Riiiight, because a young kid prodigy is strong enough to match up to adult former legendary heroes enough to make them look good. It's the equivalent of pitting the best basketball player in elementary school against Michael Jordan or the valedictorian of elementary school against Stephen Hawking to make the latter two look more impressive. 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
This was the part when people should have stopped defining the character just by his win/loss ratio and initial arrogance and see that it's not all there is to this character.
Unpopular opinion, but the Wardance arc (Versions 2.4-2.5) should have not been part where people go "oh, so Yanqing doesn't exist to just be a punching bag", it should have been the Foxian Tale arc (Version 1.5), specifically the Sword Essence Quest where people changed their minds about him. Yes, it's short and it's a sidequest, but still...we actually first get to see Yanqing develop as a character here. I will never take anyone who did not change their minds on his character until the Wardance arc seriously.
If Yanqing still abandoned his post and fought the actual threats to the Xianzhou Luofu and not the ones trying to save it, he would be much more liked despite him having a garbage kit. Because at least he is contributing something even if he loses several times in a row as a running gag. Like have him stall them or expose the enemies' weak spots for his allies to finish cleaning up. Instead of, you know, attacking his master's former friends who are helping the Xianzhou in their own individual ways. I think this is the superior way of establishing Yanqing as a headstrong, overeager, reckless child prodigy lieutenant who is biting off more than he can chew to make his master proud and ease his burdens. I think this is the way better direction to humble Yanqing and set him up for a character arc.
To start this topic, I want to clarify I am not a Yanqing Main. Simply a defender because I will never understand how people can dismiss the boy's development when it was written so clearly from start to finish.
Almost all of the discussions I see about the boy is...him being a punching bag and losing miserably in every fight to make others look good.
But from my perspective from playing through the game's entire storyline, I think those claims are absolutely ridiculous.
Adult veterans defeating a child does not make them look strong, it makes them look lame. It's the equivalent of having Michael Jordan win a basketball game against a kid who's very talented at basketball. NO ONE, AND I MEAN NO ONE expects the kid to win. So the "Worf Effect" and "Jobber" label does not apply to Yanqing AT ALL if the expectations have already been set against him.
As objectively poorly-written as the main Luofu arc was, we do see that Yanqing's reasons for his reckless actions are rooted in sympathetic motives. He does not only want to illegally hunt down dangerous criminals just to prove himself, no. He also wanted to lessen his master's burden. It's all in the dialogue. Were his actions wrong? Yes. But were his intentions good? Also yes. But good intentions do not excuse wrong actions so he needed crushing losses to force him to reevaluate himself. In other words, he needed a major wakeup call. But somehow, this ended up flying over people's heads because they either lost 50/50 to the boy or they just too focused on the sexually attractive characters in the story and Yanqing's presence somehow ruins that. They see his losses as the signature trait of his character rather than a temporary setback for his character arc.
However, I also blame HOYO for pandering to the stupid memes by adding multiple Achievements for defeating Boss Yanqing with different characters and adding the "Congratulations, you are now a member of the Bested Yanqing Club" dialogue option. And making him the worst 5-Star Character gameplay-wise that highly contradicts his in-universe prestigious reputation as a prodigy swordsman.
I fail to understand the logic of people complaining about the "tell, don't show" writing of a child prodigy to prove that he's strong, but somehow a bunch of grown adult veterans beating a kid who's seemingly all "bark and no bite" is supposed to make me take them seriously as threats... Could someone elaborate how those adults are taken seriously as intended, but the kid isn't? 🤔🤔🤔🤔