Canon for this series is incredibly complicated, due to the various adaptations having their own alterations to the plot and fans being more familiar with certain versions of the story over others. Predictably, the confusion caused by this has led to some misconceptions not indicated (or even disproved) by the novel.
General Fanon in all adaptations:
- The Lan Clan of Gusu has a powerful council of elders, usually comprising 33 members, and they can override the sect leader's decisions whenever they please. Yet, there is never a mention of any such group existing, and the number 33 was for the number of elders that came to confront Lan Wangji and were injured by him when he defended Wei Wuxian.
- Many mistakenly think that Jiang Fengmian adopted Wei Wuxian into his family. In canon, he only took the boy into his sect (because he was friends with his parents) and made him a disciple. While he acted as a guardian for all intents and purposes and Wei Wuxian was a close martial brother to his children, the latter was not officially a part of the family.
- The novel mentions Jin Ling spending his childhood at both Golden Carp Tower and Lotus Pier and he owns the Jiang Clan's Clarity Bell, indicating that Jiang Cheng does play some sort of caretaking role. Thanks to this, fans like to headcanon that Jiang Cheng raised Jin Ling, due to being the last surviving relative on his mother's side. However the boy is the only known heir to the Jin Clan of Lanling, he always wears their robes, and due to Chinese culture, his ties to his father's clan override his mother's, which all points to Jin Guangyao being his official parental guardian moreso than Jiang Cheng.
- Admittedly due to several translation issues, many unironically call Wei Wuxian's powers as demonic cultivation. His cultivation is only referred to that way by people in-series who don't know what they're talking about or who are deliberately being insulting. He himself consistently refers to his "guidao" (or "ghostly/tricky/crafty arts") in Chinese.
- In fanfictions, there's a tendency of authors to write Lan Wangji's speech as monosyllabic, either speaking in sentence fragments or talking in third person. The confusion arises from the brevity of his speech compared to others in the original language. Although his speech in Chinese is compressed, it's also a form of elegant fluidity and a highly formal register. The English equivalent would be a succinct yet sophisticated manner of speaking, not overly simplified and improper sentences.
- Some fans think that The Twin Prides of Yunmeng was an official title (similar to how the Lan brothers came to be known as the Twin Jades of Gusu), and Wei Wuxian leaving tore an iconic duo apart. In canon, it was only a youthful hope expressed idly to cheer up another boy and due to a multitude of reasons, that hope never came to pass.
- The most popular fan theory is Lan Wangji playing Inquiry for 13 years after Wei Wuxian's death to search for his soul. While a prevalent fan theory, there are two things that fans get wrong:
- Many fans believe that inquiry is summoning the soul itself, which is actually the evocation technique. Inquiry is not a song but Morse code where one plays a question in song form and the ghost replies via the instrument and the ghost itself must be nearby for it to work, which is impossible in Wei Wuxian's case as his soul couldn't be found.
- The novel itself never mentions anything like this as it's implied that Lan Wangji, while still hoping to see him again, was willing to move on after his death. The source of this fan theory isn't known as it is sometimes attributed to being from a Chinese fanfic that's tagged as out of character. However, some adaptations reference this as a few official songs have lyrics of him playing the guqin to seek Wei Wuxian's ghost. An altered form of this was implemented in the donghua.note
- Regarding Lan Sizhui's status:
- Many fics run with the premise that Lan Wangji adopted Lan Sizhui as his son. Lan Wangji did have a hand in raising Lan Sizhui as a way to honor Wei Ying, yet there's no mention anywhere in the novel that the former did adopt him; rather, he was adopted by the sect itself. Lan Sizhui himself addresses him more as a respected senior and guardian than a parent (but he did say that Lan Wangji was like a father and brother to him), and the latter likewise treats him as a favored disciple.
- Similarly, many fans take Wei Wuxian's joking that he "gave birth" to A-Yuan literally and, alongside Lan Wangji, treat him as his officially adopted son. In the actual story, there's no official adoption as it's Granny Wen who is the parental figure for A-Yuan, though he was also Raised by the Community by Wei Wuxian and the Wen Remnants. After learning his origins in the end, Lan Sizhui honors his biological family and treats Wei Wuxian as a respected elder in the extras.
- Many fans like to portray Lan Sizhui calling Lan Wangji his "baba" or "A-die" note and sometimes calling Wei Wuxian his "A-niang" note even if he never called them that in canon. Likewise, Wei Wuxian calling Lan Sizhui "radish" is very popular in fanfics and fanart.
- It's popular for Lan Sizhui to be depicted as the Head Disciple of the Lan Clan based on his mature personality, being Lan Wangji's ward, and events in the novel making him the unofficial leader of the juniors.
- Many fanfics like to write Wangxian calling each other many kinds of endearments when they never use any of that in the story (except for the one time Wei Wuxian fired off names during their first time), with "A-ying", "Ying-er" and "Zhan-er" the more popular ones.
- There are many fans who believe and even write fics that Lan Sizhui will succeed Lan Xichen or Lan Wangji as the Sect Leader of the Lan Clan. The problem is that Lan Sizhui isn't of Lan bloodline nor adopted by Lan Xichen or Lan Wangji, and with how inheritance works in Chinese Culturenote and MXTX hinting that Lan Xichen might get married and have an heir someday, he is way far down in the succession ladder because of this.
- One of the most popular fans is Lan Xichen ships Lan Wangi and Wei Wuxian together. He did encourage his younger brother to befriend Wei Wuxian in their youth but was unaware of Wangji's true feelings until stumbling on Lan Wangji's implied confession after the Bloodbath of Nightless City. It's also hinted a few times he's not entirely on board with them romantically involved due to Wei Wuxian's reputation and assuming that Wei Wuxian is playing with his brother's feelings. Unlike Fanon, his acceptance of their relationship is more of ambivalence than approval.
- The fanon of the Lan Clan being strictly vegetarians likely stems from a few of their rules like the "No killing animals in Cloud Recesses" rule, their Plain Palate, and from Wei Wuxian complaining about their bland vegetarian diet, whereas it's shown a few times that they have no problem eating meat outside Cloud Recesses.
- The fandom tends to think that Lan Wangji goes "wherever the chaos is" to search for Wei Wuxian's ghost and to honor his memory. Like the 13 Years of Inquiry fanon, he already has a penchant for saving people as he earned his title from all the good deeds he did for the populace even without Wei Wuxian's influence. If anything, it's Jiang Cheng who refuses to move on with his life and still believes his martial brother will return one day by possessing demonic cultivators.
- Fandom likes to think that the Lan Clan had a curse that they can only love someone once. It’s a conjecture born that once from what happened to Lan An, Qingheng-jun, and his sons' relationships in the novel as all of them get heavily invested in one person, made great sacrifices for them, and fall apart before secluding themselves when that person passed away. Wei Wuxian did remark that the Lan Clan is quite romantic in nature due to this trait.
- So many fanfics take the premise of Lan Wangji giving Wei Wuxian a pair of chickens as a sneaky way to ask for marriage literally. It does have this connotation in China, but the context of the scene is all about Lan Wangji's acting on his hidden desire to recreate Wei Wuxian's youthful escapades while drunk(stealing chickens, jujubes, and drawing graffiti on the wall).
- Some fans mistakenly think Lan Qiren putting a rule on the wall of discipline forbidding anyone from talking to Wei Wuxian. He created such a rule for the juniors, but it's more out of general pettiness as there's no indication that it was inscribed on the Wall of Discipline.
- This is a rather persistent belief held by Western fans that Qingheng-jun's teacher forced himself on Madam Lan, which is the reason why she killed him. But in the novel, no one's really sure what exactly went down during that time, except it's stated that she killed him because of "past grievances".
- There's no confirmation that Wei Wuxian was forced to eat corpses during his time at the Burial Mounds, but as he is stuck in a Corpse Land for months with no way to practice inedia after losing his Golden Core, his way of torturing Wen Chao is forcing him to eat his own flesh, and Wei Wuxian alluding to Jiang Cheng that people will eat anything if they're desperate, it's easy to believe that he had no choice but to eat the corpses to survive.
- In canon, Wei Wuxian immediately figured out that Lan Wangji might have deeper feelings towards him once he sorted out his feelings for the man, but his fear of destroying their friendship and a genuine moment of misunderstanding made him afraid of pushing his luck until the events of Guanyin Temple. Yet fans still tend to portray him as totally Oblivious to Love in fanon even if other people are pointing out Lan Wangji's feelings towards him.
- There's no indication that Lan Qiren expelled Wei Wuxian from the Cloud Recesses after his fight with Jin Zixuan, but fans still insist that he did. In the novel, Wei Wuxian followed Jiang Fengmian back to Lotus Pier on his own (due to Jiang Cheng's persuasion as well).
- Some fans' headcanon that after the events of the novel, Mo Xuanyu's body slowly changes to resemble Wei Wuxian's past body. Nothing of this sort is ever hinted at in the story.
- There's a common notion by fans that Wei Wuxian is very reckless, likes to stir up trouble for no reason, and doesn’t think about the consequences of his actions. This is very far from the truth as the novel points out many times he is very aware of his standing in life and knows his actions will have huge repercussions (which is why he left the Jiang Sect in the first place), yet he doesn't hesitate to do it because it is the right thing to do.
- There's a prevalent fanon that the Wen Remnants would have been pardoned if Wei Wuxian just told someone that the remnants were innocent people, with Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue the usual ones who will always believe him. This is already disproven in canon as Wei Wuxian is well aware that society never sees the Wen Remnants as human anymore and they all choose to ignore, choose to not believe him, and not even investigate his claims even if he spoke it out in public for his status in life. The two men mentioned? Nie Mingjue has a grudge against the Wen Clan and will find any reason to let them die, while Lan Xichen himself didn't investigate further even if he was at the site of the confrontation itself.
- There's a misconception that Wei Wuxian saved all the remaining Wen prisoners from the labor camp. In the novel text, he only saved fifty-or-so within Wen Ning's group in the novel, leaving the rest of the Wen remnants who aren't part of the group behind.
- It's extremely common in fanfics to portray ''everyone'' immediately seeing that Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian are gay and have a thing for each other even in their youth, even pushing them to get together if both men are written as totally Oblivious to Love. This isn't the case in canon; rumors made everyone, even Wei Wuxian himself, believe that both men hate and oppose each other. Only the juniors are alright with the idea of them being together, everyone else is either against their relationship (Jiang Cheng and Lan Qiren) or ambivalent/low-key disgusted about them getting together.
- Even if it's clear Wei Wuxian intends to cut off everything from his first life except for Jin Ling and never wants to go back to the current Lotus Pier, nearly all post-canon fics have Wei Wuxian wanting to go back to his old home and making up with Jiang Cheng after the events in Guanyin Temple, even calling this "Yunmeng bros reconciliation".
- Fans who write everyone as a Cast Full of Gay when shipping the male characters would always ignore the homophobia ingrained within the society or the social obligations of the sect leaders to sire an heir to continue the family bloodline, writing everybody as accepting of all the relationships. Ironically, MXTX herself commented on this phenomenon and jossed all the shipping except for the canon ones in her interviews.
Fanon created by The Untamed:
- Many people like to portray Wen Qing as a lesbian if not shipping her with Jiang Cheng. She and Wen Ning are also popularly turned into Shipper on Deck for Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, especially in Alternate Universe Fics.
- Thanks to the changes in The Untamed and the way his death is handled, it's a common misconception for fans to believe that Wei Wuxian is suicidal and he wasn't happy being brought back. No such thing is in canon as Wei Wuxian has proven himself to be the type to fight tooth or nail to survive even if the odds are against him and while he was surprised at being brought back, he never stated that he didn't want to be resurrected.
- Many fics set in the live-action adaptation have the tendency of Wangxian calling themselves or each other Zhiji all the time. This is mostly used by Western fans who mistakenly think it's a romantic word similar to or even means the word "soulmates" and are not familiar with what the word means in Chinese.note
- Thanks to his Adaptation Personality Change, It's an extremely popular notion in fanfics that Wei Wuxian has low self-esteem, self-confidence, or crippling insecurity. Wei Wuxian in the novel is a very proud man and confident in his abilities (to the point of overconfidence) and loves to flaunt them in his youth, which is why many cultivators spread disparaging rumors against him to peg him down. He may have low self-worth because of a combination of his Guilt Complex, being The Scapegoat for many people, and his life debts forcing him to put other people before himself.
- Due to the way demonic cultivation is portrayed in the live-action and him not being the founder of the "Ghostly Path", a rumor in the novel becomes canon in fans' minds as this causes them to mistakenly think that Wei Wuxian is truly corrupted by his powers, with many fanfics running with this premise.
- More than a few fans combine his love for wine and trauma during the war to depict him as an alcoholic Drowning His Sorrows to cope with the trauma he experienced during the Sunshot Campaign. In reality, there is not a single passage in the novel that says he's drinking his life away after the war or suffering from trauma. He does drink many times during the story and is stated to have a high tolerance for alcohol, yet he's never referred to as an alcoholic anywhere.
- A popular fanon as to why Lan Wangji accepted the Chief Cultivator position (aside from the censorship) is that he wanted to make a better world for Wei Wuxian to live in when he returns.
