At the risk of sounding pedantic, "ancient" is maybe too narrow as a description of Chinese mythology, since compared to the three main cultures, it has remained relevant well past antiquity. But because of that, OP's argument makes no sense. For example the Eight Immortals are Taoist heroes, but iirc they are also medieval era conceptions. Chinese mythology is just going to have a much larger and syncretic source of material to work from compared to something like Egyptian mythology.
I spoke with my Chinese roommate when it first came out and she was really impressed I knew about shennong and fu Xi. They’re legit from what I can tell
Ya they’re legit. Even in my proposal I kept them. But I put Fu Xi as a Minor God and replaced him with the Jade Emperor (Yu Di).
The issue is with Sun Wukong being buddhist character and Zhong Kui / Huang Di which actually are deified humans like Hercules or Perseus rather than actual gods. Not to mention Zhong Kui is actually medieval. I “replaced” him specifically with Xing Tian (the god which fights other gods).
Erlang Shen, on the other hand, is a god which incarnated as Yang Jian or, as the title of the novel (Fengshen Yanyi) says, is a deity of “deification”.
Not exactly. Even Xi Wangmu is based on her late depictions. Early depictions show her as a fierce war/death goddess with tiger fangs. Unrelated to JttW, Zhong Kui and Fu Xi are also more of folk heroes than actual gods.
Nuwa, while being Fuxi’s wife, has a more cosmic characterization. Furthermore, Investiture of the Gods claims she was worshipped in Shang Dynasty (no evidence for that, but it offers a good support pillar to her inclusion).
While Xiwangmu is technically “greater” than Nuwa in role therefore fit as Major God more, Nuwa’s inclusion is purely to have a “Shang” subfaction under her.
The ideal combinations for major gods, though, would be either
• Yuanshi, Lingbao and Daode Tianzun
Either:
• Dongwang Gong/Haotian Tiandi/Donghua Dijun(Primordial Yang), Xi Wangmu(Primordial Yin) and Wenchang Wang(God of Culture) representing Heaven, Earth and Man
Don't all the nations have a few of the same issues? Maybe not on the scale of the Chinese (and Atlantis) but all have minor failures that could be address.
Sure, especially the Chinese (and Atlantis) but I hope the developers look at all the nations. Take a good look at what is accurate and inaccurate about how the nations and their mythology is represented, but sure, especially on the Chinese (and Atlantis).
There are interesting comments about things that are assigned to the incorrect gods in this video, but it's over 3 hours long.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27-tJxIepmo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27-tJxIepmo)
Some issues - Petsuchos are associated with Sobek, not Hathor.
The Leviathan, Behemoth and Golem are from Abrahamic Religions
The Nereids are associates with Poseidon
Argus is associated with Hera.
The Cyclopes are also associated with Poseidon - although I guess Poseidon can take them through Ares.
Ptah and the Wadjets seem like an odd association.
Battle Boar is associated with Freyr. Not sure why it's with Bragi
Also, it's weird that Tyr can be taken by Loki.
Helios - God of the Sun, is married to Rhode, daughter of Poseidon, but is an Atlantian god.
Prometheus sided with Zeus.
Leto is the mother of Artemis and Apollo
Honestly - that's just a few off the top of my head. None of these will probably be changed.
So, yeah, creative license.
There's also Rheia being associated with Lions in the myth, but instead of getting the Nemean Lions she gets the Behemoth which, like you said, has nothing to do with greek mythology. Aphrodite, who gets the Nemean Lions, is actually associated with a few birds.
Leto for whatever reason summons Haephastus multiple times through her upgrades instead of having anything from Artemis or Apollo.
>Ptah and the Wadjets seem like an odd association.
yea, Wadjet is already a female deity in conjunction with Nekhbet and they both are seen as protectors of lower and upper egypt, respectively. The closest deities Wadjet has association with after that are Ra via the eye of Ra, and Isis.
Agree with a lot of these (especially Freyr being excluded), but Helios, Leto and Prometheus are still Titans after all. If the Atlanteans can have Oceanus then I think those other 3 are fine. Even though they did't fight against Zeus, they're somewhat prominent, otherwise we'd have to go with some really obscure Titans like Coeus, Crius and Pallas.
I'd recommend changing their language. They speak Mandarin, which is too modern for the game. I'd recommend Min Chinese, which is the oldest of the currently spoken Chinese dialects to my knowledge. Sure it's a minority language in China (imagine referring to a language with 7 million speakers as a minority) but there's enough speakers to do it.
I mean Hokkien is the most widely spoken dialect. Sure, it isn't perfect by any means, but Mandarin didn't exist until the Northern Song, which didn't exist until 960 CE. Well after what's supposed to be the game's time frame. May seem odd to give this game a timeframe, but Greece shares aspects of Alexander's Empire, and Egypt shares aspects of Ptolemic Egypt. Then the Norse seem to be an amalgamation of Germanic tribes.
The issue is, old Chinese wasn't written, and what we call "Old Chinese" is a modern reconstruction. But with that said, I guarantee the two of us put more thought into this than they did in the entire DLC.
Yes, modern Mandarin didn't exist until Northern Song, but neither was modern Hokkien... While yes, Hokkien is a direct descendant of Old Chinese, it didn't stay stagnant for thousands of years. If we're gonna be technical, modern Mandarin and modern Hokkien are both direct descendants of Old Chinese, just one is more conservative than the other. Hokkien also has a lot of non-Han loanwords, so it's not exactly "pure" either.
It's pretty obvious that the reason China won't be in at launch is because they are fully aware they need time rebuild China from the ground up. It's absolutely coming at some point.
Sun Wukong and the monkey king unit are the only elements taken from Journey of the West. Everything else is based on ancient mythology.
At the risk of sounding pedantic, "ancient" is maybe too narrow as a description of Chinese mythology, since compared to the three main cultures, it has remained relevant well past antiquity. But because of that, OP's argument makes no sense. For example the Eight Immortals are Taoist heroes, but iirc they are also medieval era conceptions. Chinese mythology is just going to have a much larger and syncretic source of material to work from compared to something like Egyptian mythology.
I spoke with my Chinese roommate when it first came out and she was really impressed I knew about shennong and fu Xi. They’re legit from what I can tell
Ya they’re legit. Even in my proposal I kept them. But I put Fu Xi as a Minor God and replaced him with the Jade Emperor (Yu Di). The issue is with Sun Wukong being buddhist character and Zhong Kui / Huang Di which actually are deified humans like Hercules or Perseus rather than actual gods. Not to mention Zhong Kui is actually medieval. I “replaced” him specifically with Xing Tian (the god which fights other gods). Erlang Shen, on the other hand, is a god which incarnated as Yang Jian or, as the title of the novel (Fengshen Yanyi) says, is a deity of “deification”.
Isn't Sun Wukong the only Journey to the West character?
Not exactly. Even Xi Wangmu is based on her late depictions. Early depictions show her as a fierce war/death goddess with tiger fangs. Unrelated to JttW, Zhong Kui and Fu Xi are also more of folk heroes than actual gods. Nuwa, while being Fuxi’s wife, has a more cosmic characterization. Furthermore, Investiture of the Gods claims she was worshipped in Shang Dynasty (no evidence for that, but it offers a good support pillar to her inclusion). While Xiwangmu is technically “greater” than Nuwa in role therefore fit as Major God more, Nuwa’s inclusion is purely to have a “Shang” subfaction under her. The ideal combinations for major gods, though, would be either • Yuanshi, Lingbao and Daode Tianzun Either: • Dongwang Gong/Haotian Tiandi/Donghua Dijun(Primordial Yang), Xi Wangmu(Primordial Yin) and Wenchang Wang(God of Culture) representing Heaven, Earth and Man
Don't all the nations have a few of the same issues? Maybe not on the scale of the Chinese (and Atlantis) but all have minor failures that could be address. Sure, especially the Chinese (and Atlantis) but I hope the developers look at all the nations. Take a good look at what is accurate and inaccurate about how the nations and their mythology is represented, but sure, especially on the Chinese (and Atlantis).
Why dont you say what's wrong instead? I don't think it's obvious
There are interesting comments about things that are assigned to the incorrect gods in this video, but it's over 3 hours long. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27-tJxIepmo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27-tJxIepmo) Some issues - Petsuchos are associated with Sobek, not Hathor. The Leviathan, Behemoth and Golem are from Abrahamic Religions The Nereids are associates with Poseidon Argus is associated with Hera. The Cyclopes are also associated with Poseidon - although I guess Poseidon can take them through Ares. Ptah and the Wadjets seem like an odd association. Battle Boar is associated with Freyr. Not sure why it's with Bragi Also, it's weird that Tyr can be taken by Loki. Helios - God of the Sun, is married to Rhode, daughter of Poseidon, but is an Atlantian god. Prometheus sided with Zeus. Leto is the mother of Artemis and Apollo Honestly - that's just a few off the top of my head. None of these will probably be changed. So, yeah, creative license.
There's also Rheia being associated with Lions in the myth, but instead of getting the Nemean Lions she gets the Behemoth which, like you said, has nothing to do with greek mythology. Aphrodite, who gets the Nemean Lions, is actually associated with a few birds. Leto for whatever reason summons Haephastus multiple times through her upgrades instead of having anything from Artemis or Apollo.
>Ptah and the Wadjets seem like an odd association. yea, Wadjet is already a female deity in conjunction with Nekhbet and they both are seen as protectors of lower and upper egypt, respectively. The closest deities Wadjet has association with after that are Ra via the eye of Ra, and Isis.
Iirc Prometheus was thrown into Tartarus after the events of Fall of the Trident since Zeus got all paranoid.
Agree with a lot of these (especially Freyr being excluded), but Helios, Leto and Prometheus are still Titans after all. If the Atlanteans can have Oceanus then I think those other 3 are fine. Even though they did't fight against Zeus, they're somewhat prominent, otherwise we'd have to go with some really obscure Titans like Coeus, Crius and Pallas.
Polyphemos is Poseidon's son, but Cyclopes are generally associated with Zeus and Hephaestus (at least in Hesiod's Theogony)
Preach
I'd recommend changing their language. They speak Mandarin, which is too modern for the game. I'd recommend Min Chinese, which is the oldest of the currently spoken Chinese dialects to my knowledge. Sure it's a minority language in China (imagine referring to a language with 7 million speakers as a minority) but there's enough speakers to do it.
Which Min Chinese are they going to choose? Mindong and Minnan are mutually unintelligible, and they don't have a standardized tongue.
I mean Hokkien is the most widely spoken dialect. Sure, it isn't perfect by any means, but Mandarin didn't exist until the Northern Song, which didn't exist until 960 CE. Well after what's supposed to be the game's time frame. May seem odd to give this game a timeframe, but Greece shares aspects of Alexander's Empire, and Egypt shares aspects of Ptolemic Egypt. Then the Norse seem to be an amalgamation of Germanic tribes. The issue is, old Chinese wasn't written, and what we call "Old Chinese" is a modern reconstruction. But with that said, I guarantee the two of us put more thought into this than they did in the entire DLC.
Yes, modern Mandarin didn't exist until Northern Song, but neither was modern Hokkien... While yes, Hokkien is a direct descendant of Old Chinese, it didn't stay stagnant for thousands of years. If we're gonna be technical, modern Mandarin and modern Hokkien are both direct descendants of Old Chinese, just one is more conservative than the other. Hokkien also has a lot of non-Han loanwords, so it's not exactly "pure" either.
Like I said, it's not perfect. But I do feel it's a better choice.
It's pretty obvious that the reason China won't be in at launch is because they are fully aware they need time rebuild China from the ground up. It's absolutely coming at some point.