Extra - Idle Chat
It was just an impulse at first. I was watching ROR and didn’t know about test-driven development or what I was doing. It felt like I was being played, especially when I watched a video where a passenger kept asking a flight attendant why phones couldn’t be used on airplanes. The flight attendant kept explaining from a scientific perspective, but eventually snapped and said, “You muggles, airplanes are powered by magic. Otherwise, how could such a big thing fly in the sky? Aerodynamics and electromagnetism are just made up by aliens to deceive you humans…”
That made me realize that programming is a bit like magic. In lectures, professors often say there’s no magic here, but I feel the opposite. You code, you put together a bunch of letters, and then it runs. Isn’t that magical?
I thought, if I could reach 10, I would start a project on Github.
Well, actually I should reach 100 before looking back.
But I know I’m too lazy, I never know when I’ll get bored and stop. So I decided to finish this early.
I’m surprised I even made it to double digits.
It’s mostly thanks to the word count of this chapter, which is more than all the other chapters combined.
Luckily, I set a low goal for myself. I’m not a professional writer, so as long as I can have some fun while writing, it’s good enough.
Speaking of which, being a coder is tough. We’re always sitting quietly coding, and when we want to record something, we can’t show our faces. We rely on pure text.
Looking at the artsy youth, they go through life with photos and food.
What a difference ╮(￣ ▽ ￣”)╭
In general, in novels, it’s rare for actors to die halfway through. If it unfortunately happens, it’s a major event. Either the protagonist undergoes a sudden change and their power increases dramatically, like Saiyans with a 100X boost in strength, or the plot takes a turn and the next generation takes over, like in “Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils” where Zhang Cuishan and Zhang Wuji replace each other as the main character. Or, it’s because the author changed and needed to start fresh. (-_-|||)
Also, in wuxia and fantasy novels, the main character only becomes stronger and stronger.
Jin Yong’s “Flying Snow Shoots the White Deer in the Sky, Laughing Book Divine Hero Relying on the Green Yuan” is the peak of this type.
When I was still in college and reading “Record of Barbarian”, I was curious about this. Why is it like this?
Characters like Tuoba Ye in “Search for the Gods” can already battle with immortals by the end of the novel. By the end of “Record of Barbarian”, he has learned the Three Days’ Martial Arts and various other techniques, not to mention the ultimate technique “Instant Youth” which is similar to a bug.
But of course, this is also the end, there’s nothing left to write.
Now I know that Jin Yong’s writing has a strong sense of immersion. Readers can grow along with the main character, and this significantly increases user retention, stickiness, and loyalty. After several years, when reading “The Return of the Condor Heroes”, there is still the impulse to stay up all night.
On the other hand, in Gu Long’s works, the main character starts off as a god-level character, without the need to fight monsters, driven by suspense and deduction. But I’ve never heard of a downgrade.
There doesn’t seem to be a “reverse growth” model in the market.
I asked a roommate who has read thousands of books, and he said that among all the fantasy novels he has read, only one has the main character becoming weaker as they train.
You can imagine how surprised I was. I quickly asked, what happened? He said, what else could happen, the protagonist started by easily killing gods, but later became weaker and suffered various humiliations from opponents he had easily defeated before. After realizing that he couldn’t even defeat an ordinary person, he committed suicide…
I felt melancholic after hearing that.
Then he continued, the protagonist is resurrected and reincarnated as XXX, starts anew, and finally becomes the best, getting the beauty(s).
You can’t avoid death if you don’t take risks.
Translated by gpt-3.5-turbo