In the previous chapter, I accounted for some of the factors contributing to the rise of the wuxia shenguai genre. Intellectuals initially regarded the warrior tradition in the genre as one of the elements that could provide a positive counterweight to China's image as the ‘sick man of Asia’. The genre would function as a tool to encourage heroism along the line of New Heroism which could eventually help to foster a military tradition that had long disappeared in China. According to this line of thought, the scholar tradition that took over had atrophied and let the nation down badly, contributing to its decline. However, the genre did not live up to the humanist ideals of New Heroism and, according to its detractors, descended instead into the lower depths of pornography, feudalism and superstition. The genre was now seen as backward, running contrary to the principles of the May Fourth Movement that was driving China since 1919 to refashion itself as a modern nation conforming to the precepts of science and democracy.