#unforth is bad at meta lmao

[unforth]

Well I still feel pretty terrible and I slept like garbage but I had a thought in the middle of the night and I think there's something in it and that's Tian Guan Ci Fu focusing on characters who grew up isolated, who had lonely childhoods, and how it fucked them all up in different ways. Like hardly a single character in it had a healthy childhood (for those whose childhoods we know about), and this being a major theme is lampshaded by the few children in the book - Guzi, who every single "good" person in the book still allows to stay with Qi Rong, and Cuocuo, who is a literally a dead fetus but who still responds to maternal affection, and Lang Ying, and the dead baby.

So like:

Xie Lian, lonely, isolated, and treated as inhuman/perfect

Hua Cheng, isolated because of his fate, abused for his appearance

Qi Rong, mental illness ignored and left untreated

Mu Qing, abused for being poor

Feng Xin, isolated by dint of being the prince's sole companipn

Quan Yizhen, abused for being different/"acting weird" (being autistic, imo)

Banyue, abused for being of mixed heritage

He Xuan, cursed

Meanwhile, their stories are often contrasted directly against those people who had a supposedly more normal experience - like Yin Yu and Quan Yizhen, where Yin Yu has a solid community (but that community is actually toxic, see also how they all treat Quan Yizhen and somehow treat the results as Yin Yu's responsibility), and the Shi family versus He Xuan (except Shi Wudu is an awful person which leads to, ya know, everything - this one is the most direct and obvious contrast since He Xuan's ruined childhood and life are the direct result of Shi Wudu's actions to protect his in group with zero regard for anyone in the outgroup who might get hurt), and the Peis contrasted with Banyue (while Pei Xiu cared for Banyue there must have been background familial pressure on him not to interact, or else she wouldn't have been starving on the streets and wouldn't have had to rely on Xie Lian, and meanwhile Pei Ming's "family" - his army - ultimately betrays him while claiming to act for him.)

And of course, the Prince of Wuyong with his harem, uh, I mean four BFFs who helped him govern, compared with Xie Lian, who has only himself, Feng Xin, and Mu Qing - as in three teenagers being left to fend basically for themselves in the face of kingdom-shattering disaster. And there's also Jun Wu's construction of heaven, held together by the glue of manipulation and forced conformity with so many scandals kept under wraps. (Yes I've read the whole book. I'm trying to keep this readable for people who haven't. If you've also read the whole thing you can easily carry this paragraph to a logical conclusion about Jun Wu's actions in heaven.)

Idk that I've got enough brain to tie this all together with a neat bow, but I just feel like there's something here, about how hard so many of these people try to do the right thing but it's difficult because of their harm caused to them by the neglect and abuse of their childhood, and about how family and support networks only function to help if those supports aren't broken and toxic, about how the found family Xie Lian ultimately manages to construct functions because they all love each other despite their baggage instead of constantly being on the lookout for how to tear each other down over the least sign of nonconformity.

I hope this is coherent. Idk just, since I've been sick I've just reread like more than half of the book in less than a week (English books 3, 4, and 5) and it's giving me thoughts.