Does internal power make wuxia better or ruins wuxia?

[TommyH]

What's your personal opinion about internal power? Does it make wuxia better? Or does it make you want to throw up? Is internal power a good addition to wuxia?

[owbjhx]

Inner power is one of the pillars of Jin Yong's conception of wulin. It helps reinforce the importance of seniority by making it somewhat more feasible for ageing, frail, scholarly types to kick the a**es of young, muscular, soldierly types, which is of course utterly ridiculous in reality. It therefore allows wulin to have a cultured, Confucianesque sheen in the otherwise might-makes-right world of jianghu, and this is part of what makes the wuxia genre distinctive (and attractive to all of us who hanker, probably delusionally, for 'old-world' or 'Asian' values).

In general, inner power, "qi", qinggong, acupointing etc. are basically the magic of the fantasy genre that Jin Yong writes in. They just happen to be a lot cooler than the magic (or technology) of other fantasy-type genres, in my opinion.

[RongYingMin]

This poll seems to be going to become the most lopsided one in this 4rum .

[kidd]

I wonder who will choose option 2.

[ech33]

those who chose no.2 should think more than 10times.

[TommyH]

Why no one share their opinions?

[CDonC]

Since internal energy is one of the base themes of most wuxia novels, I would say it's pretty important.

So, yes, internal energy is important.

However, it'd be really interesting to see a story based on a character who becomes all powerful through techique alone.

[CC]

However, it'd be really interesting to see a story based on a character who becomes all powerful through techique alone.

No, it damn irritating when that actually happened. The bugger *coughlinghucoughcough* just sticks his sword at the enemy and wins the fight regardless of what the enemy was doing.

[Ken Cheng]

Take inner power out of wuxia and you're basically left with a modern day martial arts story. Lots of chop-socky action, but nothing really fantastic.

[CDonC]

Wuxia is great for an escape and the concept of internal energy cultivation, something I believe we all have but not at the level of wuxia heroes, is definitely the thing that makes the stories interesting. Internal energy makes these characters damn near god-like, but still retaining flaws that make them no different than you or me.

No, it damn irritating when that actually happened. The bugger *coughlinghucoughcough* just sticks his sword at the enemy and wins the fight regardless of what the enemy was doing.

...I guess that's interesting. It's certainly...different.

[UncleBelly]

I think internal energy tends to be less descriptive whereas with actual external arts, movements, bodyparts are well described. It will be great if there was more description of which meridian channels are used etc... That way, there can be more active discussion, example why is the reversal 9 Yin driving OYF mad, which meridian channel truely affects the sanity etc...
Quanzhen internal, increasing exponentially as one ages, how come and why? Sometimes, JY fights become whose internal is better.... But does not give enough detail.

[goodrick]

Internal energy is the most important. Just ask LHC. Thats why he is the weakest JY protigonist.

[devilz91]

Internal energy is the most important. Just ask LHC. Thats why he is the weakest JY protigonist.

There's at least a handful of protagonists weaker than LHC.

[Son of Light]

Does having special mutant superpowers makes Marvel comics better or ruins them?
I think the ans is the same.

[Lie Ming]

No Inner Power, then it's only kungfu not wuxia.

[xianzai]

In general I think it's good, but in TV series, hitting accupoints to immobilize an opponent is often overused.