Almost- Invisible Female Characters in Wuxia and Coiling Dragon

Almost-Invisible Female Characters in Coiling Dragon

Abstract:

Coiling Dragon (by I eat Tomatoes) has an almost "unreadable" side for female readers. There are a lot of nameless female characters in the book. A lot of supporting characters, including the woman the main character falls in love with, their romantic relationship, and the woman he marries. Yet, all of them either stand out thanks to their connection with the main character or they don't come out at all. There is almost no part for these female characters, no specific story, or a deep background. Even the love of the main character (Linley) and Dalia (His wife) was written on the male side, while the difficulties and love of the other side are very short and uncomfortably shallow. So, this makes the love story parts boring and meaningless. You might think that in Asian Culture, males are more dominant in the books of genres such as Wuxia and Fantasy and this strangeness is normal. Yet this book isn't like the other similar books in the same genre. It is worse. This issue is the effect of a pen that cares only about the main character of the book and tries to make him a hero and the most important center of everything. While the book, its story, and the whole-world shape the main character so naturally, there is almost no time left for female characters. I can't decide whether that is because the deep-down author sees women below or just the effect of the main character-centered plot. But comparing female characters and male characters in Coiling Dragon highlights this case in this twenty-five-thousand-page book. Inside the book (Coiling Dragon) female characters are only as deep as a household item and almost invisible.

I will explain the results of my research about the I Eat Tomatoes and his possible reasons for ignoring female characters in Coiling Dragon.

Introduction:

Coiling Dragon is a book from the Far East that its author started writing in 2008 and took three years to complete its original Chinese version. The book is one of the most popular of the wuxia genre, which is a mix of "martial arts, fantasy, and folklore of Asia". The author of the book is named Wo Chi Xi Hong Shi but is also known as I Eat Tomatoes. The book is the most contributed work of the author to his current reputation in China. It became famous shortly after its release in the Far East and is the most well-known masterpiece of the author. Coiling Dragon is the most loved and discussed book by the famous author, who is known to write even better books afterward.

Fantastic books may not be interesting to female readers, especially when the main character is also a man. But unlike the author's other books and other wuxia books, something was stranger than usual in Coiling Dragon. For example, in Qidian, the most famous and most popular book review and reading website in the Far East, reviews of a Wuxia type book with a male-leading role are written by men by 40-80%. The opposite may be the same case in a book where a woman is the main character. Contrary to this generalization, Coiling Dragon and other books were written under its influence are hardly ever read by women. Interestingly, more than 90% of reviews and criticisms for Coiling Dragon on the Qidian site were written by men. The common idea of ​​many of the criticisms written by women were like, female characters in the book were "uninteresting" and "rarely affect the story".

Coiling Dragon wasn't the first large-scale book written by its author and the first attempt to create a new universe. But still an argument like "he did not give details of women because of his inexperience" wouldn't be correct. Because Coiling Dragon wasn't written in an inexperienced way, on the contrary, it is a professional work written in a long time with a lot of effort. It took I Eat Tomatoes three years to write this 23-book and 25,000-page book. And Coiling Dragon has a total of 179 male characters and only 24 female characters that have an impact on the story. The proportion of women in a 25,000-page book is only 7%. Moreover, in the book, when even the worst male characters have a lot of influence on the story, the place of the female characters in the story is limited to a little help for the emotional development of the main character (Linley). No details were given about the lives of the female characters, and their lives didn't progress or deteriorate on their own. So, it is not easy to decide whether it is because the author despises women for cultural or personal reasons. Yet, with a little research, it can be said that the biggest of the reasons, points to one of the most famous authors of the Far East. The name of this man, who was the most famous Wuxia writer of the Far East in the previous century, is Jin Yong.

Development:

In an environment where it is very difficult to access I Eat Tomatoes' interviews or documentaries(mostly in Chinese), one can still find his life story translated by reliable sources. I Eat Tomatoes says he was addicted to reading books of Jin Yong in his childhood. One of the things that make Coiling Dragon so beautiful and also give its flaws is that I Eat Tomatoes' favorite writer as a child was Jin Yong in all of book genres. Jin Yong was one of the few writers he read and learned about Wuxia even before he started writing.

Not knowing how famous Jin Yong is a normal thing for a western person. But it is almost impossible not to know his name in the east because all his books have been adapted into movies and TV series many times since the 1950s. For generations, almost everyone in China has grown up watching his stories on TV. He has a reputation like Kemal Sunal has in Turkey. The following sentences were said about Jin Yong on an online wuxia dictionary platform.

"He is widely regarded as the finest Chinese wuxia ("martial arts and chivalry") writer, a reputation based on 15 classic novels and short stories he wrote from 1955 to 1972(Jin Yong Novels, n.d.).

Conclusion:

Lastly, it is natural for I Eat Tomatoes to create a writing style similar to an author like Jin Yong. Similar to the criticisms for the main character-oriented writing style, which is the biggest flaw of I Eat Tomatoes, was said for Jin Yong's books written in the 20th century. Even character themes and the main character's random adventures with a lot of "plot armor" were similarly exaggerated by both of them. Although their technics of writing and giving details are different, it is seen that I Eat Tomatoes was somewhat influenced by the works of this old author.

Especially using lots of side characters, the fact that all characters have to influence the main character in some way, plenty of place changes, using large numbers, and even not highlighting the female characters are the effects of Jin Yong's books. Jin Yong's way of writing that doesn't include women in the core-story and shows them as merely the distant purpose of the main character was criticized even in old times. The reason why I Eat Tomatoes writes in this way may be explained by the similar style in the books he took as an example. Of course, it may look like the inexperience of the writer in that time if you think that Coiling Dragon was one of his earliest published books. Yet, I Eat Tomatoes gained more fame with every single book he wrote later in his career, and all of them were in the same or similar style.

Finally, the fact that the I Eat Tomatoes is also known as the fastest writer, is the most important reason for the almost non-existence of female characters in his books. Unlike other authors, "his portrayal of people, especially females, cannot be considered delicate. He is, however, an expert in the 'fast food' style"(iet-biography, 2015).

It is known that when he starts to write a book, he shares two chapters a day (10-12 pages per chapter) and writes without a vacation as long as he doesn't suffer from a serious illness. This causes him not to pay attention to every character while writing with a fast and constant tempo. This may have resulted in him to use male characters more, which he found safer while excluding female characters with an automatic instinct. In his interviews, personal conversations, and private life, he appears to be not a sexist person, but rather a hardworking man with a normal, humble life.

It is true that at the end of everything, female characters are ignored and dismissed in the Coiling Dragon with different reasons. But it is more correct to see this as an automatic result of the pen he has while trying to do a fast and quality job, rather than his unfriendly thoughts about women.

WORKS CITED

Wuxiaworld Co. (2015). IET Biography.

Wang, Feifei. (2019). "Which Chinese Wuxia novels do you enjoy the most?" (April 29, 2019)bluehaste.[@bluehaste].(2016). Coiling Dragon and Female Characters.

Wuxia.Fandom. (n.d.). Jin Yong Novels.

Goodreads.co (n.d.). Jing Yong.

Wikipedia.org. (2020). Jin Yong. (Last updated in 25 December 2020).

CoilingDragonWikiFandom. (n.d.). Female Characters in Coiling Dragon.

CoilingDragonWikiFandom. (n.d.). Male Characters in Coiling Dragon.

Qidian-Webnovel.com. (2017). Coiling Dragon written by I Eat Tomatoes. Translated by RWX.

*I know it is not appropriate to use internet sources without clear-author names, but this is a Chinese book and all of the resources covering it is also in Chinese. I kindly ask readers to consider this.