#25. Wu Shang

Lore

The Traveler

"Wu Shang is a wandering monk who has renounced his violent, mysterious past and walks the earth seeking enlightenment. He seeks to avoid attention, but each week, Wu Shang must use martial arts and ancient wisdom to solve problems in a new location."

– Pitch for 'Karate Chop!' a TV series clumsily based on the life of legendary warrior monk Wu Shang


"This is not the Afterlife. I know because I breathe and I still seek Enlightenment. This is but another station on the Great Wheel."

– Wu Shang, responding to Bödvar’s welcome to Valhalla

As the story goes...

The brilliant and ruthless General Wu Shang led the Emperor’s armies to victory after victory, but his heart was empty. One day he rose from his tent, stripped off his finery, and walked away from war and power. Penniless and in rags, Wu Shang came to a monastery. The monks took him in and he took up the Way of peace, discipline, and martial arts.

As his mind grew clear, Wu Shang realized he didn’t need to kill. When the angry Emperor sent his agents to attack the temple. Wu Shang defeated a company of Imperial soldiers without hurting a hair on their heads.

To protect the monastery, Wu Shang took up a life of wandering, honing the soft powers of distraction and influence. He once concealed a hundred villagers in a single willow tree. He sneaked into the palace stable and turned the emperor’s horse against him. He hid a bridge from an advancing army.

Having looked for Enlightenment in every corner of the world, Wu Shang let himself be captured. The Emperor’s men shackled him deep inside a volcano. There in the dark, Wu Shang breathed in the silent energy of the mountain. His inner eye opened, and he found peace. Projecting himself outward and away, he wandered the Astral plane until a Valkyrie led him to Valhalla.

Wu Shang follows the Way in Valhalla, and is delighted to find he can fight without killing. Kor is teaching him to move platforms.

Connections

• Wu Shang reveals that Jiro is hiding behind the grand tapestry in the Great Hall as a part of the yearly hide-and-seek tournament with Kaya and Caspian
• Lin Fei, as a young girl, challenged General Wu Shang's armies; she later told him how to improve his Fist of Fire technique (all gauntlet sigs) with a few breathing tweaks; Wu Shang is still oblivious to the fact that Lin Fei was the little girl who challenged him and caused him to change his ways

Context

Wu Shang is the monk. His connection to Lin Fei places him squarely in China. Although there are a number of monastic traditions in China, the emphasis on enlightenment puts Wu Shang in the Buddhist monastic tradition. This is further evidenced by Wu Shang's mention of the "Great Wheel," which likely refers to the Dharmachakra (or Noble Eightfold Path), which is an important part of Buddhist tradition and practices. It is quite possible that Wu Shang was a member of the Shaolin Monastery. If so, perhaps he lived during one of the government-sanctioned temple destructions in the 17th or 18th century. But, there were several Buddhist persecutions throughout Chinese history, so right now Wu Shang's timelie is not conclusive. For more information, look at the page on Chinese Emperors.

There are a number of volcanoes in China that Wu Shang could have been taken to.

Gauntlets and spear are ideal monk weapons. The gauntlets are an obvious reference to fist-fighting techniques. Wu Shang's spear is called Qiang ("chyang"), which is the Chinese word for spear. There are hundreds of forms of Chinese martial arts, or wushu, so Wu Shang could have learned any number of them to perfect his techniques with his fists and qiang. It should be noted, however, that Wu Shang's gauntlet sigs feature fire. If you're familiar with Avatar: The Last Airbender, you may know that each of the four bending styles is based on a real martial art. In the show, firebending is based on Northern Shaolin.

Oh, and one last thing: Have you ever stopped to wonder what Wu Shang's name means in Chinese? Using the characters 无上, it means "supreme," which can fit rather well pre- or post-Buddhism, depending on how you look at it! He was a general of a "supreme" emperor, and later he focused on the "supreme" goal of enlightenment.