\n\n\n\n\n\nThe way Chinese netizens get government censors to crack down on the most anodyne things by giving them political connotations (e.g. Winnie the Pooh) is impressive, but what they really need to start doing is ironically praising the regime in a way that\u2019s indistinguishable on a word by word level from actual praise, so that the censors\u2019ll have to block that too.
you kind of just reinvented Classical Chinese literature
Oh! You know how in JRPGs there\u2019s the trope of the evil/false chancellor, and that\u2019s kind of derived from the fact that Japan\u2019s sense of medieval Europe is filtered through their post-opening tutelage under Germany-sempai? Because that\u2019s a \u201cIf the Czar only knew\u201d way to reconcile the experience of poor rule with the legitimating myths of petty feudalism?
The \u201cevery 1,000 years an evil is released and a band of noble warriors must assemble to defeat it\u201d trope is from China, it\u2019s how they talked about \u201cThe Great Enterprise\u201d \u2013 the fact that periodically dynasties decay to the point they have to be overthrown and replaced \u2013 without running too explicitly afoul of censors
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