ussri.substack.com
Well, this is just about exactly what it says on the tin. I've finally mustered up the energy to write a full-length review of what's a plausible contender for my Favourite Novel Ever, Reverend Insanity. I'd reproduce it here too, but it's a better reading experience on Substack (let's ignore the shameless self-promotion, and the fact that I can't be arsed to re-do the markdown tags)
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Notes -
I assume the "Gu" in the setting refers to this staple chuuni (pardon me, zhong er) trope? Between this, the trope, and random "eating your enemies' liver" lore that occasionally gets immanentized under extreme circumstances, it really seems like the Highlander worldview has been in the Chinese memetic water supply for a long time. Is this story actually unique in having such an outlook, or do you just figure it's the best example of a larger genre?
I had learned later that "Gu" apparently represents various forbidden and reprehensible techniques in many xianxia novels. Given that, it makes sense that the author of RI basically wrote "Murderfuck Setting". It's as if a Western fantasy book had its main magic system be referred to as "Satanism" by everyone in-universe.
That's what the One Ring is (and to a lesser extent the other rings are) in "The Lord of the Rings". It's not the One Weird Trick you think will bring you power and victory, it will hollow you out because in the end it only has one true master. This guy is trying to be Sauron, and even if he gets what he wants, it may not be how he thinks it will be - the greatest deception is self-deception, 'I got everything I wanted without having to pay the price' (ignore the mountain of skulls, ignore that I have lost my fair form and can never go back). Ring-making is a dangerous art and will exact the highest price.
Melkor and Sauron were already immortal spirits with immense power amongst the Valar and Maiar. So in this sense, they were already beyond Fang Yuan's desperation. But this was not enough, never enough. Melkor was arguably the most powerful amongst the ranks of the Valar, in his capacity to create dissonances, but he was not Eru Iluvatar: and he could never usurp or replace him. Similarly, Sauron was great amongst the Maiar, but aspired higher. Even in Lord of the Rings all he does is attempt to take the place of his absent master, rather than attempt to free him.
Our poor MC would have loved to been Sauron, to have an immortal span of life, but quickly the prize would seem poisoned, as there are immortals of higher station still, and inevitably he will scheme and plot until he runs into the face of God, for that is the only logical end, other than defeat and destruction.
Yeah, in the world as described, if he does obtain immortality, then there must still be something higher (whatever forces empower the Gu insects, the gods or spirits or just magical energies of heaven and earth) and how can he ascend to that level? The traditional tropes are about the calamities that come to test (destroy) you if you try to cultivate to immortality, and that only if you survive them all will you obtain the goal. So if our guy becomes the single most powerful being on the earth, what next? try to become the most powerful being in the universe? keep dodging the mounting and increasing set of calamities trying to reduce him to dust?
I do think if he achieved a station akin to that of Sauron, he'd be bored: yeah he's got all these mindless slaves under his thumb, but he's spent so long plotting and scheming that what does he do now? He doesn't strike me as the type to decide he'll take up tea ceremony and calligraphy and pondering the secrets of the universe (unless said secrets give him more power). The sweetness of victory is in overcoming this set of impossible conditions; once there are no more obstacles to overcome, what happens next?
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The Rings are singular artifact though. I meant more like a hypothetical setting where everyone does Satanism for a living.
That's what Sauron set up on Númenor with the worship of Melkor. And what a lot of people try to do in the world with "but surely this time I can claim the ring and it'll go okay" (be that the rings Sauron gave the Ringwraiths, who probably never anticipated that outcome, or the One Ring itself) even after seeing the disasters that happened before.
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...is it though? The elven rings seem to be simply useful; there's no risk there.
And Gandalf seems to have let Bilbo run around with what he thought was a simple "magic ring" for about a hundred years, before he got suspicious that it was actually the One Ring.
The elven rings were not corrupted by Sauron, but their own risk was the tendency of the Elves to want to hold back time so they could recreate the immortal conditions of Valinor in Middle-earth (to have their cake and eat it, as it were). They did comparatively little damage because they were mostly around under war conditions, so first hidden and not used openly until Sauron's first defeat, and then used defensively against him. But if they had been used from the start as Celebrimbor hoped, the Elves would have fallen into that trap of trying to be little gods in their own realm.
Gandalf didn't think much of Bilbo's ring, although he was somewhat suspicious of it, because it didn't seem to affect Bilbo badly and he never imagined that this was or could be the One Ring that everyone had been searching for since Isildur's death. There were a lot of lesser 'magic rings', apparently, because everyone including mortals tried their hand at creating magical items, but how much power any of them could have would have been limited.
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