On October 15, 2021, "The Legend of Paladin VII" was officially released. So far, the "Legend of the Paladin Sword" (hereinafter referred to as "Paladin Sword") series has launched 9 stand-alone works, after 27 years, "gifting" post-80s players fell into family trivialities, accompanied by post-90s players thirty and standing, and ushered in the curious eyes of Generation Z.
From "Immortal Sword One" to "Immortal Sword Seven", the 9 works not only tell different stories, but also have different narrative and aesthetic styles. In terms of the reasons for its changes, the first thing that cannot be ignored is the change in the game production team itself. At the same time, this is also the choice made by "Immortal Sword" in the process of continuous exploration and development for 27 years to synchronize the changes in popular culture.
I. Narrative Type: From "Wuxia" to "Xianxia"
In 2005, the TV series adaptation of the same name of "XianJian I" became a hit and was loved by the younger generation. Since then, the word "Xian Xia" has changed from a niche narrative to a widely known mainstream genre with a large audience, and "Xian Jian" itself has been regarded by many as the originator and insurmountable classic of contemporary "Xian Xia". However, the first generation of "Immortal Sword" is actually more martial arts than Immortals.
Poster for the TV series Paladin Legend
What is the difference between "Wuxia" and "Xianxia"? There seems to be no accepted academic theory on this question, only an impressionistic answer, that is, "Xianxia" is a kind of "wuxia", there must be "wu" in "xia", and "xianxia" emphasizes the closeness of the story background, character identity and immortal world on the basis of "wuxia". This impressionistic answer is ultimately a bit ambiguous, and it is advisable to use some relevant predecessor achievements as evidence.
"Xian Xia" as a culture can be traced back to the beginning of Chinese culture, but as a type of creation in modern popular art, it actually officially began with the old martial arts of the Republic of China represented by the novels of the "Immortals born" of the Lord of the Return of Pearls. When discussing the works of the owner of Huanzhu Lou, Zhou Qinglin once made a distinction between "immortal heroes born out of the world" and "martial arts that entered the world", and proposed that there are five major differences between the two: 1. The purpose of the walking hero is different: "Wuxia" is to eliminate violence and equal wealth, and "Xianxia" is to ascend to the Purple Mansion; 2. The means of xingxia are different: "Wuxia" is mainly based on martial arts and inner family gang qi, and "Xianxia" is mainly based on flying swords and magic weapons; 3. The time of xingxia is different: "Three times Emei Fighting Sword" is divided; 4. The location of xingxia is different: "Wuxia" is in the remote wilderness of the barren mountains and in the mortal world." "Xian Xia" in the famous mountain resorts and mid-air; 5. The main characters are different: the protagonists of "Wuxia" are mostly mortal heroes and second-rate masters, and the protagonists of "Xian Xia" are mostly first-class masters with "Xian Yuan". These five points are all summarized for the works of the owner of the Huanzhu Lou, and the third point is inseparable from his works, but considering the influence of the creation of the Huanzhu Lou on the various forms of martial arts and xianxia works in later generations, we can still use the other four points in this summary - that is, the purpose, means, place, and characters of the xingxia - as the basis for considering the difference between "wuxia" and "xianxia". It can be said that "Xian Xia" belongs to the broad sense of "wuxia", which is a "new form of martial arts" that integrates zhiwei, myths and legends on the basis of "wuxia", which is opposed to the more mainstream and narrow "wuxia" in the past, and the two have obvious differences in purpose, means, place, characters and other arrangements.
Examining the content design of "Immortal Sword I" with such an entry point, it can be seen that in this classic "Jin Yong style" collocation of one man and three women, the male protagonist Li Xiaoyao is an undoubted mortal hero, with martial arts Huigen, practicing the Shushan Sword Method and the Gang Qi Dao Method. Among the three female protagonists, there are two mortals, of whom Lin Yueru is the daughter of Lin Tiannan, the lord of the Southern Wulin League, who practices orthodox martial arts; Anu is a young lord of the Bai miao tribe, mainly practicing the art of witchcraft, both martial arts and immortal arts. In the plot, Li Xiaoyao steps into the jianghu to help Zhao Ling'er return to her hometown, Lin Yueru follows Li Xiaoyao because of her friendship, and Zhao Ling'er and Anu embark on the final journey because of the war between their homeland. The protagonists are several heroes all the way as mortal heroes, helping the weak and small, and not involving the cultivation of immortals at all. Judging from the main setting of the game, this is indeed a "martial arts" without a doubt, but the identity of Zhao Ling'er and the appearance of various monsters, magic weapons, and inhuman places add additional fantasy and mythological colors to the story.
The "martial arts" setting of "Xianjian I" is inseparable from the literary and cultural background of the time. In the era of the production and distribution of "Xianjian I", it was still in the period when Hong Kong and Taiwan popular literature (that is, literary works represented by Jin Yongwu and Qiong Yao's romance) and its film and television adaptations set off a series of booms across the taiwan strait and three places, "Xianjian I" is a generation of works deeply influenced by the popular literary trend of Hong Kong and Taiwan: the popular martial arts and romance novel themes at that time have become the shadows behind the theme and content design of this game, and the public's acceptance of these popular literature and film and television has also laid a specific aesthetic foundation for "Xianjian I" to be paid attention to and loved. Even not only "Immortal Sword", the same 90s classic "Jin Yongqun Hero Biography" and "Sword Man Love" also have the same internal driving force.
However, this narrative genre began to shift from "Immortal Sword III". "Immortal Sword III" expands the worldview of one and two parts, proposes that there are "six realms" in the world, formally incorporates the concepts of "god", "immortal", "ghost", "demon" and "demon" into the game setting, and shapes the corresponding character identities, such as the god will fly, the goddess XiYao, the demon respect lou, and the ghost body dragon flower, which greatly enhances the mythological color of the story and the fun of the fairy. This generation also appeared in the "Immortal Sword" series of the first character to perform for the cultivation of immortals, Xu Changqing, but only appeared as a secondary character in the story.
In 2007, the "Xian Jian IV" "Xian Xia" was more colorful, and it was a complete "Xian Xia" work. Although the four protagonists of the group are all mortal except Liu Mengli (The Young Lord of the Demon Realm), Yun Tianhe is the descendant of the cultivators, Murong Ziying is the most talented cultivator among his peers, and Han Lingsha mistakenly becomes the "host" of the artifact Wangshu Sword, and the four of them eventually all worship the Qionghua Sect with the goal of ascending to the Purple House for their own purposes. Most of the battle scenes in this work have also become special places such as "Qingluan Peak", "Drunken Flower Shade", "Fengshen Tomb", and "Buzhou Mountain", rather than the boundaries of ordinary people such as "Shilipo", "Blackwater Town" and "Toad Valley" in the first generation. The weapons in this work are not only swords or long whips, but also the addition of the "Zhen Zhen" that is originally an instrument, which also proves that "Immortal Sword IV" is no longer only "martial" to perform heroic feats.
Immortal Sword IV
The three works of "Immortal Sword III", "Immortal Sword III" and "Immortal Sword IV" have different production teams from the previous works, which is the direct reason for the transformation of the game's narrative - the new team always has to try new breakthroughs. But we should also note that this period was also a period when the position of popular literature began to change. The sudden emergence of online novels quickly captured the vision of public readers, among which "Xian Xia" works such as "Immortals" created a more fantastic imaginary world, and once again formed a new aesthetic vision and expectation. Of course, this does not mean that these three "Immortal Sword" works must have been influenced by the "Xianxia" online novel to shift to the "Xianxia" genre (unless the "Foreman Jun" and his team members at the time came forward to agree with this view), but rather that the two popular literatures and arts of online literature and digital games may unconsciously achieve each other after choosing the "Xianxia" style.
After 2000, thanks to the ability of a generation that grew up after the reform and opening up to accept new things and the information dissemination and exchange brought about by the development of the network itself, the domestic cultural aesthetic has become more and more diverse. In this case, the happy and vengeful martial artist seems to be unable to fully satisfy the public's fantasy, and it is difficult to keep up with the changes in the thinking of the newly grown Generation Y youth, at this time, "Xian xia" as a more fantastic "martial arts" narrative, providing a kind of imagination of the birth, but also in the way of linking traditional fairy colors to re-build the bridge to the "chivalrous dream", becoming a new mass culture darling. The shaping of mass culture is the result of the echo of the masses and cultural objects: the "Xianxia" turn of "Xianjian" and the "Xianxia" story in online literature can achieve certain success and attention, which is the result of the shaping of certain cultural needs of the times; these "results" have invisibly become the response of each other, constantly reshaping the public's concepts and aesthetic tendencies, and finally pushing the "Xianxia" to the public, making it one of the mainstream aesthetic orientations.
Thus, the narrative genre shift of "Immortal Sword", although the result of emerging in the context of new cultural exploration, has also become one of the contributing factors to the new popular aesthetic (i.e., "Xian Xia").
However, the narrative genre of "Immortal Sword" is not fixed on this. Many players believe that starting from "Immortal Sword Five", because the game production is returned to "North Soft", the "Immortal Sword" series returns to "Wuxia", which is actually because the story characters no longer cultivate immortals. If Zhou Qinglin's division of "Xian xia" and "wuxia" of the lord of the Huanzhu Building is followed, this work is already doomed to cease to be "wuxia" from the design of character identity. In addition, from "XianJian I" to "Xianjian IV", the protagonists have chivalrous dreams, but the characters of "Xianjian V" and "Xianwu Prequel" are complex, and the protagonist no longer seeks to become a immortal longevity or to punish adultery and eliminate evil in the jianghu for personal morality, but seeks the survival and stability of various races and the six realms, with greater intentions, which also makes it difficult for us to summarize the works with the concept of "martial arts" or "xianxia", and perhaps it would be better to call these two works "fantasy" works in general. And "Paladin VI" is slightly free in the "Paladin Sword" series, which may be an innovative attempt by the development team to write a story, and it is more suitable for using "fantasy" as its genre description. It was not until the release of "Immortal Sword Seven" that the "Immortal Sword" series returned to the "Immortal Sword Story" and "Immortal Hero" narrative: this time, the cultivators and the Divine Clan were accompanied, stopping the struggle between the gods, demons and people, and re-stringing the stories of the "Immortal Sword Heroes" of the past. The color of the protagonist's costume in "Immortal Sword Seven" has even changed the convention, no longer using warm colors, but all use white, green and purple that are regarded as "fairy qi", which can be said to be a knockout of the narrative and aesthetic orientation of "Immortal Sword Seven" as "Immortal Hero".
Second, the theme performance: from "fate" to "change life"
Each work in the Immortal Sword series has an independent story theme, and the theme of Immortal Sword I is "Fate". The so-called "fate" in contemporary culture refers to the fate that human beings cannot intervene in, and compared with the word "fate", more emphasis is placed on "fate" by nature and cannot be changed, with a bias towards negative emotional color.
The "fateful" theme of "Immortal Sword I" is mainly reflected in Zhao Ling'er. As a descendant of the Nuwa Clan, Zhao Ling'er was born different from mortals: she not only possessed the bloodline of the Divine Clan, but was also destined to carry a racial mission that ordinary people did not have to bear. Her nuwa bloodline made her snake-headed body easy to be regarded as a demon and could not be accepted by ordinary people, so after she first appeared in her original form in Lin Jiabao, she was hurriedly escaped as a snake demon, and even if she returned to the Miao territory, it was difficult to prove her identity, just like her mother Lin Qing'er; this bloodline also made her doomed to spiritual exhaustion once she gave birth. Her Nüwa identity also gives her a heavy mission: in the story setting of "Immortal Sword", the "human emperor" Nüwa and her descendants guard and protect the human race, so it is inevitable that the successive Nüwa clans will be martyred to save Cangsheng, and Zhao Ling'er will also die by sealing the water demon beast.
Zhao Ling'er in the TV series "The Legend of the Paladin Sword"
Zhao Ling'er was originally a 16-year-old girl, who was rescued from war when she was young and grew up carefree on Xianling Island, and she was already far away from the struggles in her homeland and the fate of her clan. However, Li Xiaoyao broke into Xian Ling Island to save her relatives, causing the Black Miao people to take the opportunity to destroy her peaceful life; in order to solve the plague, they eliminated the Red Ghost King and led out the treasure of the clan, tu lingzhu in the world; then Black Miao and White Miao fought all the way, and the internal responsibility of the Miao clan fell on her shoulders as the princess of the Nanzhao Kingdom... All this is not the result of Zhao LingEr's active choice, but reality pulls her forward with the script. Li Xiaoyao was brought back ten years ago by the statue of the Witch Queen, but he could only witness history itself, become a link in history and connect the key clues between the stories, and could not change the history of Ling'er and his ethnic group, let alone change the future of Ling'er. This is "fate". Li Xiaoyao became a generation of chivalrous guests but was unable to save his partner, which was fate; Lin Yueru confessed that Li Xiaoyao was a slur and a fate; Anu got rid of the ethical shackles and followed Li Xiaoyao, but in the end he could only say goodbye to him, which was also fate. With the theme of "fate", the story of "Immortal Sword I" is finally led to a tragic ending; or it is this unwilling tragic ending that makes the "fate" theme of "Immortal Sword I" more prominent.
"The relationship between man and destiny" is a traditional theme of artistic expression, sophocles's Oedipus the King, Cao Yu's "Thunderstorm", and a large number of ancient Chinese poetry and songs, all carry thinking about fate, which is an individual's reflection on life and the process of life. Thinking about the "relationship between man and fate" has different emotional expression tendencies, and "fate" is one of them, which recognizes people's limits and expresses people's sense of powerlessness in the face of destiny. The introduction of the "fatalism" is also a means of artistic shaping, which can create a tragic atmosphere while explaining the plot arrangement.
Starting from "Immortal Sword IV", the "Immortal Sword" game series has another emotional expression tendency of "the relationship between man and fate", that is, to fight for "changing lives".
The official theme of Xianjian IV is "Xiu Xian", but the key to its story unfolds is around a classic Taoist proverb: "My life is up to me". In the game, Yun Tianqing said in a conversation with his son Yun Tianhe before his death: "Death and life are in the hand, change is in the heart, the earth cannot be buried, the sky cannot be burned, this is my life lies in me, not in the sky", which impressed Yun Tianhe. "My life is up to me" has also subtly become yun tianhe's action belief and guide, which is reflected in the plot of its bending bow to the fallen Qionghua sect. The Nine Heavenly Divine Daughters received the will of the Heavenly Emperor to send down heavenly fires to burn the Qionghua Sect that violated the Heavenly Dao and tried to ascend in vain, and Yun Tianhe questioned whether this move would hurt the people under the mountain, so he argued with the Nine Heavenly Divine Daughters: People are also part of the Heavenly Dao, why can't they decide their own fate? The Nine Heavenly Divine Daughters thought that changing their lives against the heavens was a big thing, but Yun Tianhe held the Ancient Artifact and shot the Sun Bow, and was pregnant with the dragon breath of the Zhou Mountain Candle Dragon, and finally used his whole body qi and the power of the artifact to destroy the fallen Qionghua in the air, saving the people under the mountain, and to some extent practicing his creed of "fate is not up to the sky".
The theme of "changing one's life" pervades the entire work, from Murong Ziying being sent to Qionghua to practice to change his illness, Han Lingsha to find a way to reverse the fate of the family to find immortality, to the Qionghua sect to practice against the heavens, and Xuan Xiao disobeying the Heavenly Dao to confront the Nine Heavenly Xuannu, all of which are individual attempts to resist and change their destiny. This is actually in line with the theme of "cultivating immortals": cultivating into immortals with the body of a mortal is itself a struggle against the original fate of people - because they are not willing to be mortals, they hope to change their life span and identity through cultivation, so there is a desire to "change their lives" in the "cultivation immortals".
"Immortal Sword IV" and later "Immortal Sword" works transformed into "Immortal Heroes", so they more or less included the content of "Xiu Xian", and "Immortal Sword Five", "Immortal Five Prequel", "Immortal Sword Six" and "Immortal Sword Seven" although the story theme is different, but also continues the theme of "changing life". "Hoping to change one's life" may not really be able to "change one's life", but compared with lamenting and succumbing to the so-called fate at the beginning, there is a more positive and proactive side in "changing one's life".
"Xiu Xian" originally had a negative avoidance of the concept of life in the world, and was a "solo music" that stripped away from ordinary births and did not read the world; but under the skin of the "Xiu Xian" series of "Immortal Sword" was an active struggle against the fate of oneself and others, and it was a "crowd music" that wanted to "reach both the world and help the world". Therefore, the change in the theme of "Immortal Sword" is not only a change in artistic expression, but also a change in the values it exports.
"Immortal Sword" takes "changing life" as the core expression of "xiu xian", and actually realizes the modern transformation of the meaning of "xiu xian". The protagonists of "Immortal Sword" are generally faithless, and although they are set as "cultivators", they are essentially "killing gods": they neither believe in gods and immortals, nor do they believe in the authority of gods and immortals, and even clash with gods and immortals for "changing their lives". Therefore, they are not so much "cultivators" as they are "cultivators", and their way is the "avenue" in the name of "racial harmony", "group freedom", "justice under the world", etc., and their behavior is also filled with a modernity belief similar to "there has never been a savior, there is no immortal emperor, and we can only rely on ourselves to create human happiness." Of course, this in itself is also because "The Immortal Sword" is indeed a product of the contemporary cultural context, a mixture in the tone of contemporary discourse and narrative; and such expression itself is more in line with the overall value judgment and cognition of a generation that has grown up in the new era.
Third, aesthetic positioning: become a "national tide"
The "Immortal Sword" series has always been labeled with "ancient style", "national style" and "immortal style", and in recent years, the word "national tide" has become popular, which has made "Xianjian VII" have a new business card, and the previous "Xianjian" series has also been posthumously regarded as the embodiment and representative of the early national tide. This is not the wishful thinking of the audience, and "Xianjian" itself has continued to move closer to the aesthetic of "becoming a story based on Chinese tradition" for more than two decades.
The gradual clarification and transformation of the self-positioning of "Immortal Sword" can be examined from three points. The first point is the English translation of the legend of the Paladin Sword.
The most well-known official English translation of the five words "Legend of the Paladin Sword" is "Chinese Paladin", but this is not the original official translation of "Immortal Sword", and the official translation of "Immortal Sword I" (95Dos edition) is actually "Legend of Sword and Fairy", which can be directly translated as "Legend of Swords and Immortals". This translation is very much in line with the interpretation of the "Legend of the Immortal Sword" by Yao Zhuangxian himself, the "Father of the Immortal Sword": "Xianjian", "Xian" refers to the fairy-like figures with graceful postures, such as Zhao Ling'er, "Sword" refers to the jianghu warriors who fight the sword, such as Li Xiaoyao, "Xian" and "Sword" are one yin and one yang, rigid and soft, mutual achievement, and joint writing legends, before becoming "The Legend of the Immortal Sword".
Then for a while, the English translation of "The Chinese Love Story" was "The Chinese Love Story." While players acknowledge that there is a moving love story in Immortal Sword, they generally fail to endorse such a translation — it completely erases the essence of "Immortal" and "Sword" and makes the Story of Immortal Sword sound like a cheesy "romance" work.
From the third work, the English translation of "Immortal Sword" was officially changed to "Chinese Paladin". However, "Paladin" has been using the word "paladin" since the first work, and the 95 and 98 versions of the game program are named after the abbreviation "PAL" of this word. The term "paladin" was borrowed from French into English during the Middle Ages, and refers specifically to "paladin" in specific era and cultural contexts. There is clearly no "paladin" in China, and the word is not suitable for a simple understanding of "ranger", so it is obviously better for a generation of works to abandon the separate word "Paladin" and use "Legend of Sword and Fairy" as an official translation. However, the works of the "Immortal Sword" of the third generation and later have a different way of dealing with it: the word "Chinese" is added before "paladin" as a restriction. "Chinese Paladin" is the "Chinese version of paladin", which gives "paladin" the meaning of Chinese culture, which can be extended to "chivalrous". Some players think that the word "Chinese" seems to be a snake in this translation, but the actual situation is just the opposite, and it is this qualifier that proves that the story of "Xianjian" is changing from a martial arts story that favors the taste of the public to a Chinese story based on traditional Chinese culture.
This shift in positioning in The Immortal Sword is also evident in the design of the character's name. Let's start by briefly listing the names of the protagonists of the previous works of the Immortal Sword.
It can be seen that the names of the protagonists of "Xianjian I" and "Xianjian II" use common surnames (except for "Anu", which has no surname as a Miao), which is very popular. From "Xianjian III" to "Xianjian IV", its character naming has ingenious features, of which "Xianjian III" is named after the character with the name of Traditional Chinese medicine, "Xiansan Qingqing" introduces the stars for naming, and "Xianjian IV" uses the traditional name of various types of ores. Such details have become a "cultural Easter egg" of the game, attracting players who love "Xianjian" to actively search for various clues and traces of chinese culture in the game, and it is through these three generations of works that the "Xianjian" series has been labeled as "ancient style" and "Chinese style".
Starting from "Xianjian V", "Xianjian" no longer uses existing cultural terms to name characters (although there are some supporting characters in "Xianjian V" whose names are derived from the "Book of Poetry", such as "Fang Caiwei" and "Yin Qilei"), and instead are named by some contemporary "ancient style" /"Xian xia style" with online literary characteristics, although the charm is insufficient, but it is generally in line with the general audience's cognition of the so-called "Chinese style". Moreover, under closer inspection, the naming of the characters in "Xianjian V" and "Xian Wu Prequel" also seems to have their own norms: low-level civilians and foreign tribes have no surnames, such as "flawed" and "Xianqing"; the "four major families" are all "Ouyang", "Huangfu", "Xiahou", "Shangguan" and other big surnames. This kind of naming with class and identity colors is also traditional.
Finally, we can also see the aesthetic change of "Immortal Sword" in the changes in its overall design materials.
Lee Getaway
The items and move names of "Immortal Sword I" are mostly from modern martial arts novels, and the plot narrative has a strong folk story color, and its main plot can almost find the prototype in folk tales. At the beginning of the story, Li Xiaoyao is critically ill due to his aunt and prepares to go to xianling island, which is rumored to live in a fairy, to seek immortal medicine. Before leaving, the Miao people who stayed at the Li Family Inn asked Li Xiaoyao to swallow a pair of "forgetful worries", claiming that this medicine could resist the miasma on the island, and Li Xiaoyao took it and took a boat to Xiandao. After breaking through a labyrinth pass, Li Xiaoyao came to a peach blossom forest and met Zhao Ling'er, who was bathing in the pool, so he stole his clothes, hoping to threaten the fairy to give him the elixir. After Zhao Ling'er found out, he punished Li Xiaoyao, and then felt his filial piety and took him into the Water Moon Palace in the depths of Xianling Island to get medicine, not wanting to bump into Ling'er's grandmother. When Ling'er learned of what had happened, she disguised herself as a half-snake and threatened Li Xiaoyao to take Zhao Ling'er as his wife, and Li Xiaoyao had to accept the marriage in order to escape, and the next day he fled with the assistance of Zhao Ling'er. After Li Xiaoyao returned to the inn, he forgot all about the previous day's events because of the role of "forgetting worries and scattering".
For this plot, which can be viewed in only half an hour in the game, three types of folk tales are used: the first is the classic "Swan Virgin Story", the second is the "Girl Helps the Hero Escape" numbered 313A in the "Chinese Folk Tale Genre Index", and the third is the "Forgotten Fiancée" numbered 313C. Overall, the "Swan Virgin" is the overall structural basis of the "Fairy Island Encounter" story at the beginning of "Xianjian I", in order to increase the twists and turns of the story and cause subsequent plots, the plots of 313A and 313C are added. In addition, the main plot of "Paladin I" also includes classic narrative genres in folk tales such as "In Search of the Missing Princess" (No. 301A) and "The King and the Banshee" (No. 411).
However, after the "Immortal Sword III" began to gradually establish a complete world view belonging to the "Immortal Sword", these folk creation programs rarely appeared in the main plot of the game, and were replaced by some fantasy "Xian xia" narratives that borrowed a lot from mythological stories, and before that, the most significant mythological image of "Xian Jian" was only "Nuwa".
Since The Paladin Sword wants to create its own story, it does not directly borrow the plot of the myth, but rewrites the myth. The "Immortal Sword" worldview established from the beginning of "Immortal Sword III" is a remarkable example. In the world view of the Immortal Sword, after Pangu's death, his essence, qi, and god were incarnated as Fuxi, Shennong, and Nuwa, respectively, and were called "Three Emperors"; their spirits were transformed into wind, thunder, water, fire, and earth, becoming the "Five Spirit Pearls"; his heart hung between heaven and earth and became a sacred tree. "Emperor" Fuxi used the fruits of the sacred tree to create new gods, "human emperor" Nuwa created people from the soil, and "earth emperor" Shennong created hundreds of beasts from earth, stone, grass and trees. Humans can become immortals after cultivation, and beasts can become demons after cultivation. In the ancient times, there was a very intelligent Xuan You among the beasts, who led the beasts to attack the terrans, but after the intervention of the gods, they were defeated, and eventually fled to the "Otherworld" to cultivate into a demon. Since then, with the addition of the "ghost realm" as a transit of reincarnation, there have been "six realms" and six races in the world. There are contradictions between races and within them, and there are conflicts and stories in the various parts of the Immortal Sword.
In addition, on the basis of rewriting the myth, "Immortal Sword" also borrows various images from the myth and transforms them into specific characters, monster images, or objects and imagery in the game.
For example, the "Sentence Mang" of the Zhenshou Feng Shrine in the "Immortal Sword IV", its mythological prototype is contained in the "Lü's Spring and Autumn", "Li Ji", "Mozi", and "Shan Hai Jing", which is the legendary spring god and wood god, the main agricultural affairs and tree growth, and its image is a human head and a bird body, which has an important position in the ancient spring festival. In the game, "Jurman" is the god who guards the Houyi Sun Bow, and will evaluate the good and evil of the past life and this life of the person who enters the tomb of the sealed god, so as to make rewards and punishments. The prototype of the "Dragon of the Candle" in this work is found in the Classic of Mountains and Seas, Huainanzi, and Chu Ci, and its human-faced snake body/dragon body, with a length of thousands of miles, is a deity stationed in the northwest. The "Candle Dragon" in the game has no human face, but a pure dragon image, lying on the "Buzhou Mountain" town guarding the entrance to the ghost world. The two sword names of "Wangshu" and "Xihe" in "Immortal Sword IV" are the mythical "Moon God" and "Sun God", respectively, and the game gives the two swords yin and yang attributes in a symbolic way. The list goes on and on.
Using old myths to create new myths makes "Xianjian" more in line with the current culture's cognition of "Chinese style" and "Chinese story" than the previous folk narrative program.
And all this paved the way for "Immortal Sword Seven" to become a "national tide" in his own statement and his statement. In 2021, with the release of "Immortal Sword Seven", the English translation of "Legend of the Immortal Sword" has been changed again, changing to "Sword and Fairy", re-emphasizing "Immortal" and "Sword", showing the official cultural confidence of "Immortal Sword": the story of "Immortal Sword" is "Immortal Sword" itself. After this work is completed, the world view of "Immortal Sword" is basically completely constructed, and the "Immortal Sword" stories of the past generations have also been connected as a whole, as if to tell the player: "We have completed our own story". This "own story" can also be limited to it, that is, "the story of oneself that becomes the national tide".
"National Tide" was originally the same as the concepts of "Japanese Tide" and "Han Tide", which is the coordinated expression of the fashion industry's dress style nourished by a certain social culture, but the current concept of "National Tide" has been generalized and become a reference to things with Chinese characteristics (whether it is clothing, decoration, music, animation, etc.), and "Xianjian Seven" has finally become "National Tide" because of the "Chinese story", "Chinese mythology" and "Chinese Xianxia" aesthetic shaping of the "Xianjian" series in the past twenty years based on "Chinese stories", "Chinese myths" and "Chinese immortals". The game represents with a new direction.
In the past 27 years, "Xianjian" has developed from the original traditional "fate" theme of martial arts narrative to the Chinese "Xianxia" story in today's national hot wave, which is not only the aesthetic trade-off made by the production team in exploring and seeking the future of IP, but also reflects that contemporary Chinese mass culture has gradually shifted from "martial arts aesthetics" to "Xianxia aesthetics", while beginning to emphasize the embedding of traditional Chinese cultural elements and the expression of positive and upward value orientation. (The gender distribution and role relationship of the protagonists in the later generations of "The Immortal Sword" even bear the traces of the current value judgment of equal rights for men and women.) However, whether "Immortal Sword VII" itself is a good work, players have mixed opinions about it, and whether the "Immortal Sword" series has really found a creative way out, this question can not be determined. What the future holds for Immortal Sword, all we can do is wait and see.
exegesis:
See Zhou Qinglin, "On the Novel of the "Martial Arts Of Joining the World" of the Lord of the Huanzhu Lou", included in the Complete Novels of the Lord of the Huanzhu Lou, edited by Pei Xiaowei and Li Guanding, Taiyuan: Shanxi People's Publishing House, 1998, vol. 46.
See Ding Naitong, Index of Chinese Folk Tale Genres, China Folk Art Publishing House, 1986. The same applies below. Liu Shouhua refers to this genre as "Fairy Savior", reinforcing the characteristics of this story genre.