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[Seagloom]

Smiling Mountain - "A term for the 'High Path," or perhaps the way of restraint and harmony. Many aspire to it, but few achieve it. It is a path of resisting tyranny. Of course the source of that tyranny varies. It is just as dangerous coming from without as within."

PC - "Give me examples."

Smiling Mountaint - "Tyranny from external sources is easy to find and fight. Defending those who cannot defend themselves is a reasonable example. But when your abilities are so much greater than those around you, there is the temptation to set everything right by might alone. That is tyranny from within."

PC - "Sometimes conflict cannot be avoided."

Smiling Mountain - "True, but that can become a convenient excuse. Eventually, you may decide that even direct violence is too inefficient for someone of your strength. It is a small leap from there to enforcing your will so that the crime never takes place. Suddenly, you are the oppressor, when all you wanted to do was make things right."

Smiling Mountain - "This Way of the Open Palm is not without its hidden dangers, despite the best of intentions."

I recently began a game of Jade Empire. I ended up abandoning that game to try anew another time, but these quotes remained in my thoughts. Throughout the adventure we are shown the Open Palm essentially amounts to goodness and honor based on actions that earn the Spirit Monk OP points. Conversely, we are shown that Closed Fist is interpreted as simple evil save for a few occasions where the option to express a Closed Fist philosophy is present.

Now, Sun Li the Glorious Strategist is portrayed, for the most part, as Closed Fist. He kidnaps the Spirit Monk as an infant and grooms her for the better part of twenty years as part of an elaborate plot to step beyond his station by becoming a god-emperor. Closed Fist is all about proving one's superiority and climbing as high as one's strength can take them regardless of how others are affected. In this Sun Li is definitely Closed Fist. The game even reinforces this auditorially and visually by giving Sun Li the Closed Fist theme later on, and having him assume the stance when controlling Death's Hand at Dirge.

However, his intentions sound eerily Open Palm and are not far from what Smiling Mountain described. Unlike Sun Hai who wanted to seize power because he was a simple arrogant maniac, Sun Li wishes to right the empire's wrongs. He is egotistical enough to feel no one else is better suited to this task, but fully intends to do away with the restless ghosts and ensure everyone else is snugly in their roles. Becoming a god is a means to assert total control beyond what the Lotus Assassins can offer in their roles as secret police. The "neutral" ending in which Sun Li is victorious shows his version of the Jade Empire as oddly peaceful, if rigid beyond belief. Sun Li actually cares about the "Order of Things."

So, is the Glorious Strategist truly a proponent of Closed Fist philosophy, or is he actually a follower of the Open Palm taking it to a corrupted extreme?

Modifié par Seagloom, 20 novembre 2010 - 01:50 .

[caradoc2000]

Seagloom wrote...

However, his intentions sound eerily Open Palm and are not far from what Smiling Mountain describes above.

I think that is just bull he uses to justify his actions. He may say he wants to right all wrongs, but his actions (especially in the "neutral ending") make that difficult to believe. To me he seems simply another tyrant - albeit with a different flavor than his brother.

[dgcatanisiri]

Except to achieve his harmony, he started out on a disharmonious path, by breaking away from his position. His position was the Glorious Strategist. He wanted to rule. If the foundation isn't sound, the house will crumble. Sun Li's empire would be inherently unsound. As evidenced in that ending cutscene, any questioning of your role is met with harsh justice - that golem looking at the child for asking a question and the fearful response of his grandfather or teacher indicates that there is no room to even ask why things happen.

More to the point, to remove choice is to weaken all at your glory. By teaching them that they 'don't need to know,' they will be incapable of critical thinking, will believe that everything you do is for their benefit, even if what you're doing is ordering them to kill themselves solely for your amusement.

[Mercuron]

I think Closed Fist was not quite that self-centered - it was about making things right by imposing your ideas on the world and preventing problems from ever occurring (what Smiling Mountain warns you about and to some degree, why the child's question in the neutral ending is silenced), whereas Open Palm was about making things right through working in harmony with it and the people. CF imposes, OP co-operates, but they are both trying to achieve some kind of social order. I hesitate to say 'harmony' or even 'order' since CF espouses chaos and disharmony ... but like you say, the Jade Empire under Sun Li seems peaceful - that is probably because it is tightly controlled, as it would be with Sun Li's will imposed on it.

Open Palm and Closed Fist share some ideals - they're two sides of the same coin - but Sun Li's methods for achieving them are definitely Closed Fist from my perspective.