Never understood why some people mischaracterize Xie Lian as this petty rich boy who doesn’t understand the struggles of the common people or as some shallow guy whose care is surface level.

Yes at first he’s arrogant and sheltered and very ignorant about the true state of the common people, but he’s always had a big heart and a strong sense of empathy and duty to his people.

In book 2, he desperately tries everything to save people on both sides of the Xian Le/Yong An budding civil war. He makes sacrifices to bring rain to Yong An and to try and save people suffering from the human face disease.

Ultimately his efforts are in vain as he is blamed for everything that happens and his temples are desecrated. And so the beautiful crown prince falls and becomes a true commoner.

But even before that, Xie Lian was the type of person to see Mu Qing’s struggles and give him the opportunity that no one else would, the type to defy heaven’s will first by saving bby Hua Cheng and then by invoking Heaven’s wrath by getting involved in human conflict

It’s because he’s inherently empathetic. And yes at first that empathy was rough around the edges bc of his privilege and naïveté and pampered lifestyle, but it’s why his change from royal crown prince and heaven’s darling to thrice ascended laughingstock of the heavens

& humble scrap collector is so important. Books 2 and 4 lay out this character development really beautifully. In book 4 especially we see that Xie Lian becomes a commoner himself and experiences the day to day emotional and physical toil of the working class and the poor

He’s lost his power and title, his parents are ailing and getting older, he’s down to 2 loyal friends who both leave him, he’s forced to steal, he’s starving and bitter and angry and traumatized

He truly learns what it means to have both his body and heart in the abyss.

And then he spends 800 years as a commoner. A humble scrap collector who eats food off the ground and who often lives in the streets and who barely gets by. For the vast majority of his life, XL has actually lived as a commoner — his privileged status lasted only 17-20 years

Compare that to 800 years of living as a commoner and dealing with the mundane realities of poverty. XL knows better then anyone at this point what commoners go through and what struggles they deal with because he’s borne them all on his own shoulders and survived.

This is the point of his journey... for him to help the common people he really had to become one of them, to shatter his own biases and prejudices and privileges.

And just look at the juxtaposition of XL coming from rich to poor and downtrodden vs. MQ, HC, HX, SWD, and SQX all starting from a place of abject poverty and ending up very powerful in different ways

This is deliberate — it highlights that XL’s journey is one of deconstruction whereas HC was one of building himself from the ground up. And XL is deconstructed but learns to survive and keep himself whole and sane and strong no matter what.

You don’t have to like XL, but again, it’s clear you didn’t read the novel properly or probably didn’t even read all parts of the novel if you so grossly mischaracterize him lol