Favorite Characters: Xu Xialing (Shang-Chi)

*A few Xialing-related spoilers.*

With Eternals coming out this weekend, I figured I’d better get in another Shang-Chi post. As the sibling of the main hero, Xialing joins such fine company as Shuri and Loki in kicking butt and stealing scenes.

When the Ten Rings comes after Shang-Chi in San Francisco, his biggest worry is that they’ll go after his younger sister next. Like Shang-Chi, Xialing eventually left Wenwu’s compound and made her own way in the world. While Shang-Chi fled to the West, Xialing settled in Macau, where she aspired to make a name for herself.

Xialing is a character fueled by resentment and anger. As much as Shang-Chi suffered under Wenwu’s attention in their childhood, young Xialing longed for it, wanted to train like her brother, wanted her father to notice her. So, Shang-Chi hides when he runs, but Xialing does no such thing. She makes noise, establishing her own underground fight ring in Macau, where sorcerers in the mystical arts battle gamma-radiation creatures and former Widows fight Extremis-enhanced soldiers. She claims no powers, but her skills still place her in the center ring, winning both acclaim and notoriety. “If my father won’t let me into his empire, I’ll build my own,” she explains to Katy.

Xialing, and her establishment, are both impressive – not to mention, the MCU timeline means she would’ve been doing most of this during the Blip, quite the time to be venturing out on your own. But her grudges are what propel her accomplishments. She resents Wenwu for ignoring her, favoring Shang-Chi over her, and she resents Shang-Chi for leaving her alone with Wenwu when he ran away. When Shang-Chi comes looking for her in Macau, hoping to protect her, he finds a young woman who doesn’t need protecting and who isn’t ready to forgive.

All this places Xialing into an interesting gray zone in the story. She’s not a villain – when they find out what Wenwu is planning, she sets aside her grievances with Shang-Chi just enough so that they can team up to stop their father – and she fights alongside the good guys when it counts, but you can’t quite call her a good guy, either. There’s a lot of darkness and pain in her that she needs to deal with before she can truly put it behind her, and in the meantime, that anger over what she feels she’s owed will guide some of her choices.

This positions her closer to Loki or Nebula. She has yet to reach either of them at their worst, but she’s teetering – it remains to be seen how far she’ll let her hurt drive her down a dangerous path, or what she may do if Shang-Chi tries to stop her. Within that, though, there’s still hope. After all, both Loki and Nebula, in time, come to stand beside their sbilings and fight with them, and Xialing already has an important breakthrough with her brother on the battlefield at Ta Lo.  While it’ll be interesting to see where her continuing anger takes her, I hope she’s eventually able to pull herself back from the brink with Shang-Chi’s help.