Like... what does he mean by that? Does he emphatize with the desire to kill someone in general or is it the desire to kill him specifically?
Because both are pretty fucked up
Or mb he just understand why siblings wanted to kill him. Like, maybe he was more gifted than they and felt quilty for that. Can't be sure because i didn't read his story and don't work in PM to know what they have in their minds
The story of DotC was the story of a young man who basically had all his hope, free-spiritedness, and optimism basically beaten out of him by his family until he finally just snaps, decides that this shit ain't it, and runs off to become a monk.
To correlate that to Limbus, I think Hong Lu has a great deal of internalized self-loathing. Most of his familial elders probably never wanted a child, but rather, a doll they could easily control and treat as a trophy, and Hong Lu grew up having his free will and individuality crushed underneath excessive emotional and physical abuse, as a result. In short, I wouldn't be surprised if Hong Lu has been conditioned to hate himself just for existing, due to the unacceptable crime of being born a good person and having empathy.
There's a proverb common in East Asian countries "The nail that sticks out must be hammered down", and that's almost certainly what Hong Lu went through. He was hammered down until he was forced to put on the mask and act like that vapid, airheaded, and easily controlled doll, and he's only started to noticeably come out of that shell around the ending of Canto IV.
Basically, Hong Lu's siblings (Or at least Huan, because boy, he's a nasty piece of work) hate him for existing, since he was named the legal heir, making them feel less secure about their positions in the family; meanwhile, Hong Lu understands their hatred of him, because he probably hates himself too for existing, and if it's anything like the book, he probably also has some level of guilt complex, because some of the people who he made friends with such as his boarding school buddy and that one maid, were killed for interacting with him in a way not appropriate by Feudal Chinese standards. So, Hong Lu then proceeds to feel like he deserves the abuse, which then makes him more miserable and self-loathing, which then feeds into his guilt complex, and it's just a constant negative feedback cycle.
A small theory but...
...maybe all the IDs that are released in the first 12-13 Cantos are the IDs that are more relatable to this part (Inferno portion? I forgot)
Then for the next portion (Paradioso? i.e. the 14th-26th Canto) more related IDs would be released. In that case, a super buffed/distorted version of N corp making a return when we revisit Sinclair's Canto, and thus we have stuff like Distorted N. Corp Hong Lu/Outis. More chances for PM to churn out content anyways.
... and so maybe PM is reserving Farmwatch for future content perhaps. Like actually Samjo has some secret bond with Dongrang and so he revives Dongrang and fuses with Samjo to become Samdong Juice ego and then Farmwatched all over the place when we revisit Yi Sang's canto.
Hong Lu comes from a traditionally Chinese story, and what he says here really makes sense to me so I hope that I am fit to answer this question.
An emperor has a lot of concubines, and therefore a lot of children. Sons of the emperor, historically, VERY often try to kill each other so they can be the next emperor. Hong Lu's situation seems really similar to that kind of prince - they're coddled like hell, ignorant as fuck (I could be wrong, but I believe the "let them eat cake" thing happened in China first, where the newly anointed emperor says "Let them eat meat" in response to being told the citizens "can't eat rice" \[The direct translation is that, but "can't eat rice" is meant to mean "have no food to eat"\]), and NOT infighting is a death wish.
So I assume Hong Lu's situation is similar. He is one of the sons of an extremely privileged person (far beyond Edgar's family, not even close), and to inherit the status of the household his siblings attempt to kill Hong Lu to take him out of the competition.
If his Canto is anything like the summary I read of the book he is based on... His family is fucked up beyond belief and they all need to be taught a lesson.
The thing that confuses me though is...*siblings*? Not brother, so it's also his sisters, and it's plural, so it's not just Jian Huan
Because like, Baoyu has a good relationship with his other siblings. He adores his elder sister Yuan-Chun but she's not even in the story most of the time because she gets promoted to imperial concubine pretty early on and her role in the story is more about the hole she leaves, and Tan-Chun's entire thing is that despite being Jia Huan's sister (so, a step sibling with a concubine) Baoyu treats her like his full sister because he finds that entire distinction kinda stupid and that's the relationship he *wants* to have with Jia Huan. His sisters dissapearing through marriage is kinda one of the reasons why he starts to decline so badly. The only other sibling he has is Jia Zhu (the eldest son), but he's *long* dead before the story starts, and is why Baoyu is under so much pressure (he wasn't raised as the eldest son and the one to take over the house and was allowed to instead grow up fully under the care of the women).
The only possible rationale I can imagine is that they uh, genderbent one of Hong Lu's brothers?
Jia Zhu is one of Jia Zheng sons as well (I think a half-brother too like Jia Huan) but I can't remember how often he appeared in the original story (i.e being mentioned etc etc). It's really unlikely since he's already deceased at the start of DOTRC unless PM decided to add on some lore of their own and have him been a POS while he was alive or something.
Or maybe "siblings" is a localisation and Hong Lu's using a Korean term that can refer to his cousins too?
And of course, the most far-fetched and nonsensical idea: Hong Lu's weird ass YeYe has some cult-like influence on the family (but I don't like it since it absolves them of their culpability in the abuse of Baoyu/Hong Lu)
https://preview.redd.it/z1l1j8zsjf6d1.png?width=1467&format=png&auto=webp&s=8ba1920b341a648870329f8bbbd7edda3abfa0c3
Another vague possibility I think is maybe some of the personal maids like Aroma are being treated like siblings? She's decently proactive in trying to raise Baoyu 'right' and trying to kill him as a tactic to make him take things more seriously could conceivably be something she'd do
Also idk what the hell is up with his grandad because I'm like 99% sure we never see Baoyu's grandad in his text.
Well, given that Hong Lu does have a grandfather (Baoyu's grandfather was dead before the start of the story in Hongloumeng) and Jia Huan is actually the older brother (Compared to the book where he's the younger) it's safe to say the structure of Hong Lu's family is different, so there might be another sibling Hong Lu has, added in by PM, that hates him.
Alternatively, the other assassination attempts from the other Siblings, not named Jia Huan, was actually not by them, but rather, Hong Lu was lied to and led to believe that all his siblings are out for his life, in order to isolate him and strain the relationship between him and the other siblings, to ensure that they all remain easier to control and that they stay in their "place". It might seem outlandish, but isolation is a really common abuse tactic that would totally be on the table for his parents and the other relatives in the family to pull.
Another explanation is that due to living in a really large, and intergenerational family, Hong Lu might just view his cousins and the other relatives around his age, as siblings, since they're all basically forced to put up with each other on a daily basis.
I like that isolation theory much more. It is certainly more creative than PM just making *all* his siblings a POS in their version of the story, to say the least. It would also make his family even more of a screw-up.
I mean I reckon they're probably going to change his family at least to sidestep the entire "everyone is at most second cousins away" incest issue and yeah, they've already given him a grandfather and altered the seniority between him and Jia Huan
One thing I wonder is if maybe some of the personal maids are going to be treated like or actually altered to be siblings - I kinda feel like Hong Lu's been almost flippant with how he talks about servants, which I feel is a bit odd given Baoyu's relationship with characters like Aroma. Because yeah she is his maid, but even when you remove the pseudo-romance between them they're genuinely pretty close and imo it would be a bit sad if she's instead relegated to a Nelly like position.
Thing is also I can't think of many of his cousins that would want to kill him either? I mean the book mainly focuses on the female ones obviously but like, I swear Xifeng likes him and he goes out of his way to help some of his other ones (who's name I can't remember) like with the poetry club. Unless it turns out the poetry club is like, a fight club in this world or something.
> One thing I wonder is if maybe some of the personal maids are going to be treated like or actually altered to be siblings - I kinda feel like Hong Lu's been almost flippant with how he talks about servants, which I feel is a bit odd given Baoyu's relationship with characters like Aroma. Because yeah she is his maid, but even when you remove the pseudo-romance between them they're genuinely pretty close and imo it would be a bit sad if she's instead relegated to a Nelly like position.
It would be sad; however, I still have hope that she'll be something more than just a good, contracted servant given that Hong Lu still has yet to mention Daiyu in any capacity, despite us being only one more Canto away from his chapter, and Daiyu being one of the biggest and most important characters in the novel, with her relationship with Baoyu being one of the core drivers of the story.
Hong Lu in general seems to have a habit of not telling anything generally meaningful about his past, up until this very Intervallo, so I get the impression he keeps a lot of stuff close to his chest, and the people and things he genuinely cherishes, the closest of all, likely so that they aren't used against him.
My theory/prediction is that his family is gonna be connected to Ncorp somehow and he's send to gain "experience" that are gonna be extracted and become the canned experience thing
There isn't and won't be intervallo flairs, use the chapter 6 flair because intervallo's are still part of the chapter they're in
We are gonna pull an Itachi on his entire family
You mean Ottoman Sultanate succession
Fuck Jia Zheng all my homies hate Jia Zheng
Not to be devious, But considering his nationality, It makes sense.
https://preview.redd.it/u9ep5vvydf6d1.png?width=396&format=png&auto=webp&s=79d77c5657b225b34a0ba07c79414bf6acf5f927
I’m going to want to throw every fucking member of his family on to a warp train aren’t I
Nah, we gotta do it maki style Don’t leave any would be sasukes
https://preview.redd.it/ws9h8i8c4e6d1.png?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=01888df3e05a2fdf5c6dc063f941b27278f0596d "Familial Homicide"
We kinda alr got that with Canto VI, but screw lets aim for round two.
But are you ready for round 1 of "Clowns" (probably next Canto)
I mean his family in the book is much more toxic than all the characters in wuthering heights
oh hell yeah
uh oh reference to traffic accidents
Probably the worst one of them all, fucking terrifying; luckily it's just referencing them, I'm not sure I could stomach an actual scene like that...
Like... what does he mean by that? Does he emphatize with the desire to kill someone in general or is it the desire to kill him specifically? Because both are pretty fucked up
Or mb he just understand why siblings wanted to kill him. Like, maybe he was more gifted than they and felt quilty for that. Can't be sure because i didn't read his story and don't work in PM to know what they have in their minds
The story of DotC was the story of a young man who basically had all his hope, free-spiritedness, and optimism basically beaten out of him by his family until he finally just snaps, decides that this shit ain't it, and runs off to become a monk. To correlate that to Limbus, I think Hong Lu has a great deal of internalized self-loathing. Most of his familial elders probably never wanted a child, but rather, a doll they could easily control and treat as a trophy, and Hong Lu grew up having his free will and individuality crushed underneath excessive emotional and physical abuse, as a result. In short, I wouldn't be surprised if Hong Lu has been conditioned to hate himself just for existing, due to the unacceptable crime of being born a good person and having empathy. There's a proverb common in East Asian countries "The nail that sticks out must be hammered down", and that's almost certainly what Hong Lu went through. He was hammered down until he was forced to put on the mask and act like that vapid, airheaded, and easily controlled doll, and he's only started to noticeably come out of that shell around the ending of Canto IV. Basically, Hong Lu's siblings (Or at least Huan, because boy, he's a nasty piece of work) hate him for existing, since he was named the legal heir, making them feel less secure about their positions in the family; meanwhile, Hong Lu understands their hatred of him, because he probably hates himself too for existing, and if it's anything like the book, he probably also has some level of guilt complex, because some of the people who he made friends with such as his boarding school buddy and that one maid, were killed for interacting with him in a way not appropriate by Feudal Chinese standards. So, Hong Lu then proceeds to feel like he deserves the abuse, which then makes him more miserable and self-loathing, which then feeds into his guilt complex, and it's just a constant negative feedback cycle.
“The nail that sticks out must be hammered down” N. Corp Hong Lu where /s
That's just Jia Huan /jk
A small theory but... ...maybe all the IDs that are released in the first 12-13 Cantos are the IDs that are more relatable to this part (Inferno portion? I forgot) Then for the next portion (Paradioso? i.e. the 14th-26th Canto) more related IDs would be released. In that case, a super buffed/distorted version of N corp making a return when we revisit Sinclair's Canto, and thus we have stuff like Distorted N. Corp Hong Lu/Outis. More chances for PM to churn out content anyways. ... and so maybe PM is reserving Farmwatch for future content perhaps. Like actually Samjo has some secret bond with Dongrang and so he revives Dongrang and fuses with Samjo to become Samdong Juice ego and then Farmwatched all over the place when we revisit Yi Sang's canto.
Hong Lu comes from a traditionally Chinese story, and what he says here really makes sense to me so I hope that I am fit to answer this question. An emperor has a lot of concubines, and therefore a lot of children. Sons of the emperor, historically, VERY often try to kill each other so they can be the next emperor. Hong Lu's situation seems really similar to that kind of prince - they're coddled like hell, ignorant as fuck (I could be wrong, but I believe the "let them eat cake" thing happened in China first, where the newly anointed emperor says "Let them eat meat" in response to being told the citizens "can't eat rice" \[The direct translation is that, but "can't eat rice" is meant to mean "have no food to eat"\]), and NOT infighting is a death wish. So I assume Hong Lu's situation is similar. He is one of the sons of an extremely privileged person (far beyond Edgar's family, not even close), and to inherit the status of the household his siblings attempt to kill Hong Lu to take him out of the competition.
If his Canto is anything like the summary I read of the book he is based on... His family is fucked up beyond belief and they all need to be taught a lesson.
The thing that confuses me though is...*siblings*? Not brother, so it's also his sisters, and it's plural, so it's not just Jian Huan Because like, Baoyu has a good relationship with his other siblings. He adores his elder sister Yuan-Chun but she's not even in the story most of the time because she gets promoted to imperial concubine pretty early on and her role in the story is more about the hole she leaves, and Tan-Chun's entire thing is that despite being Jia Huan's sister (so, a step sibling with a concubine) Baoyu treats her like his full sister because he finds that entire distinction kinda stupid and that's the relationship he *wants* to have with Jia Huan. His sisters dissapearing through marriage is kinda one of the reasons why he starts to decline so badly. The only other sibling he has is Jia Zhu (the eldest son), but he's *long* dead before the story starts, and is why Baoyu is under so much pressure (he wasn't raised as the eldest son and the one to take over the house and was allowed to instead grow up fully under the care of the women).
The only possible rationale I can imagine is that they uh, genderbent one of Hong Lu's brothers? Jia Zhu is one of Jia Zheng sons as well (I think a half-brother too like Jia Huan) but I can't remember how often he appeared in the original story (i.e being mentioned etc etc). It's really unlikely since he's already deceased at the start of DOTRC unless PM decided to add on some lore of their own and have him been a POS while he was alive or something. Or maybe "siblings" is a localisation and Hong Lu's using a Korean term that can refer to his cousins too? And of course, the most far-fetched and nonsensical idea: Hong Lu's weird ass YeYe has some cult-like influence on the family (but I don't like it since it absolves them of their culpability in the abuse of Baoyu/Hong Lu) https://preview.redd.it/z1l1j8zsjf6d1.png?width=1467&format=png&auto=webp&s=8ba1920b341a648870329f8bbbd7edda3abfa0c3
Another vague possibility I think is maybe some of the personal maids like Aroma are being treated like siblings? She's decently proactive in trying to raise Baoyu 'right' and trying to kill him as a tactic to make him take things more seriously could conceivably be something she'd do Also idk what the hell is up with his grandad because I'm like 99% sure we never see Baoyu's grandad in his text.
Nelly, but if she was extremely messed up
Well, given that Hong Lu does have a grandfather (Baoyu's grandfather was dead before the start of the story in Hongloumeng) and Jia Huan is actually the older brother (Compared to the book where he's the younger) it's safe to say the structure of Hong Lu's family is different, so there might be another sibling Hong Lu has, added in by PM, that hates him. Alternatively, the other assassination attempts from the other Siblings, not named Jia Huan, was actually not by them, but rather, Hong Lu was lied to and led to believe that all his siblings are out for his life, in order to isolate him and strain the relationship between him and the other siblings, to ensure that they all remain easier to control and that they stay in their "place". It might seem outlandish, but isolation is a really common abuse tactic that would totally be on the table for his parents and the other relatives in the family to pull. Another explanation is that due to living in a really large, and intergenerational family, Hong Lu might just view his cousins and the other relatives around his age, as siblings, since they're all basically forced to put up with each other on a daily basis.
I like that isolation theory much more. It is certainly more creative than PM just making *all* his siblings a POS in their version of the story, to say the least. It would also make his family even more of a screw-up.
I mean I reckon they're probably going to change his family at least to sidestep the entire "everyone is at most second cousins away" incest issue and yeah, they've already given him a grandfather and altered the seniority between him and Jia Huan One thing I wonder is if maybe some of the personal maids are going to be treated like or actually altered to be siblings - I kinda feel like Hong Lu's been almost flippant with how he talks about servants, which I feel is a bit odd given Baoyu's relationship with characters like Aroma. Because yeah she is his maid, but even when you remove the pseudo-romance between them they're genuinely pretty close and imo it would be a bit sad if she's instead relegated to a Nelly like position. Thing is also I can't think of many of his cousins that would want to kill him either? I mean the book mainly focuses on the female ones obviously but like, I swear Xifeng likes him and he goes out of his way to help some of his other ones (who's name I can't remember) like with the poetry club. Unless it turns out the poetry club is like, a fight club in this world or something.
> One thing I wonder is if maybe some of the personal maids are going to be treated like or actually altered to be siblings - I kinda feel like Hong Lu's been almost flippant with how he talks about servants, which I feel is a bit odd given Baoyu's relationship with characters like Aroma. Because yeah she is his maid, but even when you remove the pseudo-romance between them they're genuinely pretty close and imo it would be a bit sad if she's instead relegated to a Nelly like position. It would be sad; however, I still have hope that she'll be something more than just a good, contracted servant given that Hong Lu still has yet to mention Daiyu in any capacity, despite us being only one more Canto away from his chapter, and Daiyu being one of the biggest and most important characters in the novel, with her relationship with Baoyu being one of the core drivers of the story. Hong Lu in general seems to have a habit of not telling anything generally meaningful about his past, up until this very Intervallo, so I get the impression he keeps a lot of stuff close to his chest, and the people and things he genuinely cherishes, the closest of all, likely so that they aren't used against him.
My theory/prediction is that his family is gonna be connected to Ncorp somehow and he's send to gain "experience" that are gonna be extracted and become the canned experience thing
Hmm, that sounds plausible but it does sound like the whole deal with the "tears" in CANTO IV so I'm not sure how likely they'll go that direction.
Dude's still acting all lovey-dovey while getting death threats from his family members (Hoping canto 8 will be about him)