Did someone else got the point of hating Chinese troupes? Why?

[Ddraig]

Or you can make an engaging story with amazing complex characters and intricate world building but I guess that is not "optimal" when you are trying to factory produce garbage soap operas in written form. Just like soap operas, the kind of average xianxia you are referring to only requires one thing - allow the readers be able to turn off their brains and serve as a medium to pass time.

What I genuinely hate about the cultivation cn novels (like any others get translated...) is just how fucking cool the world building could have been, or even a sol series in that world, exploring the markets of a magical society etc but nah we get the same shit old story cycles.

 

[Anon_Y_Mousse]

That really doesn't solve the dissonance. While it provides an in-world genre explanation, it does absolutely nothing to help the fact that it is thematically just plain wrong to have this in the genre to start with.

At the very least, the pacifists should be several times more powerful and evolve more quickly than the violent ones. That would solve the thematic issues somewhat, but then it would create the issue that it would give the violent ones less reason to be violent and thus we are back to the initial point. When thinking in thematically appropriate terms, there is absolutely no way to justify all the violence in Chinese written cultivation novels.

Western written sources solve this problem because the western written ones largely move away from the daoist aspects of the concept, shifting it more to other types of body self-improvement that are not so tied to spiritual growth and peace in their origins. Mostly, this is a product of the outsider's perspective. Westerners are more able to see the problems that the Chinese are blind to by the fact that they're constantly steeping in it.

I don't see how this is thematically wrong for the genre. Wuxia novels such as Journey to the west, which are basically the literature Xianxia is based on is already brutal to begin with. There are heavy aspects of Taoism and Buddhism, but the values aren't the focus. The entire point of the cultivation world is a large pool of people fighting for a select few resources. There is right and wrong, but the line is essentially blurred and works differently from western novels. I was somewhat taken aback too when I first read cultivation novels. But I realized it all makes sense considering the harsh environment and a reliance on reputation and strength.
More often that not, the virtuous people are weak because they don't pursue power like the bad guys.
Western authors add values of justice and righteousness, but they fail to recognize what makes a Xianxia a Xianxia. That's the ruthlessness of it all.
As someone born in a family slightly influenced by the Chinese, I notice how the west has drastically different values
Now don't get me wrong, I love the western twists on Xianxia, and I find novels like Beware of Chicken refreshing. But I don't really see them as authentic Xianxia.
These videos expand on the topic.

 

[Jemini]

I don't see how this is thematically wrong for the genre. Wuxia novels such as Journey to the west, which are basically the literature Xianxia is based on is already brutal to begin with. There are heavy aspects of Taoism and Buddhism, but the values aren't the focus.

Thing is, Journey to the West does not have a theme of USING THE ADVANCEMENT OF YOUR ENLIGHTENMENT as the device by which you gain power.

In Journey to the West, it's not based on cultivation. It's based on Chinese Mythology. As for Sanzo, (sorry, only know him by his Japanese name,) the priest in the story, he was not actually the one doing all the combat. He was not a combatant, and this is why the gods had to give him Son Wu-Kong (the inspiration for Goku) as essentially a combat slave.

Wu-Kong did not gain his immense power because he was enlightened, he gained it because he was a powerful spirit born from a mountain.

Furthermore, there is no theme of greedily collecting resources like a drug-addict. It is the retrieval of a set of sacred scrolls from a temple in the west, and in order to get to the temple they need to journey through some dangerous lands where they are attacked by what amounts to the equivalent of highwaymen and wild animals, meanwhile solving some people's problems and meeting some enlightened entities along the way.

You can give me Journey to the West any day. That's a piece of actual good literature that is in balance thematically. These later Xianxia stories are the ones that are in complete thematic dissonance.

 

[Reborn_Cat]

What I hate about Chinese novels is that there's always some sort of 3 rate background villain with some huge background trying to pick fights or being a dick just so that the mc can beat him up and look good. I mean occasionally one or two of those are good but some 30 - 40 of them per story gets annoying, then there is the fact if you deal with one of them then their dad, grandpa, great-grandpa and everyone till 40 generations ago will pick fights. Also every CN protag follows the same formula [Strength ∝ 1/Brains] and often end up being just as much of an asshole if not more than the said side villains. Even in chinese vr novels the story gets so bad due to shitty protags and villains to the point that I can't read them anymore. There are occasionally a few which are good, but 1 good story for every 1000 shitty ones isn't that great of a ratio.

 

[Anon_Y_Mousse]

Thing is, Journey to the West does not have a theme of USING THE ADVANCEMENT OF YOUR ENLIGHTENMENT as the device by which you gain power.

In Journey to the West, it's not based on cultivation. It's based on Chinese Mythology. As for Sanzo, (sorry, only know him by his Japanese name,) the priest in the story, he was not actually the one doing all the combat. He was not a combatant, and this is why the gods had to give him Son Wu-Kong (the inspiration for Goku) as essentially a combat slave.

Wu-Kong did not gain his immense power because he was enlightened, he gained it because he was a powerful spirit born from a mountain.

Furthermore, there is no theme of greedily collecting resources like a drug-addict. It is the retrieval of a set of sacred scrolls from a temple in the west, and in order to get to the temple they need to journey through some dangerous lands where they are attacked by what amounts to the equivalent of highwaymen and wild animals, meanwhile solving some people's problems and meeting some enlightened entities along the way.

You can give me Journey to the West any day. That's a piece of actual good literature that is in balance thematically. These later Xianxia stories are the ones that are in complete thematic dissonance.

The reason why I brought up JTTW as an example is while there wasn't any enlightenment of the dao or snorting magical pills, the journey and the struggle sing a similar tune. Xianxia just takes the concept and cranks up the mythology, although I will admit that a lot of Xianxia do it terribly.

Anyways, we can put that aside since its not what you're talking about.

I think I find myself agreeing with you, modern Xianxia merely uses Taoist terminology rather than the actual philosophy. BUT, I don't think that's a problem. The concept of the dao is really great, and the enlightenment is more of a mean rather than an end.

The real problem is that most Xianxias stretch themselves out for too long, and ruin the story in the process, I understand they need to get paid, but it gets boring reading essentially the same thing with different flavor.

 

[AKnightWithaKnife]

Do you dare, junior?

Bad boooooooo,kks

The cultivation concept definitely has it's appeal, the worst thing about cultivation worlds is the personality tropes of the people in the world rather than the power system itself. I have seen a few western-written cultivation words that do things FAR better than the Chinese because they escape from all those tropes and manage to successfully re-imagine the social structure of the world.

The most appealing thing about cultivation worlds actually IS the fact that so many things are just SO much stronger than the MC, but there is also the promise of the MC someday gaining the ability to overcome those foes. However, the time-line toward clearing that hurdle is often very long and painful. It's not just a few hours of grinding against weaker enemies like in liteRPG power systems.

The down-sides of the Chinese written versions is just how samy and predictable they are, and how shallow the writing is.

You always have a social structure that, close to the bottom of the power scale, seems so well designed to protect new cultivators that you need to come up with some pretty contrived ways to actually expose them to danger and create dramatic tension. Then, at the higher ends of the power scale, there's just so much of a cut-throat attitude that it makes zero logical sense. You would think people who are effectively immortal would value their lives more, but they are so quick to kill, which promotes a kill-or-be-killed culture.

Anyone with THAT kind of wisdom of years would have long since learned that showing mercy is the best way to keep YOURSELF from harm because it promotes a culture where you don't have to fear an assassin in every shadow. It's not an absolute protection, but it allows you to make allies. And having a large enough number of allies means that you have protection if anyone actually DOES come after you. Your alliance will just come down on the poor fool like a cascade. This will keep the undesirables in line, and thus increase the culture of security.

That's the thing rulers IN THE REAL WORLD figured out a long time ago.

(This, BTW, is also why the ancient world actually found the Jews to be the single most terrifying thing in that part of the world. Most normal people played by these rules, the Jews were the type of people to break the rules in places like Jerico where they kill every man, woman, child, and animal. If you are facing most other forces, you can expect to have a surrender accepted or defeat only means your soldiers are killed. The Jews would go on to kill everyone though. To a lesser degree, it's like how everyone fears ISIS now days. But, using this old testament Jews for the example should show how this culture of violence can't last. Over the generations, the Jews went from the most terrifying bunch of death-loving psychos to one of the most peaceful and enlightened intelligent religious groups out there.)

Another problem with the violence in cultivation novels is that it's all thematically based on enlightenment. Enlightenment normally means becoming more peaceful. So, why is it that cultivators always somehow become the most violent people in the world?

To be honest most of Africa has the nothing or all approach. When your enemy is your neighor you have to do complete eradication to make sure there is no loose ends