- #1
The author uses the West in this setting as a tool to examine and deconstruct a self-admitted generic Murim setting. The central thesis of this work is 'The Murim in Wuxia is bad at war'.The Murim characters have fighting skills, but they have little experience with mass combat. The story points out that a self defense weapon like the sword, and no one favors powerful battlefield weapons like the polearm because no one goes to full on battlefields. Their concerns are an elite assassin strike team rather than entire squadrons of enemies.The Murim are set up as civilians and smaller local powers living in a long period of relative peace. They do not use practical battlefield equipment techniques because it would draw suspicion from the imperial government. They focus more on nurturing a few high level talents rather than mass producing 'good enough' talents for large scale confrontations.The West is set as a contrast- it is a meat grinder locked into a forever war that has little room for the flourish or the exponential growth of a single individual seen in most Wuxia. The yet to be revealed villain appears to have a similar mindset, but they still lack the practical experience and decades of institutional combat knowledge that the protagonist brings into the picture.
