Coiling Dragon, by I Eat Tomatoes - Light Novel

[aspadodell]

LOL yeah we should those are the 2 frequently asked questions in new threads

[chaosbeowulf]

Originally Posted by CatRules

We should make a protocol that new series thread starters add answers to these questions in their first. Or else they would forget that these are important questions that will show up again and again no matter the new series is light novel, web novel, manga, manghwa, or a wuxia...........


p.s. I do have some familiarity with Wuxia so I want to know an important question "What are the MC's flaws?" I'm kinda bored with the "I will avenge my father" type of stories.

Spoiler:

Well, in this wuxia novel, the MC was at least justified in his desire to avenge his father and mother.

MC came from an old warrior family line that was really in decline in terms of money. It was pretty bad, that his father, who was a prefecture governor, was forced to sell family treasures and heirlooms (think ancient vases, sculptures, etc) to finance the expenditure of the district. One of the ancestors of the family even sold a treasured heirloom sword that can be said as the symbol of the family's martial prowess.

His stern father told the MC when he was a kid that his mother died during his little brother's childbirth. And so, the MC always missed a mother's touch, and pampered the hell out of his little bro. Main motivation for MC at this point was to become strong, earn lots of money so that his family could live comfortably, and retrieve the family heirloom so that his father can be proud of him.

After the MC grew up, became strong (boy, I omitted lots of story parts here), and returned home from school bringing the previously sold family heirloom to be presented to his father, what awaits him is the news that his father was dead, and his father's will.

It turns out that MC's mother did not die because of childbirth; she was kidnapped when the MC was still very small, and his father was not strong enough to fight the kidnappers at that time. Seeing MC's astounding progress to become strong, his father felt that it would be safe to leave the position of the head of the family to MC, and MC's father left to find MC's mother, which leads to MC's father eventual death. At this point, MC's motivation (understandably) changed to revenge.

His flaws? Naive and too nice at the beginning; so blinded by revenge that he kinda tunnel-visioned at times; can be too confident at times, that he ended up biting more than he can chew; he was cold and ruthless most of the time in his pursuit of revenge; can be a bit dense when it comes to romance, but it was due to a bad heartbreak.

[NP-3228]

Spoiler:

I would say his character flaws is that he, once has a goal, ignores everything and everybody else and just spends the minimum amount of time with people to keep relationships. This is due to long training arcs and such to further his revenge. He is also lacking in interacting with his friends and loved ones and is just basic speech patterns, some laughs and drinks, and his friends worrying about him since he's super secretive and likes to worry people.

A flaw in general would be that his abilities and talents are stacked. He's like 3 superheros in one, sculptor, a special bloodline warrior, op magus, op swordsman with two different sword styles and two op swords, infinite inventory plus tons of monies, and lastly, recently, two op pokemon. Hrmm... Seems like more than three rite now. ┐(￣ー￣)┌ The author makes him out to be super amazing genius omg movie star which gets annoying since he still is weak so your like, "More?". Its a bit much at times since people find out and are like "omg i feel like shit now compared to him, he's too talented." and so compared to him, other characters that come don't seem special or rememberable.

p.s. forgive my rambling. =) And my strange comparisons, i don't want to spoil too much. It's still a great read; bothering ren everyday for more. Join me xD

[Hiyono]

Originally Posted by NP-3228

Spoiler:

A flaw in general would be that his abilities and talents are stacked. He's like 3 superheros in one, sculptor, a special bloodline warrior, op magus, op swordsman with two different sword styles and two op swords, infinite inventory plus tons of monies, and lastly, recently, two op pokemon. Hrmm... Seems like more than three rite now. ┐(￣ー￣)┌ The author makes him out to be super amazing genius omg movie star which gets annoying since he still is weak so your like, "More?". Its a bit much at times since people find out and are like "omg i feel like shit now compared to him, he's too talented." and so compared to him, other characters that come don't seem special or rememberable.

Spoiler:

That's only because we're comparing against only individuals from this one plane of existence, and only for roughly a ten thousand year period on that same plane. Obviously, by the end of the series, he's actually become something special, but there are "geniuses" far beyond his level on other planes. For example, it is mentioned that there is another individual who attained deity-level at the age of ten. It's simply that you don't run into such types until quite late in the series when he begins to go to other worlds.

That said, I will agree that the characters in his inner circle aren't really there as direct protagonists in the way we might be used to from Japanese LNs. The only one to remain at his side the entire time is Bebe, and, later on, Delia.

[toaa]

no haryu?can you spoil?

[GodTurtleOm]

I'm into book 6 at this point. It's not that great of a series, but still kind of fun. The whole "training and adventure to reach the peaks of power" thing is enjoyable, but the excessive exclamation points and repetition of basic facts really hurt the quality of the prose. I don't need an overly long list of accomplishments every other paragraph.

Spoiler for examples:

Seventeen Year Old Seventh-ranked Dual Magus, the 2nd youngest in the history of Yulan ever! And a (Grand)Master Sculptor, also the youngest ever! Undoubtedly the greatest genius at the Ernst Institute!

Spoiler for Alice:

I'm not really understanding this whole "she can't be Kalan's principal wife because Linley's sculpture was based off her" thing. It's the 3rd most valuable sculpture in history, and it's basically just her five times over. Doesn't it seem like that she should be even more prestigious because of that. Instead, it's implied that it is some sort of huge embarrassment that she and Linley (or at least just Linley) were in love in the past. And I'm not sure what the Deb's family would have actually accomplished if they had managed to buy it themselves or have it destroyed. It would have been slightly less famous, yes, but it had still been seen by a large number of people in Feniel.

[Renwoxing32]

Basically the answer as to why you do not understand the thing with Alice is twofold.

A. you are not asian [Chinese more specifically, but asian in general]

B. you have very little exposure to Asian mindset, culture, or values/morals. If you do it is superficial Wee-A-Boo specific knowledge [no offense I started as a Wee-A-Boo 2]

Please forgive me if I have insulted you. m(_ _)m

[Somethindarker]

I understand the asian culture and have been exposed to the asian mindset, culture and morals from a world perspective he was all over the place referencing waaaay too many historical points to the point it became exhausting. The guy's points still stand the author needed to pull back the reigns on explanations but myeh when I started to read it I found the story fairly forgettable and the dialogue a bit campy but then again the dude has no editor a second opinion woulda made this story better. But it's just my opinion I'm sure many people would disagree with me. In short while fun and entertaining some of the time most of the time I was yawning.

[drunkenwolfin]

Ohh we have a thread for coiling dragon. Love the series.
Also I kind of understand the whole culture thing despite being a foreigner. Kind of like evidence that the girl was with someone else before hand makes her seem less innocent/faithful/ etc. I don't know the exact words to put it in, but I kind of get that feeling.

@Somethindarker yeah, that definitely comes down to a person by person basis. I tend to find it is people with English as a second language pick up a lot more on grammer and other minor errors. But a lot of people who only speak English, or should I say "lazy English", tend to not even notice unless they really look for it. I just may be one of those people.

[Chance]

http://m.leshen.com/mm/PanLong.html
There is a type of manhwa available. Not sure of the chinese name. Similar story but grandpa is more like a milf and bebe looks like a rabit. Its untranslated but pretty similar. Its up to the day of apocalypse in the ln.

[rantaid]

Hey, @somethindarker, can you quote me this so called historical point this Xianxia novel point out. i already read them given up after i fail to found anything which made this as "wuxia".. it is much closer to western fantasy novel;

too much magic and elemental magic without referencing Fengshui or Fuxi Bagua (i fell this much like reading avatar last air bender)
no oriental style martial arts like gongfu be them from Shaolin Pai, Wudang Pai. ( so far i had not found them.
i still fail to feel the yiqi element
and i fail to sense anything chinese except some vernacularism.

this is why i read them with too much complex feeling.

[Somethindarker]

Originally Posted by rantaid

Hey, @somethindarker, can you quote me this so called historical point this Xianxia novel point out. i already read them given up after i fail to found anything which made this as "wuxia".. it is much closer to western fantasy novel;

too much magic and elemental magic without referencing Fengshui or Fuxi Bagua (i fell this much like reading avatar last air bender)
no oriental style martial arts like gongfu be them from Shaolin Pai, Wudang Pai. ( so far i had not found them.
i still fail to feel the yiqi element
and i fail to sense anything chinese except some vernacularism.

this is why i read them with too much complex feeling.

I haven't read the story in a looong time and I don't feel like rereading this story at all to quote there's other readers here maybe they can. Honestly I don't even remember some of the names or situations what I do remember was that some of the history and situations reminded me of chinese folklore I can't be more specific, heck maybe my memory is just blowing that part out of proportion.

[GodTurtleOm]

Originally Posted by drunkenwolfin

Ohh we have a thread for coiling dragon. Love the series.
Also I kind of understand the whole culture thing despite being a foreigner. Kind of like evidence that the girl was with someone else before hand makes her seem less innocent/faithful/ etc. I don't know the exact words to put it in, but I kind of get that feeling.

@Somethindarker yeah, that definitely comes down to a person by person basis. I tend to find it is people with English as a second language pick up a lot more on grammer and other minor errors. But a lot of people who only speak English, or should I say "lazy English", tend to not even notice unless they really look for it. I just may be one of those people.

That's the impression that I got with Alice as well. But it doesn't really make much sense in the larger context of most of the male characters in the series implying that they'd lost their virginities in their early teens, and getting several girlfriends around that point as well. Basically, there's implied to be a polite lie that everyone imagines every female as a "pure untouched flower" who has never interacted with a man outside her family in her whole life. Which is a pretty ridiculous thing to believe, so I feel that the sculpture's effect on her marriage prospect was absurd. It doesn't only pop up in Asian cultures, but it is a bit more prevalent there.

This isn't an issue of bad grammar, the translator is pretty good about picking up on most instances of those. The translation's major faults would be not identifying thoughts and sound effects separately from spoken dialogue and using too many exclamation points. I don't know if spoken dialogue and thoughts are normally differentiated in Chinese, but it's a basic rule to do so in English, which also rarely uses exclamation points outside of dialogue and thoughts. The writing itself is just weak, we're given several chapters about stonesculpting, but there's never any meaningful detail given to the stone. Is it limestone, granite, basalt, marble? White, grey, black, brown, multicolored? A decent editor would probably encourage an author to add in some of those types of description, and cut out oft repeated details.

Edit: Now at chapter 32 of Volume 6.

Spoiler for 6 and beginning of 7:

We're constantly being told that Linley is a genius, but this whole assassination attempt was pretty stupid. One of the most powerful combatants on the continent (Cesar) decides to owe Linley a favor for a sculpture. Option A) Kill the king, option B)Track down the whereabouts of his mother, or if she's dead, the circumstances leading to her death. Linley chooses option A and never even considers B, Cesar explains that it wouldn't be worth it to him to kill the king, pick something else, Linley picks A again, albeit in terms of "give me something that will let me kill the king", Cesar agrees. Linley has a great big battle in which he kills hundreds or thousands, but fails to kill the king, is captured. I should at least give him some credit for trying...
Volume 7:
After all that crap with Bernard and Kalan, they get stepped on and crushed to death out of nowhere... Presumably because Linley decided to remove the Bloodviolet sword that was holding the seal for that one dude, which really didn't seem like a wise move at the time either. I was a bit amused at Doehring Cowart's thoughts along the lines of "yeah, it's probably a bad idea, but I think it would be neat for Linley to have." Not a very responsible old man.

[drunkenwolfin]

Originally Posted by GodTurtleOm

That's the impression that I got with Alice as well. But it doesn't really make much sense in the larger context of most of the male characters in the series implying that they'd lost their virginities in their early teens, and getting several girlfriends around that point as well. Basically, there's implied to be a polite lie that everyone imagines every female as a "pure untouched flower" who has never interacted with a man outside her family in her whole life. Which is a pretty ridiculous thing to believe, so I feel that the sculpture's effect on her marriage prospect was absurd. It doesn't only pop up in Asian cultures, but it is a bit more prevalent there.

This isn't an issue of bad grammar, the translator is pretty good about picking up on most instances of those. The translation's major faults would be not identifying thoughts and sound effects separately from spoken dialogue and using too many exclamation points. I don't know if spoken dialogue and thoughts are normally differentiated in Chinese, but it's a basic rule to do so in English, which also rarely uses exclamation points outside of dialogue and thoughts. The writing itself is just weak, we're given several chapters about stonesculpting, but there's never any meaningful detail given to the stone. Is it limestone, granite, basalt, marble? White, grey, black, brown, multicolored? A decent editor would probably encourage an author to add in some of those types of description, and cut out oft repeated details.

I get your point, it does seem to be one of those gender specific cultural stereotypes (I think that is what your pointing out. At least, that is how I interpret it.)

The translater does an amazing job in my eyes. And I don't just mean by working at the speed of a machine. I feel the use of exclamation marks to be subject to a case by case scenario. There are times when it is needless and sloppy. But the use of them outside of thoughts and speech, urgh, I can't find the words to describe it.
Something like:
"Digging deep into the ground, Linley found a black rock!" - Not okay
"Within the head of the best, Linley found not a 6th rank magicite core, but one of the 7th rank!" - I view this as being acceptable, such a sentence conveys the shock and impression of Linley finding something greater than expected. Without the "!" I feel like it is a bit of a "meh" line. Alternatively, you probably should reword it to use more powerful words, but I would not say the exclamation mark should not be there.

[chaosbeowulf]

Originally Posted by Renwoxing32

Basically the answer as to why you do not understand the thing with Alice is twofold.

A. you are not asian [Chinese more specifically, but asian in general]

B. you have very little exposure to Asian mindset, culture, or values/morals. If you do it is superficial Wee-A-Boo specific knowledge [no offense I started as a Wee-A-Boo 2]

Please forgive me if I have insulted you. m(_ _)m

Hi RWX, fancy meeting you here! How many volumes are Coiling Dragon is, exactly?

[Hiyono]

Originally Posted by chaosbeowulf

Hi RWX, fancy meeting you here! How many volumes are Coiling Dragon is, exactly?

21 volumes.

[MODXNET]

Rudi - rudeus greyrat made a special cameo!

[LordZero25]

Originally Posted by MODXNET

Rudi - rudeus greyrat made a special cameo!

Same Universe?

[drunkenwolfin]

Originally Posted by LordZero25

Same Universe?

Haha no, most definitely not.

[ndiezel]

Spoiler for want to know:

Sooooo... Will Linley become at least Sovereign or he will be 5th Overgod?