*Examines your profile pic*
That'd probably be why.
Forge of Destiny(Xianxia Quest)
- Thread starter yrsillar
- Start date
- Original Fantasy
That'd probably be why.
I could see valid in character reasons for CRX to distance herself from GG because of this. For example, we know she is ridiculously self-sacrificing and punishes herself harshly for even relatively minor failures. I could see her punishing herself for failing to prepare GG well enough for the tournament by depriving herself of his company, which she clearly finds comforting. Instead, she could send him somewhere he has optimal chances of redeeming himself enough to regain his place at her side in the eyes of noble society.
So in essence she would not be cutting him off because he is useless now or anything, but in order to punish herself and give him a chance at redemption.
That is a leap
Kai Merah
Hound Hearted Hedonist
- Location
- Somewhere in the corners of my imagination
It's betrayal because it's less like severing an employee contract and more like discharging a soldier without pension or medical care. Guangli isn't just working for her, he swore his life to her. Discarding him is like saying his life is worthless to her since he didn't reach Inner Sect.
His failure reflects badly on her because she chose him and yet he failed. But if she withdraws her choosing because he failed, she's showing how little oaths mean to her. She swore to be his liege. He did not betray her, he tried his best. She chose him with full knowledge of his capabilities, but as soon as his capabilities prove insufficient, she discards him? I'm pretty sure sworn vassalship is not something you're meant to toss around like candy then withdraw if they don't prove good enough.
Does she have any doubt he did the best he could? No. Gan Guangli did not slow down, he threw every moment into training himself or her men. It just wasn't enough.
His loyalty is beyond reproach, and more to the point, she only HAS two personal retainers, and its not going to be any easier to get more.
CRX would have to be acting grossly out of character to remove him. Retask him certainly, his being in the Outer Sect while she's in the Inner presents its own brand of opportunities, especially since he really IS quite strong enough to continue to enforce her order rather than have it fall apart in her absence. She wanted to make a lasting difference, and Gan himself can prepare a protege to take over when he moves on in turn next year.
In essence, creating a role of Student Council President from scratch
His loyalty is beyond reproach, and more to the point, she only HAS two personal retainers, and its not going to be any easier to get more.
CRX would have to be acting grossly out of character to remove him. Retask him certainly, his being in the Outer Sect while she's in the Inner presents its own brand of opportunities, especially since he really IS quite strong enough to continue to enforce her order rather than have it fall apart in her absence. She wanted to make a lasting difference, and Gan himself can prepare a protege to take over when he moves on in turn next year.
In essence, creating a role of Student Council President from scratch
You fundamentally misunderstand feudality if you consider vassalship like a job. It's not. It's much more.
A vassal relationship is a lifelong commitment, like adopting a child is. Abandonning your vassal is evil because CRX swore to protect someone weaker than her (it's the basis of a vassalship), and then broke that promise because he wasn't usefull to her anymore.
CRX isn't going to cut GG off completely but it's certainly possible that he could be phased out of his position as her right hand man and #1 subordinate. The social distance from not being in the inner sect would tend to do that by itself and the failure in the prelims is pretty bad. It's one thing if you get grouped up with Sun Liling and she seeks you out for blood spear murderstomping. It's different if you plus a big group of people all get trashed by a guy who was a mortal a year ago and another guy who isn't even fully third realm.
In real life GG's position would be secure because he's 100% loyal and his personality fits what CRX wants. In a xianxia world that isn't enough, though. You also need personal strength. GG has been on team Cai for a while and got bounced from the prelim by outnumbered peer competitors. GG can come back from this but he could also slide down into a position of something like head of CRX's household guard.
In real life GG's position would be secure because he's 100% loyal and his personality fits what CRX wants. In a xianxia world that isn't enough, though. You also need personal strength. GG has been on team Cai for a while and got bounced from the prelim by outnumbered peer competitors. GG can come back from this but he could also slide down into a position of something like head of CRX's household guard.
Codex
Fantasy Addict
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Your description of Ji Rong is extremely uncharitable. We're in the exact same position as him in terms of being a mortal who just started cultivating this year, and Cai certainly knows not to underestimate us. She fully understands that Ji Rong is not some random commoner, just like we aren't. Cai has also been privy to her own fair share of failures, and if it weren't for the support of her many allies such as Ling Qi and Meizhen those failures would have likely destroyed her council and government. She is far too smart to discount him or lower her opinion of him, because he is still just as talented and hard working, and just as devoted and loyal. In fact, with this failure in mind, it can be argued that if she says the right words she can inspire him to be more devoted and hard working than he already is.
What is hindsight strategy GG should have done to win his fight with his subordinates against those two enemies and maybe that other dude who popped in last second?
He doesn't really have a good answer tbh in terms of strategy. Maybe he could have focused down Ji Rong faster? But that's just rolling better and that's not something he could control. The problem was probably that he needed more / actual support arts among his group, and that's pre-tournament work.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
Honestly, part of why I want us to do the best we can is because it makes GG look better in hindsight. "It's not that he's weak, he just got dunked on by a prepared force that had almost every advantage going into the battle."
Defeat by bad luck is a lot more managable than defeat by incompetence.
Defeat by bad luck is a lot more managable than defeat by incompetence.
- Location
- United States of America
Well, that's probably a complicated question. I mean, before the match had begun organizing with Han Fang to take down and work with him. If Han Fang allied with GG, then things would probably have turned out better for him, but because of the lack of communication and organized alliance, GG had to rely on his subordinates only.
Another thing would be to go after Ji Rong before Lu Feng. He probably would have been able to engage Ji Rong much quicker then if he had moved towards Lu Feng, which may have given him the time to beat Ji Rong down without Lu Feng's assistance.
Terrain also might have played a role. It seemed that GG was caught in a flat open area, but having trees nearby that his allies could focus around and restrict Ji Rong's movements might have helped.
Ultimately, GG was caught in an unfortunate situation where he was trapped between a rock and a hard place and he was quickly ground down by Ji Rong and Lu Feng. Any strategy that would have allowed his group to take down one or the other before help arrived would probably have won him the match.
...
I feel that Ling Qi being incredibly impressive would make Gan actually look worse by comparison. Sort of like: "That other commoner of Renxiangs did great, too bad for her she didn't find another one of the same quality"
DeAnno
Sometimes words have two meanings
His issues were not tactical so much as strategic. His build is being pulled in somewhat conflicting directions (his Signature Art lets him Brute very well and yet he's trying to be a Leader), and the setup of the prelims specifically was not good for what he was doing (a leading brute being supported by a horde of smaller allies with their formation while protecting them from punch-downs does not want to ever be separated from his supports.)
It's been commented that even if he didn't want to go all-in on one side or another, getting a good spirit beast and working it into the formation could've eased the problems of being separated from his minions early by essentially locking in "+1 good minion". I also think that as the leader of a bunch of smaller allies he should've worked more on his perception abilities; only one person really needs high perception in a group and his can easily be the highest.
This is a step Ling Qi has taken in spades, with not only Spirit Beasts but summons and backup minions.
Last edited:
It might have been better for him to engage Ji Rong faster by himself and have his minions either flock toward that fight to defend against Lu Feng or stall Lu Feng.
I will note that for all that we think GG looks bad, at least he was in a 2v1 peer situation. Lu Feng lost to a sneak attack from a 2nd realm because he let down his guard and was a bit arrogant in discounting everyone else.
I will note that for all that we think GG looks bad, at least he was in a 2v1 peer situation. Lu Feng lost to a sneak attack from a 2nd realm because he let down his guard and was a bit arrogant in discounting everyone else.
Yeah, GG should have probably have a better way to rally his troops on the move (rather than having to pray in place), choose a better terrain and better perception if he cant detect ji rong coming at him so openly.
GG lost pretty legitly then, noobie barbarians would eat him alive with their 4 hero hit squads.
GG lost pretty legitly then, noobie barbarians would eat him alive with their 4 hero hit squads.
Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
- Location
- France
Not forget that Lu Feng was around is basically his biggest mistake. He knew where Lu Feng was before JR approached, but then he got too caught up in his fight against JR and didn't make sure to keep look outs for LF.
Then, after LF appeared, he kept mostly focusing on JR, which is the much tankier of the two, instead of focusing on the squishy support.
Mmmh. I would have thought that the danger here is if we do too well and show that we can dunk on easily a prepared force it might make GG look even more incompetent.
Yet, we know that in the setting Lieges regularly suppresses their vassals, and vassals often try to get away from their lieges- or at least, the only relationships of liege/vassals we know of are like that (Bai/Sun, Guo/Sun).
Abandoning GG isn't evil because a vassal is the one who has to show he deserves to be be taken in.
We were told before that CRX is not lacking in very, very powerful young cultivators she could take on. GG and Ling Qi are incredibly lucky here, and we are the ones who have to prove we deserve her, not the opposite.
GG didn't even do that badly. He fought both his equivalent (pretty boy is the same thing to Sun Lilling that he is to CRX) and our equivalent (Ji Rong is the same to us that we are to CRX) and was only brought down by pretty boy expanding all his Qi.( if he still had some, he wouldn't have went down in a single hit to han fang).
Had his fellow Cai minion buddy dedicate more minors to him to buff sp def
Last edited:
Cai Renxing probably should have tried to pull strings for more equitable matchups. As it stands, it's pretty clear that Sun Liling manipulated things quite a bit herself.
DeAnno
Sometimes words have two meanings
I do agree we could've tried to avert this better by spending more minors narratively pumping him up. I think the much greater responsibility is on CRX though, who has fostered an attitude of complacency towards the tourney in later weeks. It's likely that she knew the format would separate Gan from his minions, and it's arguable she should've known enough about Gan's build to know he had perception issues (which could've easily been fixed by asking her other retainer to share Argent Mirror with him.)
Then again, she has a tendency not to know much about LQ's build either (as evidenced by the TRF/CRX segment), so I'm not sure if she's trying to avoid micromanaging her vassals or what. I think it would actually be pretty justified to poke her nose in more with some suggestions given neither of them is working on a stable artplan but more just fitting in whatever seems to work.
Last edited:
Do you think Lu Feng will be cast aside?
Im not sure CaiMom wouldn't have veto'd that to make things harder on CRX as an indirect way to test her without a possible loss of face
Last edited:
Kai Merah
Hound Hearted Hedonist
- Location
- Somewhere in the corners of my imagination
That still sounds like adoption. Parents can be overbearing and oppressive, and kids can want to run away.
It's still evil for a parent to abandon their kid when said kid was trying his best.
You talk about vassals needing to prove they deserve their liege instead of the other way around, but really, all that proving is supposed to happen before the liege offers vassalship. When the liege offers vassalship, they are offering a promise. If the vassal is weak, that is the liege's fault for offering such a prestigious position to a weak vassal. It is not the vassal's fault unless they were deliberately disobedient/disloyal.
Honestly, at this point we can pretty much tell that the Argent Arts would have been a shoo-in to buff Guangli's minions up enough to be relevant. And the only way that would've happened is if we took those actions.
But we still chose to prioritize the actions we did, and while it most certainly is a shame I can't say that I regret those choices.
But we still chose to prioritize the actions we did, and while it most certainly is a shame I can't say that I regret those choices.
- Location
- Third planet from the star named Sol
- Pronouns
- He/They
I regret them, but I don't blame those who don't.