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Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)

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dycouza said:
I imagine Gan Guangli returning to the empire having learned about cultural gender roles and becoming the staunch feminist of our circle. Too traumatized to continue being a traditional gentleman he starts treating young women with a modern kind of respect. Believing young women shouldn't have to be what imperial culture wants them to, that women are just as capable in all the ways men are, and that if it really is inadvisable for women specifically to go without guard then that's a fault of imperial society and not human nature. With female cultivators in military roles everyone sort of agrees but they don't see the underlying sexism of imperial culture the way Guangli does having experienced it from the other side. He becomes the person that supports Su Ling and Ling Biyu not caring what society thinks of them.
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I mean, the Empire does tend to have gender equality, barring some clans with in clan culture and law that forces clan members into gender stereotypes (yes, one of them is an ancient ducal, and ancient ducals tend to be so big they are ethnic minorities, but I do not think Gan Guangli ever met the monkey kings)
 
storryeater said:
I mean, the Empire does tend to have gender equality, barring some clans with in clan culture and law that forces clan members into gender stereotypes (yes, one of them is an ancient ducal, and ancient ducals tend to be so big they are ethnic minorities, but I do not think Gan Guangli ever met the monkey kings)
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Not equality so much as equal opportunity inequality.
The Thousand Lakes are Matriarchial, to the point where I suspect some of the stories we carry back to Meizhen would be met with a politely puzzled eyebrow about why its remarkable at all.

The Zheng give the men a great deal of freedom, but as a result of that they lose many privileges. The women have the opposite, they get the authority, but lose a bunch of rights.

The Patriarchial standard is from what I gather, more a Peaks thing, descending from the Sage Emperor and the dragons before him.

Women have power, yes, but that doesn't cleanly translate to rights,.
 
veekie said:
Not equality so much as equal opportunity inequality.
The Thousand Lakes are Matriarchial, to the point where I suspect some of the stories we carry back to Meizhen would be met with a politely puzzled eyebrow about why its remarkable at all.

The Zheng give the men a great deal of freedom, but as a result of that they lose many privileges. The women have the opposite, they get the authority, but lose a bunch of rights.

The Patriarchial standard is from what I gather, more a Peaks thing, descending from the Sage Emperor and the dragons before him.

Women have power, yes, but that doesn't cleanly translate to rights,.
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We never had any indication that the Thousand lakes were Matriarchal? I mean, the previous head and White were men, before Sun destroyed them, as is Meizhen's Grandfather, and nobody bats an eye for them being uthority figures.

Same for the peaks- they have an Empress, that acts exactly like an Emperor would with authority and all, and the reaction of everyone is "shrug".

The only clans that seem to be clearly gender stereotype heavy we have seen are the Zheng and the Gu . And even the Gu are more ... pidgeonholy about roles than outright "this gender is superior" because of their (confirmed false by word of QM) assumptions about yin and yang.
 
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storryeater said:
We never had any indication that the Thousand lakes were Matriarchal? I mean, the previous head and White were men, before Sun destroyed them, as is Meizhen's Grandfather, and nobody bats an eye for them being uthority figures.
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We actually have word that the Bai factions are annoyed that a man was the head twice in a row and they're willing to depose the ruling Bai faction over it if it keeps up.
 
While the various clans have gender preferences and society over all tends male somewhat, it is fair to say that the strict division of roles is outright foreign to the Empire. The idea that women/men with the necessary cultivation to fight would be expected not to is pretty ridiculous, if only because the Empire doesn't have that many cultivators to spare.

The only reason it arose here is because of the problem of corrupting influence and even then we just got told that they used to have some kind of male fighting force before an event happened that discredited the idea.
 
LockedMind said:
Where does the idea that Polar Gates are linked to the North Pole comes from? I see it repeated in the thread, but I think that there is no indication that Polar Gates link specifically two poles and not, for example, this realm with some other while being situated on the South Pole.
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The heartless girl from earlier thought we were from the northern gate's, yet were at their northern most outpost to them and so it should be their southern gate's.
yrsillar said:
"Oh, that makes more sense," the girl said, to herself. "The tales always said the northern gates were a world away. Your spirit feels like the spirits of the earthflames that ring the Polar gates is all."
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065tdsa said:
While the various clans have gender preferences and society over all tends male somewhat, it is fair to say that the strict division of roles is outright foreign to the Empire. The idea that women/men with the necessary cultivation to fight would be expected not to is pretty ridiculous, if only because the Empire doesn't have that many cultivators to spare.

The only reason it arose here is because of the problem of corrupting influence and even then we just got told that they used to have some kind of male fighting force before an event happened that discredited the idea.
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yrsillar said:
Gan Guangli's shoulders sagged, and when he spoke it was at a much lower volume than his usual boom. "Is this what it is like to be an unmarried young lady? Treated as if you cannot possibly fend for yourself?"
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The empire has a fusion of cultivation equality and real world sexism. Women, especially in Celestial Peaks culture, are expected to be demure, sensitive and effeminate while men are supposed to be bold, strong and masculine. The genders are divided between Yin and Yang which themselves innately or not are bound to certain norms. Bai Meizhen is described as a exemplar imperial beauty except for the snake effects meaning that even the Bai put value in these gender roles even though they're matriarchal, and Xiulan was taught to be like her ladylike mother rather than her military father.

Gender roles in the empire aren't as strict as in historical China but they're still there and affects how people are raised and what they become. And this isn't unique to the empire, the Cloud Tribes are patriarchal as well regardless of how it wastes Talent in either society. Women are expected to be able to fight and are given opportunities to take on "manly" roles like soldier, but if you counted there would probably be a disparity between men and women in certain roles and occupations throughout the empire.
 
dycouza said:
The empire has a fusion of cultivation equality and real world sexism. Women, especially in Celestial Peaks culture, are expected to be demure, sensitive and effeminate while men are supposed to be bold, strong and masculine. The genders are divided between Yin and Yang which themselves innately or not are bound to certain norms. Bai Meizhen is described as a exemplar imperial beauty except for the snake effects meaning that even the Bai put value in these gender roles even though they're matriarchal, and Xiulan was taught to be like her ladylike mother rather than her military father.

Gender roles in the empire aren't as strict as in historical China but they're still there and affects how people are raised and what they become. And this isn't unique to the empire, the Cloud Tribes are patriarchal as well regardless of how it wastes Talent in either society. Women are expected to be able to fight and are given opportunities to take on "manly" roles like soldier, but if you counted there would probably be a disparity between men and women in certain roles and occupations throughout the empire.
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The equality is also as you said specifically as a result of cultivation too, primarily in nobles. Mortals have none of this and are likely far closer to historical china, as can be seen in Ling Qi where she was concerned over the effect being stronger than it was due to her previous mortal viewpoint.

Non-noble cultivators such as the He are either the same or somewhere between the mortals and nobles as can be seen in Qingge, where although she had talent, likely a fair amount considering she can break through even now, but was still not given access to cultivation resources, and though she notes she had a cousin who was 'groomed differently' this would again seem to be specifically for the purpose of marriage.

So yeah division of roles is definitely a thing, but having it go all the way up to the highest echelons as is seen in the Confederation is definitely different to the Empire, not to mention the specific roles being heavily different.
 
FallenPears said:
Non-noble cultivators such as the He are either the same or somewhere between the mortals and nobles as can be seen in Qingge, where although she had talent, likely a fair amount considering she can break through even now, but was still not given access to cultivation resources, and though she notes she had a cousin who was 'groomed differently' this would again seem to be specifically for the purpose of marriage.
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Qingge did not break through, to the best of my knowledge she is still red. She probably had enough talent to reach green before dying, but unlikely fourth realm or nobility. Still, you are right about wasting her because she is a woman. I love to think about how, in exiting Quingge, they lost Ling Qi. Should this hasn't happened, Ling Qi were born a He, and the He had a good chance to get to nobility, even counts in time, as they would share Ling Qi's status.
 
Blademaster said:
She probably had enough talent to reach green before dying
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... when the head-of-clan was only a yellow, reaching green (ever, nevermind young) would have been a big fucking deal.

If she'd only ever been able to reach yellow - keeping in mind that that clan almost certainly didn't have Ling Qi's budget, so she might not have been better off even after talent degradation is accounted for - she'd still have been an extremely valuable investment.

If Qingge had escaped rather than been imprisoned in a brothel, well, she probably wouldn't have become one of those wild cultivators who got strong enough to worry the Empire, but a big part of the existence of the Ministry of Integrity is that the Empire hasn't lived as long as it has by rolling those dice too often, you know?

Given that her situation doesn't seem to have been that exceptional... a whole lot of someones are fucking up, somewhere.
 
Blademaster said:
Qingge did not break through, to the best of my knowledge she is still red. She probably had enough talent to reach green before dying, but unlikely fourth realm or nobility. Still, you are right about wasting her because she is a woman. I love to think about how, in exiting Quingge, they lost Ling Qi. Should this hasn't happened, Ling Qi were born a He, and the He had a good chance to get to nobility, even counts in time, as they would share Ling Qi's status.
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Ah yeah, by break through I meant reaching red, though awaken is probably the more accurate term. And yeah, Qingge even thinks of how Ling Qi would be a rising star of the He though ofc wouldn't really be LQ then. Really we've got to wait and see what talent Biyu has, then we can really see what the He missed out on. I hope it's fairly high, though I'm not expecting LQ levels.

Having God Empress Talent 10 Biyu like in the omakes would be fun though :p
 
The He have very limited resources if the best they can do is a single Yellow. Throwing resources at Qingge means another clan member or members get nothing and Qingge's been scooped up by the He's overlords. Unless the Liu are going to reimburse them, it would be rational spend those limited resources on a clan member who will be sticking around for the foreseeable future.
 
FallenPears said:
Non-noble cultivators such as the He are either the same or somewhere between the mortals and nobles as can be seen in Qingge, where although she had talent, likely a fair amount considering she can break through even now, but was still not given access to cultivation resources, and though she notes she had a cousin who was 'groomed differently' this would again seem to be specifically for the purpose of marriage.
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I think that "differently" in this context means that Qingge's cultivator cousin, unlike all other girls, wasn't purposefully groomed for marriage. The He clan probably wanted to keep her, meaning that her future husband would join her clan.
Candesce said:
... when the head-of-clan was only a yellow, reaching green (ever, nevermind young) would have been a big fucking deal.

If she'd only ever been able to reach yellow - keeping in mind that that clan almost certainly didn't have Ling Qi's budget, so she might not have been better off even after talent degradation is accounted for - she'd still have been an extremely valuable investment.
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They did train her female cousin so she clearly wasn't overlooked (just) because of her gender. Either the He clan didn't know how talented Qingge was, or, more likely, people here are just overestimating her ability.
 
Random Shinobi said:
Either the He clan didn't know how talented Qingge was,
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My guess.

As far as I know, barring really high Talent, the only way to check for Talent is to spend cultivation resources. And I doubt the cultivators in that clan ever got as many stones to burn cultivating as they'd like.

Which means checking the Talent for everyone in the Clan would take a noticeable chunk of resources away from the extant cultivators.

I expect people mostly don't get tested if they're not already high status in the clan, backed by some internal faction or other already.
 
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Yeah, a minor clan where the head is yellow, is not going to have the wealth to see if each child has talent.
Instead they are going to pick a favorite kid who is not complete crap (unless someone super talented is found), and then just pour what resources the head can spare on them and hope to get a new yellow before the old one dies.
 
I mean...apparently testing talent is easy cheap enough that the commoner children all get tested, not to mention a convict. So I don't think assessing talent is that expensive.
 
The Ministry of Integrity has special Divination Arts that specifically search for high (5+) talent, presumably in a very wide area. These arts are also likely cyan or higher. A minor clan wouldn't have those arts, so testing would be a lot harder for them.
 
Elero said:
I mean...apparently testing talent is easy cheap enough that the commoner children all get tested, not to mention a convict. So I don't think assessing talent is that expensive.
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If you're thinking that they go around and test everyone - they don't. The MoI has some form of expensive scrying they use to identify potential high talent people. The value to them is making sure that they don't end up with high talent people outside the system.
 
Is there a practical difference between 'scry to find all high talent people in this area' and 'test everyone in this area for high talent' beyond nitpicking? It still means that mom didn't have enough talent to qualify as high talent.
 
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