The questionable ethical foundation of HSR (Xianzhou arcs) writing

[cashew]

As I said, I was going to expand on this point because it's too complicated of a concept for a single bullet point.

How Ethics Inform Writing

The writer's ethical belief is the foundation on which "good" and "bad" are defined. All stories, once you pare away the meat, comes down to "good" clashing against "bad" and through this clash reach some kind of truth regarding the human condition.

It doesn't matter if the writing itself is technically good or bad, this is just the fundamental concept of "narrative", as opposed to say "poetry". If a narrative exists, then there is a clash of "good" vs "bad".

Ergo, what the author believes to be "good" will face challenges by what the author believes to be "bad" and (usually) win. Sometimes the "bad" wins, but the narrative will make it clear that "bad" winning is undesirable. When "bad" wins, it's a tragedy.

"Good" and "bad" need not be people. It can be concepts, ideas, societies, a piece of technology, whatever. However, usually the "good" and "bad" are embodied by characters. As such, we have usually the "good guys" and "bad guys" shorthand. In pulp media made for mass consumption, this is the usual set up.

In these types of works, the "good guys" are portrayed positively while "bad guys" are portrayed negatively. The actions of "good guys" convey what the author believes to be the "correct" action. If the "good guy" does something incorrect, the narrative will proceed to call it out, clearly indicating to the audience the "good guy" is doing a "bad thing" and this is NOT GOOD.

Let's use MCU as an example, because MCU is a classic case of pulp writing for mass consumption. Tony Stark is a "good guy". However, he starts off doing "bad" things. Once he is made aware of his "bad" action, the narrative makes Tony repent for his "bad" action. Then, the narrative shows how Tony makes amends by doing a "good" action instead.

Now, the "bad" action in this example is Tony being a war profiteer. Tony is made aware of the "bad" aspect of this when the narrative depicts an innocent person dying in front of him as a result of his weapons. Tony is given time to emote and feel guilty about his "badness" to show he wants to make amends. Then, Tony proceeds to do a "good" by making the Iron Man suit and fight the "bad guys".

However, the "good" action involves Tony violating state sovereignty, committing extrajudicial executions, and causing tons of collateral damage. This reflects the MCU writers' moral values. Being Americans, MCU writers see nothing wrong with an American ignoring another country's sovereignty, because the US government does this in the name of "human rights" all the time. Further being Americans, the writers see nothing wrong with the concept of "the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun", so Tony kills terrorists without a trial process. (Don't give me bullshit about how the terrorist is shooting other people, that's not moral justification for killing anyone. Tony was most certainly not acting in self-defense at the time.) And, much like US foreign policy has caused literal millions of civilian deaths, the American writers of the MCU doesn't even acknowledge the collateral damage Tony inflicted while on his vigilante self-righteous moral crusade.

To be very clear, Tony Stark the character IS A GOOD GUY. The fact that his actions are morally reprehensible is a reflection of the writers' ethics, not Tony's ethics. However, as an audience member, whether we judge Tony's actions as morally reprehensible is not determined by "is Tony good", but needs to be judged by "is the action good".

In short, what the narrative frames as "good" vs "bad" is determined by the writers' ethics. We must keep this in mind as we continue to dissect HSR's 2.4 and 2.5 patches.

What HSR writers consider "good"

There's four major conflicts the mainline narrative of patches 2.4 and 2.5 uses to drive the plot. I'll go through each separately and break down what the narrative frames as "good" vs "bad" and why there are...issues.

Yanqing arc

Yanqing's main conflict is with Yunli. While Yanqing and Yunli are both "good guys", the two characters have a clash in values, specifically in how they view "the way of the sword". Yanqing is the "good" view in this case, which is enjoy the way of the sword, focus on reducing shortcomings, and being noble in battle. Yunli is the "bad" view, which is focus on treating the sword with respect, focus on expanding strengths, and being practical in battle.

The framing of the story is that Yunli's values are "less civilized". Her design, being barefoot and not observing social niceties and speaking in a rougher manner, all point to her being the "wild" and "uncivilized". Meanwhile, Yanqing is the one who observes social niceties, wears conservative clothes, and speaks with polite grammar. Yanqing's "good" values are being challenged by Yunli's "bad" values.

However, the problem arises when Yunli makes a bunch of good points while Yanqing has no argument that addresses those points. For example, Yunli criticizes Yanqing for letting his sword leave his hand, citing the Cloud Knight's motto that one must never allow one's weapon to leave the hand. This particular line is a call back to Jingliu teaching this motto to baby!Jing Yuan in his PV. So the question arises why Yanqing, who is Jing Yuan's student, fails to adhere to this tradition. Unfortunately, Yanqing has no comeback, probably because the writer has no real answer so the issue is simply handwaved away.

Another example: Yunli argues that "stealing" implies she used sneaky methods to obtain Yanqing's sword, when in actuality she took the sword by force and Yanqing couldn't get his sword back. Yanqing trying to moralize at her for taking his sword fails to address the fact that he simply couldn't take the sword back by force. The story handwaves away this argument, simply assumes that taking things by force is bad without making the argument for why it's bad. So while Yunli has a self-sustained reasoning (Zhuming customs believes swords lost on the battlefield reflects poorly on the warrior, so this makes Yanqing look bad that he can't even keep possession of his sword), Yanqing has no counterargument.

But given that Yanqing is the one who deals the killing blow to Hoolay and even gets compared to Jingliu, while Yunli finally concedes that if Yanqing teaches her the move she'll admit he's a better swordsman, the narrative is clearly trying to portray Yanqing as the "good" and "correct" perspective. But the narrative offers no counterargument to Yunli's extremely valid criticism. The writers clearly do not believe Yunli's argument is valid and is not worth present a counterargument. This is problematic because in the specific case of "a warrior in battle", not being able to keep one's weapon is a pretty damn big failure.

What's worse, there's zero explanation for how Yanqing is able use Jingliu's techniques when he's significantly younger and has much less experience. The only conclusion that can be drawn by the audience is that Yanqing is talented. But this results in a story where "innate talent" triumphs over "hard work". While it is true that Yanqing tells us he works hard, we don't actually see any indication of him working hard nor any indication that he had to train a lot in order to learn this skill. After all, by his own account, he's only seen the technique once. So by having him pull out Jingliu's technique at the end gives the audience no emotional satisfaction, since the story never set up Yanqing as trying to "earn" the ability to use said technique.

And on the subject of hard work, the entire March 7 training arc undermines the importance of training. As a person who only trained for half a month with the sword, the narrative decided that March 7 was qualified to fight shoulder-to-shoulder against Hoolay. So rather than being told to stand back and let the professional soldiers fight, March 7 joins the immensely dangerous battle against Hoolay. (Yes, I get March 7 has battle experience in previous adventures, that's not the fucking point. She's still a new swordsman who is not qualified to be participating in a dangerous battle with her sword.) This exposes two beliefs the writers hold: 1) martial capability is apparently transferable between different weapons and 2) it's totally normal for "adventurers" and "professional soldiers" to have the same responsibilities.

Point one is an insult to martial practitioners. Point two disrespects the concept of "profession". The professional-amateur separation is not one of quality, it's one of responsibility. A professional is paid, thus the job and the responsibilities are owed to the profession. An amateur is not paid and therefore holds no responsibility. It's one thing if March 7 volunteers herself for the job, but she was literally pushed into this job by Huaiyan and neither Yunli nor Yanqing thought to tell her to step down because things are getting too dangerous.

In conclusion: Yanqing's arc fails to set up for the final payoff, shows a lack of respect for the types of social responsibilities that a professional undertakes, and also shows a significant lack of respect for how long mastering any craft takes on the part of the writers.

Lingsha arc

Lingsha's arc is executed so poorly that it's difficult to parse out the core conflict that the story is interested in addressing. The best I can summarize is that clash driving the plot is "intent" versus "results". A theme that does keep coming back is "the path to hell is paved with good intentions". Unfortunately, the story doesn't really explore how that plays out in the context of the situation that the story sets up.

Lingsha's biggest beef with the Xianzhou legal system is the exile of her mentor, whom she believes had good intentions. The counterargument is that her actions nonetheless led to bad outcomes, much like Sedition of Imbibitor Lunae. The problem arises from the fact that other than Lingsha's word, we have zero proof of good intentions from Lingsha's master and all the proof that her motivations might not be "good".

But the bigger problem is that even though the characters keep saying "results" matter more than intention, the narrative framing keeps siding with intent over results. It doesn't matter to Lingsha that her master did definitely illegal things, because her master's intent was to do good. It doesn't matter that Taoran demanded to go through the proper channels, his intentions are bad and therefore we cannot trust the system to handle him. It doesn't matter that Dan Heng technically has no real jurisdiction to be interfering with Xianzhou internal matters and Lingsha was the actual representative Jing Yuan sent, his intent to capture Taoran means he's free to ignore arrest protocols.

And yes, I know Dan Heng said he isn't a Xianzhou citizen, so he's not bound by Xianzhou laws, but that's a) literally not how laws work - go try breaking some laws in another country and see how far that argument gets you - and b) neither person with actual authority gave him explicit permission to get violent. Lingsha didn't even say anything and Bailu only said she wants to leave, not "beat up Taoran please". Clearly, the writers think it's fine to use violence as long as the laws feel unreasonable in the moment and the one breaking the law is "a good person". The reason for the law's existence is immaterial, the goodness of the law is purely judged by how much it aids or hinders the "good guy".

Yet, when the Marshal and Jing Yuan adhere to the law and try to work their way around the limitations while worrying about domino effects of their decisions...this is also portrayed as "good". Because the Marshal and Jing Yuan are both "good guys", so their choices are also "good", even though it is philosophically in opposition of the world views exercised by Lingsha and Dan Heng.

Another such incident pops up in a conversation between Jing Yuan and Feixiao (because the writing is so muddled, these issues shouldn't even be here). Feixiao wants control of Hoolay. Because she is "good guy", the story treats this as a completely reasonable demand despite lore telling us that the law forbids Hoolay from being transferred to another ship. Meanwhile, Jing Yuan agrees to the request because he is a "good guy" (and also because the plot needs Hoolay to escape) who seems to understand Feixiao is trustworthy despite zero indication that she's trustworthy at the time. It seems as though the narrative is calling out the bad decision with Hoolay's escape, except Jing Yuan states that he's intentionally stirring up the dead waters to expose the corruption...and that intention is justified by the capture of Taoran.

There's zero philosophical consistency to the narrative when classifying what is good and bad other than "actions by good guys = good, actions by bad guys = bad". So the clash between intent vs results goes absolutely nowhere.

Jiaoqiu arc

Jiaoqiu's emotional growth is basically squished into two scenes:

1. Jiaoqiu's monologue about his internal conflict with regards to trying to stay motivated saving soldier lives when the people he saves insists on throwing themselves at death.

2. Jiaoqiu comes to understand the value of sacrifice and uses his own blood as the medium to deliver poison to the enemy.

The main "good" vs "bad" Jiaoqiu is dealing with is the worthiness of sacrificing oneself to a cause. Jiaoqiu's "medical ethics" means he can't in good conscience agree with the soldier's way of life. This is portrayed as the "bad". He finally comes around to the meaning of sacrifice when he accepts his death to deliver the poison. This is portrayed as "good".

I feel like I should haven't to explain why a medical doctor who is against people dying, no matter the cause, should be considered a good trait. What's more, Jiaoqiu is completely overstepping his boundaries as a doctor. He's not concerned with battling "death", he wants to dictate other people's life choices. I also shouldn't have to explain why a doctor really should not be having those kinds of thoughts.

But more importantly, the story isn't calling Jiaoqiu out for overstepping his boundaries as a doctor. That concern is portrayed positively; it's framed as Jiaoqiu being concerned for his patients and is considered "good". Meanwhile, Jiaoqiu accepting "causing harm with medicine" and "sacrifice" are acceptable in the name of a greater good is portrayed as Jiaoqiu finally coming to the side of "good".

So the writers clearly do not see anything wrong with a doctor who accepts death. Even though the profession's literal job is to protect people from death. It's not to protect people from their own shitty decisions or protect people from enemy soldiers, but to protect people from death itself.

I mean...I guess if you agree doctors should poison "bad guys" for the greater good, I can only say that you're wrong. Yes, there are definitely nuances to the argument, such as is euthanasia ethical if the patient requests it, is death the only type of harm that doctors need to worry about, what should be the rules of triage ethics, when is abortion considered "murder", etc. etc. etc. But poisoning a full ass healthy adult is not one of those nuances.

Feixiao arc

Feixiao's arc was only really explored in 2.5 patch and it's biggest failure is that it's bland. Feixiao is portrayed as a cool person with very little regard for her own life while saving others, but secretly, in her heart of hearts, she isn't as confident as she appears and she's starting to lose faith in the path of the hunt. Also she apparently harbors some serious questions regarding how much loyalty the Alliance will show to her after finding out she is technically of Borisin descent.

All of this would have been interesting, especially the question of the Alliance's loyalties given we start the story with the investigation of Jing Yuan, a loyal general. Feixiao, rightfully, ought to have some concerns regarding how she'll be accepted. AND YET. The narrative doesn't give Feixiao any breathing room to waver. Hoolay has an intense "inside the mind" confrontation with Feixiao, and every response Feixiao gives is "actually, I'm not concerned about this". So what is even the point of her defiant line "I refuse" when she never wavered in the first place?

In addition to Feixiao's own supposed (but actually non-existent) wavering faith, there's the contrast of Borisin's much more violent, uncivilized, blood thirsty life philosophy. I'll get to that point in the next paragraph, but first must address what is the point of Feixiao swallowing the blood moon? The blood moon represents all the bad values Hoolay spouted, and yet, Feixiao swallows it down and basically...that's it. No consequences. Yes, there's a boss fight, but that's not really a narrative consequence. Nothing bad happens. There's no lasting negative effect. Feixiao is still too cool to be touched by corruption. Once again, the defiance she shows is meaningless when there was never any real temptation to fall in the first place.

On the subject of Borisin portrayal, I'll stick to the main problem of dehumanization. It doesn't matter whether it's Hoolay or his lackies, every single Borisin subscribes to the belief that "bloody violence is honorable", "torture is ethical", and "sapience means justifying murder with animal logic". Look, even the fucking Huns, as whom the Borisin are obviously coded, didn't believe in killing their own. Slaughter the enemy sure, but none of this killing your own bullshit. That kind of "philosophy" never existed in reality. That's a PR story told to your soldiers, convincing them that the enemy is no better than animals, that they aren't warranted personhood and the ethical considerations thereof. It's what we call dehumanization.

Dehumanizing the enemy is a normal response, since you have to justify why murdering the enemy is ethically acceptable and "good". This becomes a problem when trying to pretend the dehumanizing PR is a reflection of reality. If the narrative is going to treat Borisins as animals, then they shouldn't even be philosophizing, seeing as that would signal sapience. If the narrative is going to treat them as a genuine sapient species, then their societal practices need to make logical (and pro-social) sense. Exactly zero human civilizations encouraged murdering the leader in the name of "selecting for strength". Even using in-game logic, this kind of act is counter productive. Why would any group, especially a group that supposedly values physical prowess, want their second strongest fighter dead just so the strongest fighter can be the leader? How does this help the group get stronger? This isn't the act of a sapient species, it's pure animalistic survival instinct.

The fact that this is how the Borisin are portrayed is immensely disturbing. It reflects a complete misunderstanding of how leadership works, how society is built up, how populations unite or are motivated, and seriously raises questions about the logical reasoning HSR writers possess.

In conclusion:

Even looking past the terrible technical aspects of HSR writing, the ethics underlying the story is genuinely horrible. Again, this does not refer to what the characters consider good or bad. I'm talking about what the narrative is portraying as "good" vs "bad". To concoct a situation such that ethically unsound actions can be portrayed in a positive light does not speak well of the writers' as people.