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Where the novel Swords, Come! (aka Sword of Coming) got its title from (clip from Sword Snow Stride)
#wuxia #武俠 #武侠 #xianxia
#wuxia #武俠 #武侠 #xianxia
This clip is from the just-finished drama Sword Snow Stride, based on the very popular webnovel 雪中悍刀行 (titled The Snowy Path of the Heroic Blade on NU). It's a wuxia/xuanhuan hybrid with some cultivation elements, but mostly focuses on political scheming/intrigue.
The drama adaptation is fantastic, highly recommended. The same author wrote the currently ongoing xianxia novel Swords, Come! 剑来 (Sword of Coming on NU), and this is scene is where that novel got it's title.
TIL that a lot of the common tropes of cultivation novels, like nascent souls and the process of transcending and becoming an immortal, tribulations, etc. were popularized by Huanzhu Louzhu in Sword Immortals of the Shu Mountains (Legend of Zu) (1932)
#wuxia #xianxia #webnovel
#wuxia #xianxia #webnovel
Also he had martial arts called "Eight Dragon Subduing Palms" (Jin Yong must have taken this to make his Eighteen), and the main character has a divine eagle companion (Jin Yong borrowed this for ROCH)
AND the primary protagonist, Li Yingqiong, is a woman! Didn't realize just how influential it was; pretty much every wuxia author who came after it was influenced by it in some way.
Monks in #xianxia/#wuxia: the influence of Chinese Buddhism in fantasy literature.
Yesterday I talked a bit about Taoism and its influences in both genres. So let's take a look at some of the Buddhist influences in both genres.
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Yesterday I talked a bit about Taoism and its influences in both genres. So let's take a look at some of the Buddhist influences in both genres.
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a common saying is 天下武功出少林: all martial arts originate from Shaolin, which has some historical basis. Introducing: 達摩 Dá mó, Bodhidharma- story has it that when Bodhidharma developed martial arts as a way to strengthen the body.
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Two manuals that often appear in these fantasy stories are 易筋經 Yì jīn jīng and 洗髓經 xǐ suǐ jīng. I think the former exists in real life (and has been referenced in the smiling proud wanderer) but the latter has been lost.
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