. He cooks, gardens, has a home he builds and looks after, has Huli Jing. He also gives himself a new direction, a new purpose - to put his past to rest, to repent in the only way he can.

Knowing is also a way of being in control. If Li Xiangyi's tool to keep control was the power and authority of the hero figure, Li Lianhua's are his lies (the biggest of which is his innocuous presence, his uselessness beyond being a physician). Li Lianhua loves to stick his nose into things and find out the truth, and he is good at it. These lies are his new weapon, stronger than the sword up his sleeve now - he uses them to stay in control of the situation. To decide who is allowed to know what. He also puts them as a shield between everyone who tries to come close, because he himself is one of the things that nobody is allowed to know.

It is while becoming Li Lianhua that the change happens - he goes from meeting every expectation to dodging even the potential of one more doggedly than ever. He must shape the rest of his life alone and make it his own and nobody else's. He will be Li Lianhua, no longer burdened by the world's expectations. Just his own. All that he expects from himself is deeply personal - find Shan Gudao's body, bury him with their shifu, and die. It is only right that he has nobody at his side - he let down every single person who had once loved him. Nobody else should bear this burden with him, because it is his and his alone.

And then come along Fang Duobing and Di Feisheng. One doesn't give a flying fuck about the lies and the other knows him well enough to see right through most of them. Fang Duobing is at first annoyingly naive, overzealous to do good (like SOMEONE used to be), then endearing, and then dangerously forgiving and caring. He is the most lethal attack to Li Lianhua's self-imposed isolation because he has no expectations, and isn't the slightest bit intimidated by Li Lianhua or Li Xiangyi (re: @potahun’s meta on lxy being a burden because he is just too good). He's the first who talks about Li Xiangyi as a person, not a legend. There's no getting rid of him, but Li Lianhua will be Li Lianhua. He lies and hides and dodges and lies again, well aware that he's hurting him each time. But he will keep doing so, because love always comes with expectations and he refuses to live up to those.

And then, enter Di Feisheng! The only one he considered trusting as an equal before it fell apart. Also the bearer of the revelation that the past is much more convoluted that Li Xiangyi knows. The past, which was the one thing Li Lianhua has seen as a permanent fixture, a mark of his failure, just got worse. He was manipulated. His Shixiong orchestrated all of this expressly for his downfall. Instead of alleviating Li Xiangyi's guilt, it makes it worse - had he been a better leader and known better, he may have avoided falling for it. Had he not been the person he was, maybe his brother wouldn't have become the man he is today either.

And as before, the more things spiral out of control, the more Li Xiangyi doubles down. He knows better than to try and fix the world this time, he has long decided that the thing he can control is his own life, away from the legends; he needs to know what the truth is, so he can decide what his end should be. But the more he learns, the worse it gets, because his entire life - the people he was closest to, his own identity - is being reshaped. The entire goddamn story is his attempt to have some measure of control of his past, present and future - of his story - while everyone and everything is flying right in the face of it. He distances himself from the legend of Li Xiangyi so he can live as himself. He copes with the past by trying to cut it off and by taking charge of his future, but guess what! The past is a living, growing thing of the present, long out of his control - he knew nothing of Shan Gudao’s hatred. Nothing of his heritage. Nothing about the brother he'd lost. This rogue past is also twisting his present and future out of his control.

Towards the last few episodes, we dare to think he's starting to learn how to share the burden. That he might be letting Fang Duobing and Di Feisheng be a part of this, he is trusting them and himself not be alone all over again. And then! The fucking Styx flower!!!! This excellent meta by @angryteapott really explains it the best. Once again he makes a decision alone, in the name of ensuring that everyone that matters to him stays safe. He knows Fang Duobing will fight it and Di Feisheng will probably commit regicide if he gets wind of it. He doesn't even consider working out an alternative, and makes that decision for everyone's good, because he knows best and the others are better off not knowing.

He will die. So what? Di Feisheng will be forced to move on and find a purpose beyond Li Xiangyi. Fang Duobing will be heartbroken, but he is meant for better things than a life of following Li Lianhua around. He himself can no longer live a carefree life as Li Lianhua, because the world has hijacked his story once more and he barely knows what the truth behind the stories is anymore. He had a brother he lost. He is the lost prince. It was just one story after another. Is it really any surprise that being in charge becomes more necessary when all of his past has been a lie? As @istgidek1234 put it, him throwing himself into every issue that comes his way is a way of finding his agency and taking control of his narrative. He is lost, and he doubles down. Li Xiangyi, Li Lianhua need to die and he is too tired to build another life. And so he leaves, to choose and control at least his end.

But, well. As any of the people he left behind would tell you, he doesn’t know jack shit. Li Xiangyi's mistake 10 years ago wasn't trying to fix something unfixable. It was trying to fix it all by himself. In his attempt to tie up the strings of the past, Li Lianhua makes the same awful mistake. He presumes, he keeps everyone out of the loop, he decides for everyone who loves him because he knows better. He is so arrogantly presumptuous! But isn’t it more? It’s also the fear that his very presence will hurt them again. That any attachment will come with strings that will make him into someone he is not once again. He must remain unattainable. He's so caught up in controlling his story that he tries to untangle it from everyone else's. But he can't. Leaving means they will simply carry him forever in their grief. Over and over, the story tells us that for those who really love him, losing him is the greatest pain. Over and over, Li Lianhua decides that he knows better, they will be better off without him.

There is, of course, the more meta reading of the ending (check out @redemption-revenge's amazing post about it!). The one where Li Xiangyi is simply closing the chapter titled Li Lianhua to begin another, away from the gaze of the world and beyond the shape of this story. Maybe that’s a version where he lets himself be found by Fang Duobing and Di Feisheng. Where escaping our scrutiny allows him to be vulnerable enough to accept their companionship without too much of the lies and presumption, where he can find and make peace with himself and live.

#leave a comment or dm me if you want to be tagged in part 2 and 3!#mysterious lotus casebook #li xiangyi #li lianhua #difanghua #meta #liansanjiao control meta

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