@flucket ...
Once again, I lost what your post was and have to go off my memory! But thanks for pitching in (even if you delete it afterwards
).
What amuses me here is that, while we all agree with what it should be -- on practice, it is still pretty vague because even in the examples I offered, people's opinions differ on which example satisfies FaceSlapping criteria and which does not.
Re: the concept of "face" --
I also come from a culture that uses "face" as a honor/self-esteem/reputation allegory. But the thing is -- a lot of the actual face-slapping episodes I've read in xianxia are done in one-on-one situations where there is not so much loss of dignity or the destruction of the image being done as just the normal "revenge" humiliation that wouldn't go outside the parties who are doing the deed.
Likewise, when
@flucket quoted Cersei's Shame-walk being an ego-destroying moment but Light Yagami's "Lol, you're just a serial killer" is not -- I have to ask: was Light Yagami not in front of several peers who had held immense respect for him? And he had even managed to intimidate at least one of them by his "tall talk" about his ideology and actions.
It's only after Near calls him out on that when Light snaps and has to run away -- with nobody following him because they don't even need to. He has lost everything already, including his life and everyone's respect. I get it that Light does not feel shame or humiliation therefore it is not ego-destroying to him. But I think he never will. He is just not a kind of a person who knows shame (I think).
Actually, there is this common storyline in JJBA (Jojo's Bizarre Adventure) villains that they are laser-focused on victory regardless of how low, shameful, or indignant they have to become in order to get ahead. Losing face for them is nothing. Just one of the many things to manipulate in order to win.
Does it mean that there are no face-slapping moments there? I think some of the beatdowns and humiliation of such villains there are considered to be one of the most satisfying to watch. Thus... face-slapping is not necessarily about destroying esteem/respect/self-image?
So as always, I am both intrigued and confused.
I like this version of an explanation better ^^. Thanks!
And I think it gels well with the next one, too:
I think, in short -- it just means that face-slapping would constitute a specific attack at the most vulnerable specific facet of pride of an enemy, and that's it...?
For almost all foes -- it's pride and ego.
But it can manifest in different ways. Being proven ideologically wrong can hit someone like Griffith harder than being humiliated in front of others in some other way.
Their peerless image dragged through mud will devastate a socially-conscious antagonist but will not harm one who is like a cockroach, only focused on surviving and getting away no mater what.
For some of them, being invisible and unseen is the point of pride (Littlefinger, Kira Yoshikage, etc) and even the threat of exposure is a face-slap because they have failed against their own arbitrary rules of what makes them cool.
Likewise, for someone like Cersei, being shamed is not so much devastating because she is
being shamed but (as far as I remember her bitching about it all) -- the fact that she: 1) did it to herself by scheming beyond hr capabilities, 2) males in the same exact situation as her -- were NOT shamed --> it is MUCH more unjust that
she is. (Not so much the question of pride as the question of overall injustice, though
).
I think that's the closest I've gotten to deciphering face-slapping for myself! (*v*)
Thanks everyone for pitching in!
Huggles to all!