Wuxia and swordsman, is it a hero or a fairy?

Martial arts are mainly based on the fist and foot kung fu of technical fighting, although sometimes the martial arts are too magical, but it is not grotesque, basically belonging to the realistic type; the swordsman is different, flying sword spells, Xuangong changes, hiding in the abdomen, reincarnation, is a romantic absurd type. Based on this distinction, the Tang legends of Qiu Qike, Kunlun Nu, Yellow Shirt Ke, and Xu Jun can all be regarded as martial artists, while Nie Yinniang, Red Line, and Empty Space are first-class swordsmen. Chinese martial arts novels, starting from the Legend of the Tang Dynasty, developed in parallel along the two lines of martial arts and swordsmanship. The martial arts short stories of the Ming and Qing dynasties are also divided into two categories according to this. Zheng Guan, a Qing dynasty, should collect such stories from the Ming and Qing dynasty notebook novels and compile them into a book called "The Biography of the Continuing Swordsman". In the book, "The Legend of the Great Iron Vertebrae", "Great Man", "Pipa Girl", "Mao Sheng", "Empty Space", "Ge Yiren", "Last Guest", "Huang Slender Sheng", "Chivalrous Woman" and other articles belong to the category of martial arts, and the martial arts written by the people are almost realistic, and there is no grotesque pen. The content of the swordsman is extremely absurd, such as "Li Jianfu", which writes "the sword comes out of the eyebrows, and the sparkle is like electricity"; the article "Green Bean", which writes that the sword is hidden "between the arms behind the head"; the article "The Monk of the Top Cylinder", which can "be invisible"; the article "Daoren", which can "spit fire in the mouth" to refine the sword, is extremely mysterious. In addition, there is a "Li Fuda" article, in addition to writing that this person can "scatter the shadow", he can still "serve the mountain fish, sit in the cooking, rise in the clouds and rain, fly sand and walk stones", which is even more fantastical and unbelievable.

In the long-form creation, the famous "Water Margin" and "Journey to the West", although not called martial arts novels, these two works, one wrote about the heroic struggle in the world, and the other wrote about the heavenly gods and demons fighting method, are also divided into two categories: realistic and romantic absurd. Since the Republic of China period, there have been many martial arts novels, according to the incomplete statistics of the "Mandarin Duck butterfly school research materials", there are nearly 180 authors, and the works have reached 690, which are also divided into two categories: martial arts and swordsmen. Pingjiang Buxiaosheng's "Legend of the Strange Heroes of jianghu", Huan Zhulou's "The Legend of the Swordsman of Shushan" and "Nineteen Heroes of Qingcheng" are absurd and romantic swordsman masterpieces; Zheng Zhengyin's "Eagle Claw King", Zhu Zhenmu's "Seven Killing Tablets", Bai Yu's "Twelve Money Darts", and Wang Dulu's "Iron Riding Silver Bottle" are realistic martial arts masterpieces. Swordsman and martial arts, romance and realism, are still two parallel developments. Since the 1950s, the new school of martial arts novels has basically been based on realism, and the characters in the book are not only cannibalistic fireworks, but also have no swords between the eyebrows and the art of invisibility, which is more credible to read. However, due to the fact that the martial arts are too magical, the elements of imagination and exaggeration are too heavy, so there is absurdity mixed in the realism. For example, the Tianshan Tong Yao in "Eight Parts of the Heavenly Dragon" will restore the child's posture when practicing; Wuyazi can inject more than seventy years of skill into the body of the virtual bamboo in an instant; Duan Yu's six-veined Excalibur and Hatsuma Zhi's flame sword can kill the enemy by the air flow emitted between the fingers; Jin Shiyi in "The Jade Bow edge of the Cloud Sea" can use the "Heavenly Transmission Sound" divine skill to secretly instruct the Glacier Heavenly Nun to defeat yang chifu, but others can't hear his voice; Chu Liuxiang in "Chu Liuxiang" has practiced the miracle of breathing with skin pores without snout; "Heavenly Silkworm Change" Yun Feiyang, who practiced the Heavenly Silkworm Gong, could be reborn like a silkworm and transformed out; Nie Qianmei in "Skull Painting", his gourd contained "Dream Heavenly Luo, Liu Peng Submersible Silk", which could be released like a giant net to bind people and entangled people, but it was completely invisible, just like the magic weapon in "The Legend of the Swordsman of Shu Mountain". All of this is grotesque and nonsensical. Because many martial arts have become super martial arts things, more and more mysterious, more and more deified, the authors of the new martial arts novels have asked for help from Xuan Xiang's super wonderful "Legend of the Swordsman of Shu Mountain", borrowed the name of the magic weapon spell in it, processed and reformed, and used it for their own use. For example, the names of "Heavenly Transmission", "Qiankun Great Shift", "Heavenly Demon Disintegration Dafa", "King Kong Not Bad Body Method", "Taiyi Five Smoke Luo" and so on are all derived from the book "The Legend of the Swordsman of Shushan Mountain", and after being used, they have become magical martial arts mental methods; and the "Tianyi Divine Water" and "Red Shadow Divine Light" and other things that have been transformed have extremely powerful killing effects. Due to the emergence of super martial arts, the new martial arts novels have some swordsman colors, although the descriptions of these super martial arts are not flying sword spells such as spitting white light, but their whimsy is equally bizarre as flying sword spells. A martial artist with super martial arts, whose Xuangong changes in disbelief, is similar to that of a swordsman. These "super-first-class martial arts" of divine feats can be seen as the product of the confluence of martial arts and swordsmen. In this way, the line between martial arts and swordsmanship, realism and absurdity has become blurred. But these martial artists with the power of swordsmanship are always chivalrous rather than immortals, which is different from the traditional swordsman; because the highest realm of the swordsman is the sword immortal, and the martial arts cannot achieve such a realm. Therefore, although these new martial arts novels fuse the realism of martial arts with the absurdity of swordsmanship, there is still a clear difference.

The genres of xianxia, xiuzhen, fantasy, fantasy and other genres that are popular on the Internet can be said to be a continuation of the sword-man novel.