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Thread: If legacy mattered to wulin sects so much, why were they such bad historians?

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    Moderator Ken Cheng's Avatar
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    Default If legacy mattered to wulin sects so much, why were they such bad historians?

    In wulin, every sect hopes to leave a glorious legacy. Of course, the best way to do this is to have your sect be among the most powerful in wulin, generation after generation. If that can't be accomplished, then the next best thing would be to pass on a powerful martial arts technique that would continue to bring glory to the sect's name for posterity, even if the sect itself ceases to exist.

    Clearly, legacy meant a great deal to wulin sects and their leaders. That being the case, why did so few of them record an accurate and exhaustive history of their sect? We know that Yeung Siu wrote a fairly detailed history of the Ming Cult, but many major wulin sects did not have an authoritative history. Take the Beggar's Union, for example. By the time of LOCH, the Beggar's Union elders didn't have a clear take on the details of former Union Chief Kiu Fung, who had lived one-hundred years earlier. I bet that by the time of Union Chief Shih For Lung in HSDS, the members of the Beggar's Union didn't even know whom Kiu Fung was (few of them probably even knew much about the relatively more recent Hung 7 Gung). Similarly, when the Cheun Jen Sect ceased to exist as a wulin power after ROCH, few people from the HSDS or later generations knew anything about the sect's wulin accomplishments, despite the sect's founder having once been recognized for decades as wulin's top martial artist and the sect itself being the most prominent in wulin for a period of seventy years. Members die, sect unity breaks down, and perhaps martial arts skills fail to get passed on to posterity, but if any of these sects had a historian to record its major milestones, their legacies might not have been completely lost to future generations.

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    People from different sects probably didn't bother to read about all the various histories of other sects. It seems hard enough to know about the current heroes/sects of the world, nevermind learning about the past. I'm surprised people know as much as they do about other people, considering the lack of communication methods.

    Even in our age, avid basketball players/fans know a lot about the current league, but many do not bother to learn about the past greats. And it's a relatively new sport. I imagine in 100 years nobody will take the time or care to learn about players that dominated despite the huge amount of information easily available. Even now the David Robinsons, Clyde Drexlers, Karl Malones and the like are probably unknown to even avid basketball fans under 15-20 despite the Internet. They dominated, but will not really be known in a couple years.

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    Senior Member Candide's Avatar
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    Please read the novel. The Beggars Union example of yours is flat out wrong. The Quanzhen one - Qiu Chuji was still mentioned here & there in HSDS and one other novel, but since the School died a long time ago, it doesn't make any sense to bring them up in latter books.
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