So, some thoughts about Water Margins (《水浒传》)

[cashew]

So this blathering brought on by thinking too much about Wuxia tropes and feeling a bit triggered by one guy yapping on Bilibili.

Context: I think there's not an insubstantial amount of people who think of the classic Water Margins (《水浒传》) as an Ur-Wuxia, or proto-Wuxia. And unsurprisingly, people who consider Water Margins part of the Wuxia genre tend to also admit that they just ignore the second half of the novel...for some reason.

And I have problems with this.

Any analysis of Water Margins that ignores half of the story and tries to focus only on the first half is erroneous. I mean, yes, you can argue that the author just gave up for the second half, but it doesn't change the fact that the second half is still canon and thus still need to be taken into account when critically examining the themes of the novel. Just as you can't really talk about Lord of the Ring themes by ignoring Return of the King, you can't talk about Water Margins by ignoring the second half where the outlaws reintegrate back to civil society.

In fact, I would argue that the reason Water Margins became a classic is actually because of the second half of the novel. For context, the first half of Water Margins depicts people from all walks of life being forced into becoming outlaws in Liangshan. Halfway through the book, after gathering all 108 characters to form a band of outlaw brotherhood, the group surrenders to the government and become re-incorporated into society. Yet, the government betrays the group by sending them off to die on absolutely hopeless military campaigns, and the ones who manage to survive are assassinated, with only a few who ran off to become outlaws again managing to survive the purge. This novel is not about celebrating the heroism of these fictional characters. Water Margins is ultimately a tragedy about the suffering of regular people under the imperial rule.

The contrast between the relative freedom and self-determination of outlaw life with the ruthless exploitation of government rule is what highlights the injustice of imperial politics. To claim that the 108 characters are "heroic" is deliberately ignoring that a lot of said characters are very regular people. They're a mix of thieves, bandits, bullies, delinquents, and a handful of upstanding members of society who nonetheless have their own flaws and problems. I mean, for fuck's sake, the tactician is named 吴用 (homophone for "useless"). This is not a coincidence! The fact that his miscalculations fucks over the resistance multiple times is also not an accident. The author is deliberately making these characters unheroic because they are just normal people shoved into a terrible situation. At its heart, Water Margins is about the tragedy of humans who want to make a difference but can't overcome their basic human foibles.

Unlike Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which pits practically god-like heroes against each other in a struggle to grab fate by the horns and re-direct the political structure toward their own vision of the future, Water Margins is very much about how helpless individuals are in the face of the all encompassing and organized government bureaucracy that is focused on maintaining the political control of the emperor over the country. Three Kingdoms tells the story from the perspective of the ruling class. Water Margins tells it from the perspective of the ruled. (I bring up Three Kingdoms because the author of Three Kingdoms was the student of the author of Water Margins and was involved somewhat in editing and re-publishing the later editions of Water Margins. And yes, there are multiple editions of Water Margins with changes made to some plot details and characterizations.)

So using a Three Kingdoms mentality, one that is concerned with heroes and rulers and statecraft, to understand Water Margins is fundamentally flawed. Water Margins is not celebrating heroes. It's sympathetic to the tragedy of the peasants. And by experiencing that tragedy, we might come to the conclusion that maybe no one, not even actual gods who descended from heaven and reincarnated into humans, can overcome the very human problems that causes social strife. Water Margins is deeply cynical and depressing, it doesn't really offer an answer to how to fix the problem, because the author probably doesn't have one. The influence of Buddhist thought is very obvious given the only solution the novel has to the vagaries of human society is...well, become a star in the sky. There might be brief flashes of momentary justice (as depicted in the first half of the the novel), but those flashes will ultimately be subsumed by the inherent unfairness of the social order. Humans are social creatures, but we will always prioritize ensuring our personal interest first and foremost.

As you can see, this theme is in direct contrast with the typical Wuxia ethos, where a hero is someone who uses their position of strength to protect those who are weak and by doing so are able to change the course of society's trajectory to one that is more beneficial and more just. If anything, Wuxia is a power fantasy, one in which the individual is able to overcome the inherent flaws of human nature. It's a very individualistic perspective of the world, one in which the individual can make meaningful changes. In addition, Wuxia is ultimately a pro-establishment genre. Because unlike Water Margins, where a rebellion is crushed by the uncaring state and all these flesh and blood characters are sent into a meat grinder to benefit the rule of an uncaring emperor, the Wuxia genre's hero actually makes a difference and is able to use their heroism to change how the people in government use their power, sometimes going so far as to being able to influence the emperor's ethics. Heroes, with their bravery and sacrifice, are able to inspire the ruling class to be better; and if they fail, they will simply get rid of the bad apples and put the good apples in charge.

Notice in Wuxia the hero never leads a rebellion, establish a new state system, and govern with egalitarian rule that protects the well-being of the most marginalized groups. The hero never seizes political power for themselves, because governance is not in their purview. They merely exist to be a good moral influence on the people with power. There is no smashing of the pre-existing power structure to establish more systemic equity. (This is also why I find Wuxia to be a very immature and escapist genre. Which is fine, we need brainless escapism to protect our mental health, but Wuxia as a genre is not equipped to deal with meaningful social commentary.)

In many ways, Wuxia and Superhero stories share a lot of similarities. They are all products of people who have extreme discontent with the powers that be, but aren't able to really see how the system itself is the source of the injustice and would rather blame the problem on bad people rather than a bad system.

Comments

[tanithryudo]

Eh, first of all, I actually kinda doubt how many people actually know about the second half of Water Margins. My impression is that the popular consciousness only emphasizes parts from that novel, like the famous 武松打虎, as standalone snippets the people are familiar with, and absent of most of the context before and after the event.

In that respect, if you boil down the many works of the wuxia genre down, it could simplify down to: takes place during imperial era + lots of martial arts / fight scenes. I wouldn't even say anti-government is required, since there are many wuxia works where the main protagonists are part of the government （四大名捕，三侠五义）. In that respect, the Water Margin does fit into the broad category.

> the Wuxia genre's hero actually makes a difference and is able to use their heroism to change how the people in government use their power, sometimes going so far as to being able to influence the emperor's ethics.

Eh... do they? There are plenty of wuxia stories with bad ends similar to Water Margins. Like, the 五鼠 in 三侠五义 all died due to being sent on suicide missions by the government. In the Condor trilogy, 郭靖 & 黄蓉 & all their followers died at Xiangyang from the Mongol army (this isn't the recent movie where the protagonist can actually talk freaking Genghis Khan into turning back his army *eyeroll*). I am hard pressed to think of any wuxia story that takes place during Song that actually influenced any real change.

Wuxia isn't also necessarily about celebrating the protagonist. I mean, there are plenty of anti-hero protagonists in the genre. Or works where the jianghu is predominantly a morally dark place (many works set in the Ming dynasty feel like they go this route, eg a lot of Gulong's works).

[cashew]

My impression is that the popular consciousness only emphasizes parts from that novel, like the famous 武松打虎, as standalone snippets the people are familiar with, and absent of most of the context before and after the event.

Yeah, and my point is part of the story is not sufficient when talking about the whole. This is why it's pissing me off when people come out and straight up saying they're ignoring 50% of the book while trying to tell me the themes of the book.

I wouldn't even say anti-government is required

I specifically mentioned Wuxia is Pro-establishment, aka it's pro government. Wuxia is uncritical of the status quo.

In the Condor trilogy, 郭靖 & 黄蓉 & all their followers died at Xiangyang from the Mongol army

Hold up. By book 3, 郭靖 was no longer the main character. This is nowhere comparable to the actual main characters dying in tragedy through betrayal, some of whom died within a chapter of the turning point.

Similar for 五鼠, their deaths (except 白玉堂) were handled in books where they're no longer the focus. In 白玉堂's case, he died because of hubris, which has been foreshadowed.

Again, it's about context. In Water Margins, out of the 108 characters, 宋江 is the most main character, being their leader and emotional glue. Yet his conclusion is to be assassinated by poisoned wine given to him by a fellow civil officer because the government (emperor) never trusted him (and his men) even when using them. The government they served actively tried to kill them off while still trying to extract worth from them while they were alive.

It's like both Hamlet and Agamemnon died through betrayal, but the context of their deaths are completely different. Agamemnon died off screen as far as Iliad was concerned while Hamlet's death is the entire purpose of the play. You can't try to argue Agamemnon is serving the same literary purpose as Hamlet because they both "died from betrayal". Nor can you try to make the case Iliad and Hamlet are the same genre just because they both "take place in historical times (relative to author's time) and there's a lot of fighting".

Genre wise, Water Margins shares more similarities with Hamlet than it does with with Iliad despite all the fighting.

Wuxia isn't also necessarily about celebrating the protagonist. I mean, there are plenty of anti-hero protagonists in the genre.

Yes, genres evolve and mixing of genres happen. That can be talked about on a case by case basis. But heroism is a predominant thematic preoccupation. Water Margins is far more concerned with the details of peasant life than the ideals of heroism. Despite the book inspiring the Wuxia genre, the work itself is not Wuxia because its thematic preoccupation is elsewhere.

[tanithryudo]

Eh... I will agree that Water Margins doesn't feel like it falls in the wuxia bucket (for me personally as well).

I feel like the current wuxia genre, especially when used by the audience colloquially, is more defined by (more) modern works, exemplified by authors like Jin Yong, Gu Long, etc. Older classical works don't quite fit because they're too far removed from the context and era of these works.

Water Margins to me feels like it might fit better into historical fantasy... But then again that would put it in the same bucket as the likes of 隋唐演义. Hm.

[cashew]

I feel like the current wuxia genre, especially when used by the audience colloquially, is more defined by (more) modern works, exemplified by authors like Jin Yong, Gu Long, etc.

This I agree with.

If we're going to talk about Wuxia genre as understood by laymen parlance, the Ur example would be 三侠五义, officially published in 1879. Most genre defining tropes, themes, and structure can be found in this work. Jin Yong & Gu Long borrowed heavily from this book and popularized the tropes into tropes.

Water Margins to me feels like it might fit better into historical fantasy... But then again that would put it in the same bucket as the likes of 隋唐演义. Hm.

Water Margins is 100% historical fiction (the fantastical aspect is too minor to really fit into the larger fantasy/mythology category). The thing about historical fiction is that it's a huge label and not a type of "genre fiction", aka it's not easily defined by shared tropes and themes. This is why I contrasted Water Margin with RotTK, because both are historical fiction, but are thematically very different. Unlike genre fiction, there's no "common theme" or "common tropes" to bind the historical fiction literature together, so one can't use a single mindset to interpret all historical fiction.

This attempt to use genre fiction reading skills to analyze literature drives me a bit batty. While general lit crit methods can be applied to genre fiction, the reverse doesn't work because genre fiction is so much more derivative. (Again, not saying it's bad, just limited.)