Discussion What does 神魔(Shen Mo) mean?

It's a quite common noun in lots of chinese novels, but I haven't seen any baidu.baike page or anything similar (though admittedly I'm not that good at navigating chinese internet + the search results where 99.99% "Tree of Saviors", the stupid bejeweled "game"...)

Of course I've already seen "Divine Demon/Devil" (Basically like 天魔(Tian Mo) I guess, or sky devil, another common one which I'm also not entirely sure what it is btw), "God-Devil" or "God and Devil" like in e.g. God and Devil World, or the made up word "Fiendgod" from Desolate Era. (which a bunch of people randomly copied... Mostly talking about Machine Translation glossaries here, but I wouldn't be surprised if Fiendgod was adopted somewhere else either...)


So anyway... What is it? Of course it can be different things depending on novels, but at least it's a single word/noun, no? God and Devil is obviously incorrect, since it's not two separate things, but honestly Fiendgod (outside of DE where it actually fit in quite nicely imho) triggers me every time I see it...

Tbh it's pretty annoying when TLs randomly make up words, unless they make sense in the respective novel, and then what's even worse is that other people just copy said made up word into other novels where it definitely won't make sense...

I mean, I get that reading "divine devil", "god-devil", etc. (and similar other cases with made-up words, saw some TL the other day who didn't like Earthly Fire so randomly changed it Firebolt as one of the more egregious examples)

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As a side note... Anyone who has read 神魔无双? While googling 神魔 it came up, and it has pretty good ratings on Qidian. Obviously if it's not already on QI/Webnovel the chance of it being translated is almost none, but that's not necessarily a problem for me.

I feel like the cover is familiar, but considering the common practices I wouldn't be surprised if there's some game, art, or another novel with the same cover (or more...).

 

That's why when I translate novel titles, I make sure to read the summary and a few chapters to get a feel of the story. If given no context, I would translate 天魔 as Demon/Devil of the Heavens. As for 神魔, it'd be Divine Demon/Devil. Chinese people don't believe in God so that's why it's unlikely that it'd be God. You also have to differentiate between 妖 and 魔 if both exist in the story. Because for me personally, I always translate yao as demon. Therefore, if yao exists, then mo would default to devil or even monster.

About earthly fire, I'm in a similar situation. I can't decide between thunder fire (literal translation) versus thunderbolt.

 

Yeah, I've seen that issue crop up with yao & mo, both can't be demon in the same story obviously. So then some would change yao to 'monster', but then there might be guai which basically can't be anything besides monster... From what I've seen just keeping it Demon & Devil is best, though if you read another novel where Mo is tled as Demon it might get a bit confusing at first. (And honestly I'm never really sure while reading a new novel, so usually I'll end up checking the raws at some point.)

(of) the Heavens is also one of those things that makes sense, since there's 9 heavens or whatever in chinese, but it becomes such a mouthful that I prefer just 'heaven' tbh. (Kinda ironic since I was sort of complaining about the opposite earlier actually... )

 

Shen means gods and mo is devil or demon

 

Sigh... I'm doing a xianxia novel (don't ask me what it is) so I searched for an extensive list of xianxia ranks on Baidu. I was like "Holy shit! They even have ranks for demons, monsters/devils, and buddhas." >.< This other novel that I am reading right now, it's about medicine/pill cultivation so it has its own set of ranks. I don't think anyone has translated them yet?

Using other TL glossary of terms is convenient and helpful but they're not always suitable nor are they complete.

 

Chinese mythology is rather weird in that aspect, because the 'Heavens' are not a 'holy plane of god' like it is considered in Western cultures. Instead the 'Heavens' are 'boundless planes outside of the mortal world'. So a common theme is having an endless number of mortal worlds and then something like 3000 'greater worlds' in a far more expansive universe.

On top of that, you have the Celestial Bureaucracy. Starting with the Celestial Emperor (God Emperor, ect.), the whole thing is set up just like the ancient Imperial Courts of China, where each 'god' is a minister or general or the like in control of a certain sphere of influence. But on the same side are also the Demons, which can also hold ministerial positions and whatnot.

Compared to the gods whom tend to be Buddhas or cultivators that have risen up, Demons are any other non-human being that have done the same. Golems, Monsters, Ancient Trees, Serpents, Dragons, ect. Once high enough they came take on human form, but they are all Demons. 'Blood Demon', 'Endless Poison Demon', 'Demon of Sundering', yah. Typically lower level demons are taken as servants to the gods, but that's just the usual fight for power and political intrigue. A demon can be just as high in position as anyone else.

Then you have the 'Devils'. Not all mythology include them, but many do. They tend to come from a mirror of the Heavens, aka the 'Hells', 'Abysses', ect. Twisted mockeries of life and cultivation. Any human or demon that cultivates a 'Devil Technique' often ends up falling to become a devil themselves over time. Quick power that leads to corruption is a common example there.

Now, a lot of stories tend to interchange the name of 'Demons' and 'Devils', often because the translations are multifaceted in a way Western languages aren't. 'Old Devil Claw' for example could be the name of a rather evil cultivator, or the name of a bird-type Demon, or a literal name for a Devil. But really it depends upon what the author is meaning, and how the translator sees it. Lol.

I tend to just enjoy the story and ignore little bits that don't make sense, personally. If the story is good, I'll just deal with not really knowing. Anyway! Thanks for reading my rant. And no, this is basically what I understand of the mythology, and will not be exact. So don't go bugging me if I'm wrong on some of the details. Thanks!

 

go on~

@Viken that da reason I like mythology from asia way than da western
hmm something like that~

 

I enjoy mythology from all over, myself. Lol. The Olympians were cool, being born of the natural phenomon of the world and yet still very human-like (or childish, depending upon your definition) that reflected the worship they received from mortalkind. The Norse pantheon were just the same, although the Egyptians were rather weird, given how many of them reflected life after death instead of the physical world.

Native American mythology is quite similar to the old Japanese mythos, where nature spirits represented physical places or things, and could rise to godhood. Kami are awesome, although the various Native American gods/spirits can be rather crazy. Especially with the tribes that often opposed each other. And yes, Cannibalism is a thing there, which is just.. odd. Lol.

And don't even talk about the Blood Gods of South America. Sacrificing one neighbors is bad enough, as most of the warrior cultures were based around the prowess of not killing your opponent, but maiming them enough to capture. I can only imagine how much blood flowed down those stepped pyramids when thousands of people were butchered upon them. And then the sacrifice of babies is worse. Ugh. But the Blood Gods demand blood to keep the world working or some crazy shit like that. Yeah, not my thing.

Then there's Allah from Islam and Yahweh of Jewish tradition. Pretty sure most Christian sects ripped the name out of their teachings, but whatever. Yahweh was the original monotheistic god, although some research points to him having once been a Middle Eastern incarnation of Zeus, the Olympian God of the Sky and the King of Gods. Over time that 'King of Gods' became 'King of All' and the 'Sole God'. I personally find monothesis to be just as crazy, because there's no way in hell a single god could rule over everything. I don't care how powerful or omnipotent that god is.

End of Rant 2, thanks~

 

I also couldn't find an exact definition, but I found something interesting for 'shen' and 'mo'. It does not always mean god/deity or 'devil'. There are other meanings for it, so depending on the context the meaning could change. Play around with 神魔 to find a good English equivalent of it.
神 魔

 

When Chinese introduce themselves eg Tianyu as in Tian meaning heaven and not Tian meaning idiot.
We don't have that in English which makes translating difficult and most translators just use pinyin. It's beautiful word play that was also part of the English language before but was trimmed and cut out and I am glad for it.

 

They all mean the same thing unless the author specifically says that there is a difference.