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Jul. 12th, 2020 11:57 pmSomething that 。。。。does relieve me at times in the cultivation genre (the daoism myth/legend fantasy genre) is how it's mostly consistent that the actual villain is the tian dao (the order of heaven/the universe, or the great chain of being), or the true xian who have ascended and become gods. striving against heaven is a common theme, plus the unavoidable corruption of everyone at the top, and it's especially noticeable in myth fandoms/ships like the erlang shen/monkey king or the hilarious out of thin air (appeared on screen one time) dragon dad of ao bing/heavenly emperor (not visible, mentioned like twice (a canonical mythological figure ofc) in the most recent Nezha movie fandom.
(the ships that english fandom reverts to when presented with minimal canon: two white guys, one snippy, one long suffering
the ships that cn fandom reverts to: dark fic with IMPRISONMENT of an entire tribe and GRINDING you LOYAL SOLDIERLY SUPPORTER down out of PARANOIA (卸磨杀驴 finishing the milling process and killing the donkey who provided the labor, 鸟尽弓藏 hiding the bow once the birds have all been hunted, I can think of 4-5 proverbs off the top my head about this situation) I did laugh.
when it comes to non-magical situations with emperors they don't ....actually that's somewhat separate from the trope I mean to talk about)
But while the emperors are malignant it's often the noncon sexy type of evil (see common tropes of ten-twenty years ago), whereas in cultivation novels the tian dao is nearly always vile and nonredeemable, impersonally evil, hypocrisy overflowing in every move they make, yet cringing in the face of the wild will of humans/the protagonist.
Transferring the things you can't get away with with humans at the top of the pyramid to fantasy >_<
Of course, I'm mostly reading in the '女频/by women for women' genre and fics from the more recent part of last decade, and not the stuff by guys for guys 男频, but I think the "my fate is mine and not heaven's" is pretty consistent (especially in the thousand chaptered stuff over there）。
(the ships that english fandom reverts to when presented with minimal canon: two white guys, one snippy, one long suffering
the ships that cn fandom reverts to: dark fic with IMPRISONMENT of an entire tribe and GRINDING you LOYAL SOLDIERLY SUPPORTER down out of PARANOIA (卸磨杀驴 finishing the milling process and killing the donkey who provided the labor, 鸟尽弓藏 hiding the bow once the birds have all been hunted, I can think of 4-5 proverbs off the top my head about this situation) I did laugh.
when it comes to non-magical situations with emperors they don't ....actually that's somewhat separate from the trope I mean to talk about)
But while the emperors are malignant it's often the noncon sexy type of evil (see common tropes of ten-twenty years ago), whereas in cultivation novels the tian dao is nearly always vile and nonredeemable, impersonally evil, hypocrisy overflowing in every move they make, yet cringing in the face of the wild will of humans/the protagonist.
Transferring the things you can't get away with with humans at the top of the pyramid to fantasy >_<
Of course, I'm mostly reading in the '女频/by women for women' genre and fics from the more recent part of last decade, and not the stuff by guys for guys 男频, but I think the "my fate is mine and not heaven's" is pretty consistent (especially in the thousand chaptered stuff over there）。
