I just want to ask.. I read your tianshan headcanons and you say that He Tian will never be able to leave his "darkness". Why?? He hates his family and EVErTHING abt mafia so theres no way he'd go with it
Well, I had a feeling someone would eventually bring this up 😂. First things first, headcanons are not predictions about the events of the manhua, so let’s draw a line here, shall we? These are just some additional ideas I explore when I write.
Why do I believe He Tian won’t be able to escape his darkness completely? The answer is really simple. It boils down to a psychological phenomenon called “introjection”. To put it simply, a child subconsciously soaks up the behavioural patterns of the surrounding adult figures and incorporates their ways of thinking into their own. If young He Tian had been exposed to violence (or any other sort of detrimental behaviours) regularly, chances are those patterns became “familiar” to him, and on a subconscious level, he learned to replicate those. Unbeknownst to him, he’d be inclined to seek out similar situations AND similar people.
From the standpoint of psychology, He Tian’s childhood couldn’t have left him unscathed, therefore it’s not unreasonable to believe he’d find it challenging to put it behind. And that brings up a very interesting contradiction: he may rationally want to escape the shady and violent things, but at the same time he’s hardwired to gravitate towards their familiarity because he’s used to experiencing those.
Think of it as a classic literary conflict of a man vs self.
That type of headcanon opens up a lot of topics to explore in writing. Moreover, it encompasses He Tian’s other bonds: his relationship with his brother and father, for instance. What if one day He Tian realizes that he’s not all unlike He Cheng? What if he finds out that he’s similar to his father when he gets angry? When will he realize that on some deep and deplorable level he doesn’t mind smoke and gunfire as much as he wants to convince himself? Will he notice there’s part of him that’s hardwired to seek it out? What would it take him to change his ways? These are all fascinating questions to answer. Naturally, this is the way for me to give additional depth to the existing character. It may not come to pass in the actual canon and OX may not touch upon the subject matter at all. It takes some moderate knowledge of psychology to write it, and 19 Days isn’t a psychological drama series so it’s doubtful they’d opt for in-depth exploration of our boys’ childhoods.
On a side note, just expand the topic, some of He Tian’s nasty behaviour may stem from witnessing something similar in childhood. Upon his introduction, he acts towards Mo in an overbearing and somewhat haughty fashion, often resorting to commanding tone and occasional physical threats. Assuming his father is either a gangster or has business with gangsters (mafia, or whatever), you’d have to wonder if he was the one to give young HT a bad example. While it may not be true to canon, it’s a cool idea to put down in fanworks.
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