4 ms·

> not quite on the same creative level as Tolkien. There's no reason to throw shade at a dead guy. According to this list, Tolkien sold 250 million and Jin Y

by zawerf 8y ago

> not quite on the same creative level as Tolkien. There's no reason to throw shade at a dead guy. According to this list, Tolkien sold 250 million and Jin Yong sold 300 million: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_fiction_authors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_fiction_a... They are definitely in the same league. If you're chinese, Jin Yong's influence on culture and storytelling is way larger than Tolkien ever will be. (But if you're not chinese, then you're forgiven because there's no way to translate stuff like 降龍十八掌 without it sounding super corny)

girzel 8y ago
Aw, it wasn't meant to be shade! Just the best assessment I could make. They are definitely comparable in the sense that they are both creators of categories. Edit: Tolkien is also dead.
xarope 8y ago
I think nowadays kung fu/shaolin have gained more widespread social awareness, as well as (lord help me) Dragonball Z, so saying "The 18 palms Dragon form", or "18 fists of the Golden Dragon" won't get the same kind of cringe factor compared to maybe 20-30 years ago. Now ninjas, on the other hand... how can japanese audiences watch anything to do with ninjas in hollywood, and not throw up straightaway?
- PurpleRamen 8y ago
  Are hollywood-ninjas worst than anime-ninjas?
- hdt91 8y ago
  Just my opinion, but I think the elements of culture and language play no small roles in such kind of translation. My country (Vietnam) is heavily influenced by Chinese, and even that if you use normal vocabularies for literal translation like "18 palms of the Golden Dragon", it still sounds super corny, yet switching to Sino-Vietnamese style automatically makes it 10 times more awesome and elegant. And this expands to other subjective points such as characters, thematic plots, etc...; thus I feel it probably is way harder for Western audience to agree with the comparison with Tolkien.
sarabande 8y ago
In general, I don't think creativity equates to book sales, so an argument about creative level can't be countered with "X sold more copies than Y."
- oh-kumudo 8y ago
  Problem is, there is no way to compare creativity between the founders of 2 different genres. Is Tolkien more creative than Allan Poe? That would be a very pretentious question. I am not sure why the grand OP claim that Jin Yong's work are retelling of history. It uses history as its background, but one of his most important contributions is to create Jiang Hu(江湖), a society that is beyond the realm of moral governmental, that is Chao Ting(朝廷), which usually represents the account of history.

by zawerf 8y ago

girzel 8y ago

Aw, it wasn't meant to be shade! Just the best assessment I could make. They are definitely comparable in the sense that they are both creators of categories. Edit: Tolkien is also dead.

xarope 8y ago

I think nowadays kung fu/shaolin have gained more widespread social awareness, as well as (lord help me) Dragonball Z, so saying "The 18 palms Dragon form", or "18 fists of the Golden Dragon" won't get the same kind of cringe factor compared to maybe 20-30 years ago. Now ninjas, on the other hand... how can japanese audiences watch anything to do with ninjas in hollywood, and not throw up straightaway?

PurpleRamen 8y ago
Are hollywood-ninjas worst than anime-ninjas?
hdt91 8y ago
Just my opinion, but I think the elements of culture and language play no small roles in such kind of translation. My country (Vietnam) is heavily influenced by Chinese, and even that if you use normal vocabularies for literal translation like "18 palms of the Golden Dragon", it still sounds super corny, yet switching to Sino-Vietnamese style automatically makes it 10 times more awesome and elegant. And this expands to other subjective points such as characters, thematic plots, etc...; thus I feel it probably is way harder for Western audience to agree with the comparison with Tolkien.

sarabande 8y ago

In general, I don't think creativity equates to book sales, so an argument about creative level can't be countered with "X sold more copies than Y."

oh-kumudo 8y ago
Problem is, there is no way to compare creativity between the founders of 2 different genres. Is Tolkien more creative than Allan Poe? That would be a very pretentious question. I am not sure why the grand OP claim that Jin Yong's work are retelling of history. It uses history as its background, but one of his most important contributions is to create Jiang Hu(江湖), a society that is beyond the realm of moral governmental, that is Chao Ting(朝廷), which usually represents the account of history.