zhongli's complicated feelings abt xv getting together
i actually wrote this when working on the ganyu segment of ch. 5, actually, since the line abt zhongli's reluctance originally mentioned smth abt older workers comforting younger interns abt their friends withdrawing from friend groups after entering into romantic rlshps.
the fact that it was older workers doing the comforting eventually got cut, but it made me think A Lot abt what i wanted zhongli's feelings on the whole Ordeal to be, since if i ever paid it that much thought, i hadn't written it down prior.
so the thought process going into this rn is that like. obvs zhongli and xiao have Some Sort of father-son/ruler-subject parallel thing going on here where zhongli’s not quite xiao’s father, but they don’t exactly have the most egalitarian dynamic or anything.
zhongli obviously doesn’t own xiao, acknowledging he is his own person— this is why he is acquiescent to venti courting xiao, as long as xiao himself is willing— and so it doesn’t feel right to say that he feels like he’s losing something like that.
like, yes, it’s supposed to be similar to a father being overly-protective of a daughter, but even that is itself rooted in the fact that children will leave their parents someday. It Is Known that all children will someday separate from their natal families to form their own, which is why i want that old lady comforting the younger generation vibe: children grow up, this is normal.
(currently also using it to draw attention to the fact that amatonormativity makes people withdraw from friend groups when they get into romantic rlshps, which would be an interesting direction to take it, implying that zhongli views both xiao and venti as his friends more than anything. not fully sure what i want from there tho)
but also i guess it’s kind of funny, bc framing it like zhongli is sad about xiao leaving the family also implies that xiao is, once again, the daughter in this context, rather than a son. bc according to heteronormativity, if xiao were the son, then that means venti is marrying into zhongli’s family. which you could argue is something equally, if not more so, something to be resigned about, if you want to consider the zhongven dynamic to be truly that of an old man and his annoying friend who is also The Only friend to have gone through the same shit as him for as long as he has.
but at the same time. could it not be thought of something to rejoice and welcome? after all, a long-time friend is becoming an official part of the family!! hell yeah!!!!
in the case of zhongli being more inclined to welcome a friend into the family, then his reluctance with letting venti be with xiao specifically probably stems from a sense of venti not being Good Enough (or perhaps Good For?) xiao. which is a hard thing to argue, considering it seems that while venti’s music can keep xiao alive and purged of his debts, zhongli is, for some reason, unable to do the same with his own power. so them being together would be good for xiao’s health, so really it kind of comes back down to “barbatos is annoying (and he is being Especially Annoying by wanting to be an Item with xiao (arguably one of zhongli’s faves))”
is xiao, in some way, special to zhongli? i think it’d be hard to argue that he isn’t. therefore, venti has the potential to be Very Annoying if he gets to be with xiao. although zhongli knows that venti has his serious side to him, he also knows that venti is probably not going to be executing serious schemes seriously when there’s nothing That Serious going on, and so has grounds to doubt how much gravity venti is giving to his potential Committed Relationship with xiao. esp since he is the god of freedom why is he committing himself to one person, if not to be Annoying To Zhongli Specifically.
marriage is a contract; relationships are serious business and are woven into the fabric of the social contract. as the god of contracts, zhongli is obviously going to take this with great severity. although xv aren’t getting married, i think zhongli (and also xiao) would be upset to know that venti isn’t taking this affair as seriously as xiao most certainly would. like, that’s just not fair; there is no equal measure in the matters of their hearts.
all this considered, his resignation to the matchmaking schemes pretty much comes from like. probably the fact that he and venti haven’t exactly talked about it in much depth (until their segment happens in this chapter), and so he can’t tell for certain if venti’s being For Real or not, and that in itself is an annoying position to be in. he won’t interfere, but for as long as he can’t clearly see the weight venti so carefully hides underneath his every action, he’s going to have a hard time being happy about it.
he is an old man who knows he can’t be making xiao’s decisions for him, but still can’t bring himself to approve of this one. and bc the mystery here lies in venti, even if zhongli and xiao talked about it, there’s really nothing xiao can do to convince zhongli otherwise.
so basically. he is a grandpa who wishes that he’d taught his children they can’t make decisions for other people. bc there’s not much he can do in the situation to really change it without, like, making that decision for them in the first place, thereby rendering the lesson null. or something.
that said, it might also be important to consider again the idea of zhongli feeling like xiao is leaving him in some way by entering into a rlshp with venti, like watching two of your friends get together and leaving you to third wheel. he knows that his rlshp with xiao can never be like that btwn xiao and venti, or even like that between himself and venti: that of genuine equals. there will always be some kind of disconnect btwn himself and xiao that would make any hangout with the three of them there together a little tense in Some Way.
like ofc venti won’t be With Xiao all of the time. perhaps even a majority of the time! xiao is Definitely Not going to be leaving liyue anytime soon, and so you could also argue that zhongli is only considering a worst-case scenario or imagining nonsense bc he too is a lonely old man. and if he lets xv get together, then that technically opens up the possibility of xiao getting mopey when venti is gone for too long, bc now xiao can’t really use denial of feelings as a reason to talk himself out of being sad about it. and so if venti is gone for an excessively long time, then there’s also the possibility that his visits to xiao might feel in some way colored by Absence of Venti, and i think that’s kind of a hard position to be in, y’know. bc the only way you can help with that is by being someone else.
plus it’s hard enough to bond with xiao, to close that distance btwn them, as he is currently. if they get together and venti’s gone for a long time, then it’s again more likely that xiao will withdraw mentally and socially, which! yeah!! that’s definitely a situation that’ll make zhongli feel like he is losing Both of them!!!
i think in conclusion: it’s kind of complicated!