Discussion Why CN novels suffers from Horrible Antagonists?

Intended audience. The target audience isn't some college educated young adult with a well paying job; it's for the powerless masses who can barely get by, the college dropouts, the shut-ins and the socially inept. And nothing gives greater joy than wish fulfillment where the weak can beat the everloving fuck out of what's their social antithesis and get the girl of their dreams,

You see it in the West as well, with "Chads" and "Stacys" and "normies". Japan has the "Riajuu should explode" meme too for a reason

 

Ya DVD was a good antagonist to CD. But then USB came along and killed both of them.

 

Not putting this sentence in italics is such a waste!

Alpha bonafide badarse Male lead

So much class in one sentence!!

As for the thread's actual topic... Hmm, perhaps because they are not considered the central part of the story by the author, and so they are just a detail, a stepping stone for the hero to reach the top? Of course this is a failure on the author's part, but the fault also kids with us readers, who, for the sake of feeling the wish fulfilment drive, just forgive (and enjoy) such silly stepping stone antagonists.

 

because author want to milk more money from the series but does not have brain to create a much better char so he/she just copy paste the personality of the previous antagonist char and just put it on the body of much much much powerfull young lord/old foggy.

 

Sadly what you've been reading are those of mediocre CN with the usual tropes. There are few CN that has a good antagonist. Try martial arts master and throne of magical arcana, you will see how different those 2 novels are compared to those you have read

 

I think the only memorable villain on my end was Diwu Qing Ru from TTNH.

 

Because it is way easier to batch make disposable 1D antagonist than customizing them...

If you're bored, just drop them :x

For culivation novel antagonist, History’s Number 1 Founder got some intelectual ones that knows how to pretend to be nice, cost vs benefit and how to win by guiding your enemy to your other enemy in hope none survive. (Sadly the MC suffer from gigantic golden finger syndrome... meh can't have them all)

If you're really looking for good antagonist, try branching out to other chn genre

 

yeah, the Japanese web novels suffer from having their mc being wishy-washy and weak or boring but the Chinese web novels suffer from villain being a one time " he is a bad guy because he is" you do not get the background of why his character is not the way it is or what makes him challenging for the mc. That is why the villains in shonen jump like Frieza, Cell, Arlong, Blackbeard, Doflomingo, Akainu, Madara, Meruem, Hisoka, and Toguro are likable villains because they are not just there to be a fodder, some got beaten and defeated by the mc, but stood their ground as a villain and some like Toguro and Meruem are growing on us and you start to see them changed over time. Frieza is still a troll but he is a likable troll you liked to hate.

 

Renegade immortal had decent antagonist...just saying

 

there are many villains in media and entertainment but the best villains are the one with good investment on their character, personality, reasons for why he/she does what he/or she does, their quirks, and their backstory. Do you know why the Joker is a good villain? because he is the "Joker" I do not need to defend the joker's villain status, he will just kill you and laugh like it was a big joke. Now, that is a villain.

 

Ayy, the harem/romance aspect too. In Japanese novels, MC is either too dense or can't be a man enough to make a darn decision and in Chinese novels, there's good harem/female lead only to be forgotten in the background for 200-500 chapters because MC has to go far away or upper realms to increase his cultivation.

 

I heard Diwu Qingrou is an excellent antagonist? Haven't read TTNH that much though

 

The need them so MC can beat and steal their money and treasure to level up MC cultivation, and this kind type of arrogant young master always appear in every xianxia novels a must have characters.

 

That and alot of useless texts... there are soo much cn webnovels with their almost repetitive writings in one chapter. Really, they can just shorten it into 2~3 paragraphs and those chapters won't lose their meanings. That's why I gave up trying to read new cn webnovels, the current ones in my reading list are more than enough.

And although it's also full of tropes, the jp counterpart is by far the better ones, because the commercially published light novels are properly edited, and most of the time, the webnovel source will have some changes for better quality, rather than milking people's money for each chapter release

 

yeah, harem that is in hundreds, thousands, and even millions are just plain stupid to me. 2-5 is I guess fine if the story is not ruined but more than that is just stretching it, for every new harem member of the mc has, the less time is for others to be significantly written to matter in the story. You start to forget who is who and then the mc has levels in his harem base on who he loves more. That is why ISSTH is a good web novel because there were many girls who like the mc, he only loves one and had complex feelings for another because of the many karmas he owns her, he did not actively pursue harem. His fat friend tho kinds of show us a big contrast with the mc which is kind of good storytelling for you start to appreciate the mc for using the top organ and not the bottom.

 

I think part of the reason lies with their culture and part of the reason lies with their history.

In Japan, people are generally polite and as far as I know, there are relatively few incidents of the nouveau riche behaving badly in public. In China, things are different. I have worked with people from China and almost everyone has complaints about the nouveau riche and their offsprings, the fu er dai.

Wasting food at restaurants, physically abusing blue collar employees and so on and so forth. With that kind of background, it's no wonder that the Chinese web authors (who most probably come from working class families) like to pit their ruthless protagonists against the fictional nouveau riche in their stories. It's probably a cathartic process for these writers.

As for their history... Many Chinese believe that China paid the price for being "Mr. Nice Guy" during the 19th and 20th century. All sorts of imperialists were bullying them. Western imperialists. Japanese imperialists. Everyone was picking on China.

So no more of that. The modern Chinese will stand up to the imperialists. So it reflects in their wish fulfillment literature. The protagonist who's not Mr. Nice Guy anymore. He will no longer hide his light. The Chinese has been silent and humble for far too long.

On the other hand, the Japanese paid dearly when they last participated in a war. To this day, they are still not allowed to have a proper army.

Ah yeah, one more thing. The zombie apocalypse novels. I think there are a number of these written by Chinese authors. Some commentators were saying that the novels were unrealistic because the shift from normal civilians to cannibals happened way too fast. Mere days into the apocalypse and you have people eating each other.

But is that sort of scenario really unrealistic?

Well, during the Cultural Revolution, political dissidents were cannibalized. Not because there was lack of food but purely for political reason. So things did happen quickly. It's not like people were slowly starving and they started slaughtering family pets for food and then finally cannibalism happened. It's more like, "Hey! That's a political dissident over there! Kill him! F**k it! Eat him!"

 

Do Chinese novels actually suffer from having poor antagonists in the first place? I don't think that they're particularly bad, and in many cases, they're even very good. There's an old woman who is the most powerful martial artist in the world, and she's not particularly evil or anything like that. So why does she end up as an antagonist? It's because her husband is the evil one, and she knows it, and she hates him acting as a villain. But she still loves him, so she ends up attacking the good guys either to keep him from getting beat up or to avenge his getting beat up.

If you're seeing too many bad antagonists, then it's probably down to bad writing, and the fact that you're reading that kind of book. Also, xianxia and Romance novels are going to be more prone to having weak villains, so just read different genres to get better ones.

Oh, and the idea that weak villains comes from Chinese cultural identity or something like that is hilarious. Please keep those up!

 

The protagonist is basically taken from the antagonist box and slapped a MC sticker on the forehead and if developed then they become more memorable than mc or side kicks.
It's as if they don't know anti hero beyond the two words 'evil heroes.'

Author may not want to change the core mc grows, for example like they don't want to change his heart of gold trait, or he is a 110% lecher then he'll stay 110%. And if mc don't develop then villains are not allowed to become more memorable.

 

Not to mention there's very little character development even though we have read through 2000+ chapters.

 

The same reasons why KR has sociopath MC, and why JP has beta MC.