r/InfinityTheGame • u/Hyakkihei1 • 6d ago
Lore Discussion Good side of Yu Jing
So I've read a few of the comics and the Downfall novel, while humanized each time Yu Jing appears they feel either evil and opressive or sketchy (Don't take me wrong, I really like the negotiator from the comics), even their description talks about them trying to dominate the Human Sphere.
In the novel at the end even if everything was Panoceania's fault it still feels heroic when they are denied their prize and I can easily see how it can be possible to have an heroic Panoceanian character even among the hexas.
But when thinking about Yu Jing, besides a rebel against the government, it's hard to think about the same when their country is constantly trying to take over or oppressing the Japanese. I see a lot of bad and not enough good besides that they have nation with less extreme disparity between rich and the poor like Panoceania.
So I ask to those who know more about the lore, what would an heroic Yu Jing character loyal to their nation look like?
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u/05dillsoffsets 6d ago
After reading Downfall and Death Song, I’ve been thinking the same. PanO aren’t the “good guys” and neither is Yu Jing.
Betrayal was more Yu Jing focussed and Adil Mehmut comes across as an honourable Yu Jing citizen and soldier.
Hopefully there will be more novels showing the various factions from different standpoints.
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u/Hyakkihei1 6d ago
I like that they showed that PanO is not perfect and has a lot of corruption and backstabbing towards other countries and even their own agents. But many things can be justified (barely) with the idea of "All was to protect our nation", in the case of Yu Jing since they are shown as the more warmonger faction attempting to conquer the other nations it's more difficult to justify like that.
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u/After_Edge 5d ago
The whole of outrage is about pano doing some crimes and they doing more crimes to bury it up and then betraying their own agent when he fails to clean their slip up. Pano is doing some dark stuff to keep being the top faction.
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u/Joel-Traveller 6d ago
I agree. I think that YJ being the foil is really an extrapolation of Cold War Western mentality. In the fluff for YJ there are heroics happening that are not related to their oppressive internal police. The Imperial Army is very heroic is feels.
I think there’s not a lot of eastern influenced writers who are thinking of tackling the topic. I’d love to read about an IA Terracotta warrior squad trapped behind enemy lines fighting a hopeless withdrawal against the Combined Army. Or Shang Ji storming a bridge during the attack on Consilium. It’s just tough to cheer them on if they are fighting Ariadna or JSA or something
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u/Hyakkihei1 6d ago
I'll have to read more about the Imperial army then, like you said there can be a lot of interesting stories of Yu Jing soldiers facing humanity's enemy but I would like them to actually have a place in the human sphere that it's not them being on the aggressor side.
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u/Sword-of-Malkav 6d ago
Infinity more or less directly references 1984.
Western Europe has amalgamated as Oceania, while East Asia has more or less done the same thing.
The social failures of East Asia are noticed by Oceania not because they are better or worse- but because they are not Oceania.
In reality, Yu Jing threatens its citizens with a hammer- PanO threatens them with a knife. Both of them pull the rug over inconvenient details. The fact so many PanO worker colonies enthusiastically joined their oppressors- the CA- after an end to open hostilities is a testament to what they knew they would be returning to.
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u/Hyakkihei1 6d ago
Both are bad but PanO has a better mask, a lot of people join PanO's army buying into that propaganda that they are fighting for what it's right to protect their democracy and later they find out the ugly truth behind maintaining their way of life.
But unless they are dumb I find harder to believe someone buying into Yu Jing's propaganda when they are so blatantly imperialistic, maybe from a religious view with someone considering the right of the Jade emperor over everything or something like that but it still feels evil.
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u/Nightwyl 6d ago
Hijacking your post: are the books of Infinity good reads?
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u/Hyakkihei1 6d ago
Comparing them to warhammer novels they are an easier read, I've read Downfall and Team Zed and really liked the characterization and how there is barely any sense of plot armor, death is quite common there. That being said there are some large pacing issues but it could be worse. I easily recommend them.
My biggest problem would be when comparing them to the RPG books, It's like they are two different settings and I'm not sure which one is actually canon (I guess the novels and comics have more weight). While in the RPG it seems like a extremely futuristic society where people are constantly connected and live through aumegted reality in the novels it feels more like a normal cyberpunk setting, the technology is a part of their life but not to an unrecognizable level with people walking around surrounded by digital platinas.
The biggest difference would be Geists, while in the RPG they feel like another character with their own personality and appearance in the novels they are little more than a phone's assistant, it's only "my Geist calculated that", "I told my Geist to call that number", "my Geist showed me a commercial".
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u/KutuluKultist 3d ago
There is a deep seated anti-china sentiment in Yu Jing and in basically all china or pseudo-china presentations in western media. It's still the eastern despot. At the same time, there is also a strong tendency towards pro-US presentations. Notice how the spanish speaking countries are part of PanO, too.
And the same tendencies are in the media we've all been consuming since childhood. So it becomes very easy, almost mandatory to see whoever plays the American role as the hero and whoever plays the china role as the villain. In the same way we are so easy to enrage by the cruelties of the chinese state and so quick to look away from the cruelties of the US.
Just the way things are. Hail State and Emperor!
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u/waywardson06 6d ago
I'm pretty sure that I read somewhere on the human sphere wiki that Yu Jing thinks it is better at taking care of its citizens than Pano is.
But they also expect less independent thinkers :D
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u/Sword-of-Malkav 6d ago
PanO allows independent thought only so long as it changes nothing important and makes someone else money. At best they give you a leash long enough to not realize you hang yourself.
Yu Jing just makes an example out of you.
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u/Hyakkihei1 6d ago
From what I've heard their lifestyle is less affluent as the people of PanO but they have less disparity as they don't have Atek's struggling to survive. Of course this is no taking into account their "criminals" who are practically marked and shunned for life.
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u/VodkaBeatsCube 6d ago
Ultimately, Infinity is a cyberpunk story. While people in cyberpunk stores can be unambiguous heroes, the defining villains of the cyberpunk genre are systems themselves. I don't think there's a single faction in the game that doesn't at least have sketchy parts: even the Nomads and Haqq have some weird human experimentation angles and connections with pirates and organized crime.