ATG - Duke Ming is one of the best xianxia villians

I won't give any spoilers, but I've never encountered in any xianxia novel a villain so absolutely powerful, clever, calculating, and just ruthless. Cold, indifferent and uncaring are all words often used to describe characters in novels. But Duke Ming is just plain sinister. He's one of the best written, most "evil" villians I've ever seen in one of these novels. And he's in ATG no less, which is not a novel we expect brilliant writing from. What do you think of Duke Ming. And is there anyone else in a different novel that can compare?

 

that bitch is really cunning

 

He reminds me of Darth Sidious except less psychotic and more calculating. But yes I agree, most xianxia/xuanhuan authors don't put a lot of depth into the villains. The closest novel that actually puts some effort into developing both sides would probably be ISSTH and maybe TMW.

 

Not sure I agree with you, we haven't really seen enough of him to have a good grasp on him I mean hes quite scheming, powerful, and ruthless but as we all know him talking and dragging this out to revel in glory of his plans finally coming to completion is probably gonna be his downfall at this rate hes gonna fall to the same cliche of telling his plans and then paying for it instead of just ending everything after he got the medal

 

he's good, as expected for xianxia novel , kill emperor son,emperor including grampa yun(not directly) but sadly he lost.

 

Diwu Qing Rou from Transcending the Nine Heavens is even better in my opinion

 

Diwu Qing Rou is a monster. And he learns from his mistakes which makes him even more dangerous as the story progresses.

 

Meh hes like every other power hungry villain. His feats were just written so that he killed two top tier guys by being a snake.

 

I hate this bastard, but what I hate even more is how he

Spoiler

escaped and no one seems to care about it...

Also, he did so much and no one realizes... he was supposedly low-key, but that should actually make him even more suspicious in my opinion.

 

Ah, but he crippled the prince and tossed him through the gate, i cant remember for sure if there was mention of a body, he might be alive living the begger prince trope

 

Definitely not best written, it's a pretty cliche troupe. Anyone with a common sense would be suspicious of duke ming. I mean third strongest dude and then the top 2 suddenly disappears. And then he just vanishes off the world to enjoy his life? What's so brilliant about writing a spy that sold out his side. *Mind boggling*

Edit- ATG will never be a high quality novel and I mean never. One dimensional characters are all you're going to get.

 

Nah he would be a great villain but this whole bullshit with admitting to what he's done for an entire chapter has already ruined it. It's always just as pathetic when novels try to go with the whole super long villain speech when he's 100% sure of victory.

 

to bad all his cunning ability vanished in a flash when the MC appeared.

 

Really? Seems pretty shit to me I mean he didnt even exist more than a few chapters ago and all the sudden he's some uber powerful sinister mastermind? Completely misses the point of what makes a good sinister character or mastermind character. Instead of the author showing the audience who the character is through development we get a bunch exposition that directly tells you he is the big bad guy. He is a DBZ style sudden OP hidden boss thats been secretly plotting to steal the mcguffin(so secret it was also secret from the novel!).

 

Aizen Sousuke
Uchiha Madara
Marshall D. Teach

 

He is a Sh*t when compared to Diwu Qing Rou

 

Yagami Raito

 

I somewhat disagree...

I think the CONCEPT of Duke Ming is great. This super powerful, manipulative, sinister villian who has been manipulating everything from behind the scenes the whole time. A man who seems kind and peaceful on the outside, but is actually the most cold-hearted monster of all.

However, the EXECUTION of Duke Ming is lacking, and I think it really comes down to the author's writing skill (or lack thereof).

Even though he's supposed to be this monumental character, his name isn't even mentioned until a few chapters ago. The character and his entire scheme are basically introduced at the same time. There was no build up and the author doesn't SHOW Duke Ming doing anything -- he just has Yun Che say it, and then Duke Ming confirms it by saying it again.

Duke Ming is supposed to be a character who seemed so kind and unambitious, who kept everyone in the dark for countless years -- and yet we never hear anyone talk about him, never see his kindness, never see him trick anyone. Did any one of us actually believe for a second that he was innocent? We just hear "he's a really good person" once, and in less than two chapters Yun Che debunks that. Even the "shock" of his betrayal is lacking, because we never once get the feeling that the Duke palaces are loyal in the first place. He's just introduced and a few chapters later he reveals his whole evil scheme in a monologue.

Basically, Duke Ming was sort of just thrown at us at the last second to fulfill the role of the master evil villain in this whole plot. Because we weren't introduced to him at any point earlier in the series (and only heard people talk about him for the first time a couple of chapters ago), we have no attachment to him. We respect his villainous actions (the schemes that lead to this whole point are VERY evil and impactful), but we don't care about Duke Ming himself. If the author had thrown in a different character name instead, and said "actually, THIS character is responsible for everything!", that character would have the same amount of impact that Duke Ming has now.

TL;DR: I'm not saying that Duke Ming isn't one of the most evil villains. What I'm saying is that he isn't one of the BEST villains -- because even though his actions are evil, the character is forgettable and poorly written.

 

TTNH is too unique, every aspect of it is different from cliche xianxia. Are there any xianxia similar to TTNH?

 

well he also let his son be the "face of rebellion" while he laid the groundwork sedition while maintaining the guise of being an upright honorable man