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its-miichan · 4 years

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Why HC is a poorly written character

I will probably delete this tbh.... Look, I know I hate on TGCF a lot, but I actually really enjoyed the book and I respect MXTX for putting so much effort and work into it. It’s just that I find people like me to be underrepresented and want to be the one that starts the “unpopular opinion” movement sort of thing because diversified opinions are lit. I don’t mean any offense to anyone who loves TGCF or the character of Hua Cheng, and definitely no disrespect to MXTX, so please take everything in this as the incoherent rants of an overly stressed out teenager. Now let’s get on into my TGCF/Hua Cheng criticisms

I’ve seen tons of people love HC, but no matter how I tried, I still hated him. So I decided to go all out and point out all his flaws as a character. I will be making multiple comparisons to Bingge and the Yiling Patriarch because they are very similar in personality, but I like them far better. Obviously, this is my personal opinion, so it’s completely fine that you disagree with me. Feel free to attack me in the comments below and feel free to hate me to oblivion as well. Anyways, without further ado, let’s get into it.

Why HC is the worst character in 4 long points:

He doesn’t have a shred of consideration or respect for people not named Xie Lian

He is a static and underdeveloped character

His character arc is very lacking

He is an overpowered Mary Sue (it’s almost as if he’s an unkillable protagonist that has a special power of dropping the IQs of all cannon fodders around him to 40 whenever he walks into the room)

Let’s start on point 1, he has no consideration for anyone but XL and is very obnoxious:

Honestly, why is XL fine with what he does? XL’s whole thing is about love, compassion, and righteousness, but then HC is here insulting people, calling them trash, and still flirting while people are legit trying to fight for their lives and he’s just fine with it? Yes, HC is the only person who has listened to him in a long time, but he’s here breaking XL’s morals and all he does is call him out mildly? HC is literally putting other people’s LIVES in danger doing what he does (black water arc), and yet XL is still fine with him?

HC just is more morally black than he is morally gray. His obnoxiousness to other people is so mildly played off that it’s infuriating, and he needs a serious humbling. Nobody has made him able to drop his arrogance and make him stop being annoying, and it’s just so frustrating to see this terrible character be able to do whatever he wants. (and his backstory, though tragic, does not excuse this) With WWX and LBH, they get what was coming to them. LBH is looked down upon and attacked for his arrogance and obnoxiousness and even at the end of the series is still seen as an enemy by CQ peak. WWX’s pride and belief that he could always do the impossible becomes his fatal flaw that ultimately gets him killed as his reckless arrogance gets him too many enemies HC is wildly arrogant and provocative and the narrative lets him get away with it because he is so OP, no one can do anything about it.

Despite MXTX trying to make him seem morally gray, the moments where he does something good aren’t on screen and feels forced. It felt, to me, like MXTX was trying to make him a good person when she realized he was a jerk. We get this whole self-indulgent thing about how nobody cared about HC so apparently the world owes him and he is justified to be a terrible person and laugh while people are literally dying. A character like him can be handled well (Taxian-Jun, Bingge, the Yiling Patriarch), but his handling was just such a miss for me. At some points his apathy to other people didn’t feel like part of his character, but just a way for MXTX to advance the plot. If he had just stepped in and done something, a lot of plot points would’ve been solved so much more quickly, and the book wouldn’t drag on as long as it did.

Point two is that he is shallow as heck and doesn’t get any onscreen character development. LBH and WWX have also had an arc in their story where they are arrogant and need a humbling, but it isn’t annoying because we get to see how they become this way. We get to be attached to them before they develop their twisted personalities and we get to see how they grow and develop from that period in time. With HC, he just starts out this way and we are forced to accept it, and his personality doesn’t develop at all. Speaking of personality, he really barely has one. What even are his motives?He just walks around with XL and is dragged into adventures that he really doesn’t care about and does nothing while he’s on these adventures. Everything he does is about XL and he has barely ever done something out of his own agenda. We never even get to see how HC’s love for XL came to this point, we are just forced to accept it. Yes, XL did save HC as a child, but does that necessarily warrant 800 years of complete devotion and 3 deaths? We’ve seen similar stories with kind people adopting children or something of the sort, but we never see those children fall in love with the person or die for them three times. It feels like XL got some cheaply earned loyalty. Some development between XL and HC prior to his death would’ve been nice.

Again, with LBH and WWX, they have their own thoroughly developed motives and backstories that contribute to the way they act in a natural way. With LBH it’s that he thought his parents had abandoned him as a child, so he thought that he was unwanted and would do anything so that he wouldn’t be abandoned by SQQ. With WWX, he would’ve been dead if it weren’t for the Jiangs which is why he feels that his life is worthless and would throw his life out the window to protect others. With HC, his backstory somewhat explains his behavior but at the same time...not really? There’s such a drastic and inexplicable leap from his personality as a child and his personality now that it’s just weird. (how did he go from that awkwardly silent kid in book 2 to this suddenly super charismatic and chatty teen that we meet in book 1???) For example, why is he so good at flirting? He has essentially been alone for 800 years yet he is still good at flirting? Yes, he is supposedly “insecure” because of his backstory, but this insecurity barely ever manifests, and people in the story never deliberately use it against him (like how LBH’s backstory was used against him or how WWX’s heritage from a servant was used against him) and most of the time he is the exact opposite of being insecure, he is arrogant.

His backstory doesn’t explain his motive for doing things, which is why when he does something good, it doesn’t feel earned. Why did he save the people trapped in Tonglu? We don’t know because the book didn’t care enough to tell us.

Point three is that his character arc is just handled in an atrocious way. Can you really count it as a character arc though? If you can then that would just be the flattest character arc I’ve ever seen. Again, we get to see LBH and WWX grow and develop in the course of the story, changing with their experiences and becoming better people. Bingge is a terrible person, but SV ends with LBH finding redemption from most people and sealing away Xin Mo for the sake of the world and his shizun. WWX is significantly humbled after his first death and ends the story significantly more responsible and considers the consequences of things before charging headfirst into them.

But HC doesn’t have development like that. Throughout the entirety of the story, his character doesn’t grow one bit. When we first meet him in book 1, his personality is no different than way later in book 5. There is no growth or change in his way of thinking, relationships, or world view. Yes, you could say that his character development happened during the period where he went from a child to who he is now, but much of that is off screen and is therefore less...coherent. For example the flirting, which I mentioned in the last point, but also things like suddenly becoming arrogant as hell, despite supposedly being “insecure” or becoming as “mischievous” as he is today. What little character development we have comes off as superficial and very forced.

Point four is that he is an insufferable Mary Sue in serious need of a nerf. Or rather to quote peerless cucumber “Every single person, when in front of the protagonist, would act like his aura of “awesomeness” had devoured their intelligence”. I don’t understand why people don’t like the term “Mary Sue” to be applied to an international work because as someone who is Chinese and is familiar with the pop culture, I can assure you, the term Mary Sue is definitely used in Chinese culture. People say that HC isn’t a Mary Sue because he has no friends, but the amount of friends a character has does not affect whether they are a Mary Sue or not. Wikipedia defines a Mary Sue as: “...a generic name for any fictional character who is so competent or perfect that this appears unrealistic for the world's settings, even in the context of the fictional setting.”

It doesn’t mention the amount of friends, only how competent and/or perfect the character is presented to be. Key word: appears.

Google defines a Mary Sue as: “a type of...character who is depicted as unrealistically lacking in flaws or weaknesses.”

So, what are HC’s flaws and/or weaknesses? His “insecurity”? Yes, that could potentially be a flaw, but is it ever used against him in the story so that it is something that isn’t just there for the sake of “cute romance”? No. Yes, he does have a spot of spiritual weakness in his left eye, but that is only used against him ONCE, and it really doesn’t even advance the plot or affect him. Yes, he doesn’t have friends, but does that bother him? No. Does that affect him negatively? No.

He has a lack of flaws but has so, so many strengths. Personality wise, he is supposedly the most charming, charismatic, and funny person ever. He is extremely handsome and rich, along with his seemingly never ending array of OP powers and abilities that are never foreshadowed or mentioned at all. We know that his butterflies can attack and defend, but they can also be used as recording devices and go COMPLETELY unnoticed even in a court full of powerful gods? Was this ever mentioned before he just pulled it out of nowhere? And HC can also suddenly pull out the red string out of nowhere with no foreshadowing. How did he get the red string? We don’t know and the story doesn’t care. In fact, the red string doesn’t even do much and is just there for the sake of being “romantic.” Also, apparently he can pull out his umbrella and fly and deflect everything and is also powerful enough to break the cursed shackles? Why? (other than because he has the undefeatable protagonist’s golden halo and suffers from a serious case of main character-itis) He is so overpowered that it’s a joke at this point, and because he is so overpowered, the story lacks any sort of narrative stakes and makes everyone else look like a joke. Why worry about what happens next when you know HC will pull something from nowhere to steamroll through whatever problem XL is facing?

Look, with LBH, there is a blatantly obvious nerf to him, and that is that Xin Mo can corrupt him to the point where he virtually goes insane and destroys both himself and others in the process. With WWX, he is essentially useless without corpses or something resentful in the vicinity to control. Additionally, him being overpowered feels more natural than HC because no matter how overpowered he is, he still falls to the schemes of one Jin GuangYao. With HC, there is no such thing. Yes, he does die, but he comes back every time and the plot armor is so thick that all the tension and suspense in the story is completely destroyed.

In short, I think that HC is a terrible character. I find him to be shallow, annoying, and poorly written. It felt as if MXTX tried to make him perfect, and that really bugged me so much. I’ll probably be making a rant on XL next. Again, this is my opinion and none of this is objective fact, and if you agree with me, fine, and if you disagree, great! However, be sure to stay respectful to everyone in the comments as well as MXTX. As always, feel free to attack me in the comments.

#tgcf #tianguancifu #tian guan ci fu #heaven official's blessing #mxtx critical #hob #xielian huacheng mxtx modaozushi

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