Given that she doesn't ask people to call her Ge Lan, it seems that she likes this chance to "start anew"/not take on the burdens of her prior life again.

I like that interpretation! But it could also be that she feels torn/not ready to make a decision, and just lets everyone call her what they will. Or maybe she's good with being called both names - after all, she never asks Sang Zan to call her Wang Zheng either.

I always interpreted it as her going there of her own accord

Yeah, me too, but when I rewatched it for this post, she looked so out of it to me, I thought it was worth asking. She's probably just out of it for emotional reasons, though.

Da Qing was there 10k years ago, so either the Awl debodied someone unfortunate back then, or it debodied people between being carried out of Dixing and being given to the Hanga Tribe and he heard about it. I guess it could also be that debodying people was someone's Dixing power?

All good ideas! You could do a lot with that in fic. Or maybe the Awl de-bodied people while it was in Dixing! After all, there's no reason why energy people shouldn't have been able to go through a portal to Haixing, just like all the other Dixingren illegal immigrants. *g*