History of Wuxia & Xianxia Cultivation Trope Explained with Brandon Sanderson’s Magic System

If you’re a writer or just someone who likes to explore new ideas, then you should check out the classic Wuxia & Xianxia movies. There are plenty of stuff you can borrow for your own project.

More Murim Manwha Lore!

a boom in interactive fictions lately

I'll be honest, I may have tried to copy the Dempsey Roll once or twice...

In Ramakien, the Thai version of Ramayana, Hanuman seems to be able to do his various magic feats as needed. However, there is a story where one of the giants goes to a private area to meditate in order to create a special weapon, and Hanuman foils this by continually disrupting his meditation. That would seem to be a mixture of the hard and soft, but it's interesting how this division is drawn between the hero/villain camps.

I am still stuck at a bottleneck at orgin core realm! I have been cultivating diligently day & night for the past 3 years yet i cant seem to break-through?

Any advice? And no i cant afford heavenly dragon essence pill.


(How long does it take to reach heavenly divine realm? And become a god?)

This was SOOO cool! and concepts and tropes Ive often wondered about and would love to see even more in-depth study of the topic! Fantastic- gonna binge your history meets literature playlist now!😆🤩🥰

Hard work yes. but let's not forget a lot of these heroes are either 1 Somehow "martial arts genius' (how many have that?) 2. Find a miracle X that somehow makes it seriously easier for them. and 3. Either have a string of amazing coincidences that somehow help them find / master/ some secret. and wealth / status just sorta happens half the time.

You seem to always downplay Western ideas - I like you explaining the eastern ones, but you seriously underestimate the West Man. xD

I.... Am... MENG HAO!!!

I practice a system of life cultivation called Ren Xue, it's about improving health and uplifting life. Also, it has a Qigong system called Yuan Qigong, which is really good. I highly recommend to anyone 😁

牛逼

So what I’m getting from this video is that cultivation is a valid way to transition for trans folks. Gender magic, I love it.

我觉得诡秘之主，这部小说你们看起来会很容易

I have a question about internal alchemy, how are Qi, Jing and Shen related to each other? And how would Jing and Shen fit into Wuxia and Xianxia stories, because they talk a lot about Qi in those, but less about Jing and Shen.

Third Young Master's Sword is probably my favourite wuxia novel of all time.

As you said, in the Legend of Chusen (Noble Aspirations), the main protagonist is a boy who is completely negated for martial arts and ends up cooking in the kitchen: his best skill. However, as the story unfolds, you discover that he is indeed very powerful and by the end of the story he has probably become the most powerful. This was not a consequence of his cultivation but the fact that someone hid something very powerful in him and a magic artifact picked him as his owner.

You forgot one aspect : faith. In your video you show the monk from The Legend of White Snake who is fighting a demon. He has entirely devoted his life to Buddha that's why he is so powerful. He has blind faith. However his blind faith is also his limitation because he views everything either ying or yang in terms of good and evil. By the end of the story he understands that he must trust his heart because even demons cultivate and strive to ascend to immortality.

Pseudoscience? According to quantum physics everything is made of energy (qi) and is regulated/manipulated by consciousness/spirit (shen).
Europe had a long tradition of magic and herbalism but all of that changed due to the holy inquisition which tortured, killed and burnt at the stake whomever was involved or suspected of dealing with magic. As a consequence, herbalism and other holistic approaches disappeared replaced by modern medicine which treats the body like a machine. Interestingly, all those alternative therapies are back all over Europe as modern medicine is very limited. The passage from politheism to monotheism was very bloody!

The "Secret Manual" trope in western form is known as the "Charles Atlas Superpower", named after the bodybuilders manual focusing on Dynamic Tension.

The lore of Wuxia is humans are granted permissions to use superhuman strength/techniques that usually are owned by Gods, via cultivations. It has various types of abilites such as physical power, inner strength power, soundwave power (like the one used by Cia Sun in Heavenly Sword and Dragon Sabre or used via musical instruments), light body skill, energy waves, finger poke that can stop bloodstream making ppl unable to move, etc.

So, Dragon Ball is wuxia, and Dragon Ball Z is xianxia?

I just love MXTX! :D

To me, only soft magic systems are actual magic. Hard magic is just superpowers and a part of the normal workings of that world. Science by any other name. Soft magic comes from supernatural sources outside of the physical universe. While mortals can control/direct it to a certain extent, it is not wholly controllable or even knowable to mortals. It should also come with serious risks such as spiritual and/or physical corruption. Just my preferences.

Don't show Korean Chinese xianxia drama, Korea is very good at stealing the style of Chinese TV drama.

Makes more sense than the 4 humors ...

I'm glad that they prefer the idea of working hard compared to it being genetically based. It always rankled me that people in fiction settings get their abilities based on genetics rather than working hard.

Me : like I care i want more 3 kingdoms stuffs

Psst CJ, can you tell me what some of those movies you showed clips of are because ngl they look cool as heck and i wanna check em out. Definately gonna check out Condor Heroes now >:3c. Also thank you so much for this video! It was very enlightening and gave deeper insight to the genres!

xianxia novel right now is fill with full "brainless" protagonist, sad.

Will there be a video about the meaning of colours in China? Seems like an interesting topic for a video.

Rather helpful video; thanks for taking the time to record it.
further notes.
Eh, growth vs fix intelligence is a bit of a mix. Genetics fixes your maximum potential, period...but having bad/no food, rest or education, certain diseases and traumas can all lower your intelligence to varying degrees. Fixing or working your way around any of these problems will raise your intelligence; sometimes significantly... but only to that genetic cap.

Yo, I just saw many Nazi symbols at the beginning hahahah

Any recommended for story with hard magic system

I did not expect Douluo Dalu, it's been years since I finished reading the English translation of that novel.

I couldn't watch this video without thinking about "Kung Fu Hustle," Stephen Chow's love letter to wuxia movies.

What a great movie.

11 09

I've actually been looking for stories outside of China that cover the themes of Xianxia, but filtered through their own culture; like what would Japan's take on the formula be?
On the most superficial level, a lot of common Isekai stories or "death game" stories (heck, even Korea's comics) have a "start weak, become god-like" theme, but its often because of an explicitly RPG based mechanic or "cheat" skill. Even the few series where hard work and ingenuity plays a major role, they still throw in a bunch of cheat skills in towards the end.
There's also the fact its hard to filter to find a story with... Say... A Xuanhuan setting but a XianXia story.
In any case, if this is far too specific a thing to expect to exist, then maybe I should start writing something like that.

Do you have this in written form? This thing is amazing.

Yang Kai from Martial Peak looks as if he started with nothing and only began to accomplish things with his resilience and work ethic, but he was born in to the greatest family happened to be in the only sect with a connection to the next level, and got two inheritances from gods that even 40 years later he still doesn't compare to

oho firt time I see a video actually explaining the wuxia and xianxia tropes for new readers (and others), even though if you say to someone that's read both tropes "wuxia is martial arts and xianxia is cultivation" they'll understand, I guess not everyone has read such things ;)
edit: now that i saw the video the video aint actually explaining what the wuxia and xianxia tropes are, it's more focused on cultivation but yeah still, I'm surprised to see that kind of thing outside of the world of web novels, where xianxias and wuxias are extremely common

not everyone. u have to at least have spirit roots oml and why Ju JingYi? I cant believe I have to see that fake bi***

感觉比我这个中国人还懂（~0~）

Love this trope.

道道道道道道道道道道道道道道道
道可道　非常道
天道地道　人道劍道

I like how star wars films spans across the rules of magic. And we know where each of the films land on the scale.