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

[tdsv]

Despite this, for fifty years, the people of the Red Sun resisted with a fervor that shames this son of the Golden Kingdom. Infuriated by the lengthy resistance, the brute's tactics grew harsher and more cruel with every day. Drenched in blood, the jungle grew red in truth, and it is said by those who survived that the very earth and the jungle itself began to fight the armies of Qin. Crippled veterans of the Red Sun began to return to war, changed and twisted, merged with spirits to replace missing limbs and shattered channels.

Despite this, for fifty years, the people of the Red Sun resisted with a fervor that shames this son of the Golden Kingdom. Infuriated by the lengthy resistance, the brute's tactics grew harsher and more cruel with every day. Drenched in blood, the jungle grew red in truth, and it is said by those who survived that the very earth and the jungle itself began to fight the armies of Qin. Crippled veterans of the Red Sun began to return to war, changed and twisted, merged with spirits to replace missing limbs and shattered channels.

In the end, it was not enough. No matter the sacrifices made, no matter the valor of the people of the Red Sun, the brute's armies ground on. When a city was captured, the brute would build a great pyre and burned their inhabitants, one and all, without regard to age or mortality. The air of the Red Sun choked with ash, the rivers ran red, and the jungle grew bloated and monstrous.

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rereading that gives me some new perspectives. Are the red jungle peoples justified to some extent? I mean they were raided, slaughtered, and then their queen was raped. Then they, a civilization on par with the empire, was reduced to barbarism and mutant cultivation arts (we know they had the chakras and the animal mutants came in response to the sage.) then they were forced to sacrifice to the evil spirt that the sage played a large role in creating. Also, this spirt seems to keep the jungle bloody and angry in the same way the sage did. Honestly, the empire screwed them over here worse than they did for the seared lands (inzha and Roham) Maybe their going after the empires people was a bit revenge motivated.

Replying to the other conversation, there are only 2 ways the Bai/Sun situation ends positively. Suzhen gets to white and Shao reveals his ancestor and they hold each other in MAD till Liling and Meizhen take over their roles; forever in Cold War. Or the empress some how forces the bai and the Sun to reconcile. Extremely unlikely, but if the empress threatened to sanction, embargo, or remove their families from the empires court maybe they could at least be forced to play nice or at least slightly nicer. We know that Sun shao can change who he views as friend and foe and Suzhen is a reformer that is trying to move the bai in a more positive direction. Sun need a trade route and the Bai would gain immense respect for proving that they can let grudges go. (Then again their ways are probably to set against each other, so it's probably never going to happen, but I can hope this ends with everyone holding hands and singing kumbaya)

 

[Blademaster]

She fried the fucker who'd been genociding her people for half a century. How is that not reasonable?

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thats very reasonable. sacrificing what was likely millions of people to birth a death goddess that basically fucks anyone in the land(including her own people) and wanna destroy everyone in the empire is less reasonable though

she was horribly raped and had full justification to utterly fry the bastard. much less justification to genocide both their country and hers

 

[Karthak Urzak]

thats very reasonable. sacrificing what was likely millions of people to birth a death goddess that basically fucks anyone in the land(including her own people) and wanna destroy everyone in the empire is less reasonable though

she was horribly raped and had full justification to utterly fry the bastard. much less justification to genocide both their country and hers

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Where does it say that she sacrificed millions? I'm not getting that from the Death of the Sage chapter at all.
Edit: OK, mention of blood of the city, so possibly.

 

[Valmond]

I'm pretty sure those people were either already dead, or about to be.

 

[Karthak Urzak]

I think it's hyperbole to say she genocided her own people. She did the ritual to save them from the empire.

 

[Varder]

sacrificing what was likely millions of people to birth a death goddess that basically fucks anyone in the land(including her own people) and wanna destroy everyone in the empire is less reasonable though

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We don't know if she wanted that. She might have been just trying to kill the Sage, Jungle Goddess might have been an unforeseen collateral effect.

 

[reignonyrparade]

In a very real sense, even that sacrifice is a more literal version of what was already decided when they refused the initial demand of submission in the first place. Every war of defense is a sacrifice of your own people to drive out the invaders.

 

[Blademaster]

We don't know if she wanted that. She might have been just trying to kill the Sage, Jungle Goddess might have been an unforeseen collateral effect.

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given the scale of the ritual and the dying words in the interlude, it very much seems like an intended consequence

In a very real sense, even that sacrifice is a more literal version of what was already decided when they refused the initial demand of submission in the first place. Every war of defense is a sacrifice of your own people to drive out the invaders.

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sure. but not like this, not in this scale. this isn't sending your soldiers to war and endangering your citizens from invasion. thats more akin to bombing your own city with a nuke cause its been invaded. its not an acceptable thing

I think it's hyperbole to say she genocided her own people. She did the ritual to save them from the empire.

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I don't think that saved them much. especially given their life under the jungle goddess weren't exactly much better

like, I don't think the sage emperor was any less of a monster, or that the priestess weren't fully justified in killing him. I don't justify rape, or condemn self defense, in any way. but a ritual sacrifice of your own city? the creation of this abomination? thats fucked up too.
the high priestess was a victim of the sage, for sure. but her actions were fucked up too. really, stop acting up like she was completely justified and did no wrong

 

[query]

I'm surprised that she managed to oneshot him with a ritual.

Like usually in these peer to near-peer confrontations you have passive defences that prevent this sort of thing.

But from the description he had no method of defending himself and just died ignominiously.

Sacrificial ritual magic is OP.

 

[reignonyrparade]

sure. but not like this, not in this scale. this isn't sending your soldiers to war and endangering your citizens from invasion. thats more akin to bombing your own city with a nuke cause its been invaded. its not an acceptable thing

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Generally more of a case of "burn" than "bomb" but like... nah this is very much a thing. Usually it's just for denial purposes even, whereas in this case it was actively taking out a real military threat in the process. Basically anyone in the real world that COULD do this in the face of an invading army, would do this.

 

[Karthak Urzak]

I'm surprised that she managed to oneshot him with a ritual.

Like usually in these peer to near-peer confrontations you have passive defences that prevent this sort of thing.

But from the description he had no method of defending himself and just died ignominiously.

Sacrificial ritual magic is OP.

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Her being able to use his sperm bypassed all the passive defences.

By morning, the brute lay thrashing in his bed. The empty streets of the temple city quaked with his choked screams as his own blood burned in his veins and melted his flesh and his own qi seared his soul to ash. Assured of his invincibility, the brute had given the seed of his downfall to the one who could most use it.

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sure. but not like this, not in this scale. this isn't sending your soldiers to war and endangering your citizens from invasion. thats more akin to bombing your own city with a nuke cause its been invaded. its not an acceptable thing

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Horseshit it isn't. They were being systematically exterminated. When faced with that you do whatever it takes.
Edit:

In the end, it was not enough. No matter the sacrifices made, no matter the valor of the people of the Red Sun, the brute's armies ground on. When a city was captured, the brute would build a great pyre and burned their inhabitants, one and all, without regard to age or mortality. The air of the Red Sun choked with ash, the rivers ran red, and the jungle grew bloated and monstrous.

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The Imperials were tossing babies onto pyres. Fuck pearl-clutching about the means they used to ensure their survival.

 

[Oliver_Twister]

So, I think this argument is illogical. The Sage was a great man, in that he accomplished something amazing, but he was a horrible person who waged a half an endless war, drained countless resources, sacrificed the lives from his people, and created the Jungle all because he wanted to rape the Priestess.

Remember, the Jungle started to grow more grotesque and murdery as the war went on. The High Priestess' sacrifice was simply the straw that broek the camel's back.

You can't put the the High Priestess of the Red Sun at fault, when the Sage Emperor was the person who forced her into such a situation in the first place.

This has the same energy as radicalising people into terrorists and then arresting them for it. It's victim blaming.

What the High Priestess did came at a great sacrifice, and had far-reaching consequences, but to me, it's the equivalent of blaming the Lu patriarch for awakening the Purifying Birb to kill the Twilight King. Big birb going boom torched the world for millenia, but it was a reaction to a perceived world ending threat.

Like LQ believes, if you deprive everything a person has, they become no better than animals and do horrible things to survive.

 

[Lady_Story]

Honestly all I've been convinced of is that the empire sucks, the jungle sucks, the tribes in the wall suck and the only reasonable people are honestly the White Sky because they have their shit together.

 

[Winged One]

Sun Shao doesn't want that either imo. Sun clan's chance to become extinct increases exponentially with Sublime warfare.

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You really think he's delusional enough to think Grandma Snake won't object to genociding her her descendants?

 

[Varder]

You really think he's delusional enough to think Grandma Snake won't object to genociding her her descendants?

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I can't parse this. You mean that Sun Shao thinks that Snake will let Bai go extinct or that he doesn't think that?

Either way, I don't believe he ever mentioned genociding the Bai. What Sun Shao wants is to keep dunking on the Bai politically, and get their assassins away from his last surviving relatives. We haven't seen a single hint that Sun Shao has ever planned or considered any kind of military action against Thousand Lakes.

That was before he started getting desperate though. I still don't think he'd attack the Bai since that'd be suicide for him and everyone he still cares for, but who knows now.

 

[Winged One]

I can't parse this. You mean that Sun Shao thinks that Snake will let Bai go extinct or that he doesn't think that?

Either way, I don't believe he ever mentioned genociding the Bai. What Sun Shao wants is to keep dunking on the Bai politically, and get their assassins away from his last surviving relatives. We haven't seen a single hint that Sun Shao has ever planned or considered any kind of military action against Thousand Lakes.

That was before he started getting desperate though. I still don't think he'd attack the Bai since that'd be suicide for him and everyone he still cares for, but who knows now.

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What surviving relatives? He's disowned all of them except Liling, and she'll follow if she ever expresses that he betrayed her. He doesn't actually care about individual family members, even now. That's not how his Way works.

 

[Oliver_Twister]

Sun Shao has absolutely planned to kill the Bai. I don't see why else he would have a spear tipped with the remains of Fuxi and his peers. That thing is meant for Granny Snake only.

His worldview, like Liling's, is Us vs Them, and he won't rest until the Bai are all exterminated. If that means siding with the Sunflower Goddess because Empress Xiang is more focused on fixing up the Peaks than picking on the Bai, he'd do it.

While I agree it's possible for the Bai to send assassins to attack his family, I find the thought funny since Shao's family die more from his endless war and sacrifice than from the Bai.

Abd I am 100% sure that he'd kickstart the civil war and then go corpse immortal to continue it.

 

[Varder]

What surviving relatives? He's disowned all of them except Liling, and she'll follow if she ever expresses that he betrayed her. He doesn't actually care about individual family members, even now. That's not how his Way works.

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Disowned? Since when? I thought most of them died. We even know Liling has some uncle who became the heir after she lost.

Sun Shao has absolutely planned to kill the Bai. I don't see why else he would have a spear tipped with the remains of Fuxi and his peers. That thing is meant for Granny Snake only.

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Because it's a good weapon? It's something fashioned from the remains of a White cultivator. It's a White-tier talisman.

His worldview, like Liling's, is Us vs Them, and he won't rest until the Bai are all exterminated. If that means siding with the Sunflower Goddess because Empress Xiang is more focused on fixing up the Peaks than picking on the Bai, he'd do it.

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"He won't rest until Bai are exterminated" doesn't equate with "he'll start a total anihilation war that he knows he can't win".

Abd I am 100% sure that he'd kickstart the civil war and then go corpse immortal to continue it.

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I doubt he even can go corpse immortal. He's supposed to become jungle goddess's husband when he dies, isn't he?

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

What surviving relatives? He's disowned all of them except Liling, and she'll follow if she ever expresses that he betrayed her. He doesn't actually care about individual family members, even now. That's not how his Way works.

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This is wildly inaccurate. Sun Shao absolutely cares about his family and hasn't disowned even those he is disappointed in. He's just willing to sacrifice even those he cares about for the good of the Family as an abstract concept. His Way and view of family are awful, but not in a way that makes him not care, they're awful precisely because he does care but is willing to hurt them anyway.

 

[Winged One]

This is wildly inaccurate. Sun Shao absolutely cares about his family and hasn't disowned even those he is disappointed in. He's just willing to sacrifice even those he cares about for the good of the Family as an abstract concept. His Way and view of family are awful, but not in a way that makes him not care, they're awful precisely because he does care but is willing to hurt them anyway.

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Is my perspective just too human? The idea that he cares is blatant self-delusion on his part, as I see it.

The disowning thing was probably just a misread on my part, though.

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

Is my perspective just too human? The idea that he cares is blatant self-delusion on his part, as I see it.

The disowning thing was probably just a misread on my part, though.

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Many people hurt those they care about in the pursuit of some sort of ideal or goal, that doesn't require inhumanity. And Sun Shao was a general...any military officer who actually befriends their subordinates sometimes has to risk them for objectives. Sun Shao took that further than most and enshrined it in his Way with his own definitions of Sacrifice.

As a White Realm Cultivator, Sun Shao is absolutely inhuman, and takes his willingness to hurt people he cares about in the service of his goals further than most people do or even can, but I see no evidence he doesn't care, and the behavior is inhuman only in its extremity, not in what it fundamentally is.

 

[Winged One]

Many people hurt those they care about in the pursuit of some sort of ideal or goal, that doesn't require inhumanity. And Sun Shao was a general...any military officer who actually befriends their subordinates sometimes has to risk them for objectives. Sun Shao took that further than most and enshrined it in his Way with his own definitions of Sacrifice.

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And those people are deluding themselves about caring about those they hurt as well.

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

And those people are deluding themselves about caring about those they hurt as well.

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This is wrong.

Everyone who ever went off to fight in a war knowing it would break the heart of their parents, friends, or lovers but thought the cause was just was not deluding themselves that they cared about those people (they may have been about the war being just, but that's a different subject). Everyone who tries to drive people they care about away for their own good because they believe they are a bad influence is not delusional that they care about those people. Everyone who pursues their own passions knowing that their partner would prefer for them to do something else and is hurt by their refusal, but does it anyway because they need something for them is not deluding themselves that they care about their partner.

There are a lot more examples. We hurt people we care about, and almost everyone does it intentionally at some point, because to do otherwise is to be completely self-sacrificing, to never put your own needs above those of others, and that's not healthy either. Hurting those they care about may, in some cases, make them bad people, but they're not all inherently deluding themselves that they care just because they hurt somebody.

 

[Tylonius]

Honestly all I've been convinced of is that the empire sucks, the jungle sucks, the tribes in the wall suck and the only reasonable people are honestly the White Sky because they have their shit together.

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Or we just don't yet know their dark side.

 

[Winged One]

This is wrong.

Everyone who ever went off to fight in a war knowing it would break the heart of their parents, friends, or lovers but thought the cause was just was not deluding themselves that they cared about those people (they may have been about the war being just, but that's a different subject). Everyone who tries to drive people they care about away for their own good because they believe they are a bad influence is not delusional that they care about those people. Everyone who pursues their own passions knowing that their partner would prefer for them to do something else and is hurt by their refusal, but does it anyway because they need something for them is not deluding themselves that they care about their partner.

There are a lot more examples. We hurt people we care about, and almost everyone does it intentionally at some point, because to do otherwise is to be completely self-sacrificing, to never put your own needs above those of others, and that's not healthy either. Hurting those they care about may, in some cases, make them bad people, but they're not all inherently deluding themselves that they care just because they hurt somebody.

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There's a difference between hurting someone out of emotional weakness (or because you think it's for their own good, though that's far less common than abusers like to claim) and outright sending your so-called loved ones to die. And I am exceedingly skeptical of any claim that a cultivator of Sun Shao's level is weak in any way.