my brainge about lu guang's past...
cw child abuse
DISCLAIMER: im not a psychologist i am a simple writer who just googles things obsessively!!!
lg really strikes me as a character who suffered emotional and/or physical abuse as a child. i think he grew up in an unstable environment with unpredictable and potentially volatile caregivers.
typically children who experience these things as a child can develop ways to hide their true thoughts/feelings to avoid conflict and maintain some semblance of stability in their home life.
along with this, they can learn compartmentalize their mental state/emotions in an effort to deal with everything thrown at them, sort of like a constant fight or flight (survival mode).
they can learn to always be hypervigilant and maintain presence of mind in highly stressful situations because of how often they've learned how to separate their emotions and feelings from their logical mind.
i think lu guang, given his tendency to compartmentalize and internalise all his emotions, underwent all of this 🫠
i think these things from the show support this:
in general, he doesn't show much emotion. he's used to holding back constantly, and has careful control of what he lets out and doesn't let out. we rarely ever see him lose focus or be overwhelmed by emotion
when he's tortured by ltc, he barely makes any noises of pain; i think this is because he's more-so used to holding back any distressed reactions as opposed to not wanting to give ltc any sort of satisfaction
when cxs and ql dies, he makes that 'rational and thought-out' decision of diving back in time, as per director li's words. i highly doubt a lot of people can make a rational decision after losing their family and having their best friend die in front of them. he set aside his grief to focus on a plan
he's also in pain and suffering from a wound at that point, but still manages to take time to think and carefully sort through the timeline to identify that Chance to save them
the entirety of bridon arc. literally he is holding everything inside. he doesn't panic when he wakes up from a nightmare of seeing his best friend's (boyfriend's) dead body on the floor. he just carries on like he's used to shrugging it off
i think that, since he was a child, he's constantly been in survival mode. a lot of his behaviour feels like a trauma response that keeps compounding and i fear what his chronic stress will look like in s3 tbh (i hope he has the crashout of the century because ANGST)
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