Star Martial God Technique - Ch. 343

[MangaDex]

 

[stilgar]

And then he whips his get out of jail free card

 

[dokidoki]

bruh seriously the prince just did a complete 180 with his intelligence, dude seemed smart when helping her out at first with that other dude but now he's the exact same dumbass as every other guy who got beat up by MC while they where trying to get with MC's girls OTL

 

[Lichon]

Its the stupid manhua thing/trope "I will attack you [with killing intent] but you better not defend yourself." then gets owned and suddenly "you dare to hurt me, you are courting death. now die!!".

 

[Kamelpov]

@Lichon like usa diplomacy. I can hit you but don't retaliate. If it fail use still something.

 

[Hoono]

@Lichon I agree. All the same shit. There is this other one too: I will try to kill you, everyone around approves. You bit the shit out of me, and you are about to kill me. Now, I or someone related, intervenes asking you to be kind and spare my life.

I dont think I have seen any good manhua. I just read those because I'm in between other interesting stories that haven't been updated yet.

 

[Vasqueztion]

@dokidoki
If manhua tropes are anything to go on, and for the most part they usually are, he was trying to play the white knight to get his dick wet. He also knew that no one could contest him because of his lineage.
The moment 'ya boi' showed up was the moment that facade dropped.

 

[ninjadork]

@dokidoki @Hoono @Kamelpov @Lichon It sounds incredibly stupid, but this 180* is based in reality. This is a Chinese story: in China, "face" is considered more important than sex, money, or even life in some cases. Now most Chinese people won't go apeshit and start punching if you "don't give them face"; but they absolutely will engage in backbiting, slander, and whatever backstabbing they think they can get away with.

Case in point -

Spoiler

I knew a philosophy professor in my college days who taught English in China during the 1990s. After he'd signed the contract and moved in, he taught his first week of classes. As per the contract, he expected to receive his first week's pay - when his payday came, he walked into his office to find a small stack of cash sitting on his desk and two men he recognized as working for his employer standing next to it. The stack of cash totaled up to far smaller than what the contract said he was supposed to be paid, and the other two men were all smiles and laughs about how good a job he was doing and here was his first paycheck, please take it with their complements.

It was blatantly obvious they were trying to cheat him, so what he did was he sneered and walked out. Didn't say anything, didn't do anything more, didn't even make an unhappy noise - just put an unhappy expression on his face and walked away. He came back the next day and they did it again - again, he just sneered and walked away. It wasn't until the third day of this farce that he walked in to find the proper amount of money (with a little bonus, of course) sitting on his desk and two completely different men waiting for him.

I asked him what would happen if he grabbed one of them by the lapels, accused them of cheating him, and pulled out his copy of the contract to prove his point. His response:

"It would work - once. I would get my money instantly, and my boss would come meet me in person to apologize. Then tomorrow, I would be fed a bullshit excuse about how it would be better if I left and moved elsewhere, there were people who didn't want me around and wouldn't it a shame if something bad happened, the local shop-keeps wouldn't sell me anything, and I would be very politely run out of town and had the contract severed. If I made a show of pointing out my employer's attempt to cheat me, I would have been "taking face" away from him: if he wanted to keep that face, he would have had to destroy me. And since he had a lot more face in this community than I did, it would not have been difficult for him."

So yeah, that's a piece of the Chinese mind in a nutshell. Give face to people, or they will try to destroy you any way they can. In a Chinese setting where everyone practices supernatural kung-fu, it's entirely realistic for people to try and kill each other on a whim. I could go on at length to explain exactly what "face" is or the ridiculous scheming the prince is doing now, but I'll leave that for a different post.

@Vasqueztion There's that too.

 

[Kamelpov]

Well in my head face =honor + reputation merged.

 

[Hoono]

@ninjadork I do believe what you said. After reading so many manhua, I started to think that was really the way that Chinese treated themselves. That was the only way to have so many writers with the same mentality, which would only provide the same story over and over.

Ah, dont forget all the cultivation, pills, family name, and money as pillars for every story. It seems like who write manhua come from poor families. They desire for themselves a harem, to be famous, powerful and rich. And that is translated to the manhua.

 

[1boring]

@ninjadork

Holy shit that sounds so fucking toxic, but that is likely just me projecting western values.

Thanks for that window into Chinese culture. The random culture exposures are really one of the best things about manga/manhua.

 

[Trueflame001]

Martial arts cultivation manhua is like power fantasy battle shounen on steroids, with protagonists that make Kirito seem like a nuanced and realistic character rather than a harem self-insert. But I wouldn't be here if I didn't enjoy reading that sort of light-hearted trashy stuff.

But what the hell happened in the last few chapters that made the MC go from playing it cool and safe to "I must save my love interest from 200+ chapters ago immediately and fuck whatever collateral damage and consequences ensue!!" He actually had a brain before this, where the hell did it go?

Also, Yuning is simply so much better than Xueyun that it's hard to care about this subplot.

 

[AlmondMagnum]

@Hoono
I feel like plugging Spirit Blade Mountain. I was impressed by how much people don't try to kill each other for no reason in that. Or maybe reading too much Manhua has warped my sense of normality in that regard...

 

[Kayriel]

Ah, 'face'. In other words, what people gain when they bully you and you acknowledge you can't/shouldn't do anything to them or about it. Because the Chinese love bullying people, especially with authority or in groups.

How ungodly annoying.

 

[HDMI1]

@Trueflame001 The "get out of trouble free" token he just received from the old man happened, who probably has as much power and influence as the Emperor as he's basically just kicking back and getting drunk within the capital, answering to no one.

 

[SadGhost123]

That was only 8 pages... Really? A whole chapter is only 8 pages now... Alright then.

 

[aigomorla]

nope... "it should be like FML now the kingdom is going to fall, dumbass prince."

 

[ninjadork]

@1boring It's important to realize that it's not projecting when you call it "toxic". Take a look at what the Chinese government is doing with the [redacted] disease and the WHO nowadays. Now imagine variations of that being done at all levels of society: that's how the Chinese live and think. Many, maybe even most, of them recognize that it's a horrible way to live - but they do it anyway because they don't have the courage to paint a target on their backs by bucking the system. Why do you think so many of them are desperate to move to Western nations?

@Hoono There's an element of that - these sorts of wish-fulfillment stories often end up as caricatured distortions of what the artist actually wants. Or what the artist thinks the readers want - it can be hard to tell the difference.

 

[ConBruh]

Am I going crazy? That was the smartest move by the prince if he wanted to attack Xinghe. His guard was only allowed to attack if the prince was in danger, so he put himself in danger. Literally the opposite of a dumbass prince.

 

[Acolytus]

After the previous arc I'm honestly not surprised by how fucking stupid this MC is. Dude just barges into trouble and makes shit a trillion times worse by acting like an obnoxious hothead and only gets away with it due to his universe-size plot armor.