Discussion Why are CN readers so bloodthirsty?

AFAICT, you can draw some similarities to GTA. According to an article that I read trying to reason why the game is so popular, it was a way to channel your guilty pleasures with impunity. Whereas if you tried even half those stunts in real life, it wouldn't go so well.

So GTA was just a way to act out your fantasies without bringing it into real life. Same here, some nobody acts out your wishes to beat someone down in the most vicious way possible without getting retaliated against. Smiles and sunshine all around at the end. Except for the victim, but he ain't real so it's fine.

 

personaly i think those novels are too much bloodthristy......i prefer novel like "world of cultivation" "i shall seal the heaven" "cultivation chat group"........the first two have occasional comedy with greedy MC....the last one centered around comedy....but fighting it's not their main theme....

 

It is not even about laws, chinese novels - not all but a lot of them - consists the most petty characters in the world that have god like powers.

Though I read about pre three kingdoms time in China it was not that different from the sh*t happening in xianxias lol

 

Well you can think of this in that way: In CN novels there Exist the New Term called "Face". If MC offers someone who has a "Face" (Pretty much all have it) then they have to retaliate, cause if they let the one who harem they Ally/underling/far of Relativ of they would be a Joke. Like "He cant even take of his underling Hahahahah". And ever if said enemy of MC is doing something that the Elder of their Clan dont allow, they would let the said Enemy do it and at the End Punish themself. So Pretty much 1. MC cant harm/offer or dont give "Face" to the Enemy. 2. If Enemy´s Underling cause any Harm they themself Forbid, then MC cant stop it, cause they cant show Weakness and let a outsider stop him not can they let other´s know they let one of their own would do something lowly like what he is doing (Often Rape or kill Commoners) so they let him finish it and then Punish the one with the Family/Clan Rules (In Evildoer´s case just dont go Public till the Whole thing is over). And to kill the Rest of the Clan/Family is often like this: If you dont kill them all off they will Harm the Ones around the MC, cause if MC only kills the Main Evildoer the Elders of said Evildoer will take Revenge, cause they cant Let someone get away with killen one of them without retaliate to the MC of they would have no "Face" left. The Term "Face" is pretty much they Pride.

 

Eh, what's the point of obtaining power if you can't do whatever you want? Why not just stay weak and be a pushover for the rest of your life? Also, in many of those novel's situations, anyone else other than the MC would have been dead a thousand times over. Forgiving others because you're powerful enough that they can't do anything to you is dumb. If you're the weaker one, do you think they would spare you?

 

Maybe because they wiped out the MC's clan?

 

Like someone else said, the bloodthirsty readers don't do this just for CNs, but also any novel. I've even seen this in reviews/comments of some original fiction on royalroad. The amount of commenters calling for blood was overwhelming. Even though it didn't fit the world setting or the MC's personality at all. And at least one author listened and changed the story because of it. That was a few years ago, and one of the bigger reasons I stopped reading there. I didn't want to see more stories get changed and twisted just to cater to the loud cries for murder, torture, and blood.

I think the one who said that 'reading CN's subconsciously effects people and how they approach problems' is right.

 

It's an old term, it's called honour and reputation, it's been around for even longer than CN novels. A classic example would be from Japan where Mitsuhide betrayed Nobunaga because Nobunaga publicly insulted him. This was somewhere in 1579(?)-1580(?) so it's hardly new.

Westerners call it rep or street cred.

 

NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA

BATMAN!

Or the honour of the knights code. Or the honour of the God's like when Athena got angry at a girl and turned her into a spider... It's been around for literal millenia!

 

Actually it's just damm stupid the authors are just toying with our intelligence just imagine in one novel I read the mc was lucky to join a sect after he nearly dead as a result of a scheme by his step-man she framed him (rape) then her boy friends sent a snake demon to kill him. He was saved by a sword cultivator so he joined his sect. The number one job of all cultivators in the sect is to slay demons . the mc ignored some pampered bitch , so she snatched the technique he wanted after he got it back she became angry since the law says no fighting in the scripture pavilion she couldn't act then her admirer walked in to spite her he lied that she kissed him. When rumours started flying he choose to apologize to her and explain what happed in front of a crowd but she felt so ashamed she sneak attacked him even though she has a higher cultivation level than him. During a trail she plotted with 2 senoirs to kill the mc and she nearly succeeded she broke his two arms and forced him to kneel down in front of her. The mc vowed to kill her but when he got the chance he merely kissed her . she threatened to kill him next time and planned to but a demon captured them and other students participating in the trail . Among all the students captured she was no the most beautiful neither was she the most powerful but he choose to escape with her , they were trapped in a cave then the mc started thinking she's not a bad person that's just the way she is . after the whole event she started batting eyelashes at the mc and the MCs like she's so beautiful. Then a fox demon killed his senior apprentice brother another fox demon kidnapped the mc (same fox demon allied with 2 other sects to attack his sect) this very demon wants to charm him then absorb his cultivation by having sex with him. They finally have sex but she died because his gold finger saved him(before she died she told him a sob story about how her sister was used as a cultivation furnace by a human cultivator and asked the mc to avenge her sister he accepted and buried her calling her his wife and added his name to her grave side)... Please I need comments what happened to demons and humans been enemies how about how she reared him just so she can kill him to absorb his cultivation what happened to how she actually did absorb his cultivation (if not for his goldfinger he would be dead) what happened to how she joined others to attack his sect and is responsible for the deaths of countless people . I just don't get it so now he will kill a man because he used a demon to cultivate but the same mc will call himself a righteous do gooder and a saint

 

Let us start with this. So basically the MC got what is known as stockholm syndrome for the girl who was fucking him and trying to kill him. SImilarly he became infatuated with this girl who was pissing him off. SOOO basically he is a big fat masochist basically and falls in love wit hthese girls. Finally about killing the guy well he fell in love with this girl and basically stopped caring about his life probably at some point so now he wants to avenge her and her sister!

 

What story is this

 

The simplest explanation was that it was kinda cultural DNA.
The mainstream belief Confucism was extremely permissive for abusing of authority: women must obey men, sons must obey fathers, subjects must obey kings without questioning or being branded as disloyal, even if they were order to "just drop dead". While for a long long time, no checks and balances, like codified rules of laws or discentral political system, to reigned in what degree of authorities those superior status were vested upon: now the most superior, the king, even if they were totally rotten, had totally unchecked power, (seriously, if not for fragrant unchecked power, a whole harem with hundred of beauties and no one protested such greed, cruelty and gross?) The only checks available were those slippery "virtues" which only idiots cared and smart ones often used as blunt weapon to cobbled oppositions (given what written on those classics stories); vague "divine punishments" to the "sons of heaven" (eg. floods, droughs, famines) which came decades way too late for cold comfort for their victims.
The conclusion: it was better to be the perpetrators than the victims, and do that at all chances possible, screw ethics!
And the earliest written stories and novels in China, like "Spring and Autumn Annals", "Romance of Three Kingdoms", "Water Margin", ect., were glorifying bloody millitary feats, cunning murder schemes or high-handedness of historical figures as virtuous and herioc. Later stories or novels just followed that literature tradition. So, it was just the usual stuffs for writers and readers soaked in Chinese literature tradition.

 

Paragraphing please!!!

 

Well, I'm not from China and after reading 4-5 repeats of the same asshole coming back to cause trouble for the MC, I'm hoping the other guy gets offed finally too. How would you explain that? I never met or read any Chinese Emperor or any of the Chinese "Classics" but I'm equally blood thirsty. Subluminal messaging maybe?

Or just simply a super annoying mook villain that should have been offed long ago if not for plot.... Even US law allows for killing in self defence you know and if someone had come after you with murder in mind, the most logical thing would be to put him underground if the cops can't get him to stop. Not let him go to for another try.

 

To be perfectly honest, I'm sick of the whole "exterminate all threats to prevent future troubles" rhetoric, both from authors/characters and from readers.
It makes sense sometimes, but I've seen far too many cases in stories where that is the thing that actually caused more conflict rather than solve it.

 

I read a novel whose main genre was comedy. The MC docent like to needlessly kill cause they came from wold were humans were dying. Halfway throughout the novel the genres suddenly shift and there whole family exterminations(even servants) and chopping of newborn babies heads. It was a good novel but that really made me put it down for a few months

 

Not the fault of the concept if the writer wants to keep having a recurring villain lol.
And I suspect it is exactly because of that overuse that makes the readers go "just kill him already....."

And now that I looked at your post more carefully, isn't that a circle?
More filler "conflict" -> More readers telling the writer to just end the bugger -> "exterminate" -> More "conflict" -> More annoyed readers.

 

Well, @Nightow1, it's impossible for others to understand your psyche enough to give proper explanation to your mood swings, except shrinks and yourself maybe.
And that whole running gags between Batman and Joker was indeed very grating. I got annoyed by both of them anyway. But I'm kinda skeptical about the slippery slope of killing for self-defense, like playing judge, jury, executioner and god by oneself. So if disabling attackers was possible, avoiding killing was better option for me, for who am I to judge others? and I have no right to take away others' lives.
What I talked about was my own observations on only Chinese literature tradition and its pervasive, long-lasting influences on local norms. Just like fantasy theme stories were popping up one after an other after the success of Harry Potter series.
I didnot claim to make a 3000 pages dissertation on which degrees any locals within any possible cultures were influenced by any possible combinations of different types of cultural inheritances.

 

If we are talking in practical terms, the self defence laws are actually worldwide and in law for a very, very long time (can't remember how far back it goes but definitely in the range of a few hundred years), it's just that it is not invoked very often due to society leaning towards law and order but back in the Wild West, it definitely got invoked more than a few times. It's not like it is self defence if you go out and wack someone on the head but if the person comes to you and tries to do you harm. Remember "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." especially if they just sat there to be beaten.