Discussion Against the Gods (ATG)

[Wowzers]

RIP douchy young master of the Burning Heaven Clan. His fate was well deserved and highly ironic.

Yes! Especially since this fate was exactly what Yun Che was threatened with by many BHC members.

I'm kind of leery of fighting two Thrones simultaneously. The only thing I can think of to even the odds is the Dragon God domain... but he used that yesterday. Not evil enough for todays fight.

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 28, 2016, Original Post Date: Jan 27, 2016 ---

1 down, 1 to go!

 

[Jammin]

Oh man, this was the best chapter! The Xiao sect master going into detail about how this Yun Che guy obviously shouldn't be offended no matter what only to learn that his clans brain dead douche of a young master framed him, tried to steal his wife and the same aunt burning heaven kidnapped, AND caused him to be expelled from his clan. So good.

 

[Wowzers]

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 29, 2016, Original Post Date: Jan 29, 2016 ---

Oh! A second chapter immediately after. Well... BHC got some help...

 

[Jammin]

I thought the Heaven's Sword Villa guy was there. Wonder why he's not getting in on this? Or did i just misunderstand something?

And it saddens me a little that Yun Che is missing all these opportunities to throw ball jokes at the Xiao Sect guy. It's such golden opportunity!

On a slightly more serious note. Yun Che is really kicking bees nest here. If he ends up killing or even beating up Thrones from both the Xiao Sect AND Heaven's Sword...at the point he's pretty much pissed off everybody.

 

[Wowzers]

That Xiao Sect Throne really didn't impress me at all. He didn't use his power at all really, he just threw bombs. To top that off, he didn't even take the antidote to the bomb's poison either, before he started throwing them around.

I still am so confused about what happened to the Heavenly Sword Villa's Throne.... Could it be this entire chapter has taken place inside some kind of illusionary Domain and it didn't actually happen?

 

[Jammin]

Could we have been misunderstanding that scene and it actually was the Xiao clan guy who arrived?

Regardless the Burning Heaving Clan is dead. Completely and totally. Yun Che's actions were more than a little excessive but his reasoning behind his utter brutality makes sense to some degree.

That being said, I can't help but feel in wiping them out he's ended up causing more problems for himself than he solved. His logic of "if I don't wipe them out, they'll just come at me and those I love again some day" feels somewhat short sighted to me. Wars are won in the will. All he had to do was break their will to fight. Which he did and then annihilated them anyway. The problem with acting that way is that it will make the allies of his future enemies feel cornered.

If he really wants to protect those around him what he should be striving for isn't total annihilation of his enemies and their allies but rather to have those enemies be abandoned by their allies because defending them just isn't worth it. His message to the Xiao Sect shouldn't be "I'm coming for you all." it should be "I'm coming for your young master and that elder". Because if that was the case I'd have to think the Xiao Sect would hog tie both of those morons and drop them on his doorstep. Now they really don't have any reason to believe that would resolve anything.

 

[Wowzers]

Could we have been misunderstanding that scene and it actually was the Xiao clan guy who arrived?

Yeah... I reread that last part of chapter 350 and it seems to be the Xiao Sect Throne... they didn't say his name but, he came because of the "Grand Sect Master’s orders". The one from Heavenly Sword Villa is the "Grand Villa Master Ling Tianni" so seems likely we just misunderstood.
He'll put in an appearance later probably.

As for the logic behind eliminating the entire clan, that seems to be pretty common in xianxia stories. Even in stories about ancient China, (Kingdom for example) when there was a traitor, not only the traitor would be executed but also several generations of his family. The idea was to 1) eliminate any people who might want to take revenge, and 2) as a deterrent for anyone else contemplating the same crime. Xianxia, of course, takes everything to the next level.

 

[Jammin]

Good point. It's a funny contrast coming from a bunch of Japanese shounen stuff like Naruto where goes the other way to a crazy degree.

Like Naruto always made a huge deal of the Uchiha clan getting leveled for plotting an insurrection and cycles of hatred and all that. But by Wuxia and Xianxia standards that stuff was all pretty minor.

--- Double Post Merged, Feb 2, 2016, Original Post Date: Jan 31, 2016 ---

Looks like Yun Che's overconfidence might have led him into a situation he can't fight his way out of.

Actually hoping he talks his way out of this one. This sword villa guy seems like the kind of person Yun Che shouldn't be fighting. I'd never bet against him in any battle but this sword villa guy has a pretty good point. He definitely went overboard. But on the other hand he didn't start the fight and he gave them plenty of opportunities to resolve this situation without so much bloodshed.

It's also kind of neat how the Xiao Sect aren't quite the stubborn idiots I expected them to be. They have zero interest in fighting Yun Che. If he comes looking for payback for what they did to him they are 100% ready fall on their knees and beg forgiveness.

 

[Wowzers]

You know you're going to have a bad day when the #1 Strong man in the empire shows up looking to kill you and your own personal goddess tells you you don't have a chance against him.

Yun Che's only chance is:
1) Ling Tianni is willing to talk -or-
2) Fen Juechan shows up with his new secret powers and starts massacring so both Yun Che and Ling Tianni have to team up to beat him.

 

[Jammin]

There is a third option, I think. Don't Heaven's Villa have some sort of protection agreement with the Blue Moon Palace? Because if they are honor bound to protect that family...Yun Che is set to enter that family.

--- Double Post Merged, Feb 3, 2016, Original Post Date: Feb 2, 2016 ---

Yun Che is really being too proud and reckless...

He actually had Ling Tianni cornered philosophically, then ruined it by attacking. His point about punishing Yun Che when he let the Burning Heaven Clan go crazy for years and doing nothing when the Blue Moon Palace was in danger was such a dagger to the heart of the guy's sense of justice. But once the fight starts that goes right out the window.

If this wasn't a fight to the death I might even be rooting for Yun Che to lose. Weird to say this about a guy with two lifetimes but he needs to grow up a little.

 

[Wowzers]

Well, Yun Che could always take impossibly massive damage and still recover so maybe Linn Tianni will think Yun Che is dead meat paste and leave... only for our (anti-)hero to get back up before he's cremated.

 

[Jammin]

Haha, he does have the vitality of a cockroach.

Though I'm thinking his fiancee(s) save him. Can't you just see Cang Yue stepping up and give one of those "If you want to hurt him you'll have to get through me" speeches? Or Little Aunt showing up and do the puppy dog eyes.

The most awesome and unlikely would be if Xia Qingyue or Little Fairy showed up mad as hell.

 

[Wowzers]

Your wish is granted!

 

[Jammin]

It was really "all of the above" wasn't it?

I wonder how Qingyue arrived here. It would be pretty fun we get a flashback of her coming out of her icy meditation thingy and was just like "WTF happened to the gate?!" Also wonder if she's going to be pissed Yun Che didn't leave her a message.

--- Double Post Merged, Feb 7, 2016, Original Post Date: Feb 4, 2016 ---

The husband and wife team are truly unbeatable.

Hopefully, this will be followed by a quiet period for Yun Che. He's been in full on rampage mode for like a week. Time to sit down, have a cup of tea, maybe flirt with all his love interests for a little while. Just chill out for bit.

--- Double Post Merged, Feb 7, 2016 ---

The Xiao Sect is finally accepting the only recourse when a conflict is unwinnable.

Curious who these 3 hot girls they are sending his way are going to be and if he will send them back? Knowing Yun Che I'm thinking he won't.

 

[Wowzers]

Curious who these 3 hot girls they are sending his way are going to be and if he will send them back? Knowing Yun Che I'm thinking he won't.

I wonder how the 3 'gifts' will think of this situation...
Maybe they will think they're the 'virgins being sacrificed to the volcano god'.

 

[Jammin]

If they stick around they need to have some personality. They can't be Girl1, Girl2, and Girl3. They need to have opinions about Yun Che that aren't decided for them. That would not be cool.

They need to be characters before they can be love interests.

 

[strixflash]

I used to love this novel for the starting 200-300 chapters. Now it's become totally repetitive. It's annoying to see every idiot out in the weak country of Blue Wind Empire claiming how strong they are and then getting their asses kicked by Yun Che. It was fun at start but now their arrogant attitude is annoying the hell out of me especially seeing no villain has any brains...they are just stupid villains who continue to underestimate Yun Che even after he show his powers.

The other thing I'm hating is how easily Yun Che easily overcome every trouble...no matter how strong the oppponent is he always gains or unlock new power or find partner during a battle.

Harem. Well, romance and harem.in the series is really annoying .. Author really sucks in the romance department. But then again even popular authors fail in that section so I could overlook it. I mostly skip the part when harem girls are there.

And the most annoying part is how author keeps on sayingw how aesome Yun Che is. We already know he can defeat opponents far beyond his level and that he has support of may legacies but there is no need to be a fangirl in every chapter. Of course you have to show how that your main character is superb, smart,etc...so people of the story impressed by his awesomeness is fine but It gets annoying if you see it in every chapter.

What I am worried the most is about the tournament that old guy from Heavenly villa was talking about...the one in which their country can finally gain honor thanks to Yun Che. I am worried that most of the characters in it would be the similar idiotic opponents who would look down on Yun Che because of his low cultivation base and also because he is from a trash country. Then they would act shocked... repeat.

//Sorry if this sounded like a rant. I really loved it at first as the world building was superb.

 

[Jammin]

I can see where your coming from but I'm still really liking it. Xianxia and Wuxia are genre novels with a definite pattern to them. What makes or breaks that kind of thing is what it does with it. There isn't a big villain just a bunch of little guys for Yun Che to overcome on a story arc to arc basis And watching him overcome those is fun for me. He's got his faults *cough*arrogance*cough* but not being perfect is some of what makes him fun too.

Respectfully disagree about the romance aspect. It's hit and miss at times and it certainly isn't conventional since Yun Che is basically a skirt chaser. But I think it's done a pretty good job creating entertaining female characters and having them relate him on their own terms and form odd but unique relationships with him. It's not perfect as I think Xiao Lingxi and Su Ling are both come across to me as fairly thin so far but the rest I think have really added to the story.

I agree about the character shilling (the term for characters constantly and excessively praising another character) that is a bit annoying. That's something I've gotten used to in webnovels so I'm fairly immune to it at this point. It's nowhere near as bad as something like Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari in that respect.

 

[strixflash]

True. But I thought author would try to do something new within the limitations of the genre.

Honestly speaking I didn't find any of the harem girls interesting. That princess was fun at start as I thought she would be cunning but then turned out to be another shallow character. I use to like that fairy girl (who got pregnant) until she started to blabber how great Yun Che is.

Character shilling is fine and it's enjoyable as well but there should be a limit. (Thanks for telling me about this term). Oveuse of that makes it annoying and that's what we are seeing.

My biggest disappointment is that author is not exploring the elements of his fictional world. We have so many new lands to explore...then there is dimensions of Gods. There is the mystery of treasures...history of evil God, etc. But author is rather focusing on Yun Che meeting idiotic villains. Blue Wind Empire arc should have finished ages ago. Instead of some more new tournament arcs or Yun Che getting more powerups author should try to make new mysteries or answer some questions.

Wuxia/Xianxia have strong world building elements and I think now is the time to focus on them.

 

[Jammin]

I'm sure he'll play with that stuff eventually and we're coming to a transition point where he's going to go from the world this part of the story took place in to a broader world. So you'll get more world building and such with that.

Having said that, I think Against the Gods kinda is what it is. It may play around with other elements but at it's core it's always going to be somebody picks a fight with him followed by powering up then big battle then on to the next one. That's the genre so it's always going to stick close to that. That's the meat of the story. The harem, the world building, stuff like that are all side dishes. They'll always be there but I don't think we can expect they will ever be more than something to add variety.

The only real issue I have with Against the Gods is when Yun Che is by himself. He needs somebody to reign him in. The best parts of the story, in my opinion, are when he's doing his thing next to a female character stronger than he is. The parts with Xia Qingyue, Cang Yue, and Chu Yuechan were so good when they were way stronger than he was. So I'd like to see more that.