Heaven Official's Blessing//TGCF: Novel Reaction - PART 61 - CHAPTER 190!

This chapter was indeed....a lot. The idea that "everyone is human," just in different "states" rings so different in these chapters NOW than they did earlier, right?! And yesssss, we also get the mutual broness of HX and HC who both out of hatred tore through humanity -- but now we know that HC at least was doing it because the person he loved was tortured and mutilated. I feel Xie Lian always had this "I'll do whatever to save the people even at the cost of myself," but the "self-harm" really does seem to carry on after this, unfortunately. And yes, all that reasoning -- talking it through in this video's discussion -- really did put things in an "artificial" and "forced" state, as XL noted. Thanks for the comment!

Romaniablack

Oh yeah, I think the "self-sacrificing god" angle is made more interesting in that Xie Lian technically doesn't have any powers at this point and is more of a mortal than a heavenly official as of the moment -- he just can't die. And yes, that last sentence is exactly like I brought up in the discussion! I love that MXTX points that out for us! Thank you for the comment!

Romaniablack

Ah.. this chapter truly is so haunting. An element that particularly fascinates me within this chapter is the idea of a god sacrificing itself for humanity; of course, this is a common theme across all kinds of religions. But the perspective here is of a god that isn’t given a true choice to sacrifice himself. It is also additional to the running theme of Xie Lian being an immortal, but still being a human. The common people in the temple kind of ‘dehumanise’ him by putting him on the pedestal of a god, and then again when they learn that he is not a perfect person so it’s made acceptable to hurt him; It's reminiscent of how some people treat the disadvantaged such as homeless people. There's just a lot of interesting commentary going on here from MXTX!!

Lue

Being able to be on its own when they divide the chapter set requires A LOT and oh my, every reader would love some good relief after this. BWX used the opportunity to test the moral boundary and the result is not pleasant to witness. MXTX is so clever in writing humanity through 'ghosts'. When we talk about ghosts in literature, it's not only horror elements and stuff to scare people, it's more of an epitome of common human fears. And just like a long while ago she had the guoshi of Xianle tell us "there's no god nor ghosts, men ascending up or descending down, are always human" We all love to say that HC is supreme because he loves XL so much, but here we witness that just like black water, he also snapped and murdered because he's filled with hatred. In HX's case the 'scholar He' slaughtered his way through the town and even devoured the reverend of empty words after death, and in HC's case the little ghost fire blasted and took a human form to revenge against all those 'believers' who harmed his god. I'm not sure whether XL has always had this idea of self-harm to save others or did he began this path after this incident, because both during the Yong'An banquet case and the fetus spirit case, he always chose to do self-harm (took the blame and be sealed away as evil priest/wanted to swallow the sword after swallowing the fetus to kill it) Why did the crowd suddenly decide to be cruel and cold, and the only voice of rightness is not commanding? Things might not have escalated this fast if there was a leading voice so determined and strong, but the street performer is not one with influence, XL is on the edge of breaking down and ghost fire HC cannot make any sound. And everyone else in the temple is already breaking and being hesitant is a sign of the kindness they left. Unfortunately, BWX is always the one in control of the development of the situation. He basically hinted to them that: 1. You will all die, and the only way to live is through killing 2. XL knowing this way and not telling you is because killing is bad and you need to take responsibility later. But XL is immortal. So, the equation goes: survival=killing killing=consequence stab XL=not killing=no consequence And the merchant who XL almost robbed is the last straw and an excuse for the crowd to become devils. Here comes another wise line from earlier "you are what people think you are, if they think you are god then you ARE god and if they think you worthless then you are TRULY worthless" When they think XL is the one who brought them misfortune, then he truly became the god of plague in their eyes.

sqqlbh1314

I somehow agree with bwx that the common people don't deserve xl 😭😭😭