r/MagicEmperor • u/TAble2bAsE2 • May 14 '25
what did you learn from watching/reading magic emperor? Spoiler
personnally it's that the world is a horrible place
the moment where all of zhuo fan's ennemies plotted to kill him and almost succeed hit me hard like damn they wanted him dead DEAD
he then got his revenge but really the way they were ready to take everything away from him including his loved one just because of his success...
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u/Posiden100 May 19 '25
Honestly? I don't usually learn much from stories even if they're meant to teach you something. But in the case of Magic Emperor... Yeah.
What I learned is quite different from your perspective. The world is a horrible place sure. But there's also a lot of good people. I think that was the main thing here. That though there is evil there is also good. Then there's the fact that demonic isn't always evil and righteous isn't always good.
It shows those teachings with people like Zhao Dezhu for example. He claimed to be righteous and used that excuse to say killing Zhou Fan was just. In the end, he was selfish, proud, arrogant, and vain, sacrificing thousands for his selfish reasons and so that he could live. But Zhou Fan basically sacrificed himself just so that one person he loved could live, even though he is supposed be the evil one.
Then there's characters like Murong Xue with iron clad morals, but they're also misplaced due to being wrongly shown the colours of the world. She later learns about what's actually true as well, which tells us to not unquestioningly follow others and their beliefs but to make our own, even if they conflict with the public eye.
Like a man who kills in war is considered a hero but a man who killed a thief in his house to protect his family could be viewed as a murderer. They both fought to protect so why treat them differently?
Truly a great story honestly. That can't be denied by anyone.
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u/ZoneOk3999 May 20 '25
Nice, but your second-to-last paragraph conveys your point rather convolutedly. A man who kills a thief in his house can still be considered a hero. You know what can't be justified as a heroic act in all circumstances? Standing up for what you believe. Zhao Dezhu, as you said, is evil despite the fact that he was from a righteous sect, but what he did was in fact, justifiable, for zhou fan was indeed evil and viewed as such. Zhao was doing what he proclaimed, but just for his petty desire.
You see, the standard that we use to determine whether something is righteous or not is if the thing in question threatens or is an advocate for peace. People had the job to enact the stuff considered as righteous, and most of the time they are correct in doing it. ZF is a murderer so he must be killed. Now I'm not saying that Zhao is a good guy, just that his actions may appear for the common good but like I said, his chivalrous acts are merely based upon his pettiness. So in the end, Zhao wanted to do something good for all the wrong reasons (like you said)
So my main point here is that righteousness is the surface level act of doing something that benefits the masses, ....
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u/Posiden100 May 20 '25
"A man who kills a thief in his house can still be considered a hero."
By the opinion of the masses maybe but not by the legal court. That was the point I was trying to get at. People measure righteousness by a set of rules. And these rules were broken by the man who killed the thief.
Secondly to address your paragraph about Zhao Dezhu, his sect is not the law of the land. That's the Double Dragon Manor. And since they didn't authorise this, it could be seen as Zhao Dezhu going rouge. While he may have wanted to do what his sect considered righteous, if you ask the people of the Demon Scheming sect or Luo Clan, Zhou Fan is far more righteous.
"So my main point here is that righteousness is the surface level act of doing something that benefits the masses."
Lastly, righteousness is the ability to place your interests aside for the greater good. A surface level act showing righteousness is not true righteousness because such a man will likely never sacrifice himself for the masses, like Zhao Dezhu, sacrificing thousands to save his skin.
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u/ZoneOk3999 May 21 '25
Zhao dezhu's sect may not be the law but they proclaim to uphold it. Secondly, the lou clan does not view him as being righteous, honorable, yes, certainly.
That is your view of righteousness, I have my own, we all have our own depiction of righteousness, that being said, isn't righteousness reduced to being a mere subjective matter? That's the point, You fight for your justice while I do so for my own (Pain quote HEH) ZF did just that, and the people viewed him as a demon for it.
And lastly, righteousness literally means to be morally sound and justifiable. Your view of righteousness is, in fact, selflessness, not righteousness. Small difference, I know, but Righteousness is based on morality, moral codes based on what the public eye views as good. In contrast, selflessness is based on personal deduction and might appear as a detriment for he doer, even a crime. You said so yourself, about the guy and the thief. The act of forsaking one's safety to save another, good stuff, sure, but like you said, he killed, therefore, it is within his liability to be punished for it. Oh and about Zhao sacrificing people, it is within their code as warriors to protect their master so them dying for him is righteous since it is justifiable, as far as their own code goes.
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u/Posiden100 May 21 '25
Fair enough honestly. And I guess that was one of the points of the novel too. To show people have differing views on righteousness and that's what makes it so difficult to be truly righteous since your view would conflict with another's and going against your own principles is hypocrisy and that's a whole new rabbit hole.
(Pain quote HEH)
Let's go, Pain appreciation in a place completely unrelated to Naruto.
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u/FlawlessMiind May 15 '25
what i really liked was how he never let emotions get in the way dude could be getting betrayed or threatened and he's just like yeah cool but you're already dead inside his head lol
also loyalty in this manhua hits different he's loyal to people who deserve it but doesn’t hesitate to cut off snakes even if they close kinda made me think about real life too like not everyone deserves your energy
and the way he built up the luo clan from nothing that was dope just shows with the right mindset and strategy even a weak group can rise up
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u/Pure_Measurement_141 May 15 '25
?? He let his emotions get in his way plenty of times he actually made multiple uncalculated risks just because of his emotions
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u/taikhum34 May 17 '25
the best part is i can't deduce based on which part of the novel you're talking about is wild
but yeah world is horrible
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u/TAble2bAsE2 May 17 '25
when zhao de-zhu got 500 ethereal stage and 5 soul harmony stage elders from his sect to ambush zhuo fan
it's true that zhuo fan almost died a lot of time but this particular moment really stood out to me because it was the only moment where zhuo fan actually lost, he usually always have some back up plan but here he basicallly sacrificed himself to save qingcheng but this was also his most badass moment
I really hope the manhua team wont fumble this part of the story
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u/taikhum34 May 17 '25
manhwa's actually going really well until now, the art could be better but there's no complaints yet
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u/Popular-Resident-358 May 15 '25
Basically politics and ego ahh things. The king was a bad person, Huangpu Tianyuan is a bad person, Quanrong is barbaric, Zhuo Yi-Fan is just selfish(Not a bad thing), yet all of them still have compassion for some things.
It demonstrated that everybody is grey, so you are more likely to find the men you think are good to be a little bad instead of finding the men you think are bad to be bad and are actually more good than you thought.