Discussion How would you compare the world building of cultivation novels compared to game of thrones?

I've read a lot of cultivation novels and they never really go in depth or explain much, I don't know if this is the norm or not.

I used game of thrones as an example because lots of people have read or watched it, also I've heard that the world building in the wheel of time is pretty solid, haven't read the novels myself though but you could use that as an example if you've read it.

 

All Young Masters die versus All Characters die.

 

Just go and enjoy some normal published novels in your local bookstore or library.

 

Finding good world building in a cultivation is like finding a needle in multiple hay stacks that are spread out from one another.

 

Game of Thrones has the ones with the best & biggest armies or best plotting abilities end up as the winner.
Wheel of Time tended to have a lot of people die because of the greater fight, but the betrayers were even more hated than the originally evil ones. At the end, all original bonds were broken.
Cultivation basically is about the strongest people forming their own groups and those groups later allowing smaller groups lead by weaker people to become their underlings etc. basically forming pyramid structures of power.

 

The main problem of almost every cultivation novel is that the world seems to be one giant line of increasingly strong nations/sects/etc.

It is a problem shared with almost any "High-Fantasy" settings.
GoT and other "Low-Fantasy" settings usually do not have said problem, because it is - theoretical - possible to kill a much stronger opponent through trickery or sth., while in cultivation settings, clashing with a much stronger opponent means plot armor or death.

 

try to build a cultivation like world, thinking of the little details and you will notice how impractical it is.

 

i'm not sure game of thrones is all that great an example, as it tends to follow M Night's "what a twit" style of substituting random shock for drama and intrigue. wheel of time has fairly decent world building up until the MC learns to teleport towards the latter half of the series. everything after that is a jumble of names and locations that rarely matter outside of its arc. sword of truth is pretty solid for world building, i think. it tends to keep locations pretty well organized, and doesn't start throwing random new powers or locations into the mix to try and stay "fresh". once the world's been more or less fleshed out and visited, anything that's gonna happen, is gonna happen within places the reader is somewhat familiar with. web novels and the like are sort of unfortunate in that, they tend to start off with a fairly decent premise and vision, but then fall short, sometimes by entire galaxies...

cultivation novels especially rarely do well with world building because of the problems inherent with their power creep and "frog within a well, within a well, ad infinitum" mentality. MC starts out weak, and anyone of worth in his town might only be at the cusp of the 2nd realm, with experts/elders just a bit beyond that. suddenly they discover that, *gasp* the world has more than their one village, and everybody from there is atleast in the 2nd realm. by the time the mc gets to the top of this town and neared the 3rd realm, he's suddenly discovered they're actually part of a district he's never heard of, governed by some group of families nobody knew about for reasons unknown, and their experts are all just barely above that. once the MC finally overcomes that, suddenly he's thrust into the realization, that the world isn't just this district, but a kingdom/country nobody could've been assed to tell him about, and he somehow managed to piss off somebody from here, yet again. oh, and now there's 2 more realms. oh wait, sorry, there's also an ancient assha- i mean, ancestor that's a realm beyond that.

but wait, there's more! if you order now, you'll not only get this entire kingdom, complete with all the random experts that now suddenly exist within it, but you'll also get all the experts from all the other kingdoms/countries that now suddenly exist, as well as the ancestors of these ancestors. such great value, much wow. basically, there's very little world building in a cultivation novel, because there's no real need for it beyond naming certain things or places after the special cheats the MC will get or the abilities of his enemy. everything is meaningless. hell, some authors don't even bother to name places and just call 'em "City B" and the like because the world matters so little.

jp novels have trouble with world building outside of the dream they promise at the beginning simply because apparently, outside of japan, the rest of the world sucks in comparison. even goin to another world, most of the focus is how unlike japan it is and how they must enlighten the ignorant masses about the wonders rice. kr novels are a bit better, generally, but eventually they'll start to feel rushed and create new places and threats to quickly push the MC to godhood so they can end the novel and move on to a new one while ruining any sort of world building they'd established up to that point.

properly published novels tend to be better, but that doesn't really mean it's good. a number of them are only picked up because of the trends. but, just because people want something, that doesn't mean what they're using to fill that void is anything more than junk food, and you really shouldn't be expecting much of value from stuff like that.

 

This. This is the bane of the genre, the linear power-structure of the world. It is also the cause of the other bane of the genre, repetitiveness.
For comparison:

In a western fantasy epic, the MC grows up in a humble environment only to gain a macguffin or have his heritage revealed (if they are blond, it's probably royalty), thus setting him on a journey against some great evil lurking around the corner. He gains friends, allies and knowledge of the world (probably full of fantasy counterpart cultures) on the journey, and then confronts the big bad, ultimately defeating them (which may or may not include a deus ex machina) and making the world a better place.

In a chinese xianxia, the MC grows up in a humble environment only to gain a macguffin or have a "grandpa" help him out, thus setting him on a journey to gain power and/or eternal life. He gains powerups, harem members and some more macguffins on the journey, and then he confronts every arrogant young master he runs into (occasionally running away from their OP uncles, until he powers up enough) and kills them, only to become the most powerful person... in their little corner of the world, so he sets out on a journey to another place where he is no longer OP and he gains powerups, harem members and some more macguffins on the journey, and then he confronts every arrogant young master he runs into (occasionally running away from their OP uncles, until he powers up enough) and kills them, only to become the most powerful person... in their little corner of the world, so he sets out on a journey to.. you get the jist of it.

Also, if we are at this: In a korean webnovel, the MC grows up impoverished, only to gain a macguffin or get a cheat, thus setting him on a journey to earn money and/or fame. He gains powerups, harem members and probably exploits the fuck out of people on the journey, enemies and friends alike, and then he confronts a bunch of rich and/or powerful "elites", ultimately beating them and becoming the new "elite" in the process, while having very little impact on the actual world.

 

There are two different angles when it comes to detailed world building. The first is to create an interesting place with a ton of history and flavor and the second is to populate the world with societies and things that serve to make it feel plausible. GRRM only tries to accomplish the first, and he doesn't even really try that hard - he literally named his continents after the cardinal directions: Westeros, Essos, and Sothoros. The society of Westeros is simply War of the Roses England writ large with the addition of a bit of Reconquista Spain, and sometimes it feels pretty haphazard. Overall, the strength of "a Song of Ice and Fire" doesn't lie with its world building, but rather with its characters and plot. In comparison, the world built up in "the Wheel of Time" is a lot more interesting, starting with being based around Early Modern Europe as opposed to the more typical Medieval Europe.

I don't read xianxia novels, but I wouldn't be surprised if the world building in that genre takes a backseat compared to other story elements. It's a bit like Chinese Romance novels where they take place in a nebulous past, but the writer isn't particularly interested in that aspect of storytelling. Generally, you'll have more luck finding good world building in stories that care more about the setting. Not too surprisingly, the very best world building will be found in historical novels because they can go into far more detail than a writer can come up with on his own.

 

Games of thrones is what happens when someone acts too pretentious and wants to write a great saga and the best thing ever but they suck: it sucks.

Chinese writers (many of them like Mao Ni or Er Gen) are masters at their discipline: the structure is simple but they know how to make it entertaining and worth your time. I'll read a xianxia anytime over a pretentious novel that has no value.

 

The edge is strong with this one
The rest of the world will beg to differ tho

 

Please point me towards Chinese (webnovel) writers as good as Mao Ni

 

People pointing and screaming at average CN because they couldn't compare to one of the most hype series of all time...

 

I find it edgier how you use a work's popularity as an argument of quality.

I don't really know as the translations are erratic, it's rare for the same author to get translated many time but this is my personal ranking (I haven't honestly read that many CN). I didn't stop ranking at 10 but rather I considered the bottom items to not be worth being 11th and that there's a huge gap in quality inbetween.

1. Pivot of the Sky
2. Xian Ni / Renegade Immortal
3. Ze Tian Ji
4. Death Sutra
5. Gate of Revelation
6. Chronicles of Primordial Wars
7. Legend of the Cultivation God
8. Sovereign of Judgment
9. Demon's Diary
10. Anything from Fengling Tianxia

x. Anything from IET
xx. World of Cultivation
xxx. I shall seal the Heavens

 

I'll contribute to the thread. I think elaborate world building isn't that necessary in webnovels. Many webnovels are focused on one character and his surrounding cast. I'd much rather see superb character building.

Haven't read Pivot, Sovereign (Korean?) or World of Cultivation. I liked Ze Tian Ji but dropped it at 500 (because of the romance and the apparently botched ending), so I can't really say anything about it. Demon's Diary I liked the beginning, haven't read it since. My tierlist of Chinese novels, romance excluded, would look like this:

1. Joy of Life;
2. Nightfall, Pursuing Immortality, Trafford's Trading Club, Death Sutra, Martial Arts Master, Chronicles of the Primordial War, Master of the Stars;
3. Then the premium cheese novels: like Tales from the Reincarnated Lord, Star Rank Hunter, Reverend Insanity, Forty Milleniums of Cultivation;
   
4. Finally all the rest I've read: normal cheese or bad apples.

I would never put a full-blown xianxia any higher than 3. IET and FLT have clear flaws in their writing, and while Er Gen has humor and writes better in general, it still isn't enough.
Gate of Revelation I consider to be lower tier 4.

 

Tales of Reincarnated Lord is quite repetitive too though and flaw (for example the rape stuff and how it turns out with women for our protagonist).

Reverend insanity is... I wrote a review about why I wouldn't give it more than like 2-3 stars.

The generic xianxia can be good sometimes, I've really enjoyed reading a full IET novel when I doubt I can ever do that for something like martial god asura. Er Gen's first novel which I rate so high isn't comedy by the way, and its more serious nature and character development explains the positive I gave it..

I agree that world building is not always needed. Oftentimes also it's a copy of Tolkien in western fantasy anyway and feels heavy, useless and like some kind of intellectual jerking from the author thinking he's the second coming of Tolkien. That and GoT feels like a reality show drama.

 

GoT is non-stop drama, that's the point. It wouldn't be GoT, wouldn't fill that exact niche if it wasn't. I think they're pretty well done. Haven't seen that intellectual jerking you're talking about in Western fantasy. Examples?

As for Reverend and Tales: there's some aspects I really like in those novels, the slow buildup of Tales or the arc endings of Reverend for example, which is why I rate them premium cheese. Where you put them is highly subjective, but they execute on some things very well. I could imagine myself putting Renegade in there - if I liked xianxia more.

I know Renegade isn't comedy, I read like 800 chapters of it before I got bored. His later novels do have some comedy though, so it's fair enough to mention it when talking about Er Gen in general. I think he's maybe the best xianxia writer, but that doesn't say much.

 

Well if webnovel authors had 20 years to write 5 volumes
I am sure we would get better world building

 

What the hell do you mean a niche? That's what like 90% of the population loves !

I probably overrate Xian Ni (it's a top 10 of online CN anyway so not much of a big deal) but I definitively don't underrate a badly written novel.

Daoist Gu is like an edgy digimon clone but ten times worse.

Not the best but he knows his shit and he's "consistent" except a few fuck ups (like the later parts of ISSTH).