What's Wrong with Xian Xia Dramas Today - Thoughts on A Genre [CC] 

In Xianxia dramas I consistently ship the hot demon princess and the elegant male second lead (even when the former always loves the male lead, while the latter always falls for the female main character), because they have that great “bad girl vs. good boy” chemistry that’s much more interesting than the vanilla interactions between the main couple😂

@@HanQ28 can you give an example?

@@HanQ28 Yes, even in non Xianxia dramas, i ship the rebel girl & rule follower boy. Much more interesting dynamic.

@@HanQ28 or the pure white female mc should go with the hot demon princess 🤣🤣

@@chickwit2575 Like in Ashes of Love, I ship that feisty demon princess with Runyu, and also the hot (but evil) goddess with Runyu. Sorry I can’t remember their names. And I know Runyu is technically a villain, but he’s an elegant classy villain lol I still ship Jinmi with Runyu, mainly because Jinmi’s actress is so talented. Her acting skills make Jinmi “shippable” with literally everyone in the story. If it was a different actress, I would probably feel no chemistry between them. Another example would be Word of Honour. I ship A’Xiang and Cao Weining so damn hard. It’s a blessing that they’re actually the official couple. Usually a nice cute boy like Weining would NEVER get the girl in Chinese dramaland😂 I’m happy for him lol

YESSSSSSSSSS

I very much agree with your points! If we bring in adaptations of webnovels, we have so many more factors catered to making the story mediocre. Some of which are: 1. Writers are paid by number of words - therefore, increasing padding and useless fillers. 2. Writers are often pushed by publishers and readers alike to update daily. But to update daily at several thousands of words a day means the writers rarely have time to stop and think deeper. 3. Writers of these genres are often disenfranchised by the world. Many of them didn't become a writer out of pure passion. They were let down by society or their jobs. This means they're more likely to want to write power fantasies with no moral ambiguity and where fate does all the hard work for you.

I think censorship also put a restriction on the variety and creativity

@@bloodyrose1111 Of course. We could have brilliant horror stories and political satires without censorship. I still can’t believe Netflix and the directors of Game of Thrones get to make The Three-Body Problem before we do (although Tencent is currently making one, the origin of the story, Cultural Revolution, will be expectedly cleansed). Having said that, I don’t think we can blame the cheap and boring costumes, hairstyles, makeup and heavy filters on censorship. These are just choices to minimise costs.

I disagree that the web novels aren't good to begin with. Honestly, the web novels are so much better. The female leads in web novels are usually so much smarter and stronger but once they are adapted into a drama, they dumb down the female leads. Like "The Legend." I almost spit out blood at how weak they made Zhao Yao. I do agree about the crazy fandoms. No matter how much I like an actor or actress, if their dramas are not good, I will not watch. Others people are not so much like that. I remember getting attacked from some crazy fans just because I gave a true honest reviews on my opinions of the dramas. It has nothing to do with their idols, but I got attacked and was called an anti fans. 😂🤣 Crazy.

The scriptwriters and directors assume (not entirely wrongly) that viewers want to see maximum amount of interactions between the ML and FL as quickly as possible. Hence, the tripping into each other’s arms, holding the waist, twirling while staring into each other’s eyes, accidentally kissing and touching, accidentally running into each other ALL THE TIME…It doesn’t work on me, but apparently enough people want to get sugar high from these very contrived developments. Once they ship the ML and FL, forget about the plot-seeing these two people together touching, hugging, kissing and saying sweet nothings trumps all else. Actually, why stop at the drama, they might even want to see that in real life with these actors as themselves…I once heard someone saying “I SO wish Yang Yang and Dilreba are real lovers”…

But dont you SEE all of them have the fl beeing saved by the ml from falling. And all of them have slowmo and spinn around. Thats so romantic how could you not Fall in love... I startet to drop dramas when that happends... Exept tiger and Rose. That Drama was just THAT good 😅

​@@shawnyang435 You're right! I know it's all about personal preference, but I sometimes wonder what the average age range of the viewers is haha To be honest, even ten years ago, you also had people who didn't care about the quality of dramas. They're not really new. It's just that now dramas are almost exclusively catering to them. Before, there was more variety, with more well-written series each year. That's why I don't support any of the low quality dramas. They're not only a waste of time, watching them also encourages the production of more subpar dramas...

@@gianellab.4953 If idols were cast as leads, you are looking at average audience age around 15-16 yr olds, and female. Thus, everything must be easy to understand, characters good or evil, and sugar rush ASAP. Majority of these teenage audience likely have some degree of self-esteem issues so the female lead must be special somehow. Same problem for Chinese audio dramas. An audio drama trying to follow the source novel by taking time to properly set up the story and establish characters will have live comments impatiently pushing for the leads to meet, to start dating, to kiss and so on.

always have the leads flying in the air spinning around in slow motion holding each other and staring each other. It's cringe when that happens.

I think that’s why people like bl adaptations. First because the source material is of higher standard than the bg web novels being adapted and second because there’s a moment in them where you understand why anyone would fall in love with the leads. For example in the untamed, the ml has a new appreciation for the mc when he hears his prayer during the lantern scene. It gives the audience an actual reason to understand why xyz fell in love and not just that they look pretty like it is in bg dramas. Ashe of Love is one of the few where you see that the ml likes the fl because she’s helped him and not just because she’s pretty.

Unfortunately, I don’t see much hope in that and would rather place my bets on Immortality’s quality. The scale of the two productions are just…different. Also, the skills of the actors as well.

@@cyy8926 yeah i agree re the production. Immortality is so well cast, wheres TGCF, I've only seen a little of the actor playing Xie Lian and I was ...not impressed. The cast seem very inexperience and the costumes so far have not looked good. However, scriptwise I think 2HA is way harder to adapt in a way that will be faithful to the novel at all so I am not putting too high hopes in that one either.

@@IamaKaliedoscope Completely agree. Because China has amended the laws and has become much more stricter, a lot of the scenes are cut out from Immortality. As for TGCF, sigh don’t even wanna talk about it. It’s my favourite novel and yet…they always need to cast inexperienced people who already have fan bases such as idols and ruin the best stories 😭😭 all for the money…

@@cyy8926 the last time I see this kind of comment is when before The Untamed and Word of Honor came out, but people just shut up after that when they realized it was great. Maybe let's just wait for the drama came out first?

I agree with this soooo much! Too many pretty faces that don’t fit the role in Xianxia. Wish they would cast accordingly!

It's because in general they heal better and have different constitution than mortal. Some don't defecate because they don't need to eat, they eat "fasting pills" at the beginning but when they're higher levels they don't need to eat because they're functioning on Qi. Secondly they don't age like mortals. At some point they age slower and eventually stopped aging. Some use beauty pills, some use higher cultivation to prevent aging. They can choose how they wanna look like. Some even went and be a mountain or rivers. So unless it's like life threatening or something poisonous, cultivators are pretty spotless.

Well even in the novels war gods are described as some pretty men! Not like some general looking like a real big masculine man with scars on his face and burned skin which is the result of being in the open area most of his life. Since they're gods they heal from scars and they're supposed to look ethereal! About aesthetics even in palace dramas the outfits sometimes seems too much. Imperial women with top coats on their nails! Men go to battles and yet their hair styles and clothes are still very clean and neat. A small sized woman wears heavy war armor and can beat big men! That's the most unrelatable thing about female warriors I see in historical dramas that they don't even look like some sports woman or someone who did fighting in her life but just some zero size actress with very fair skin who has not been under the sun for 1 hour in her life! There is nothing wrong with simple outfits to me even minimalist looks can be designed well, it's only in chinese dramas that the costumes are too lavish and every woman looks like coming from a fashion runaway but even in historical k-dramas the outfits and hairstyles are more simple yet they have the audiences so it's not even an important part of the deal or in western dramas in GOT people in Westeros had this untidy dirty look to look more natural. The thing with them is more repetitive scripts.

They're gods. Why should war gods have muscles and scars? They're gods, they don't need it since they can rely on powers along.

@@cristina8868 well yes this chi was heard but welp, u can't make ppl like the same thing as u. Just because u like something doesn't mean other ppl will, too.

And all the gods actually have to work all the time, if it's answering their believers in dreams, doing loads of paperwork or investigating weird stuff in the human realm- they are more like officials (haha) and they have to work to stay relevant to get more merits to stay a god. Really funny that they have a kinda monetary system up there- but it makes sense because all gods are ascended humans, just like ghosts were all human once (correct if I am wrong on that one). Hmmm, so the limitation actually excludes the race-class system problems avenuex describes... never thought about that.

Really glad I'm reading something about Tian Guan Ci Fu, because I was wondering if it's Xian Xia. It's one of my absolute favorites (webnovel and animation). I really like the fact that the main character goes from prince admired by all to god to less than nothing. But I also like that the main character is never looking to get back to godhood. He never strives to get a promotion or a better rank. All he wants to do is make the world a better place.

I never realized how much different it was from the usual xian xia but then again, I don't read/watch much of the genre. Well now I know that not everything is like TGCF which is disappointing. But then again I don't like romance, more of a historical politics powerstruggle kind of gal.

If only more “straight” Xianxia were like Heaven Official’s Blessing, maybe the genre wouldn’t be so blah. TGCF has a protagonist who’s riches to rags to riches, and a love interest who was born a peasant and had to fight his way to the top of the ghost world. Plus, XL was clueless about HC’s feelings for most of the story, there was no insta-love. Let’s see more of that!

One of the things i loved about TGCF is when XL is trying to ascend for the second time and he realizes... he can't. It is very easy to not have attachments to the world when you don't have anything to worry about. He never had to worry about his parents, they were royalty. He never had to worry about his friends because he had the political power to keep them comfortable. It was a lesson in humility, and it also is a bit of worldbuilding. It explains why so many of the gods feel like rich assholes, and it is because they probably are. Those who struggle to survive in life are going to have a harder time ascending.

BL xianxia dramas>>>>>>>Hetero xianxia dramas. Hetero xianxia dramas are boring and only focus about the protagonist's love and all the obstacles and cliche plots they must go through🙄

You probably mean the stories the adapted the drama from. In the first place, the BL that they adapt are usually the most read compared to the normal xianxia dramas, in which they adapt bad novels lmao. To me however, because they adapted such a good novel like MDZS, they just ruined it for me. The drama was never up to standard to the story or even the anime. Cringy acting saved by the voice actors, really what a disappointment. The production teams will do anything to choose famous people who have no prior acting experience for the success of a drama.

Just a observation, The Untamed is a Wu Xia.

@@morenasilvaoficial MDZS is actually Xian Xia with slot of Wu Xia elements.

@@cyy8926 um you do know that the actors weren't even remotely popular to what they are now right? also they were such a small production house back then they didn't even have the budget like all these other big production houses today and even within that budget they did such a beautiful job conveying wangxian's relationship and other character arcs despite the censorship which is another reason to hold them back to make the show upto the novel's standards(even though its still amazing however it is) the show isn't this popular amongst both local and international audiences just for nothing that its literally considered one of the most popular chinese shows till date(both bl and in general)?? its okay to say if you are a novel fan and the show wasn't upto your standards but dont just go around spreading misinformation of how they chose popular actors blah blah or disrespect the actors and production who put so much hardwork and effort into that project

LBFAD: the hero that saves the Xian Xia genre

but then it turned out that Lanhua has always been the goddess of Xishan and her power has always been with her since her birth :(

​@@idasuper well yes, but she lost her family because of it and she needed to lost her love to get it back....so it make sense

I have nearly no experience with Xian Xia and little experience with Chinese dramas in general, but I'm assuming it's like everywhere else in the world, for example western superhero/Marvel movies, romcoms, Disney remakes/sequels, mindless action movies, dumb comedies, horror movies etc. Once something makes money, they'll stick some famous faces/voices in them and keep repeating the same formulas ad nauseam. They don't care, they're in it for the quick cash, and as long as people keep spending cash on these things, they won't bother changing a thing. And it's not like this only in shows and films, but basically every industry.

Hi, if you have never seen a whole serie, maybe you have never watched Nirvana on Fire? It was recommended to me 5 years ago, I can tell that so far, i have not seen anyone better.. The second one is Joy of Life , still waiting for part 2. But maybe you already watched and did not appreciate . 🤔🤷😉

Sorry, maybe it does not enter in the xianxia categorory !!!!!

@@Future_Pheonix ikr, this is happening in my country too... drama writers don't have much choices but to write template dramas since producers rarely dare to try any new formula Squid Game writer's said that he spent 4 years to sell it and failed. Netflix willing to buy since it's non local producers

@@moshicute2201 Hmm.. I haven't watched Squid Games, but tbh the plot sounds pretty overused too.. I have watched and read so many things with the same plot over the years. That's one of the reasons I'm not so excited to go and watch it. Of course, I think execution is far more important than originality, so it could still be really good. Only I'm not too fond of gore or depressing stuff.

Same. Ashes of love was my first and still my favorite.

I loved that show too ❤

A dream of splendor,new life begins,you are my glory,ming lan, joy of life,nirvana in fire

Because the people who picked it up, picked it up because they wanted to, not just because of money they could make. (Tho money is always nice) If some rando picks it up and doesnt throw enough effort in, even they know to an extent the die hard fans will eat it, the said fans will stop eating it by episode 3 and cancel it over weibo (Chinese Twitter). They make everyone's lives miserable even attacking actors man. Or at least that's that's I've noticed happen to some sorry saps. In a case to the uniqueness it is because China doesn't have built in stereotypes for bl's yet like Japan does. Despite the amount of bl's that we can find on novelupdates and such in the grand scheme of things. BL as a whole is far less common and most writers are doing it because they want to, not because it's a guaranteed way to make a lively hood. If you also notice there are far less BL dramas being made in general. There are more lately because of how successful The Untamed was but even now we maybe get one or two. So it's the lack of over saturation and (this works best) formulas that has allowed them to stay pretty different from eachother as a whole.

I think because of the constraints of censorship, they’re almost forced to make the writing subtle and nuanced which is very rarely seen in dramas these days.

@@itamochivargas6233 Yes! And the word of honor was such a success too!!! I hope they make more BL drama adaptations bcz truly, the BL genre in general is quite unique, deep and creative. It’s not only about the romance, it also teaches us life lessons, the hypocrisy and cruelty of the human society. I’m waiting for Hao Yi Xing and I don’t know when it’ll release. It’s adapted from the novel Husky and his white cat shizun and it’s a wonderful yet really sad story! Oh and the novel has a lot of nudity with non consensual themes so beware if you are uncomfortable with that!

same here, xian xia is my prefered and others like nirvana in fire and joy of life, sorry don't know their genre, don't know if they're wuxia or historical drama

No matter how well-executed some of them may be, I absolutely hate how they're just slightly different copies of each other. Are they seriously unable to think up an original story involving deities?

@@svyatoslavrurikovich8831 I think a lot of that has to do with censorship you kinda follow or repeat what you know will work. I've been waiting for Zhao Ge for 5 years I'm willing they tried to be original and didn't pass censors.

@@TetrahedronIX Even if you don't count censorship laws, a massive bulk of actual source novels that these shows are made from all have the same basic plot.

ashes of love, love & demption, ancient love poetry, are i think inspired by TMOPB, each of them have different touch & twists but concepts are quite familiar for a viewer like me.

whats AoP

@@my_dreamscape i think ancient love poetry

because that's what sells at the moment. Unless the consumers/audience demand more than what we're being given in every show, drama producers and writers won't bother to come up with new ideas.

I had the same impression. Even if one assumes the character does not believe in "destiny by birth" and they live in the time where commoners could move up the ranks better, they would admit social mobility is extremely difficult and often times downright impossible without currying favors or scheming.

I agree with you that social stratification in Xianxia is a reflection of current Chinese society. But social mobility used to be high in China compared to in the West. Social stratification is more of a recent phenomenon that suits the CCP's agenda. I'm Chinese and was educated "王侯将相宁有种乎" (Is there anyone born as a king, duke, general or minister?) when young, but in 2019 I read that this story was deleted from Chinese textbook. Currently, as far as I know, dramas that tell stories about rebellions or social movements have trouble getting past censorship even if they're set in ancient times or fantasy world.

Different levels of social stratification have always been the reality in China, no matter ancient or modern. Even though social mobility in China nowadays is much better than ancient times, familly wealth, social status and influence still impacts a lot. Stratification has always been the reality, but mobility is what everybody wants. That's why those ancient stories were famous and got passed on to present times. The tropey stories created nowadays won't be classic in the future. (Correction to Aiai's comment: The ruling party of China is called the Communist Party of China (CPC, not CCP), and they want social mobility, not stratification. They don't want regime change, but they do want social mobility.)

@@wsytch4879 1. CCP is the abbreviation of The Chinese Communist Party which is also the right term. 2. Social stratification is the reality all over the world, but China had more social mobility than the West in ancient times through its national exams and officials selection system. These traditional myth stories were not just good wills from the people but partly based on reality and it's the main reason why traditional Chinese myth is so different than that of the West. 3. Some of CCP's stance on social mobility has changed in the last 20 years. It was too arbitrary of me to say that they didn't want social mobility but it's not as simple as they only care about regime change because some things are intertwined.

@@pzhlucia 1. The official name of the party is the Communist Party of China, not the Chinese Communist Party. The latter is not used in official documents and reports. "CCP" is adopted by many Western media, but it doesn't mean it's correct. 2. You are correct that there's more social mobility in China than the West in ancient times. And part of the reason those stories got passed on is that there was hope, even though not much. But you can't deny that social mobility in modern China is much better than ancient China, right? So you got what I mean. 3. The "change" of CPC's stance on social mobility that you said is not reflected in any offical document or policy. So, what you said is just not convincing at all.

I really liked that as well.

That moment actually got me. Evernight was one of those epic adventure. I am loving the plot each time.

.....its action sequences were good but its plot is laughable.

On another note, imagine having Xian Xia style stuff in our industry instead of Saas Bahu brainrot?

@@DeadInside-ct6dl while the saas bahu is brainrot.. they are watched for a reason. I know familymembers who watch them just for the colourful clothes lol. The xian xia stuff seems to be very beautiful and expensive but similarly repetitive.. Ashu does have a point though

@@Sticklemako Honestly, I want more 'immortal god falls in live with human' stories honestly, I'm sure if we dig our mythology a bit, we will find it

Sometimes I think we are too scared to touch our myths with a 10 foot pole

@@DeadInside-ct6dl oh yes, there are so many myths, not only in Hinduism but all the other religions, in the Indian culture that they'd make for a really interesting series. But there's so much sensitivity related to religion and history in our country that it doesn't make for a creative project.

What's Xuanhuan?

@@PichuElric Xuanhuan (玄幻 xuánhuàn) - literally means “Mysterious Fantasy”. A broad genre of fictional stories which remixes Chinese folklore/mythology with foreign elements & settings.

Untamed is also wuxia right?

@@tasnimsiddique1228 Not really. Untamed has some elements that resemble "magic" in it that are not usually seen in wuxia. Wuxia usually involves martial arts only and whatever does seem out of the ordinary to us (westerners) like the flying or some qi healing etc is seen as a result of achieving high level in martial arts. Wuxia relates directly to the idea of martial arts heroes. The cultivators seen in xianxia series would be seeking immortality etc, which is why xianxia involves immortal gods. Untamed seems like is somewhere along the way. I mever saw it as wuxia, but i guess it's not xianxia either. I've seen most sites describe it as xuanhuan though I'm not sure what the western mythology elements ate in it.

@@MarthaBritoatriz probably Untamed did not contans the western mythology elements like elves etc, but the main hero is close to the western understanding of trickster archetype. This makes it more xuanhuan genre

Well, what do you expect from 'God of War'. I love her 😌

That took me out 😭🤣

One of my unhappiness is that Avenue X never like LaR. 🤧😂

That’s the series which introduced me to this genre and, so far, still love it as the first time around

🤣👏

Yeah, all of them ddnt dressed fancy, i also think its a low budget drama, i think leads faces carried the 'god like' concept of the show.

It’s not like that. These are just dramas my friend

Media, particularly entertainment, is a reflection of some aspects of society, good and bad

"Good character depends on your birth." This is literally the thing the characters disprove over and over again. The whole theme of the story is "Choices and their consequences, regardless of origin." If you don't believe me, lets see a few examples. Wei Ying: Called as the Son of a servant for his entire life basically. Jin GuangYao: Called as the Son of a prostitute for his entire life basically. WWX: Was not officially recognized as an adopted son, wasn't even allowed to wear purple-colored Jiang robes by Madam Yu. Certainly wasn't treated as such either. JGY: Poor boy was not allowed to be officially a part of Jin sect either. Certainly wasn't treated as such either. WWX: was abused and whipped by a high class spiritual weapon Zidian constantly because of her jealousy of a dead woman. JGY: No constant extreme physical abuse for long periods of time as per canon. WWX: Mother was constantly badmouthed for character by both Madam Yu and Lan Qiren. Could not defend her because no one bothered to tell him about her at all except for insults. JGY: Mother was constantly badmouthed for character by others. Could not defend her due to helplessness. {This is where individual decision and choice diverge} WWX: Decided to not care about other people's opinion and took a pledge to "be righteous and live without regrets." JGY: Put all his self worth on power. Excused his actions as seeking a fathers approval. Eventually had no problem killing said father though. WWX: When things went wrong, the main focus was on protection. Protect Mian mian. Protect Jiang Cheng and Yanli. Protect Wen Qing and her brother. Protect the Wen remnants, A-Yuan and so on. The saga never ends. JGY: When things went wrong, went on to cross all moral limits of murder, framing and incest to get power and killed his own little son to keep that power. Later killed his wife too when she found out about that. Destroyed the self trust of the only person who trusted him without question, Lan Xichen by killing Nie Mingjue. Also, he's not "treated like scum" by the protagonists, not even once. By this line, I don't know if you even watched the same Untamed I did. The expressions of both Wei Ying and Lan Zhan's faces when the crowd was turning against Jin GuangYao at the end said clearly that they were far more disgusted by "the mob" that JGY himself, even after all that he did to them. The protagonists also didn't "severely punish" him? They just exposed his crimes to clear Wei Ying's name coz.. you know....he was framed... Sorry but i really didn't understand this one. JGY was killed indirectly by Nie Huaisang, whose brother he killed mercilessly. He did have that one coming. Killing peoples siblings is a sure way to die by some cold revenge I tell you. And what do you mean the Jin and Wen weren't punished? JIn Guangshan died. Wen Ruohan was killed. Wen Chao was killed. Wen Zhuliu was killed. Jin ZIxun was killed. Wen Xu was killed too.... If you want to hear the parallels of Xue Yang, I can do that too. Xue Yang and Wei Ying, both lived on the streets as children and suffered. Both hated by the world for pursual of the dark path. Both wear black and are completely shameless lol. But that is where the similarities end. {Divergence in choices and principles again} Xue Yang killed a whole clan for one finger of his left hand. As revenge. Wei Ying also took revenge on Wen Clan but only on those responsible for his pain like Wen Chao and his minions. Not innocents like Wen Qing and Wen Ning. He even freaking went and adopted a Wen child! But some would say it wouldn't be fair to compare them since Wei Ying got adopted. Okay then, lets take a look at A-Qing, a street child with the bamboo stick who's pretending to be blind so that she can steal money from people. THIS is desperation of poverty, of survival. Not torturing a whole clan by peeling off their skin one by one and enjoying it, like Xue Yang did. And please don't give me that stuff about living on the streets. Both A-Qing and Wei Ying spent their childhoods on the streets too. A-Qing was poor too. She had to get by by stealing and deceiving people by pretending to be blind which is UNDERSTANDABLE. She had to cleverly lie, cheat, steal, frame to get money. Are they crimes? Yes. But the poor girl had to survive somehow! But Xue Yang.... he indirectly blinded Xiao Xingchen by manipulation, took advantage of his compassion and eventually made him kill innocents as well as his best friend Song Lan unknowingly so that the poor man committed suicide by slitting his own throat in grief when he found out? How do you even defend that? Like wow. This is just beyond revenge or survival now. Its senseless cruelty. Its insanity. At this point I don't even have words left to explain. Please don't take this as confrontational. THIS IS JUST FOR FUN. and a little bit cuz i wanted to rant about it haha. But I just couldn't see you go about believing that so... this wall of text happened lol. I sure hope you read this and reply with a similarly long wall of text to see your point of view cause I am open to changing my opinion if i missed something.

@@lonesoul17 your long explaination and comparation is so👌👌👌👏👏👏

It's really well written. It just relies on the reader to look beneath the narrator's POV. Wei Ying is an unreliable narrator to begin with. Let's look at the Jiang's for an example. Madam Yu is a crazy abusive raving b*tch who gets kicks from whipping an orphaned child. But Wei Ying respects her power so we overlook his abuse because he doesn't ruminate on it either. And because she's a 'strong independent woman' almost all is forgiven. She gets away with abuse because she's the sect leader's wife. Fengmian is even worse. He turned a blind eye to Wei Ying's abuse and ignored his children to keep a false sense of peace. But Wei Ying loves him and is eternally grateful for being rescued so his willfully ignorant or pretends to ignore Fengmians neglect. Jiang Cheng is madam Yu at her worst. He's jealous and insecure so he takes it out on Wei Ying. He went on a murder spree after Wei Ying's death looking for "demonic cultivators" but no one called him out because he's "sect leader Jiang" and Wei Ying loves him so we also ignore this and accept Wei Ying's flimsy excuses made from self loathing and love. Yanli is Fengmian at his worst. Content with mediocrity, eager to turn a blind eye as long as the is peace. Always expects Wei Ying to compromise and soothe Jiang Cheng's and madam Yu's ruffled feathers but never the other way around. So insecure that she allowed Jin Zixuan to treat her like trash all her teenage life and never once stood up for herself. But Wei Ying adores her so she might as well be a goddess. All these are in the novel and speaks heavily on how rotten the gentry is . We only see the ones that go overboard like the Wen but so quick to ignore what is considered smaller infractions by the gentry to commoners which would not be so easily forgiven if it was done by commoners to the gentry. Instead of speaking about how "good birth=good person" it's more about how money and power allows people to get away with almost anything.

@Bylee Malox You took the words literally out of my mouth. I wanted to add this to my comment too. "Called as the Son of a servant for his entire life basically. Was abused and whipped by a high class spiritual weapon because of Madam Yu's jealousy of a dead woman. So used to constantly being put lower in value of his life that he gave his whole life's work to his so-called brother. Even on the day of Lotus Pier attack, all Madam Yu and Jiang Fiengman had to offer him was an order to keep _thier children_ safe, no matter the cost to himself. And somehow these seem acceptable behaviors to treat a child to the majority of the fandom. "Yunmeng bros are cool." "Jiang Fiengman was just a pacifier. Not an enabler of abuse." "Madam Yu just had a bad temper. And is maybe a lil tiny bit bad haha." "But its okay at least they're letting him stay there, right?" Do you why that is? Because the whole story of The Untamed is in the point of view of Wei Wuxian! And these are his views! Of course he wants to think they care about him just a tiny bit too. He has a real low self esteem, which is understandable I guess. The fandom basically drank up Wei Ying's views about every charachter. The trick is to look at the actions of the charachters, not words! The lack of critical thinking never ceases to astound me." But then i thought it will get too long and unrelated to the original comment so i removed this part ha ha who knew you would say it for me in an even better way :)

Can you recommend some of your favorites? Looking for some reading material.

Yeah even the comedy ones aren't bring picked up, which is a shame. I've been waiting for an adaptation of 'Ascending Do Not Disturb' but it seems like unless you're following the same cookie cutter formula CDramaland producers want nothing to do with you.

@@CeruleanRogue it's always been a problem, even for other medias! mangas, novels, web novels, you name it... producers have no taste! well, some of them. bad to generalize

@@aureliaavalon Even when they pick up good ones, their script writer has no respect for the original work. They blame censorship, but lots of time it’s just lazy script writing. They leave out all the highlight moments or under preform them.

I once had to ponder this while writing an essay on Lord of the Rings. I concluded that the three primary causes of death for wood elves were: drowning; falling out of trees; being struck by lightning.

I also think when you have series with 40+ episodes it doesn’t help either. The pacing gets too slow or there’s so mich filler the plot gets convoluted.