Wei Wuxian’s self-confidence
I don’t understand where so many people get the idea that Wei Wuxian has self-esteem issues. I mean, we’re talking about this guy:
Before he could finish, the boy had already disappeared, leaving behind him his bow and arrows.
Wei WuXian was speechless. He felt his chin, Am I really so charming? So charming that I scared him away?
He’s joking of course, but he knows he’s handsome and charming.
He turned to Jiang YanLi, “Shijie, do you know Lan WangJi?”
Jiang YanLi, “I do. He’s that Second Young Master Lan whom everyone describes as handsome and talented, isn’t he? Is he really that handsome?”
Jiang YanLi, “Compared to you?”
Wei WuXian thought about it for a moment, “Maybe just a bit more handsome than me.”
He formed a quite a tiny length of space between two fingers. Taking the plate away, Jiang YanLi smiled, “He must be truly very handsome, then. It’s a good thing you made a new friend. In the future, you two can visit each other in your free time.”
Not only is Wei Wuxian aware that he is very handsome, but others know he’s aware too, which is why Jiang Yanli uses his looks for comparison when she asks about Lan Wangji’s. And Lan Wangji is considered a peerless beauty, so saying he’s “just a bit more handsome” than him says a lot about Wei Wuxian’s self-perception.
Wei Wuxian is also extremely confident in his skills and he openly admits it:
Wei WuXian stood forward, accustomed to it. Madam Yu scolded, “You’re like this again! If you yourself don’t seek progress, then don’t drag Jiang Cheng along to fool around with you. You’re going to be a bad influence to him.”
Wei WuXian looked startled, “I don’t seek progress? Why, am I not the one with the most progress in the entire Lotus Pier?”
Wei WuXian spoke to Wen QiongLin in a serious tone, “I’ll be off to the competition now. Later, you can see how I shoot when I’m in the arena…”
Jiang Cheng dragged him away, short of patience. He spat as he dragged, “See how you shoot? Do you think that you’re a model or something?!”
Wei WuXian thought for a moment before replying, “Yeah. Am I not?”
“Wei WuXian! I haven’t seen anyone as shameless as you!”
Wei Wuxian is incredibly comfortable in his own skin, doesn’t think less of himself for being the “son of a servant” and doesn’t care about what others think of him, so much so that he can come across as cocky and arrogant, especially to people who judge him in bad faith.
Wei Wuxian’s self-confidence is also something that’s directly acknowledged by himself and other characters:
Wei WuXian grinned, “[…] You should be glad you didn’t study at the YunmengJiang Sect, Sect Leader Su.”
Su She’s voice was cold, “Why?”
Wei WuXian, “Or else you would’ve long since been angered to death by me. When I was young, every day I wholehearted believed that I was a prodigy, that I was such a fucking big deal. And not only did I believe it in my heart, I even flaunted it everywhere.”
Jiang Cheng, “Wake up. Lan WangJi told you to get lost, didn’t you hear? You still remember that?”
Wei WuXian, “What do you know!? Even though he told me to get lost on the surface, I know for sure that he secretly wants to come play with me in Yunmeng—in fact, he would love to.”
Jiang Cheng, “I think of the same question every single day—just where do you find so much confidence?”
Wei WuXian, “Stop thinking about it. If I thought about a question for so many years and couldn’t find an answer, I would’ve given up long ago.”
Wei Wuxian considers himself a prodigy, and has every reason to. He’s exceptionally talented and smart, he’s far ahead of his peers in his cultivation despite fooling around a lot, he has an incredibly inventive mind and manages to think outside the box. There are times where he is overconfident, but most of the time he has a clear understanding of himself and his own abilities, which is a great thing! Honestly, everyone should aspire to have his level of self-confidence.
We see that in his second life, Wei Wuxian acts in a less brash and cocky way, but this doesn’t mean he has lost his confidence. He’s simply become wiser, knowing when it’s time to draw attention to himself and when it’s better to take a step back and let the matter rest.
He had always been voicing different opinions than the rest, ringing quite starkly against the passionate speeches among the crowd. Some people already seemed very much offended.
Sect Leader Yao spoke loudly, “This is called, the net of Heaven has large meshes, but it lets nothing unwanted through.”
Hearing this, Wei WuXian smiled, and stopped speaking.
He knew that right now, nobody could take in what he said. Nobody would carefully consider his suspicions either. A few more words, and maybe the others would start to position themselves against him again. If it were ten years ago, he wouldn’t care about other people at all. He’d say whatever he wanted, and others would have to hear them whether they wanted to or not. Now, however, Wei WuXian no longer had the interest in taking the limelight this way.
He doesn’t want to repeat what happened in the past, with the entire cultivation world turning against him, so he balances his impulse to speak up with these considerations. When he was younger, he certainly didn’t hesitate to stand out against public opinion even when he knew doing so would put a target on his back, but now he understands that it’s not always worth it.
Wei Wuxian exudes confidence no matter what he does, both through his actions and words. The dialogue between him and Jiang Cheng after he rescued the Wen remnants is a good example of this:
Jiang Cheng, “[…] No matter who they are, with a surname of Wen they have committed a most heinous crime! And those who protect the Wen are at risk of being condemned by everyone! All the people loathe the Wen-dogs so badly that the worse they die the better. Whoever protects them is against the entire world. Nobody would speak for them, and nobody would speak for you either!”
Wei WuXian, “I don’t need anyone to speak for me.”
Jiang Cheng, “Wei WuXian! Don’t you understand? When you’re standing on their side, you’re the bizarre genius, the miraculous hero, the force of the rebellion, the flower that blooms alone. But the second your voice differs from theirs, you’ve lost your mind, you’ve ignored morality, you’ve walked the crooked path. You think you can be immune to all those condemnations as you stay outside of the world and do whatever you want? No such precedent has happened before!”
Wei WuXian shouted, “If there’s been no precedent, then I’ll be the precedent!”
As we are shown by this exchange, Wei Wuxian knew that no one was willing to help him, but he was confident that he could help the Wen remnants by himself anyway. While his arrogance during and after the Sunshot Campaign was in part a front (mainly to hide the fact that he didn’t have a golden core anymore), it’s also part of his general attitude. He’s aware of the extent of his powers and abilities, so he believes he can shoulder everything on his own without having to rely on other people’s help. And in a sense, he’s not wrong. He was doing fine during the years he spent in the Burial Mounds before what happened at Qiongqi Path, so it’s not entirely unreasonable for him to think so. But at the same time, the idea of being able to do whatever he sets his mind to, regardless of how difficult the circumstances may be and without relying on anyone else, is an example of the overconfidence of his youth, just like how he thought he could control his demonic cultivation perfectly before he lost control. It’s true that he didn’t exactly have another choice, but it’s also just part of who he is, of his impulse to always “attempt the impossible”.
Wei Wuxian isn’t only proud of his talents and skills, he’s also proud of his attitude. He knows he understands the Jiang Sect’s motto because it resonates with his own philosophy: “let the self judge the right and the wrong, let others decide to praise or to blame, let gains and losses remain uncommented on” (Chapter 75). Wei Wuxian knows he is a moral person with a strong sense of justice, he trusts his own conscience more than society’s rules because he’s an indomitable free spirit who will never let others dictate what he should or shouldn’t do. He follows his own moral compass and puts himself at risk to help others without expecting anything in return, simply because it’s the right thing to do. It takes a lot of courage to do that, but also a lot of confidence that he is in the right, even when everyone else tells him he’s wrong.
Wei Wuxian acknowledges his own mistakes, he knows he isn’t perfect, but his overall opinion of himself is quite high. And this is a very healthy attitude to have. People often tend to be overly harsh on themselves or wallow in self-pity because they feel insecure, but he never does that. He always defends himself when he gets accused unfairly, he has no intention of shouldering the blame for things he didn’t do, despite the guilt he feels for the mistakes he did make. He knows wallowing in self-pity doesn’t accomplish anything, and he’s also determined to leave all the regrets and bad memories in the past, since he can’t do anything to change them. He only wants to move on and focus on the good things in his life, without repeating the same mistakes again. Also, in the present he has Lan Wangji by his side, so he doesn’t need to do everything by himself anymore.
Wei Wuxian’s fear to confess his feelings to Lan Wangji is often treated as proof of his supposed lack of self-worth, but the text doesn’t actually support this interpretation.
Although in the past few days, he felt that Lan WangJi probably regarded him highly and differently from other people, he’d never dared to guess just how ‘highly’ it was or if ‘differently’ was the kind that he thought. Wei WuXian never thought of being confident as bad, and in fact prided himself on such a thought. Legends often gossipped about the YiLing Patriarch’s allegedly amorous life, but in reality, he’d never experienced such hectic feelings before. He used to think that Lan WangJi was too easy of a person to understand, but things were different now. He feared that he was the only one who thought of them that way, that it was all his own wishful thinking, that he was too confident for his own good.
Wei Wuxian never questions if he’s worthy of Lan Wangji’s love or if he deserves it, nor does he fail to notice how highly Lan Wangji regards him. He’s just afraid that he’s reading too much into it, that Lan Wangji’s acts of kindness and loyalty aren’t a sign of his romantic interest, but of how much he values him as a friend. This kind of doubt doesn’t indicate low self-esteem, it’s quite normal for someone who is in love but doesn’t know for sure if the other person reciprocates. Wei Wuxian is afraid of not receiving the answer he’s hoping for and having his heart broken, on top of potentially ruining their friendship if it turned out Lan Wangji doesn’t in fact think of him in the same way. Besides, Lan Wangji is legitimately difficult to read, with his stoic face and reserved personality. It’s not like he’s been trying to let his feelings known, since he believes Wei Wuxian is already aware of them. If anything, he’s afraid of being too forward for fear of making Wei Wuxian uncomfortable.
In conclusion, we have a lot of passages in the text that show how Wei Wuxian is an extremely self-confident person. Nothing in the novel suggests it’s only a front to hide his insecurities, or that he even has any insecurities at all. The rare times we see him unsure of something it’s for reasons that don’t have anything to do with his self-esteem.
(All the translations are by Exiled Rebels Scanlations)
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