Discussion Huge respect for IET for creating these classics.

Well you have got thirst for kingdom building novels. And yea i too like kingdom building novels but among the mentioned novels i have read 2 and i have completed both up to recent translations but while i definitely enjoyed tales of reincarnated lord it didnt stand out particularly. And My castle My castellan has very shitty mc.

Among kingdom building novels Release that witch and overlord are the only ones that i find very good. A world online, lord's empire, hail the king and i am the monarch i believe them to be failed attempt at kingdom building.

About wuxia nobody said it is xianxia. I just said xianxia is wuxia on steriods.

 

Haha These thread and forum is filled with people who call the novels wuxia because they read it on Wuxiaworld.

I am translating both novels. Castellan gets much better. At least that's what I heard

 

Yea i feel you mate. But its fine xianxia/xuanhuan are similar but wuxia is different.

 

Xianxia isn't remotely wuxia on steroids.

 

Oh ? Why?

I have watched fair share of chinese wuxia dramas even though i am not interested in wuxia novels.

 

Because, besides somewhat similar settings, nothing is the same. Xianxia is closer to the mythological genre than it is to wuxia. How often do you see a xianxia discussing military, constables?

 

Well thats why it is wuxia on steriods. But still it has some elements of wuxia. Like they all have this kingdoms and political struggles at some point of their novel. Most of the time xianxia have same world template as wuxia but xianxia is high fantasy so crazy stuffs happen there.

I kind of love nirvana in fire.

 

You are missing the point.
Nirvana on Fire is not wuxia.

Wuxia is about morality essentially.
Let me give you a scenario

A man gets his family killed by the evil King.

In Xianxia, he will find a mythical item get powerful and kill the King.
In wuxia, he will fall in love with a beautiful woman, get powerful and head to the King to get revenge only for the King to be the woman he fell in love with, father.
Revenge is not so straight forward anymore

That's the difference. I am sure @Wu Jizun and @ToastedRossi will correct me if I am wrong

 

Wuxia isn't moral hero, and it's formed from 2 words wu(martial / martial arts) and xia(hero), while xianxia (immortal hero) is formed from xian(immortal) and xia(hero).
Wuxia can be anything, and its difference from xianxian and xuanhuan is that it doesn't have ridiculous fantasy elements, and the most it can have is just all kinds of martial arts, ordinary martial arts (not the kind that destroy mountains and overturn seas)
Wuxia is usually just a story set in ancient times with martial arts and no fantasy elements

 

My foray into chinese web novels was with coiling dragon, from back when it was being translated and sure reading them initially certainly drew me in, into the chinese novel world - though in hindsight I've wondered how much of it was actually IET's work rather than the simple novelty of the chinese cultural ethos and mythological elements from which xianxia and wuxia novels draw from.

I struggle to remember anything of substance from any of the novels other than Swallowed Star, which to me is telling how forgettable the novels have been in the grand scheme of things and how all those novels blend into each other like clones.

 

Morality is the central theme for Wuxia stories. A code of chivalry is central to it.
xia literally translates to chivalrous so I know what I am talking about.

 

Nirvana in fire is not wuxia? What are you smoking? Mate this discussion has gotten pointless i mean before you say something at least you should do some research. Its drama adaptation of langya bang novel which is wuxia mate. Nirvana in fire is just english translation name. And nirvana in fire's plot is literally same as you described in your sentence for wuxia.

You do not need to pointlessly complicate things wuxia means low fantasy while xianxia means high fantasy.

 

I am not pointlessly complicating anything. I see on the Wikipedia page that Nirvana on Fire is considered Wuxia but it is definitely not traditional wuxia. The hero spends majority of the story in a wheelchair. Not a lot of ass kicking martial arts as you would except from wuxia
You don't have to take my word for it.
Royal Tramp is wuxia but would be considered high fantasy given the ridiculousness of the plot.
I am not needlessly complicating anything.
You just simply have to look at the definition of both words which you seem to refuse to do
As I said, people see the website Wuxiaworld and go on the assumption that the novels it mainly translates are wuxia which just isn't the case

PS I am a very big Hu Ge fan and I watched almost all his dramas(Nirvana of Fire included) especially classics like Chinese Paladin. If you want to watch a live action xianxia done well then I recommend Xuan Yuan Sword 2: Rift in The Sky

 

You are just narrowing down the entire genre. Nirvana in fire is wuxia through and through. He has brains so he doesnt need to fight. He does have best martial artist as his bodyguard as well. He just does a lot of ass kicking through his brain.

Xianxia in drama is worst idea. I cannot help but frown after they butcher the novel but still it is not easy to convert xianxia into drama.

 

I hate to break it to you guys but the Chinese themselves refer to these "classics" of yours as mental masturbation(YY novels).
The novels are good but calling them classics or equivalent to wuxia is just ridiculous.

The grass is definitely greener on the other side.

That statement rings so very true in this case.

Over and out!

 

They are like shounen genre of anime. Dont need to act so smug about not reading it there should be a time when you enjoyed it too. Thats how anyone gets into anime or novel. Why not respect these entry level novels? I love anime like inuzuma eleven and dragon ball cause thats how i grew up to watch anime. While now i will not be ever rewatching them i still respect them. Nobody here ever said they were very good novels its just respect is what it is. It is these novels that got me into CN novels thats why they are classics for me. Wuxia is refreshing genre for me not really classic. Stop being a child instead learn to respect and most importantly dont forget your roots.

"No man exists who was not made by child he once was"

And why are we watching anime or reading novel? Real life is already hard as it is why read them if they just show real life struggles? People still havent grown up enough to distinguish between fantasy and reality. If i really wanted to take inspiration i would go read history and take inspiration with pinch of salt.

 

It's possible to think of wuxia as a form of lower powered xianxia, but I think that doing so is grossly inadequate. Now bear with me as I don't actually read xianxia novels so my impression of them might be off. From what I gather, they're primarily stories about power, attaining power, and using power to defeat one's enemies.

And the thing is, wuxia doesn't really do any of this. Or more accurately, the above does a very poor job of describing wuxia novels in general. There are tons out there where the protagonist doesn't get significantly stronger over the course of the story, and even in the case where he does do so, that's rarely a goal of the story. Instead, what they do is to use martial arts as a focal point for telling larger stories. And in fact, I'd say that the goals of wuxia stories are so disparate that they don't really define the genre at all.

So what does? I think that the answer is all style and how these novels use wuxia elements to frame their stories. So what kinds of style am I talking about? It's a bunch of things; the most important being how intensely social the stories are. The friends and companions the characters have and make along their adventures are in many ways the heart of these stories.