Is it possible for a character who is 18cm shorter and not as muscled as their opponent to pin said opponent to the ground in a few calculated moves? Both characters are fit and exercise regularly, but the shorter character has trained in various martial arts (with and without weapons) and the taller one is more proficient in sword duelling. My intent is to write a sparring scene where the shorter character humbles the (overconfident) taller one. Any specific martial arts I should look at?
So... being shorter doesn't matter. In fact, in this situation, it is an advantage.
I'm going to point out here that if you're not careful, your character that you want to have a badass moment is going to look like an complete asshole because they are humiliating another character who they actually are better than. If they haven't been trading off humiliations to build tension (safely so no one gets hurt) then you're going to have a lopsided “sparring” session. Or, you will, if you haven't been building up your narrative to support the humbling. (And there is a lot that goes into these scenes to make them work, which, if you're not familiar with how martial arts training works then you'll approach it from the wrong mindset and hit Starke's pet peeve.)
Let's hit the ground running with the high points:
Sparring is not dueling.
Sparring is not play fighting.
Sparring is not so you can humiliate your opponent.
Sparring is not about fighting anyone or anything.
Sparring is a training exercise so that both of you can work on improving specific techniques.
Do people in real life get carried away sparring? Yes, they do. Are they complete competitive idiots about it? Yes, they are. Do they get punished for it? Absolutely, they do. This is especially true where they'll be expected to put their lives on the line. Treating violence like a game is detrimental, and leaves the trainee ill-prepared for dealing with real danger when in the field. Make no mistake, that is exactly the mindset you are describing in this question. Your characters (at least your minor ones, the trainers in this situation if your leads are too young or too dumb to comprehend their reality) should care about stomping this attitude out. And you as the author should to. Why? Because if you don't take the violence in your narrative seriously neither will your audience.
There are rules, as a writer it's imperative you establish the rules (and there no rules means you haven't established them for violence in your setting and therefore won't be able to establish the baseline that can be built upon later) and one of the rules is that you're not going to spar someone with a weapon (wood or otherwise) unless you both have weapons. There's not a lot of value in having one character spar with a weapon and one spar without one unless it's a knife, and the point is learning the dangers of knife fighting. And knives make sense because they are in the same distance range as fists. Swords are in a completely separate distance category. They are mid-range weapons.
You don't practice disarms by sparring, you practice disarms by practicing disarms in a controlled setting where you're repeating the motion over and over. Can you humiliate a person by being good at practice disarms? Yes. You do it by being a complete dick. It also requires the character in question to be better at the moves in question than the other character performing them because they need to be able to confidently, or at least believe they can, counter the other person's growing anger while taking the move a step further or two than they're supposed to. It also means they can get away with it without arousing the suspicions of their instructor (or act with their instructors approval) and no one gets hurt. (We hope.) For a character to do this is a sign of overconfidence, FYI. As is trying to humiliate someone in a sparring session. The characters that are good enough? They don't do it.
In fiction, good sparring scenes serve one real purpose. They establish a baseline of skill in safe setting so the audience becomes comfortable only for that to be disrupted and thrown into chaos when the characters encounter real violence. There's two paths for this. Either the character is a big winner only to be brutally beaten later, or they get dumped on their ass to find that they're actually much better prepared than they thought later when it matters. That's why so many stories with these scenes dump their MC on their ass, especially in any Wuxia or Shounen manga. This is because the authors of these stories understand that sparring has no reflection on how well a person will do when they're allowed out of the training safe space. If your baseline is: my character is awesome. Then it's all downhill from that point on.
Say it with me, Losses Create Tension. If your character is winning all the time, you have no tension and your fight scenes will be boring. The goal when it comes to creating a character who is good at fighting is to make other characters look better. Or, from an antagonistic/mentor point they exist to establish the height our MCs must eventually reach/how much further they have to go in their journey. Kakashi's fight with Zabuza or the first fight between Itachi and Sasuke in Naruto are both great examples of how to do this well.
I'm not saying you can't write a sparring scene like the one you intend. I can't tell you to do anything, what I want to you to start doing is considering the implications of the scene, what it may say about your world and characters that you didn't intend, and it's overall impact on the whole of your narrative. Narrative gratification here is work you'll need to do to build back your tension later. Is it a win your MC can afford?
Now, you can look at any martial art that has a ground fighting component for what you want to do unless you're planning on having the duelist spar with their sword. If you want that, you're going to have to do a lot more work with a smaller pool. This will be doubly true if your characters are of European descent and you want to avoid the East Asian martial art styles.
Type: “how do you knock your opponent off balance?” into Google and you'll find a lot of variations.
The basic concept behind putting someone on the ground isn't strength, it's balance. The key is disrupting your opponent's balance. If you're skilled enough or your opponent's footwork is bad enough, it can be done in a single move. In fact, it can be done a variety of different ways from a variety of different moves from countless different martial arts. The question isn't can it be done, the question is how does your character want to do it? The fact they are short only helps them because their center of gravity will be lower than their opponent's, they don't have to work as hard to maintain their balance, their stance doesn't have to be as deep, and they will have an easier time knocking a taller person over. Most people who've never practiced martial arts have no idea how foundational the footwork is or how important the feet are to staying upright.
I personally like reviewing Silat for studying balance, not necessarily for techniques, but because I find their instruction on the concept easy to grasp/digest. They do the string on the top of the head and the balance triangle, which if you can wrap your mind around that you'll be able to conceptualize fight scenes where the character focuses on knocking an opponent off balance better.
The above is a more advanced video, but if you have no martial arts background or even a sports background whatsoever then you want to aim for instructional videos that focus on concepts over techniques. The advice is always write what you know and if you don't know learn. Copying techniques onto the page won't create a great fight scene. Understanding the concept, philosophy, and basic body mechanics behind the techniques will get you much further. None of them are stand ins for real experience or doing it yourself. If you really want to be good at it, find a martial art you like, find a school nearby, and invest the time.
All of your characters' martial arts moves (whether they are dueling with a sword or fighting hand to hand) function around the body's center of gravity. Your center of gravity is slightly above your hips and in your core muscles i.e your abdominal muscles. They will be trained so maintaining their balance is second nature. When martial artists talk about overextending, they're talking about putting your weight past your balance point which puts you in danger of losing your balance/falling over or being grabbed, kicked, etc and getting thrown, tripped, or forced into a fall. This can happen when you're throwing a punch, doing a kick, lunging with your sword, or doing any other sort of movement. You end up in a position where your balance between your front and back leg is destabilized, which creates the opening for your opponent to throw you. Or when you fall over on the ice, because that happens too.
Some other martial arts to turn to:
Judo
Jiu Jutsu
Aikido
Baguazhang (Seen in Avatar the Last Airbender as the basis for Air Bending)
Tai Chi Chuan
Northern Shaolin
Taekwondo (if you want to do it via kicks, all kicking martial arts innately focus on balance)
Krav Maga
Ninjutsu
The list goes on.
I also recommend dipping your toes into live action martial arts flicks to start getting yourself accustomed to more complex choreography. This is getting yourself out of the animated space (like in anime) and into the space where you have to watch a live person perform the techniques. Asian cinema has a different choreography style than the US does, because there are different cultural expectations. Overall, the choreography is more intricate and they break the action down a lot more (as opposed to American media where they zoom out to cover for the stunt double.) It's easier to see how the bodies are working and they put a lot more focus on destabilizing balance as part of the fight sequences. Hollywood doesn't get into the weird martial arts shit unless it's an actual martial arts action film. You can also do an Avatar the Last Airbender/Legend of Korra deep dive because the action there is also usually on point, but I'm a proponent of going to the source when you want to learn something. So, you know watch Alchemy of Souls instead.
-Michi
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inspired by that one wandering blades blogpost, here's an attempt at "Gubat Banwa-fying" THE RAID, specifically the RAMA VS MACHETE GANG scene, one of the best scenes in the movie
if you haven't watched the raid, you owe it yourself to see a gritty, brutal application of pencak silat that is all at once kinetic, ballistic, and horrifying
youtube
anyway let's boogie
here's some important starting assumptions and disclaimers
gubat banwa is not specifically emulating any genre--it is a simulation of itself. hence, not everything will fit perfectly, but role-playing games care not for perfection
gubat banwa is a tactical martial arts game: this means there are a lot of mechanics and abstractions to create multiple tactical decision points in combat: it's not aiming specifically for the cinematic. gubat banwa's tactical violence is very gamified, on purpose
POSTURE (POS) represents wear and tear as well as desperate avoidance of attacks and blows. while it doesn't feel like Rama is taking any head on damage from the attacks here, he is absolutely still getting worn down, exhausted, and suffering a thousand tiny hits to his stamina. This is what POS is meant to represent.
RAMA is a LEGEND 4 MANGANGAYAW (raiding, focus on quick strikes and forward movement) though he has no weapons on him, that doesn't make him any less dangerous. this means he has a whole slew of techniques and most importantly, has access to all Four Signature Techniques of the Mangangayaw, as well as their Enlightenment
Rama only has 1 Anting here: the Kala Cuirass (his kevlar jacket) which gives him +4 POS, which means he has a max of 44 POS
most of the Machete Gang are made of MACHETE GUY 1 is a Legend 0 Fist (32 POS), MACHETE GUY 2 and 3 are Legend 0 Swordmaidens (32 POS), though the larger guy (BIG MACHETE BOSS) is a Legend 1 Berserker (34 POS). this is in stark contrast with Rama being of a much higher Legend
the hallway is long but not wide: it's at most 12 x 3, with each room extension being 5x5. this makes melee fighting almost essential, which is good
Beats are put in [X] brackets
let's begin: the divination dice are rolled: 2 evens, 2 odds: machete gang goes first, and rama starts with 2 Thunderbolts
A bit of fictionalization:
Rama is stuck here in front of a gang of armed men. Only stupid people would attempt to go up against someone--not to mention 4 of them--without a weapon of his own. this is why Rama was so hesitant to face them in the first place. the fact that Rama gets out of this alive shows a reality of The Raid's Universe: if you're skilled enough, you can probably get out of it unscathed. Gubat Banwa shares this reality and assumption. in real life, this is a lot less commonly true: it can still happen, but is rarer and not worth taking the chances
FIGHT STARTS AT 1:27
Machete Gang and Rama both start at the ends of a 12 tile long hallway.
RESOUND 1
Machete Guy 1: Rushes forward thrice
Rama: Rushes forward once to meet the guy, then performs BETWEEN THUNDERS to blow him wide open (disarming him in the fiction), then Deflects
Machete Guy 2: Rushes forward twice then attacks Rama, but Rama evades it due to Demerit from the Deflect, then he moves 2 behind Rama
Machete Guy 3: Does the same, Rama still evades thanks to the Demerit, describes it as pinning the guy to the side, gaining +1 TB.
Big Machete Boss: Machete Boss rushes forward [1], Inflicts Violence [1], but Rama uses his Break to Live Hand and performs TOO LIKE THE LIGHTNING to deal 8 DMG to him (and Rama describes himself shoving the Machete Guy 3 for TB, though functionally he's still beside him). Big Machete Boss's attack goes through, and he deals 3 DMG to Rama. He does it again [3] with 3 Demerit due to Deflect and Rama evades all the attacks. What you see in the scene itself is Rama describing his avoidances, gaining another TB. He now has 4 TB.
RESOUND 2:
RAMA goes first, refreshing his Break, then performing BETWEEN THUNDERS + TOO LIKE THE LIGHTNING to Big Machete Boss, dealing 12 DMG to him. He then keeps up the Deflect (a smart move, as a clean attack will damage him horribly and maim if he's not careful even if he is at Legend 4)
MACHETE GUY 2: Rushes [1] (leaping on top of Rama) and Inflicts Violence [2], dealing 4 DMG to Rama (he's at 7 DMG, he only has 44 POS), he Inflicts Violence again [3] but with 3 Demerit, Rama evades the attack completely.
MACHETE GUY 1: Rushes [1] and then uses Polearm Master [2] to slide Rama closer to him, then Deflect [3] to protect. He then yells at Machete Guy 3 to chop Rama's leg off
MACHETE GUY 3: He acquiesces, Inflicting Violence still with Demerit, but Rama performs Live Hand (dealing 9 DMG) evades this (in the fiction, him doing a two-kick disarm). The Machete Guy, avoid to do any more, spends his last Beat to Deflect.
BIG MACHETE BOSS: Doesn't go in just yet, and spends a Beat to just Deflect.
RESOUND 3:
RAMA (7 DMG) goes first, refreshing his Break, then goes wild at the guy in front of him (Machete Guy 1), dealing 15 DMG to him!, forcing him back. He then rushes 1 tile and then Deflects.
MACHETE GUY 2: Rushes [1], attacks twice: first one deals 4 DMG to Rama, the second one is evaded. Rama performs a deft deflection, gaining +1 TB because that was cool as shit. He's at max TBs now.
MACHETE GUY 1 (15 DMG): Rushes [1]: Inflicts Violence twice: same thing: first one deals 2 DMG to Rama and then the second is Evaded.
BIG MACHETE BOSS (12 DMG): Rushes [1], Inflict Violence and deals 5 DMG, the second one Rama performs Live Hand against, and deals 9 DMG to Big Machete Boss. He then evades the third attack, which Rama's player decides to describe as the awesome backward cut as shown there. Importantly, this brings Big Machete Boss to 21 DMG, Staggering him, as shown as the clean cut given to the Big Machete Boss.
MACHETE GUY 3 (9 DMG): Rushes [1], Inflicts Violence twice: first one deals 2 DMG, the second is completely avoided
RESOUND 4:
RAMA(18 DMG): Uses this for set up: he inflicts violence to Machete Guy 3 to deal 9 DMG to him (slamming him against the wall). Takes on Killing Blow Stance [2], then Deflects [3].
BIG MACHETE BOSS (21 DMG): Rushes [1], Inflicts Violence, dealing 2 DMG) to Rama, and then Shove [3] to push him back 1 tile to in between THREE targets.
MACHETE GUY 2: Rushes up to Rama twice [1-2] to get into position, and then inflicts violence, but Rama avoids it.
MACHETE GUY 3 (18 DMG): Does the same: Rush twice and then Inflict Violence, but Rama avoids it as well. Demerit is pretty strong.
MACHETE GUY 1 (15 DMG): Spends a Beat to turn and Inflict Violence on Rama twice which are also Evaded, and then spends a Beat to Deflect.
RESOUND 5:
RAMA (20 DMG) goes wild: The scene where he's fending off attacks from both sides is represented by him being flanked. There's no moment in Gubat Banwa's tactical system wherein people are just standing right beside each other. They're always trying to out maneuver each other.
Rama shoves [1] Machete Guy 1 away to remove another flanking idea. Then, he Shoves Machete Guy 2 out through the door (dealing 2 DMG to him through Collide). For his last beat, he unleashes a powerful attack against Machete Guy 3, who is Staggered: he performs KILL THE STORM with the benefits of KILLING BLOW STRIKE (+2 Merit, Relentless, +d4 DMG, and ignores Combo Breaker): he rolls (with d10 because MG3 is Staggered) and deals 29 DMG (and he Smirked because he Chained [from Mangangayaw's WHIRLPOOL MOVEMENT], so his EVD becomes 3 and he adds +1 to all Violence Rolls until he gets Damaged. Just for the coolness, he spends 3 TBs to get another Beat and he moves into the room, doing the very brutal finishing move on the MG3. He gets 1 TB back, so he's back at 3TB. He spends the rest of his SPD to move deeper into the room where he's attacked by...
MG2 2 DMG: Inflicts Violence against him, which AVOIDS, the second Inflict Violence RAMA uses Live Hand to disarm him and also use KILL THE STORM against him, dealing 11 DMG to him, bringing MG2 to 13 DMG, and then he avoids it again. Suffering Demerit, MG2 only Deflects.
BMB (21 DMG): Rushes in and attacks. Inflict Violence twice, both avoided.
MG3 18 DMG): Does the same. First attack deals 1 DMG popping the Smirk, second is avoided completely.
RESOUND 6:
RAMA (21 DMG): Refreshes Break. He shoves BMB first to the side (2 DMG from Collide), takes on the Killing Blow Stance, and then performs Kill The Storm on MG3, dealing 25 DMG, and also Smirking. Killing the guy and getting his EVD+1 back.
MG3 (15 DMG): Gets to Inflict Violence, actually dealing damage and popping his Smirk, dealing 6 DMG, and then shoves him back, making him trip on dangerous terrain (the couch) dealing another 2 DMG. He then rushes toward Rama.
BMB (21 DMG): Low on POS, he waits for a bit, and Deflects.
RESOUND 7:
Rama (28 DMG): Plays it safe: rushes back, takes Killing Blow Stance, and then Deflects.
MG3 (15 DMG): Jumps in and starts attacking: Rama uses Live Hand to attack back with Kill The Storm, dealing: 20 DMG. More than enough to Defeat MG3. He describes himself parrying the attacks, catching MG3 as he jumps up again, and then slamming him against the wall behind them.
BMB (21 DMG): Jumps in now. Rush [1], they brawl: BMB deals 4 DMG to Rama, bringing him down. They're brawling: BMB's third attack misses completely.
RESOUND 8:
The Resound where they brawl and try to strangle each other in the scene.
RAMA (32 DMG, Staggered): At this point in the fight both of them are completely brawling: Rama shoves him away, uses Between Thunders, then TOO LIKE THE LIGHTNING against him. He rolls low, only dealing 4 DMG. He describes his attacks really cool-like, getting +1 TB, so he's back to 4 TB.
BMB 25 DMG: Does the same. Rush then Inflict Violence. Deals 6 DMG. (This is the grappling and strangling and beat down part as they move into the corner). Then Shove him away.
RESOUND 9:
RAMA: (38 DMG) Rama is desperate now. He spends a Beat to take on Killing Blow Stance, then he Deflects.
BMB (25 DMG): Rushes and then Inflicts Violence. Before that, Rama spends a Break to Live Hand, then performs his Killing Blow Stance. He rolls impossibly low: dealing only 7 DMG, bringing BMB to 32 DMG. To finish it off, he spends 3 Thunderbolts to Multiattack, dealing +7 DMG, finally killing BMB.
This got longer than it needed to be but it was too fun and this is one of my favorite fights in cinema. Hope you got to enjoy it
Demonstrating some wushu skills: 寸掌 (cun4zhang3; one-inch palm strike), 手刀 (shou3dao1; knifehand strike), 寸拳 (cun4quan2; one-inch punch), 隔山打牛 (ge2shan1da3niu2; lit. hitting a cow from the other side of a mountain, in wushu: indirect knockdown)
Nine-Section Whip by master Ding Xiaoyuan 👊 According to the book Soft Weapons: Nine-Section Whip and Rope Dart, "The nine-section whip, regarded as a 'powerful hidden weapon,' was first used on the battlefield during the Jìn Dynasty (265-420)
I'm writing a scene where a cultivater (chinese martial artists who fights ghosts) falls in a forest and I'm trying to figure out how someone who fights on rough terrain would train to fall. I tried looking at martial art/parkour/stunt man tutorials, but I feel like a lot of the basic techniques (rolling, and slapping the ground to distribute weight) wouldn't work well on uneven ground. I also tried looking at hiking advice but they just say to fall on your pack. Any insight?
Chinese cultivators don’t fall, they choose to reacquaint themselves with the ground.
That sounds like a joke, but the best way to understand Chinese cultivators and Chinese fantasy media is to realize that martial arts are the gateway drug to magic. And that will get you into a lot of trouble if you follow that all the way into Martial Arts Give You Superpowers, which is both the outgrowth of the western understanding of Chinese culture and a trope rife with orientalism. Cultivation seems simple on the surface when you’re watching Chinese media, but it’s more than martial arts, it’s more than religion, it’s more than mythology, (though it is all of those too) it’s a genuine transition into metaphysics that reorients how we understand and interact with the world around us. The concepts we see in cultivation come from real martial arts philosophy that you find in Tai Chi, Shaolin, and most other Chinese martial arts. They come from real religions including Daoism, Buddhism, a healthy dose of Confucianism, general mythology and mysticism from a wide range of subcultures, and, to an extent, Animism. If you aren’t doing your reading with the Eight Immortals, Journey to the West, The Legend of the White Snake, and others then you should dig in. I also really suggest watching the live action C-Dramas whether they’re true Wuxia or more Xianxia idol dramas (and in this case the idol dramas are better because the action is slower) so you can acquaint yourself with the stylized martial arts portrayals, a wide variety of choreography, character archetypes essential to motif based storytelling, and the most important aspect of all—wire work.
Understanding and conceptualizing stunt action done on wires is essential when you’re trying to visualize and create action scenes in any East Asian genre. Your first instinct might be to dismiss the stylized movement as unrealistic (it is) but remember that it’s also genre essential. Hong Kong action cinema has a very specific feel to it that’s very different from the way Western cinema structures and films their fight scenes. Even when you’re writing, you’ll want to find ways to imitate it through your visual imagery on the page.
Probably the best way to contextualize cultivators is that they’re wizards who do martial arts. They’ve learned to transcend the limitations in our understanding of reality through knowledge and study to perform superhuman feats. How superhuman? Well, it gets wild. They can be anywhere from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon/Who Rules the World fly through the trees levels to Shang Tsung’s “I’m going to slam my hell reality into your normal reality because commuting to work is too much of an inconvenience.”
Which is to say, they don’t always fight ghosts. Sometimes they fight other martial artists, sometimes they fight other cultivators, sometimes they fight demons, sometimes they fight gods, and sometimes they fight incredibly overpowered monkeys. They’re often monks living in seclusion on a mountaintop, but not always. Cultivation is more of a state of mind. Anyone can do it if they learn how to absorb spiritual energy from the world around them through meditation and breathing exercises. Gods cultivate. Humans cultivate. Animals cultivate. Remember, the demons and the ghosts cultivate too. Sometimes, your master gets reincarnated as a demon. Sometimes, you do. The amount of wacky spellcasting you can do is dependent on how much energy you’ve cultivated, which is dependent on how old you are and how good at cultivation you are. Using the power means you need to cultivate more energy, the greater the spell or difficult the battle then the more energy is lost.
This is important to the question of: how does a cultivator fall?
Metaphorically? Existentially? Physically?
When we’re talking physically, wire work becomes very important. Think of your cultivator as being on wires. If they have the knowledge and understanding to do it, they can slow their own fall through the air to land harmlessly on the ground or twist over like a cat and launch themselves back off the ground to fly at their opponent in a counter attack. If they have the knowledge and understanding, they can teleport. If they lack the knowledge and understanding or want to trick their opponent, they can hit the ground like a sack of potatoes. If they’re relying on basics, they can also smack the ground to counter and spread out the impact then use the momentum from that fall to roll back onto their feet. They’ll do it no matter what terrain they’re on because it’s a basic technique that’s trained into their foundation to the point it’s a reflexive action. Any force distributed away from, and reducing impact on, important body parts like your spine is better than nothing. It’s better to sacrifice your arm than be paralyzed. At its heart, that’s the point of the technique. If you’re able to walk away with a functioning spine, it’s done its job. Your shoulder hurts? That’s normal. Your arm is sprained or broken? Sucks, but that’s better than the alternative that is paralysis and death. For reference, learning to fall was the first lesson my Wushu instructor ever taught me. It is that basic.
A lot of the time when portraying cultivators in media, the goal is to show them as being beyond the limitations of standard martial artists. How vast the gap is between the cultivator and the average human is dependent on both the setting and the cultivator. So, the average martial artist who possesses superhuman talents but hasn’t dedicated themselves to a life of cultivation and cultivators who are new to the path are going to be on the rung below and more likely to be knocked on their ass. Cultivators in the mid-range are more likely to have crafted or trained in solutions to being knocked on their ass which put them in a less vulnerable position while recovering and empowered/enhanced their martial arts. Cultivators in the top tier are usually straight up masters at spellcasting, if they deign to fight at all. Gravity need not apply. Rember, the time it takes you to hit the ground and roll to your feet is time your opponent has to launch a counter attack or move to a better position. Also, it means you’ve taken your eyes off your opponent. This is bad enough against a normal human opponent. Against another mostly immortal or ancient magic user this risks a terrible outcome.
Cunning and strategy are both as important as skill. Wisdom, knowledge, and hard work outweigh talent and raw potential. You’ll have to decide how esoteric you want to be and what limits you want to set. I really urge you to do this because the danger of power creep is real and especially prominent here. A character’s growth in power is often linked to their growth in character or their arc, as they gain a greater understanding of themselves and the world around them their skill increases. The self-discovery/self-reflection/self-interrogation/intense suffering to reach enlightenment portion is just as important and intrinsic to the martial arts portion of Martial Arts Give You Superpowers. It’s easy to focus on the Superpowers or the Martial Arts parts of the equation and miss the genre necessity of character growth. This growth often happens through heaps of steadily increasing trauma. Or, failing to undergo that by being too powerful and thus unable to progress is the joke like it is in Qi Refining for 3000 Years. (Go to hell, Bai Qiuran, you hilariously overpowered monstrosity.)
The irony is that the trajectory in character growth is the same trajectory the average student experiences when practicing martial arts. The only difference is that the power arc is inflated. This includes overcoming ingrained truths that you believe about yourself, about your own abilities, what you believe yourself to be capable of (both good and bad,) about your biases toward yourself and other people, your biases about reality in general, your understanding of good and evil, the potential upending of right and wrong, and facing the greater complexity found in the world at large. The stripping away of these illusions, coming to terms with uncomfortable realizations in a more complicated world, and the gaining of new understanding and confidence are vital to that growth.
Skill isn’t just represented in the power creep, it’s also found in a character’s sophistication and complexity in their approach to combat and life in general. Their awareness both of themselves and of other people, their ability to read intentions, their predictive abilities, their complexity in initiating their own strategy and tactics while also recognizing and countering the plans of others. It’s their insight into human nature and their cunning. It’s not enough to be powerful. The world is full of powerful people and not so powerful people who have the capacity to be just as dangerous. This isn’t Goku and Freeza slamming into each other while the planet explodes in nine minutes. You also need to be smart. It’s also not about being a better person. It’s about being a self-aware person. A person who is self-actualized. Monkey’s growth is in his awareness of the world around him through his experiences and in approaching problems differently rather than becoming less of a little shit. If you grow up in the West, one of the issues you’re going to face is thinking of these hurdles as materialistic rather than emotional or intellectual.
A lot of Western media misinterprets the concepts of “giving up” as physical sacrifice. One of the popular examples is physically sacrificing the person we love. In order to have enlightenment, we must be separated from them. We can’t physically be with them anymore. Whereas under a Buddhist structure, what we are actually sacrificing is our own ignorance, our own preconceptions, and beliefs that keep the world comfortable. Under this structure, we’re sacrificing our preconceived notions of who our loved one is. The person that we invented when we first met and we must force ourselves to come to terms with who they really are. The outcome of this isn’t necessarily going to be bad, but it’s still painful. The person we think we love could be perfectly wonderful. However, they’re not who we imagined. If we choose to hold onto the illusion we created, to ignore the realization that the illusion is the person that we love, we’ll only end up causing ourselves and our loved one more pain. We must fall in love with them all over again. Coming to terms with that is painful. All pain comes from ignorance. In sacrificing, letting go of, or overcoming our ignorance, we grow.
These are the emotional, intellectual, and spiritual challenges necessary for a cultivator because they allow the cultivator to level up. Yes, level up. Whether this is coming from the influx of gaming culture into media at large or because the concept synergizes with the Buddhist goal of progressing through the Six Realms toward nirvana, leveling up is how a cultivator’s increasing power is often depicted. Of course, once we reach the next level we can’t go back except by falling or failing and are no longer the person we once were. This then gets mixed in with Daoist principles of finding divine understanding by living in harmony with the universe. The more understanding we gain of the world, the more energy we can absorb as a result, but our original goals may be lost or changed in the process. If a character begins their journey on the path of revenge, their newfound contextualization of the situation that caused them immense pain may force them to give that revenge up or find they don’t want revenge anymore.
Failure is also an option and often a common part of the story. These stories usually follow characters through multiple lives and rebirths over hundreds and even thousands of years, especially if they’re also gods. This is the existential fall. The fall to the Dark Side. All our heroes are going to go through it at least once. This is also why a lot of Chinese media ends in tragedy with hope for the next round.
-Michi
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