This novel is amazing, but can be hard to get into.
What you need to understand first is the protagonist’s starting point in the story.
Protagonist
The story starts with Fang Yuan already having lived two full lives. The one on Earth and the Isekai one in the World of Gu where he struggled and suffered for the most part of 500 years. This is important in order to understand his behaviour, low ethics and goals. As a result he's detached from any goals aside from eternal life, because from his perspective only eternal life is worth pursuing. Everything else is meaningless and fleeting. Hence, he's chosen to pursue eternal life in his third life - or die trying.
This is all stated at the beginning, but it’s also part of his character development. His motifs and prior experiences aren't as clear at the beginning. Only following the plot does this really sink in. There’s also no character progression in this story, so there's no change to his personality.
But what's great about FY as a character is that he's always pushing the plot. Even with all the plots surrounding him it always feels like he's picking his fights on his own terms. This is where most Wuxia/Xianxia fail. The protagonists are forced into situations to progress the plot. Same with ruthless killings. So many Wuxia basically corner the protagonist into situations where it's suddenly justified to kill his enemies. Reverend Insanity will not create this kind of pretext. The World of Gu is a very hostile dog-eat-dog kind of environment. As such it always feels like FY is struggling and walking a very thin line. He's presented with obstacles to solve and grow.
Story & World Building
The things I liked most about RI was the world building and meticulously crafted setups and payoffs.
The story progression is different from the usual cookie cutter Wuxia/Xianxia. Usually they progress through 'there's always a bigger pond' or 'a sky above a sky' by moving the protagonist to bigger and more ridiculous stages/dimensions with copy-pasta but stronger enemies. Reverend Insanity does not. It’s one vast world that slowly unfolds and changes through the story. What’s really great about this is that information provided or characters introduced in earlier chapters stay relevant to the story thousands of chapters in.
And what really ties into this are meticulous setups by the author and payoffs sometimes hundreds of chapters later. And I’m not kidding, there’s some incredibly satisfying payoffs that for example happen around chapters 200, 400, 600 and 1000.
Conclusion
I know there’s some events in the plot that are really rough for most readers. And there’s no excuse to be made for those. FY is incredibly goal-driven and there’s also external pressure to make progress, hence at times there’s almost no bottom-line he wouldn’t cross for benefits. But in my opinion this isn’t any more or less cruel than what you’re being spoon-fed in many Wuxia/Xianxia. They just create some hypocritical justification like revenge for a protagonist to kill his enemy and their complete family registry.
Reverend Insanity doesn’t make these kinds of excuses nor does it glorify the act itself. And there’s always repercussions for FY.
This out of the way, I can’t recommend Reverend Insanity enough. Give it a read and join the Heaven and Earth Great Love Alliance!
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