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Genre is one of my favourite things to think about; I love how genre tropes set up expectations in the mind of the reader/viewer, and then a clever creator can use those expectations to ask new questions or push boundaries or simply turn things inside out. I have seen enough wuxia (films and dramas) over the last three decades to have a moderate grasp on its genre conventions, but I have only started watching xianxia very recently and have not seen very much yet, so please understand that while I am enjoying thinking about this, I really have no idea what I'm talking about.
That being said, there are two main things I have noticed so far:
First, in all the wuxia I remember, the over-the-top parts of the genre are presented as explainable and achievable. Yes, martial artists can fly, or do impossible flips, or use their internal energy to fling people to the ground, but it is because they have access to the right information (secret texts, powerful mentors) and have put in the years of practise to become skilled. In the same way, medicine can do incredible things -- turn people into zombies, preserve life in impossible situations, control minds and bodies, increase a person's internal energy so that they become a more powerful martial artist -- but again, it's the result of someone pursuing knowledge in a systematic way. It is fantasy, but it is a fantasy about a knowable world in which people can do the seemingly impossible by studying, sacrificing, and working hard.
Xianxia, from the little I have seen, is much more out-and-out fantasy; there are magical objects and supernatural monsters, and it seems like the world is much less knowable not only to the viewer but also to the characters themselves. Dead people come back to life and don't know exactly why, ghosts walk and then vanish again, monsters abound in the mountains and rivers, and studying hard, while important, is only going to get one so far. It is not clear to me yet if being a 'cultivator' is open to anyone, or if it requires an inborn talent that runs in families.
The second thing I have noticed is that, in wuxia, life as a peasant farmer is held up as the ideal existence; pretty much every wuxia protagonist at some point has the moment where they daydream of leaving the martial arts world to get married and lead a simple happy life as a farmer -- or if they're in danger of death, they talk about how in their next life they hope to be born in a small village so they can marry and have children and be ignorant of the martial arts world. The peasants one sees as side characters might be unhappy and oppressed, but the oppression is because of bandits or evil government officials whom the protagonists can get rid of, not because being a farmer tends to involve poverty and food scarcity and backbreaking work from dawn to dusk. I have a mild sense of the complex political and cultural reasons that leads to this exaltation of the farming life, but I really do not know enough to do more than note that they exist.
I haven't seen enough xianxia yet to be certain, but so far the peasants I've seen have been much unhappier; they're scared of all the supernatural things occuring, they have no faith that anyone is really going to be able to help them, and at least some of the protagonists hold them in contempt as uneducated and superstitious. I would guess this might tie into the idea that talent matters more than training in xianxia, but again, I don't know yet!
That being said, there are two main things I have noticed so far:
First, in all the wuxia I remember, the over-the-top parts of the genre are presented as explainable and achievable. Yes, martial artists can fly, or do impossible flips, or use their internal energy to fling people to the ground, but it is because they have access to the right information (secret texts, powerful mentors) and have put in the years of practise to become skilled. In the same way, medicine can do incredible things -- turn people into zombies, preserve life in impossible situations, control minds and bodies, increase a person's internal energy so that they become a more powerful martial artist -- but again, it's the result of someone pursuing knowledge in a systematic way. It is fantasy, but it is a fantasy about a knowable world in which people can do the seemingly impossible by studying, sacrificing, and working hard.
Xianxia, from the little I have seen, is much more out-and-out fantasy; there are magical objects and supernatural monsters, and it seems like the world is much less knowable not only to the viewer but also to the characters themselves. Dead people come back to life and don't know exactly why, ghosts walk and then vanish again, monsters abound in the mountains and rivers, and studying hard, while important, is only going to get one so far. It is not clear to me yet if being a 'cultivator' is open to anyone, or if it requires an inborn talent that runs in families.
The second thing I have noticed is that, in wuxia, life as a peasant farmer is held up as the ideal existence; pretty much every wuxia protagonist at some point has the moment where they daydream of leaving the martial arts world to get married and lead a simple happy life as a farmer -- or if they're in danger of death, they talk about how in their next life they hope to be born in a small village so they can marry and have children and be ignorant of the martial arts world. The peasants one sees as side characters might be unhappy and oppressed, but the oppression is because of bandits or evil government officials whom the protagonists can get rid of, not because being a farmer tends to involve poverty and food scarcity and backbreaking work from dawn to dusk. I have a mild sense of the complex political and cultural reasons that leads to this exaltation of the farming life, but I really do not know enough to do more than note that they exist.
I haven't seen enough xianxia yet to be certain, but so far the peasants I've seen have been much unhappier; they're scared of all the supernatural things occuring, they have no faith that anyone is really going to be able to help them, and at least some of the protagonists hold them in contempt as uneducated and superstitious. I would guess this might tie into the idea that talent matters more than training in xianxia, but again, I don't know yet!
