Situation 1
Idiot:"How dare you stand in my way?!"
You: "Wtf? The way is so big why do you want to go on a straight line?"
Idiot: "This lord can do whatever he wants!"
You: "Retarded, Totally unreasonable, Prolonging word coun— forget I wrote that."
Ridiculous.
Situation 2
Mc: Got bullied for being trash + Found a treasure = Genius only found in 10000 years.
And with a childhood girl—friend that would become one of his wife.
Woebegone One of my favorite episodes of Samurai Jack used this troupe in a way that both makes sense and none at all:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CPhwT3ujIc
I love this thread.
On another note, a plug for my novels where I avoid all of these things(Quite well, I like to think.)
World Domination System: Kingdom Building, Cultivation, War, Ruling
Age of Teras: Monster Evolution: Pokemon, but with different classes and cultivation theme(and other factors which are also more realistic)
Point 1: usually, the stories take place in lands with civilizations of more than 10,000 years (more than history on Earth). In the distant past, experts were everywhere to see, but no more now days. During those more than 10,000 years, there has been no progress at all, more a regression, no technology improvement, no science improvement, nothing about transports, communication etc. The information is privatized, hard to find in worlds where humans aren't the only dominant species. Normally, there should be efforts from mankind to share the knowledge and to try to improve itself, but never, only the strong has access to it.
Point 2: the worlds are so big, a mere country is larger than Russia with tens or hundreds million people. You don't have around 200 countries but thousands of them (minimum)... Most of those countries are isolationist, there is little communications, cultural exchanges between them but you have a homogeneous culture and language in the world.
Point 3: the currencies and their values. For commoners, it's metal coins, visibly acceptable everywhere in the world, the countries don't have their own systems... At a certain moment in the story, you don't care anymore about this currency and you trade with cultivation ressources. The problem is that those resources, even if sparse in theory, seems in reality illimited, and this currency system is not viable.
Point 4: the time that passes..., the real experts of the world are always old monsters who have lived for hundreds or thousands of years. Until the main character and gang catches up to them, nobody never managed to catch up for generations. Those old monsters usually have a unique son or daughter, for thousands of years of existence, this son/daughter is surprisingly the same age compared to the MC and will become a member of MC's gang. MC and gang usually managed to catch up in a few years/decades, when everybody else should at least spend centuries to do so. Often, only MC and gang + a few enemies are able to go from weak to strong and improve. All the other characters only show stagnation during those years of story.
Point 5: the auctions..., there are always auctions in those stories, and the treasure MC needs the most is always available in the auction next city, next month, even if he is the only one who don't know it before the beginning of the auction. There is always an intense bid competition to win the real treasure, and MC is always to poor, to alone to fairly compete for the treasure he needs the most. The winner of the auction is always a greedy enemy who want to snatch what MC has managed to buy but this greedy enemy will be killed and MC will get the treasure in the end.
ludo2776 Point 1: Ugh, cultivation Novels on thw whole are terrible about this. Somehow Mortal beings are able to understand the "Dao of water" enough to create Tsunamis and become Gods, but the idea of a water fountain or a refrigerator is beyond all modern science for these people. And don't get me started on how easy it would be to create a working telephone system when half the population can shoot lightning from their eyes.
Point 2: Riding the coat tails of #1 that everyone keeps all education and cultivational knowledge a secret: illiterate farmers three continents away from each other all speak the exact same language and can all exposition dump the entire history of the Sect the MC just angered as if they read it's Wikipedia entry. Even worse when the MC is an isekai and has to "hide the fact he doesn't know anything about the advanced workings of this world" even though EVERYONE in the starter village shouldn't know that much either.
Point 3: There is no Industrial or Socio-Economics for most Dirt farmers in these Worlds, so who is standardizing and printing all of these coins and evenly distributing them across the entire 1 billion kilometer Continent? As you said, cultivators don't use coins...
Point 4: Cultivation creep in the most annoying thing I can think of when it comes to consistency issues in Wuxia Novels. In the Protagonist's starting town the highest Cultivation is a level 0.5 Grandfather who's the Head of the biggest clan. It took him 80 years to get that far.
Next Arc the MC faces a 20 year old who's power level is 1.5, meaning he only took 10 years to triple the cultivation of the strongest known person previously mentioned. But it's okay because he's a "Genius"
Skip to the following Arc and all of a sudden there are 12 year old Lolis who have reached 3.0 God realm in just 2 years of training! This means their average cultivation speed is 1.25 levels Per Month! But after meeting the MC they stay near that level for the next 2 years as they tag along as a Harem Member. It gets so bad that towards the end of the Novel, we start seeing level 10.0 cultivators (that are somehow the same age as the MC) coming out of the woodwork and you have to stop and think "How do these people find the time to look for trouble when they should logically be spending every second of everyday power leveling in some cave just to justify their growth rate?"
Point 5: I've always hated auction arc for how lazy and cliche they always are. MC needs something, Young Master wants it too, "YOU DARE!", ~Face Slap~, then they get hunted down after they leave and have to flee to the next town, Repeat ad nauseum.
For a 10000 - 50000+ year old history span, their level of technology should have already reached Information age (Computer Age, Digital Age, or New Media Age) if not middle ages or later. Should I say that practically almost every emperors, kings or royalties just focused in their military power side instead of technological one? I'm just speculating this as I'm not expert in history. If the all those years were invested to improving cultivation and medicine at the same time perfecting it, Why are there still "Trashes" around big clans? Their cultivation manuals should be extremely efficient and modernized to suit the new era youths.
What always bothered me was that there are clans/sects/kingdoms with THOUSANDS of years of history, each generation married to several women over hundreds of years, yet the most promising young master is coincidentally born around the same time as the MC?
Like there is usually no age difference between the MC and the young master.
What happened in the last 500 years? Did the old man JUST now decide to have children?
And even when there are older siblings, the difference isn't that much.
2. The world is static.
Like others before me have pointed out, there are no new technologies/innovations, no introduction of anything remotely useful. Time is still measured in "cups" and "breaths" after millions of years. Like really bruv?
3. Unrealistic reactions.
"You dare hurt XX Master?" cliche needs to die out FAST.
4. Too many lucky accidents, MC finding exactly what he needs without much effort. No work involved. It becomes so boring.
ludo2776 I aree with everything from point 2 on. Point 1 is a different story. The regression is logical due to the isolationist tendencies of the cultivators . They segerate themselves from "mere mortals" and then seperate further into sevts and clans that have little to do with each other. Even within the sect and clans, they compete for resources as well as the attention of elders. These policies encourage regression rather than innovation.
In essence, in order to see more progress and less regression, one would have to foster a ciultivator society that looks outward as a whole instead of inward.
Also "reincarnating" into the body of a dead cultivator, keeping memories, acting completely different and yet either no one notices or they are happy that they finally turned their life around and are taking cultivation seriously.
The Magus era’s distinctively ridiculous scale of measurement. A 4 foot loli carrying an 87 foot(or was it meters?) club etc.
What is reincarnation? You taking control of an another intelligent organism or even objects while keeping your previous life's memories? Or You inheriting your past memories in the context of you still bring you? Where do those memories come from? Your soul, brain, limbic system, nowhere,2.5 Petabytes with a RAM of 100 TB? Is reincarnation simply moving original inside you then pasting it to others, much like simulation theory? Or an actual feat that's unanswerable now by our current technology? Maybe rebirth by traveling to the past isn't actually your past, but a different plane or a parallel universe with almost perfect similarities compared to earth? Haha joke.
Pretty cool thread. Kind of like my cheatsheet on reading Cultivation stories.
Woebegone I've always thought that Spirits/Souls/Consciousness that makes up us humans was a particular electromagnetic wavelength unique to each person. This contains all of one's experiences and memories in stasis, unable to change on it's own.
On the other side is the human body with it's own magnetic waves (Alpha waves/Theta waves when you dream) that is able to affect the Soul's own fields, much like how information is written onto a hard drive.
In this example the Soul would be a program, telling the body how to operate; and the body would utilize it's ability to control physical space to give feedback to the soul, overwriting previous thoughts and memories and thus making the soul stronger/smarter.
Without a body the soul cannot change by itself. This is why you hear about ghost being trapped in a cycle of confusion is ghost stories. This also makes them more susceptible to outside influences such as Mediums who's bodies have a higher level of spiritual attunement and can affect wandering spirits.
So when someone "Reincarnates", their spirit is taking over the body of someone who's own spirit was too weak to handle the stress it's body experienced and "Died" prematurely, even though the body was still salvageable. Then the protagonist's spirit is altered by the new bodies unique electromagnetic composition and has memories/thoughts/skills added to it's previous one's when the story starts.
This is just my personal headcannon about how these things work, who really knows.
I'll just write something I really, really don't like seeing in cultivation novels. No offense to authors who write it like this, just my personal opinion:
Loser MC is treated bad by their powerful family
Finds a hidden ancestral relic/item/cultivation method/etc.
Becomes super strong and takes revenge
Aims for the world(?)
Why can't there just be a cultivation novel that's easygoing and wholesome. Not some grand plot about revenge or getting the girl/boy. Just an average cultivator cultivating in earnest and reaching the fruits of hard training and really just living. (maybe there is one like this out but... eh...) Like, they can just be a small side character living their life while witnessing the epic adventures of other cultivators but it's really wholesome.
Sorry, I just had to rant a little.
Just saying this again. None of this is meant to offend anyone, just me stating my opinions with no malicious intent directed to anyone or specific novel.
KillerHemboy no lie I have one of ya books In my library gonna start it soon. Sounded like a good read.
Not as ridiculous as some previous points were made, but in a broader view, why not a single "genius" was born?
Let me phrase it differently, you have the standard genius, for cultivation, like reached Sage Level in 10 years, WOW SUCH A GENIUS WOW! But why there is not a single "genius", great minds, like we have on Earth. In fact, there doesn't seem to be anyone even remotely interested in finding answers in the world they are living in. Could be anything, from Archimedes to Lavoisier, Newton, anyone? Why in the 100000000000000000 years (because each time, you had thousands of years to the story) that those countries existed, not a single peasant or officials began to ponder on basic things?
I mean, yes, cultivators exist, so why should they wonder about why gravity is present or stuff like that. But at the same time, isn't the comprehension of those laws part of the "DAO", never truly understood that term. I mean, the MC look at a pond created after two minutes of rain, and he immediately understands the Dao of Water. But no one else, like with the permanent regression of technologies and cultivation methods, wondered if it was possible for real humans, not cultivator, to still influence the world.
In that scope, I would greatly appreciate that one day, on any novels, just one, the MC stumbled on a mad human that was trying to sell one of his inventions to cultivators. Not something one cultivator created, with his Qi or the inner force of that world. No, just random Michel that was previously studying something came up with a principle similar to a water mill, allowing his country/city to be more prosper and show growth. Not asking a lot, but each time the MC looks at the peasants, it's like "they are weak, tired of working every day, dumb, dirty." There is never an aqueduct or even use things like black powder. I mean, the Chinese invented it, but I can't seem to recall a single time where I saw it. In cultivation novels, I speak, because in isekai like Release that Witch, yes, the white powder is used.
Loving the thread. Just a general comment on technology though: The tech tree of computer games is not an accurate depiction of how technology improves in human civilizations. Technology does not neatly "level up" to a certain state after the following prerequisites are met and by building the appropriate buildings and waiting a set amount of time.
According to wikipedia the stone age lasted about 3.4 million years. So a few million years of using literally stone age technology. So many thousand years of history is nothing in our history when it comes to technological advancements. We are currently living in a period of time where our technology level is improving at a literally unprecedented rate from what our ancestors would have experienced. Its not that there were no improvements in technology, but they were at a much slower pace. And technology and information was not shared as frequently as it is now.
And that does not take into account that technology levels can regress. The great pyramids of Giza were built ~2600BC. It would be thousands of years before buildings as tall would be constructed that tall in Europe. The method of making greek fire was lost. Presumably for forever. And even though they had a clear use for it, what with enemies all around. Some of whom eventually broke into their city, took it for their own and renamed it (and not before another group of enemies beat them to it first). Ancient mathematical proofs have been lost. Some probably for all time while others are being rediscovered. Some by mathematicians figuratively reinventing the wheel and some old documents are being recovered. The oldest are from thousands of years ago.
TL:DR version - Technology is a strange thing and does not progress at a set rate or even in a consistent direction. Our perspective on it is very skewed based on the period of time that we are living in.
Yuyumamoru Are you asking for a Slice of life Cultivation novel?
I'm sure they're out there but that niche would be a hard one to properly tightrope walk between staying casual and actually having interesting things happen on the cultivation side sans overused cliches.
I've never read "Cultivation Chat Group" can anyone attest to it's similarities?
The goddamned harem.
“Hey babe”
Protag beats up villian
dokidoki fist me
Chugum Thanks a lot! :D
When they care to much about face!
Just thought of another one.
When the MC is a lone cultivator and has no backing he's at the mercy of the Sects who all support each other. If he insults one of the members, all the others will put aside their differences and hunt him down to the bitter end. It is explained that the MC is only having troubles because he's not part of an organization, and that if he just joined one he wouldn't be having all of these problems. (But he wont because our Protagonist is just too Cool for School!)
But then the next Novel will have an MC who has been in Familial Sect his entire life, but it's His Own Family Members that are holding him back and causing him problems, even though this MC is a really nice and cooperative person. And no matter how much he ends up doing for his Clan, or how many External threats he handles for them along the way, his main antagonists will always be the same kind of Proud Sons who refuse to cooperate with each other to keep Family harmony when it comes to the MC but will all lock arms and run into the Meat grinder when it's the Hero from the First example!
Basically no matter who the MC is or where he comes from or what background he has, Everyone will bend over backwards and break all societal norms just to mess with him: His Cousins, his Clan Elders, other Clans, random Bandits and sometimes even the very Gods he prays to!
For me, it's the culture, it makes no sense for a male dominated culture like ancient China, when female cultivators are no weaker than men of equal rank.
mng I believe war, control and envy hindered technology advancements for those times. Leonardo Di Vinci formed blueprints of an aeroplane, but various "Holy Wars" ensured those designs weren't implemented. It wasn't until the Wright Brothers came along that the designs of a plane could literally take flight.
As human beings who crave for advancement we also self-sabortage our technological growth by caving to our dark sides (war, mass destruction and so forth).
Well that's my take anyway. :smile_cat:
Yuyumamoru you should try lady cultivator!
the FL/MC is basically just trying to cultivate so that she's safe from other people who want to use her for her constitution. it's not the most slice of life, but she's not all about revenge & the romance hasn't really played a big part yet. I think you'll like it if you haven't read it yet. :)
Veronica8 War is the single most efficient catalyst for advancing technology (tanks, satellite, missiles, firearms, armor, computers - computers and AI were the result of military research, medical - firstaid kits and field dressings, chemical warfare which are in turn converted to fertilizers and daily household products, etc.). Look at World War II and the Great Acceleration. Or World War I and planes and tanks. Or ships and naval warfare.
Funny you said holy wars hindered Di Vinci's attempts to build a plane, but then completely ignored the role World War I and World War II played in advancing flight and airplane technology.
Veronica8 Right before, but they only developed a prototype. It was the military who saw the potential airplanes had for combat, and so they basically accelerated the technological advancement and development of planes far beyond anything the Wright Brothers conceived (lightweight frame, machine gun emplacements, more powerful engines, increased speed and mobility, armor - though obviously they couldn't put too much armor or it'll weigh the plane down, etc.). If I'm not mistaken, commercial passenger planes were actually based off military plane technology, and the improvements the military first made.
hyowhari that they get to meet/get something that will help them for a lifetime. Like they have a respective Senior White to pray on, or just be plain lucky/unFORTUNATE like ShuHang.
Something like a lucky trigger for the character development, which I think is funny. IRL no one is that lucky anyway, we just have to find the right motivation.
Yuyumamoru Try Cultivation Chat Group, easygoing cultivation novel with a lil good luck and bad luck combined, and the comedy
i dont have many comment on this, well its always either bad writing or just the lazy author you decide it
first rule, the worst possible condition ever possible when the mc was born
second rule, theres always sky beyond the sky and mc is just a frog at the bottom of the well dreaming to reach the highest sky
third rule, 10.1/10 luck stat. this is the shitty one. mc find inheritances lying around, 'somehow' strong people help you when mc in a pinch, etc etc
fourth rule, Auction
every generic cultivation novel out there is just a copy paste of one work to another with new name and new settings, you cant deny this
of course theres some good one like ccg but its just that rare
Pill shit defying heaven!!!! this plot is the most boring shit to me. sadly, many novels abide by this pill shit rules.
pill can be and do almost everything under heaven such as cure diseases, dope cultivation, use as weapons, grow severed limbs and etc.
another is MC is the walking wikipedia (mostly reincarnate plot). dear authors ever heard of butterfly effect theory?
Arrogant bastards, the whole world fills with arrogant people. these bastards view others as insects but become losers eventually.
Auction shit, like someone said, MC either can make money himself to but many things in auction or buy cheap looking shit but the truth is it s godly artifact with heaven defy cheat ability.
Hildegarde Inheritances: When introduced they are talked up as having been created by the 10th reincarnation of Buddha, able to ascend even the most trash of MC's to the Heavens in a single bound. All knowing and all encompassing, they have the solution to every problem the MC could ever face so that they will never have to struggle or think for themselves ever again.
That is until the Author needs to create some tension in the story again. Then all of a sudden the same treasure that was always 10 steps ahead of anything the Protagonist ever faced turns out to only be at the 3rd level of cultivation out of 100, and new EVEN STRONGER treasures are needed in order for the Hero to continue his path against the Heavens. (Which immediately falls into his lap at the start of the next arc. Gotta keep the Plot Armor rolling lest the Writer have to come up with some original ideas!)
SkyScar Pills! How can something created BY the Heavens DEFY the Heavens?!
Using something natural like Ginseng roots to create the unnatural result of defying the Universal Laws never made any sense to me.
It would be like having a video game character able to rewrite his own code and escape the game just because he ate enough 1-up mushrooms!
ThrustThunder Ahem, Mario reference?
What i find ridiculous about cultivation novels is cultivation novels.
Once you've read one, you've read them all. Why? Because they all follow the same tropes. Yes, there are exceptions, but 95% of them are not exceptions.
Few if any authors of cultivation WNs have sat there and told themselves "Yanno what? I am NOT going to make the MC a useless crippled who eventually finds some worldshaking treasure in his backyard that for some reason no one else has managed to find despite it being in such an obvious place - that suddenly turns him into a not-so-useless MC that everyone will still continue to call a crippled piece of garbage or "Lucky" for half of the 1000+ chapters i plan on writing. And i will not make everyone an asshole so that when the MC insults someones dog, their owners fathers grandfather's great uncle's great elder's great great ancestor's supreme lord father will get angry and suddenly decide to perform genocide on his entire bloodline. (extreme much?) Neither will i make sure to include 1 tsundere female, 1 meek female, 1 sweet female, 1 bitchy antagonistic female, most of which are romantically interested in the MC simply for the MC breathing gods-given air.
Everything about cultivation WNs is ridiculous. Actually, this can be said about most other WNs lol.
Woebegone Excellent question. Just what constitutes reincarnation. It is only recently (relatively speaking) that authors have begun differentiating between reincarnation and transmigration. For the purposes of distinction, my complaint is with transmigration stories. That said, there are still those that use the term "reincarnation" for soul transmigration. I have no clue how old the stories are as I never check thhat when I find them, just that I've seen several over the past few years.
