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Lazy?
Try 'inevitable'.
If you tell a story with anything like a standard modern narrative, you have a hero.
There are Chinese narratives, like 'The Water Margin', and pre-print narratives, like 'Beowulf', which have a far more meandering approach to story - 'Beowulf' does, obviously, have a 'chosen one' - the title character - but there's also great tracts of stuff about how much water you need for a sea-voyage - presumably, the Beowulf epic was a sort of learning song for quartermasters and so on, as well as an entertainment.
'The Water Margin' is much the same, in that it reads like a series of interlinked village histories, rather than a saga about an individual. Like 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon', it begins as a story about one hero and then follows another character, then another, then another, and never really comes back to the starting point.
Why does the 'chosen one' thing annoy you?
(Incidentally, I think the original 'Monkey' may represent an interesting middle way, but I'm not sure, because the only translation I've read is supposed to be ratehr lousy. Anyone know of a good one?) |
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