Misguided feminism in Wuxia

[Wu Wudi]

You don't have to like the idea...everyone has their own cup of tea. But you can't deny the fact that the idea is about as much grounded into reality as the rest of wuxia. What goes for one, goes for the rest.

So your argument basically is that because Wuxia is a form of fictional literature, none of its premises should be questioned? If that's true, why do we or anyone even bother commenting on fiction?

[Candide]

So your argument basically is that because Wuxia is a form of fictional literature, none of its premises should be questioned?

You can question anything you like, as long as it's not related to the pure awesomeness of women.

[Ren Ying Ying]

So your argument basically is that because Wuxia is a form of fictional literature, none of its premises should be questioned? If that's true, why do we or anyone even bother commenting on fiction?

it's fantasy fiction--a world created by the author. Would you question Tolkein about why hobbits are hobbits and not elves??

[Wu Wudi]

it's fantasy fiction--a world created by the author. Would you question Tolkein about why hobbits are hobbits and not elves??

Now you're just being disingenous. There are very clear differences between Wuxia and Western High Fantasy literature. If you really can't tell then I'm not sure what more I can discuss with you.

[Ren Ying Ying]

high fantasy, wuxia fantasy, historical fantasy, etc--it's all linguistics.

essentially, the setting is made of elements that are NOT real. If you cannot realize that common factor, then there is no need for discussion to be made .

[kidd]

Uh, you can suspend you disbelief seeing wuxia characters jumping 50 feet above ground but has problem seeing 2 to 3 female characters (among dozens of very highly skilled male MA expert) defeating some male MA experts?

Hu Fei defeated many MA experts who has years of martial art experience when he was still a kid. But, you are ok with that?

And you are ok with that Old Sweeper Monk being the most powerful guy in DGSD?

In a world where speed and internal energy counts more than brute strength, you have a problem believing 1 or 2 exceptional female characters (over hundreds of weaker-than-men female characters) defeating male MA experts?

Btw, if you think having female characters defeating male characters means feminism, then you have a very wrong concept of feminism.

Lastly, I still don't get why you have hard time accepting 1or 2 unusual women defeating male MA expert when you can accept all the other fantasy still. And why won't it make a story more exciting to have an occasional female MA expert kicking a male MA butt once in a blue moon?

Yuan Ziyi didn't even defeat all her opponents with pure martial arts. She uses wits and doesn't play fair.

And please don't talk about it being an insult women who women should feel insulted like you know what women think.

[Sutisa]

Like I implied before, the choice between reality and fantasy in fiction is a false dichotomy. A well written piece of Wuxia fiction should have a good balance between the two.

So are you saying that Jin Yong is not a good Wuxia fiction writer? Because in some of his novels there are a few elite women warriors, so I suppose his novels aren't well written... he doesn't have that right balance.

[Wu Wudi]

Lastly, I still don't get why you have hard time accepting 1or 2 unusual women defeating male MA expert when you can accept all the other fantasy still. And why won't it make a story more exciting to have an occasional female MA expert kicking a male MA butt once in a blue moon?

Yuan Ziyi didn't even defeat all her opponents with pure martial arts. She uses wits and doesn't play fair.

When have I ever said that I accepted all fantastical aspects of Wuxia except when they pertain to women? There are plenty of other things within Wuxia which I think are silly or unfairly portrayed by writers such as the general portrayals of non-Chinese warriors as being inept.

I have an issue with how Wuxia writers approach gender because they don't follow the same conventions that they do with other realistic aspects of Wuxia literature. Wuxia, like other fictional writers, clearly have certain rules to follow for each of their storytelling elements. For example, no Wuxia writer would change the outcome of historical battles. They might change how things occured within the battle but ultimately the battle would have the same consequences as it did in the real world. The fantastical sequences which you brought up were within the areas of Martial Arts and combat where Wuxia writers are allowed to have considerable artistic license.

So where in the spectrum of realism within Wuxia subjects should the characterizations of women warriors fall? It should be somewhere in the middle. Because women Wuxia warriors are MA practitioners, writers should be allowed to exaggerrate their feats relating to MA. On the other hand, writers invariably have to deal with gender issues when they write about female warriors and gender is not an area where writers should have too much artistic license. When Wuxia writers portray women warriors as being equivalent or superior to the elite male warriors, then they've crossed over too much into fiction and paid too little attention to the real gender issues which surround women in combat. Like it or not, physical inferiority is one of the challenges that women combatants have to face and it is a challenge that is directly linked to their gender. Ignoring such reality when writing about female characters shows a lack of regard for the real issues of female combatants and also disrespect for the abilities of male combatants.

And please don't talk about it being an insult women who women should feel insulted like you know what women think.

I don't have to be a woman to comment on feminist issues much like someone doesn't have to be Asian in order to criticize negative Asian stereotypes.

So are you saying that Jin Yong is not a good Wuxia fiction writer? Because in some of his novels there are a few elite women warriors, so I suppose his novels aren't well written... he doesn't have that right balance.

Personally, I think JY is arguably the greatest Wuxia author ever but gender was one of the things that he didn't handle very well. Women in JY novels are sorely lacking in depth compared to the men. Most of JY's female characters have few motivations that are disassociated from how they feel about the male characters in their lives. In return for making women characters caricatures, JY seems to have created a couple of ultrapowerful characters in order to show that he did indeed respect women. It was similar to how the author of Gone with the Wind created a few likeable black characters for the purpose of showing that her book wasn't racist.

[Ren Ying Ying]

Wuxia, like other fictional writers, clearly have certain rules to follow for each of their storytelling elements. For example, no Wuxia writer would change the outcome of historical battles. They might change how things occured within the battle but ultimately the battle would have the same consequences as it did in the real world. The fantastical sequences which you brought up were within the areas of Martial Arts and combat where Wuxia writers are allowed to have considerable artistic license.

Actually, wuxia has a fairly loose set of rules. Aside involving characters who can perform martial arts feat and a plot, there really isn't many other limitations. Not all wuxia must involve historical events (and when they do, it's highly distorted just like the rules of physics). If Huang Yi can somehow involve time travelling...there's really not much you CAN'T do.

I mean, if you can manipulate the laws of time and space, then I'm sure biological manipulation isn't out of the question. Isn't it the writer's own choice on what elements they want to manipulate, considering they really are in fact just creating a world of their own.

[kidd]

Personally, I think JY is arguably the greatest Wuxia author ever but gender was one of the things that he didn't handle very well. Women in JY novels are sorely lacking in depth compared to the men. Most of JY's female characters have few motivations that are disassociated from how they feel about the male characters in their lives. In return for making women characters caricatures, JY seems to have created a couple of ultrapowerful characters in order to show that he did indeed respect women. It was similar to how the author of Gone with the Wind created a few likeable black characters for the purpose of showing that her book wasn't racist.

Seeing how his ultra-powerful female characters ended up, I don't think he did it to show that he respects women. They all ended up being bitter women who didn't have a good end.

I still think you just have problem seeing female characters defeating male characters since you think that's very emasculating. Not really about realism. You even have problem when the woman win through cheating or fighting using wits and unfair advantage.

I never know 'a female fighter should always be weaker than the male fighter' is one of the set rule of wuxia genre. It's just your set rule, not, the wuxia genre set rules. Just like your opposition to gay main/major characters in wuxia and all your very strict unbending rules you apply all kinds of fantasy subgenre that only you know how to distinguish. (if I remember correctly, it's you who dismissed those examples given of fantasy novels with homosexual main characters as not high fantasy or something in order to insist on your no homosexual main characters in high fantasy. 乜都你講晒啦. If it's not you, sorry if I remember the wrong person.)

Actually, wuxia has a fairly loose set of rules. Aside involving characters who can perform martial arts feat and a plot, there really isn't many other limitations. Not all wuxia must involve historical events (and when they do, it's highly distorted just like the rules of physics). If Huang Yi can somehow involve time travelling...there's really not much you CAN'T do.

I mean, if you can manipulate the laws of time and space, then I'm sure biological manipulation isn't out of the question. Isn't it the writer's own choice on what elements they want to manipulate, considering they really are in fact just creating a world of their own.

Agree. If everything just follow a strict unbending rule, Liang Yusheng wouldn't be known as 'father of new wuxia genre'.
If following Wu Wudi's idea of wuxia genre set rules, most of Gu Long's novels will not pass the test since his novels have women who strip at the drop of the hat (not realistic), superpower female characters, characters who breath through his skin and MA expert who can stop time. Neither will Wo Long Sheng's novels who has kickass female characters abundant.

[Wu Wudi]

Actually, wuxia has a fairly loose set of rules. Aside involving characters who can perform martial arts feat and a plot, there really isn't many other limitations. Not all wuxia must involve historical events (and when they do, it's highly distorted just like the rules of physics). If Huang Yi can somehow involve time travelling...there's really not much you CAN'T do.

I mean, if you can manipulate the laws of time and space, then I'm sure biological manipulation isn't out of the question. Isn't it the writer's own choice on what elements they want to manipulate, considering they really are in fact just creating a world of their own.

Who's Huang Yi? This is irrelevant to my discussion but personally I think that time traveling in Wuxia is simply idiotic and is something no reader with good taste should approve of. Writers' rights to choose what they write do not preclude their readers from criticizing their choices.

The argument that any poorly written part of a novel should be exempt from criticism just because there are other poorly written parts that are overlooked, is simply flawed. It's akin to saying that a music critic can't criticize the musical elements of a rap song without also pointing out the offensive cultural stereotypes in it. Just because I haven't yet mentioned all the parts of Wuxia which are poorly written, it doesn't mean that I can't talk about how gender issues are poorly approached in Wuxia.

Not really about realism. You even have problem when the woman win through cheating or fighting using wits and unfair advantage.

Nope, no problem with that. In fact, I praised Huang Rong's ability to use her brains in a fight.

(if I remember correctly, it's you who dismissed those examples given of fantasy novels with homosexual main characters as not high fantasy or something in order to insist on your no homosexual main characters in high fantasy. 乜都你講晒啦. If it's not you, sorry if I remember the wrong person.)

You've definitely got me confused with someone else.

[bliss]

Why have we strayed from the main point ... that being martial arts level and physical strength is highly unrelated?

[kidd]

Who's Huang Yi? This is irrelevant to my discussion but personally I think that time traveling in Wuxia is simply idiotic and is something no reader with good taste should approve of. Writers' rights to choose what they write do not preclude their readers from criticizing their choices.

Huang Yi and Wen Rui An are the current most popular wuxia writers among wuxia readers besides Jin Yong, Liang Yu Sheng and Gu Long. They are know as the 5 Great Wuxia writers in among wuxia novel readers.

Among some of Huang Yi's well known works are 'Da Tang Shuang Long Zhuan' (loosely adapted by TVB into 'Twins of Brothers'), 'Xun Qin Ji' ('A Step into the Past'), 'Fu Yu Fan Yun' (very loosely adapted into 'Lethal Weapon of Love and Passion).

Wen Rui An is best known for his 'Si Da Ming Bu' series (adapted countless).

I have read 'Xun Qin Ji' (which is one of the novel with time traveling) but I've 2 books of 'Fu Yu Fan Yun' and found his writing easy to read and his story pretty absorbing with interesting character and storyline. His martial arts depiction is way more fantastical than Jin Yong and I've heard many of his novels has explicit sex scenes (the 2 books if FYFY I've read didn't have sex scene yet), but I don't think his work should be dismissed just because of unrealistic martial arts, time-traveling, or explicit sex scenes. I applaud him for daring to try something different.

[K2Grey]

Yes, this is a really bizarre thing to get worked up about considering that wuxia is also where 70 year old martial arts masters are possessed of great fighting ability.

[Aventinus]

Women should feel angry as well when they're being judged by the same standards as men and when their supposed feminist supporters have to bend the truth in order to portray women in a positive light. It's unfair and sexist to expect that women can only feel good about themselves only when they can duplicate every feat of men.

And I think the above is condescending because it's basically saying women should know their place and shut up and be happy. It's true that women in general are as physically strong and fast as men...but at the same time no one is saying women have to meet these standards. In through most of our history it been..."oh they are women, they can't do this" and since they can't do what men can do, they don't deserve as many rights......that is like the heart of sexism...

But that's besides the point.

Fiction is fiction is fiction. It needs absolutely no grounding in reality, none at all. If I chose to build a universe where women are dominant and strong and the men are weak and bear children, that's my universe. It's needs no basis in reality. The only thing piece of fiction needs to be is self consistent with it's own rules. (Like is a spaceship showed up to save the Han army or something like that is a clear violation). And as similar as JY and GL universe mirror ours, they are in fact different Universes....and they try for the most part to be self consistent.

The discriminator here is Internal Energy and technique. It has been brought up before, but that really is the reason. You responded with a post saying it seemed to you it was tied to physical strength or something and since men can cultivate more physical strength then they should be able to have more internal energy and thus you just don't buy. That because of your reasoning the men should still always be able to beat women in all cases.

Well that certainly isn't the case. Women men, Internal Energy is the biggest factor so ergo it does not work like you think it does and is not a 1 to 1 relationship with strength. It seems pretty obvious that women and men are equal in terms of potential for internal strength cultivation and the final outcome really depends on the individual (regardless of gender) and the technique used to cultivate and express that energy.

Instead of thinking of it was a footrace between a man and woman, think of it as a car race, where the Engine is the internal energy, the technique is the driving skill and the woman beating the men is Danica Patrick.

[Ren Ying Ying]

Who's Huang Yi? This is irrelevant to my discussion but personally I think that time traveling in Wuxia is simply idiotic and is something no reader with good taste should approve of. Writers' rights to choose what they write do not preclude their readers from criticizing their choices.

You don't have to like it. But what I gather from your posts is that the reason your dislike it is simply because you dislike the idea, not because it's not grounded in reality. As you've stated before, breaking laws of physics it is entertaining but breaking laws of biology is not entertaining. The end point is you're basing your criticisim on what you find entertaining, not what's based on reality.

[Wu Wudi]

Fiction is fiction is fiction. It needs absolutely no grounding in reality, none at all.

Sure, writers don't have to ground anything in relaity. There are certain conventions and rules within a genre that fictional writers should follow but they aren't laws and writers don't have to abide by them. However, good writers know the rules and conventions for the type of material they are writing and they know exactly when to follow them. The works of Charles Dickens and Shakespeare wouldn't have been so respected if they hadn't limited their artistic licenses in certain areas such as culture and history. That's because they weren't writing sci-fi but fiction that were based in reality. Likewise, Wuxia stories are supposed to be stories that took place in the ancient China of our world and not a China of some alternate universe. It's why the Mongols always won in the end against the Chinese of the Ming Dynasty. A writer could change how the war against the Mongols ended differently but then it wouldn't be Wuxia.

You don't have to like it. But what I gather from your posts is that the reason your dislike it is simply because you dislike the idea, not because it's not grounded in reality. As you've stated before, breaking laws of physics it is entertaining but breaking laws of biology is not entertaining. The end point is you're basing your criticisim on what you find entertaining, not what's based on reality.

Now you're just making an ad hominem argument. You're basically arguing that I can't question how JY handles gender in his novels because I don't like how he handles it. It's like saying someone can't criticize Nazi propaganda if that person disliked Nazi propaganda.

[Ren Ying Ying]

Now you're just making an ad hominem argument. You're basically arguing that I can't question how JY handles gender in his novels because I don't like how he handles it. It's like saying someone can't criticize Nazi propaganda if that person disliked Nazi propaganda.

where have i said you can't criticize it, my dear? i'm only suggesting that your criticizm lies on the basis of your like & dislike only, not on the basis of a consistent argument of grounded reality. everyone has their own rights to like & dislike, and no one can force others to think otherwise. However, if you're going to start a discussion on your reasons for your likes or dislikes, doesn't that mean you are inviting other posters to analyize your reasoning?

My endpoint is that your "reasoning" is highly inconsistent.

[kidd]

Sure, writers don't have to ground anything in relaity. There are certain conventions and rules within a genre that fictional writers should follow but they aren't laws and writers don't have to abide by them. However, good writers know the rules and conventions for the type of material they are writing and they know exactly when to follow them. The works of Charles Dickens and Shakespeare wouldn't have been so respected if they hadn't limited their artistic licenses in certain areas such as culture and history. That's because they weren't writing sci-fi but fiction that were based in reality. Likewise, Wuxia stories are supposed to be stories that took place in the ancient China of our world and not a China of some alternate universe. It's why the Mongols always won in the end against the Chinese of the Ming Dynasty. A writer could change how the war against the Mongols ended differently but then it wouldn't be Wuxia.

Gu Long's novel took place in a neverending Ming dynasty.

So, what is the conventions and rules of wuxia genre? Who authorised it? Which scholar/literature professor/president of International wuxia society said that 'Wuxia stories are supposed to be stories that took place in the ancient China of our world and not a China of some alternate universe' is one of the rule and convention of the genre? Everyone has his her own idea of what is acceptable in wuxia and what is not. Authors whose work didn't follow YOUR idea of what wuxia genre convention and rules should be are distasteful to you, but, this doesn't mean they are not good writers. They are just not to your taste.

I still don't get why you are so hung up with women being equal to men in a genre where internal energy can make a human perform superhuman feat. Your idea that physical strength = internal energy is not even a fact (you don't even believe in the existence of internal energy to began with). It's just what you postulate from your reading of mainly Jin Yong (I guess) novels. But, even JY contradict his own philosophy about internal energy in his different novels (SOD vs trilogyy). So, why so hung up? The are many wuxia novels who has exceptional female characters who are powerful martial artists. So, this can be considered a norm within wuxia genre not a violation of wuxia convention and rule.

[ChronoReverse]

*sigh* Ridiculous.


In fiction, internal consistency is what you look for when you question premises. In wuxia, internal energy is independent from physique and gender. Therefore it's perfectly consistent that sometimes women can be stronger than men if their internal energy cultivation is superior.


You can't pick and choose what you want to criticize. You can't say that one aspect is bad because it doesn't resemble real life while at the same time allowing for other aspects despite those not resembling real life either.