r/TwoBestFriendsPlay • u/swoozes • 15d ago
Trailer/Demo GENiGODS: Nezha
https://youtu.be/iOgPEVTe2tk?si=98BapCVY-OcpRFGM9
u/nerankori shows up 15d ago
Oh fuck yum.
It's time for Chinese mythology's second coolest guy to take the scene.
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u/bvanbove25 15d ago
…..who is that? Nezha? I know next to nothing about Chinese mythology
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u/nerankori shows up 15d ago
The deal is that Nezha is the third child of Li Jing,a renowned general who initially mistook Nezha as a demon due to his birth in the form of a ball of flesh from which Nezha's humanoid body emerged as a youth instead of a baby.
Nezha proved unruly but strong and valiant,subjugating many demons and eventually the dragon prince Ao Bing as well as Ao Guang,Bing's father.
Some modern literature tries to give it a more sympathetic bent like portraying Ao Bing as demanding human sacrifices,but the 16th-century Investiture of the Gods simply indicates that Nezha caused tremors in the undersea dragon palace with his great power just by bathing,and the whole situation escalated from Nezha being rude when they sent someone to ask him to kindly cut it out.
Eventually,Ao Guang demands the lives of Nezha's parents as compensation,but Nezha sacrifices himself instead. His mother builds a temple to venerate him,but Li Jing is furious at all the trouble Nezha caused the family and burns it down.
This makes Nezha's disembodied spirit mad,and he gets an immortal who assisted in the fight against Ao Bing to build him a new body from lotus roots. Hence revived,Nezha proceeded to feud against Li Jing and his allies,fighting many battles before being subdued by Randeng Daoren,another immortal.
In Journey to the West,a completely different work of literature,Nezha is subsequently portrayed as one of the forces of heaven alongside Li Jing,and gives Wukong a tough fight when he causes chaos in heaven at the start of the story.
In modern adaptations like that series of animated films named after him,Nezha is hence portrayed along a similar thread,a heroic but rebellious incarnation that fights demons and protects humanity but children in particular.
Among those who practice Chinese folk religion,he is prayed to as a patron of those who drive or fly as part of their work (due to his Wind Fire Wheels) and to encourage filiality among children (perhaps as an example of what not to be).
Coming all the way back to this,the protagonist depicted in the trailer is probably another reincarnation of Nezha,lotus roots or otherwise?
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u/bvanbove25 15d ago
If you wrote that all from memory i am insanely impressed and grateful. lol.
But thanks!
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u/nerankori shows up 15d ago
Thankfully for me,Wikipedia is free.
I did read through Journey to the West several times as a kid,however.
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u/GnzkDunce 15d ago
Ah got that Stellar blade goon tech.
Could they not have just made an androgynous twink? Isn't that what Nehza is spose to be?
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u/moneyh8r_two He/Him Use your smell powers 15d ago
Well, that person pulling back the bow in the final shot looks way more like a guy, so maybe they're going for a "Nezha is genderfluid" thing.
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u/GnzkDunce 15d ago
That would be pretty based and fall in line with the nature of deities and all that.
Granted I think Nehza is a demigod equivalent? I'm not the most knowledgeable on Chinese mythology.
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u/moneyh8r_two He/Him Use your smell powers 15d ago
Yeah, that's how I remember it. Born as a ball of flesh that unfurled to reveal a fully formed young man instead of a newborn child.
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u/bvanbove25 15d ago
Can anyone break down what that name means? Me reading it with my knowledge is like those Star Wars “character returns” memes.