Flaubert once asserted, "There will be no more novels after the nineteenth century." "Because all the storylines, all the emotional changes, have been written by the great writers of the nineteenth century.
100 years later, the novel is not dead. The martial arts writer Gu Long commented on this: "He was wrong". The reason is that even if the same storyline is the same, if you look at it from different angles, the novel will be completely different. Human concepts and perceptions are constantly changing and changing with the times.
Gu Long believes that the biggest advantage of martial arts novels is that they include various genres and plots - you can write "love literature" in martial arts novels, but you can't write martial arts in "literary and artistic" novels. The predecessor Jin Yong integrated many bridges of 19th-century Western novels into wuxia, and Gu Long put reasoning stories into the framework of wuxia to achieve writing innovation.
Forty years after saying this, the protagonist of the old story became a fairy tale.
Xianxia web literature has long become a popular genre in male and female frequencies, and many of their works have been adapted into popular dramas. By 2023, almost all of the ancient fairy tale web novels have sold their copyrights, and the newly serialized works in recent years have also been watched by many producers to see if there is anything innovative.
Just as martial arts renovated nineteenth-century literature, many existing drama genres are also being reinterpreted by fairy dramas.
There is no shortage of bloody parents here, although it looks more naïve than house fighting dramas. There is no shortage of strong emotions of Qiong Yao's romance, and there is also a gorgeous and spectacular fairy scene in the fairy world.
Gulong's sentence can be replaced by: you can write martial arts dramas, romance dramas, idol dramas and even hot-blooded competitive dramas in fairy dramas, but you can't write fairy tales in these dramas.
A fairy tale drama as a framework
In recent years, Xian Xia Wu "Xia" has been criticized. But Xian Xia has no "Xia", probably because they are not in the same basket.
Liu Ning, producer of "Starfall into Sugar", believes that many people confuse fairy tale dramas and mythological dramas. Xian Xia generally involves the Immortal Dao sect, mainly cultivating immortals, it is the stage where individuals are promoted from people to gods through continuous efforts, at this time people have not yet achieved positive results, and mythological dramas focus on non-human fantasy stories. For example, "Starfall into Sugar" cannot be regarded as a fairy drama, and the story takes place between the human world, the heavenly world, the abyss world and the beast world.
Could it be that in recent years, the audience has scolded the wrong fairy tale drama? This is to go back to the original point to see - what exactly is a fairy?
Xian Xia and Wuxia, from the perspective of the novel, are originally a mother.
"Immortal" is a product of ancient Chinese mythology, and "Xia" is forbidden by martial arts, which is a condensation of an ideological attitude in ancient Chinese society. Xian Xia is inseparable from the foundation of "Xia", just like Huanzhu Landlord's "The Legend of Shushan Swordsman", the first half is martial arts and the second half is Xian Xia. Director Zhang Jizhong who has filmed many martial arts dramas said, "Any 'chivalry' in Chinese's heart is unrealistic in the final analysis, and it is a kind of whimsy and sustenance that is difficult to find in real life." ”
In online literature, "Xian Xia" is the product of the transition from martial arts novels to Xiu Xian novels, and Shao Yanjun, a scholar of online literature, defines Xian Xia as the precursor and first subcategory of Xiu Xian novels. In her opinion, most of the early fairy novels had the characteristics of both martial arts and immortal cultivation, and grew directly from martial arts novels, such as "Xianxian", but later they were martial arts on the surface and immortal cultivation in essence.
GIF source: TV series "Yuxian Qingyunzhi"
Although "fairy tales" is still a popular category in online articles, Shao Yanjun believes that fairy tales as an independent novel genre do not exist. "When Xiuxian novels first appeared, the formulation of fairy novels used to be conducive to promoting the development of this genre with the influence of martial arts novels, but now it is a rather misleading concept."
The definition of the term "fairy drama" is currently in this chaotic situation. In order to facilitate communication with everyone, this article still counts all ancient based fairy stories as "fairy dramas". But it is precisely because of the blurring of its boundaries that it facilitates the variation of the classic drama genre in the framework of Xian Xia.
Many martial arts stories were first "purified" into simpler stories in fairy dramas.
Martial Arts Drama (Pure Version)
It is also reasonable that the martial arts and fairy heroes of a mother's compatriots look alike. The two have many similar main lines and settings, and many of the authors of the early fairy tales are also readers of Gulong and Jin Yong.
In the fairy world, the opposition between good and evil is the basis of the story, the decent is the maintainer of order, and the story often begins with the villain breaking the balance between good and evil, and the moral norms of decency being challenged. Black and white are not clear, "villains" have people who are serious about righteousness, and "decent" also have sanctimonious hypocrites.
Of course, replacing the Demon World with the Ming Sect and the Sun Moon God Sect, and replacing the Immortal World with the Wuyue Sect and the Emei Sect, such a story Jin Yong has told many times.
The change in Xian Xia is that the division of good and evil is more "blood-based". But both Xian Xia and Wuxia love to use such a misplaced setting to interrogate: what is good and evil, what is justice, and how to achieve justice.
In order to catalyze the contradiction between good and evil, the main quest is usually a secret or magic weapon that everyone is fighting for, or a dangerous thing that needs to be sealed.
This constitutes the motivation for the protagonist's initial actions. In the martial arts story, "Smiling Rivers and Lakes" chases the "Evil Sword Spectrum", and "The Legend of Relying on the Sky and Slaying the Dragon" chases the dragon slaying knife because of "martial arts supreme, sword slaying the dragon, commanding the world, dare not obey". In the fairy tale, "Three Lives and Three Lives and Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms" wants to seal Qingcang, and the flower thousand bones in "Flower Thousand Bones" are "the last demon god in the world" and "the gods of the world died to seal her".
The plot turning point of "Three Lives and Three Lives and Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms" is all related to sealing Qingcang
In terms of personality, there are also many similarities. The "Abstinence Master Falls in Love with Me" mode, which has been very popular since "Flower Thousand Bones", can be called the sexual transformation of Xiaolongnu and Yang Guo. The heroine of "Starfall into Sugar" broadcast this year, as well as the upcoming "Heart Protection" and "With Feng Xing", are considered to be different from the common "silly white sweet" "Diao brute evil woman" character, and the male protagonist has formed a "female A male O" perception, but you can see a bit of Zhao Min and Zhang Wuji's shadow.
On the stage of martial arts, the rivers and lakes are independent of the court, but everywhere under the shadow of the court. Xian Xia has a heavenly court, and in many fairy dramas, the Heavenly Emperor and Queen of Heaven are also one of the villains. However, whether it is martial arts or fairy tales, this shrouded shadow can be challenged, but it will never dissipate, and retreat is the common ending of the protagonists.
Compared with martial arts, the rules of the Heavenly Court as a court are simpler, it may be that they have lived too long, and the immortals as leaders are even less good at intrigues.
Because the story is set in ancient times, martial arts stories are repeatedly caught in the conflict between feudal ethics and modern concepts, or trapped in the question of "who am I" (such as Jin Yong's novel entanglement of ethnic minority regimes), and are also easily pointed out by the party as historical errors.
In the world of fairy tales, there are no such complex normative ethics. The setting of the fairy tale drama has no taboos, everything serves the theme, and the construction of the world view is a "Classic of Mountains and Seas" to go to the world, after all, no audience will point out that the description of the demon world in this drama is not in line with the facts.
The dialogue of the characters does not have to be exquisite, and there is no sense of violation in writing dialogue like elementary school students talking about QQ. Its story writing may also be closer to Jiangnan's "The Boy Here", what Guo Jing Huang Rong is, is just a projection of adolescent first love and friends.
The story setting can be untaboo, but the story of the fairy tale drama still has a grand fixed "abuse point" - "tram problem". You love the living, and you love the other. But when the tram comes, do you want to save the life or the person? In general fairy tale dramas, saving Cangsheng is the first half, saving one person is the second half, and some other people's choices can be staggered in the middle. The order of salvation, in turn, also holds.
A song sums up the theme of the fairy tale drama
However, except for the ancient fairy tale dramas that can leave you with nothing, most dramas will not really answer this question. After completing the multiple-choice questions, you will also be given the opportunity to compensate for the reincarnation of several lifetimes, so that you can save both the life and the person.
As for martial arts, "Azhu is Azhu, the four seas and all the nations, for thousands of years, there is only one Azhu." "It sounds a lot more implicit.
School Drama (Game Version)
From 2005's "The Legend of Sword and Fairy" to 2014's "Ancient Sword and Qitan", these fairy dramas adapted from the game often give the protagonist group a good "group" configuration, which is convenient for them to break into the world - "Nanny" with healing function, melee warriors who can rush forward with swords, and long-range attack mages with soft shapes.
After the lineup is matched, the protagonist group will constantly complete the main quest, trigger side quests, find treasures, unlock key NPCs, and finally complete the mission, although the ending is always unsatisfactory. Li Xiaoyao first lost Lin Yueru and then Zhao Linger, Tu Su finally died to save Qingxue, and Qingxue woke up convinced that Tu Su was not dead, and searched for Tu Su all over the world.
The protagonist group of "The Legend of Sword and Fairy III"
In the early years, the Xianxia web text will also retain the taste of the game and continue to the adaptation.
Among them, the male frequency fairy web text, because the male protagonist has the core setting of "upgrading to fight monsters to unlock the mystery of his life", and it is inseparable from the early configuration of the group fighting task. At the beginning of "Xuan Xian", "Douluo Continent" and "Chosen Heaven", the protagonist enters a sect or academy to strengthen his skills and gain friendship, love and master-apprentice love.
In 2008, the two fairy female frequency web articles "Flower Thousand Bones" and "Glass Beauty", the heroine of the former Hua Qian Bone went to Changliu Mountain to study, unlocking several key figures in the human world and the demon world, the heroine of the latter, the initial setting is the daughter of the head of the Shaoyang faction, one of the five immortal gates, and the male protagonist was born in the Lieze Palace, and later they also embarked on an adventure journey with several friends of the Yang faction and the Lize Palace.
In this way, the figure of this part of the fairy tale drama gradually overlaps with the campus drama, sports competition drama, and hot-blooded teenager. Partners with different personalities, skills, and secrets slowly unite to deal with one difficult battle after another, rebelling against established rules that restrict freedom.
The protagonist group of "Douluo Continent"
This is exactly the part that will be enthusiastic about watching school dramas and sports dramas. In order to protect their partners, cowardly people have courage, indifferent people slowly become more warm, radical people learn to cooperate, and the protagonist is "This family can't live without you!" ".
However, this kind of configuration that matches the battle very well is usually more common in male frequency novels, and in female frequency novels, partners who help each other in the early stage may later become the object of female competition, or just simple "love bodyguards".
This kind of drama has cooled down in recent years, but the adaptations of "The Legend of Sword and Fairy 4" and "The Legend of Sword and Fairy 6" are on the way, increasing the proportion of "heroes" in fairy tale dramas in 2023, and we can also see this classical "game configuration" return to the market.
After all, both for creators and audiences, campuses and games are safe cognitive domains.
Romance drama and idol drama (Sansheng 3 Ten Miles and Eight Wastes Version)
There is love in many dramas, and now slowly some word-of-mouth dramas will not point out love, but fairy tale dramas, there must be love.
In Jin Yong Liang Yusheng's novels, the protagonists are always busy with the world, and even in Qiong Yao's drama "Deep Rain", Du Fei and He Shuhuan also want to go to the front line to resist Japan and save the country. But by the early fairy novel "Xianxian", the protagonist was basically driven by the relationship with the two heroines.
After "Flower Thousand Bones", love has increasingly become the bone of fairy dramas, and the plot composed of elements such as martial arts, games, and school dramas is meat, but do not expect how plump it is. In short, whether it is the world's life, or reincarnation, or a thousand years of cultivation, it is not worth a sentence I love you.
This may be the reason why handsome men and beautiful women act in fairy tale dramas and lose weight.
Before "Flower Thousand Bones", fairy dramas were basically equivalent to fairy game adaptations, and the DNA of martial arts and blood comics flowed in the blood of fairy dramas. Today, these dramas are closer to costume mythological dramas than "fairy tale dramas", or in other words, contemporary "love myths".
In the fairy world, in the tram problem composed of fate and love, the love of the protagonists is often highlighted in the pull of "saving one person or saving life".
Just like Bai Zihua, who made it his lifelong mission to protect Cangsheng, he held the dead Hua Qianbone and said desperately: "What do I do if Changliu is destroyed, and what do these people's life and death do to me." ”
Even if in the end, these immortals choose to sacrifice, they will be on the way to find a possibility of survival because they can't control their thoughts. However, to find the right way, if you want to use the power of evil, you will accidentally become a villain, such as in "Canglan Recipe" in order to resurrect Master's Rong Hao, finding the right way is the decency in "Ancient Jue Dust", the male protagonist spent tens of thousands of years gathering her soul after the heroine died in ancient times to protect the Three Realms.
These "love myths" toss and turn the three realms (sometimes four or six, it's hard to say) just to answer the ultimate question: "You ask me how deeply I love you?" ”
No matter how long you have to wait, how much it costs, even if the roots of love are uprooted, the memory is erased, even if there is no identity as a god, just a mortal, or degenerated into a "demon", as long as they meet again, love will warm the heart again like fire.
Their love can break taboos, break fate, and fall in love repeatedly in the cycle of erasing memories again and again, so as to prove the choice and uniqueness of feelings. In the next dramas to be broadcast, the number of reincarnations has become more: "Seven Times of Good Luck" reincarnation of the seventh life, "Falling Flowers and Jun" reincarnation of the tenth life...
This is the most chicken thief place when rewriting romance dramas in fairy tale dramas. Many romance templates can be used here, and the three-piece sets of ancient Korean dramas such as amnesia, terminal illness, and car accident can be reborn in the shell of Xian Xia. The length of time of tens of thousands of years in fairy tale dramas and the degree of pain under various rules can instantly increase the concentration of love.
Let's just say it - "I love you, I waited for you for five years." Compared with "I love you, drink Meng Po soup or can't forget you, pluck the root of love will also fall in love with you again, wait for 100,000 years or love you", which concentration is higher?
Although depending on the age, the protagonists of these fairy tale dramas or mythological dramas are all old men who have lived for tens of thousands of years, but the essence is still the love of handsome men and beautiful women. After all, due to various restrictions, the first encounter of the male and female protagonists is often the beginning of love, and their understanding of love will not be much higher than your cousin in junior high school.
After dozens of episodes of reincarnation, the whole world is choked by them, and in the end, they often choose to hide, and some people will choose to "imitate mortals" to have another child. If they don't hide, their ending may be the guardians of the order in the play, with many bloody gossip, and endless life.
Family Drama (Tens of Thousands of Years Edition)
If a screenwriter was born in this world, the gossip of the immortals who have lived for hundreds of thousands of years alone can be written into hundreds of seasons of "Unforgettable".
The blackened male second runyu in "Fragrant Honey Sinks Like Frost", her mother was originally a dragon princess, and she was deceived and infected by the "first emperor" in the heavenly court by chance, and then accidentally became pregnant, and the dragon king also deprived her of her status as a princess, and the male second became the illegitimate son of the "first emperor" and lived in the heavenly realm. The heroine Jin Mi is the daughter of the flower god and the water god, but the water god finally gave up the flower god and married the wind god.
This kind of plot is a big deal in fairy tale dramas. They also present the theme that is always talked about in today's family dramas and urban dramas: the original family. The story of Runyu and Jinmi tells us that the misfortune of the original family cannot be cured after tens of thousands of years and becoming a god!
The protagonists in the stories of fairy tales, even if they have tragic lives, most of them grew up in love. They have the power to give pure love, to receive pure love. In the game of loving this brave, they have repeatedly lost battles and achieved great results.
Hua Qianbone was disliked by the villagers as soon as she was born, but her father loved her very much. Although Jin Mi does not have a father, the entire flower world holds her in the palm of his hand. Although the heroine of "Starfall into Sugar" Yazumi was rejected by everyone because of her evil omen at birth, she had a sister who cared for her without hesitation. On the other hand, the villains mostly start distorting the world in the daily life of "lack of love".
In addition to not lacking these unmarried childbirths, there are also dense bloody dramas in fairy tale dramas "refreshing", that is, "the three-year period has arrived, welcome the dragon king".
The protagonists of the vast majority of fairy tale dramas, even if they come from a low background, their real bodies are people who can be on an equal footing with the villains, or even more pressing. Therefore, they are often suppressed and beaten by the villain in the early stage, and the villain is pressed and beaten in the later stage, and the sealed god in "Three Lives and Three Lives and Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms" is shallow to the mortal world, as a mortal supreme to be bullied by the gods, and when she returns to the identity of the god, these former villains will bow down to her. This kind of pleasure is even cooler than watching "The Temptation to Go Home" in Pinru Return for Revenge.
However, compared with "Unforgettable" and "The Temptation to Go Home", it is undeniable that fairy tale dramas do build a beautiful mythological world. What they present is indeed Chinese engraved in the bones of the classical romantic imagination. Not to mention that their mythological dramas with oriental aesthetics are not good fairy tales, everyone is trying to find prototypes from "Classic of Mountains and Seas" and "Search for God" and try to innovate.
Spit and complain, the audience has indeed received a lot of solace from fairy tale dramas, and young men and women have shed a lot of tears for them. Although I have to complain once a year, I will still click on it when there is a new one. Spit, and Xian Xia drama, as a genre that will release a blockbuster almost every year, it can be seen that it is not only me.
After all, there are always young people who will watch fairy tale dramas, just as there are always children who will wrap themselves in quilts and pretend to be ancients, pick up clubs as swords, and secretly dream of the protagonist in the room.
Open a fairy drama, it should be a dream, wake up for a long time or very moved.