江湖 and the lawful-chaotic scale

[cashew]

OK, so I know I should just turn my brain off when watching 《少年歌行》 but like this is really bugging me, so I'm going to rant a little.

Since the show is classified as Wuxia, then we can't really get away from the concept of 江湖 (can't think of a good translation). In the Wuxia genre, 江湖 is referring to the anarchical society that exists outside of the ruling class' control. Because the system is anarchical, this means it lacks a stable hierarchy and that lack means there's no agreed upon authority to settling disputes. Hence, this is why the rule of 江湖 is essentially might makes right. This is why the "good guys" have to be the best fighters.

In an anarchical system, there is no ranking. Because ranking requires order and order is antithetical to anarchy. 江湖 is not meant as an alternative government to the existing rule, it's meant as an alternative to hierarchical governance. This means there's no "no. 1" or "no. 2". There's only "who won for now". (This also means power rankings kind of go directly against the concept of 江湖.)

Simultaneously, this means the existing actual government needs to be a system that can generate the existence of 江湖. You'll notice most Wuxia works, when taking place during an IRL period, is set in Tang dynasty or later. This is because pre-Tang, there was no imperial exam. And why is the imperial exam so important? Because it marks a cultural shift where authority is linked to capabilities rather than inheritance. This philosophical belief is the keystone of 江湖. Prior to this cultural shift, people simply followed the rule of nobles because they were nobles. And if you wanted to get people to follow you, either you had to be born into nobility, or establish a new government (aka 打天下) and become royalty/nobility. However, with the advent of imperial exams, people could become part of the ruling class (have authority) by demonstrating they were capable of ruling and that cultural shift of recognizing the authority of non-nobles is what allowed 江湖 to exist. In other words, the legitimacy of leadership has decoupled from bloodline, so anyone can establish themselves as a leader.

(There's a lot more nuance regarding war honors and being promoted to nobility in pre-Tang systems, but this isn't supposed to turn into a history lesson, so moving on.)

The other necessary factor to the existence of 江湖 is a relatively stable central rule. This is simply because the anarchy of 江湖 can only exist if there is a rigid and stable hierarchy to serve as contrast. If the actual government is already unstable and chaotic, well, there's no reason to take the fighting into 江湖, since you might as well just go establish a new government at that point. In other words, any of the political messy eras like North-South Dynasty (南北朝) and Five Dynasties Ten Kingdoms (五代十国) are terrible backdrops for 江湖 stories mostly because there's very little contrast between ruling class chaos and 江湖 chaos.

Finally, any pre-Qin systems (aka feudal systems) are terrible for 江湖 settings mostly because under those types of political systems, the peasants didn't really care about anything beyond staying full and warm. Wars fought in pre-Qin eras were carried out by the nobles. The peasants were focused on scraping together enough food to survive and did not have excess calories to spend on thinking about minor issues, like justice or morality. And while 江湖 was anarchical, it was also very much all about morals and justice. So 江湖 simply cannot exist in a pre-Qin kind of setting.

In short: political system is actually vital for the Wuxia genre and authors should stop ignoring it.