Black Corporation: Joseon Chapter 375 Discussion

c77 September 2023: Black Corporation Joseon is one of the most realistic and immersive alternate history fiction books I've read.

An eccentric genius, he takes the words of a mentor "If you don't want to be criticized as an otaku, be successful! Become a talented or successful fanatic, then you won't be called a 'damned otaku, ' but a 'enthusiast with a maniac hobby!" to heart, he is uniquely positioned to change history as the first son of King Sejong the Great, a genius in his own right who invented of the korean alphabet, and who is regarded as one of the greatest rulers in korean history.

I will start off with Cons, because I believe if someone doesn't realise them going in, they won't have the patience to enjoy it.

Cons: This is a realistic novel, and thus is slow. The historical figures in the novel are often real historical figures, and thus are treated with respect. Many other novels can get away with antagonists that are evil, s*upid, and annoying, and thus cathartic to slap down and destroy. Unfortunately, the main antagonist in this novel is the poverty of the people, the limited treasury of the kingdom, the lack of human capital due to the inaccessiblility of good education for the populace, the restricted authority of the monarch, and the poor geopolitical situation of Korea. These are complex issues, and are worked through realistically which means slowly.

Pros:

The story is very realistic, as it tries to reflect the real world situation in that time period. Honestly amazing world building by the author, I hate when history element of historical fiction is only a caricature of the real thing, but in this novel it is very realistic. There are very few instances where a technological discovery has felt unrealistic, and it has instead been a steady progression in the right direction, as the MC able to point them in the direction of the truth, but often not knowing the little details he leaves it for them to proove it so he can use that discovery to pave the way towards the next them. There is also a good dynamic between father and son, as Sejong as one of the few people that can keep up with the main character, and sometimes the genius of Sejong scares the MC a little with how much he can infer from so little information.

I also enjoy how the MC is taking business practises from the modern world to make workers more productive and motivated. It almost makes me feel sorry for Joseon's employees- I mean citizens.

With the butterfly affect already beginning to take hold, it already shows a ton of promise, and I look forward to seeing how the world created continues to progress.

c375 September 2023:

I feel like its cooling off a bit, at least imho. One side of it is that things aren't as complicated now. It partially seems like because all the big issues have been solved, the issues they are dealing with now are small and/or manufactured.

It also felt earlier that the world and its complexity were respected, while now that doesn't seem to be the case. The Emperor of China is seen as intelligent but also unreasonable, while the Chinese themselves are seen as corrupt and selfish, and many of the Japanese are looked down up as barbarians who are always looking for a chance to double-cross, or opportunistic pirates.

If there is something that redeems this, it is also that many Koreans themselves are shown to be corrupt and have plenty of vices as well, so obviously much is exaggerated. I think it would be nice though if there had been more examples of kind people from other cultures.

I think the problem is that there is a lot more baggage using real world cultures, and the author has decided to cater towards Korean tastes and not treat other cultures with much respect. I am going to leave this as a 5/5, but it is the only 5/5 I've ever considered dropping.

Many of the schemes are incredibly clever, and the author does an incredible amount of research, I've learnt a fair bit of Korean history and also a bit about how different technology works simply by reading this novel.

However, the world doesn't feel as real as it did at the start, its the MC and his Dad basically owning everyone and Korea being the best in the world. Thats not bad, but when the antagonists stopped being korean the amount of respect the author gave to them seemed to decrease