Question Can someone explain about chaos in most Chinese novel for me

Discussion in 'Novel General' started by nail, Apr 14, 2021.

  1. nail

    nail Active Member

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    In high end level there are almost always Dao(path) and(or) chaos

    for Dao(path) I can somehow understand its important ,but what about chaos?
     
  2. Dearling

    Dearling Active Member

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    Chaos in what context? Like heart demons or the demon path or what...?
     
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  3. NothingIsEternal

    NothingIsEternal Active Member

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    In fact, Chaos in general means the rival of the Dao, which comes from the mythology of Pangu, who comes out of chaos and fights against the Heavenly Dao. If you want it is the rival of the Dao (3000 paths). The Dao is a clear and well-ordered path, while chaos is confusing and disorganized but have infinte possibilities, while dao is supressing by force people and will not let is authorites flee.


    Not sure tho...... my interpretation.
     
  4. ToastedRossi

    ToastedRossi Well-Known Member

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    I wonder what the original Chinese word is being translated to Chaos. There's "邪", but that's usually translated as "evil" or "heretical" or "unorthodox". There's "乱" but that's about the chaotic state; it doesn't work as a concept.

    Chaos doesn't seem like a Chinese term at all. "Dao" isn't the equivalent of Order and there's nothing that directly opposes it so there's no real place in Chinese cosmology for the concept of Chaos. So I imagine that the writers using it are just inspired by what they see in Western or maybe Japanese media, so it's just as useful looking at these to figure out what Chaos is. Also, I suspect that each writer is putting their own interpretation on the idea so there isn't going to be one consistent explanation that will work for different books.
     
  5. May Our Dreams Come True

    May Our Dreams Come True Well-Known Member

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    I was looking for an answer to a similar question I had posed by the author of this thread, and although still not an expert in this topic, I thought to reply to this particular reply, even though it's a year old and maybe what I'm writing is now is old information.

    Anyways, 'Chaos' is indeed still a Chinese term. It's the word 混沌 (hun dun) which is actually, according to folklore, the primeval state of the universe before creation. It's related to the Chinese legend of Pan Gu who split Chaos (not a physical being, but just energy - chaotic, mixed, powerful energy) apart using his axe and created everything in this world.

    There are more mythologies associated with 'Hun Dun', and one of the most recent ones to appear in Western popular culture exploring Chinese myths is actually in the Marvel movie, Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings - the faceless winged little thing that guides Shang Chi is actually a mythical creature called Hun Dun (混沌 Chaos) and one of the 'Four Fiends' in mythology. I won't go into detail, there's loads of information about it on Google.

    But 'hun dun' also translates to 'Chaos' and to answer the original question of this thread, I did find out that although things related to 'Chaos' in cultivation novels are different from author to author, but they share some commonalities, such as Chaos being super powerful, maybe it can cause someone to power up easier, cultivate easier, learn things easier etc. or some various other stuff. Now, according to some research I did, Chaos mentioned in these novels is related to that 'Chaos' energy from before the beginning of the world. Because it is essentially related to the beginning of the world, the ORIGINS, and since everything is literally born from Chaos in the Pan Gu myth, Chaos in most cultivation novels is considered powerful, mysterious and Heaven-defying.

    In addition, since in most cultivation novels, authors like to relate one's power to also how long one has been cultivating, since Chaos has existed since before the beginning of the world (and idk, maybe even time itself), then Chaos energy will essentially be the most powerful thing in the world, or close enough, depending on how the author wants to write it. But generally it won't stray from such depictions.

    AND/OR it's portrayed as Hun Dun, one of the 4 Fiends (Hun Dun, Tao Tie, Tao Wu, and Qiong Qi), which has its own myth, and may or may not be associated with the pimeval Chaos energy (not bothered researching more deeply hahaha). But the things related to the 4 Fiends can generally be found with internet searches.

    Anyways, a year late, maybe old news now, but I wanted to add hahahaha.
     
  6. MidstNost

    MidstNost 【 Reigen's Saltshaker 】【 Lingtian Raider 】

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    Isn't Chaos the first primordial god in Greek Mythology. Like the origin of everything. Though it's more like a primeval void rather than a living deity like Zeus.
     
  7. May Our Dreams Come True

    May Our Dreams Come True Well-Known Member

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    I'm not familiar with Greek mythology, but I do remember coming across that too. I suppose some mythology can be shared among cultures sometimes. There's also possibilities of being influenced by each other. I found the Chinese myth on Chaos on baidu.com and read Chinese articles in their original language so the myth should be correct. I think in the Chinese myth, Chaos is contained in an egg and Pan Gu broke out of it to create the world (don't quote me on that, I'm not that familiar on this myth hahaaha). Then Nuwa (another Chinese deity) created humans. Something like that.