Glossary / Self-Reference / This Poor Daoist

This Poor Daoist (贫道)

Self-Reference · section 03

What the self-reference means

The construction is a standard self-deprecating form: poor, followed by the thing the speaker is. In this case the thing is the dao, and the pronoun claims membership of the Daoist tradition while appearing to disclaim any personal standing.

It is the Daoist counterpart to this poor monk, and the pair covers the two religious traditions the genre draws on. A speaker who uses one of these pronouns is announcing their school in the same breath as their modesty.

It is used by wandering cultivators as much as by settled ones. The pronoun does not require a temple, only a practice, and the genre applies it to characters who are clearly not poor in any material sense.

How it characterises a speaker

It marks the speaker as Daoist in a single word. In a genre where the school of a character determines their techniques and their enemies, a pronoun that announces the school is doing real expository work.

It is used for the wandering expert. The poor daoist who appears at a village crisis is a stock entrance, and the pronoun is what tells the reader the character has a practice rather than a sect.

It can be used sarcastically. A demonic cultivator who adopts the pronoun is performing devotion they do not have, and the genre uses the mismatch to mark a character as either ironic or genuinely complicated.

Why a humble pronoun is not humble

This Poor Daoist is the standard translation, and some versions keep the pinyin as poor daoist or render it as this humble one. The English poor is correct in register — it is the conventional modesty word, not an actual claim of poverty.

It is not the same as this old man, which claims age. This one claims a tradition, and the two pronouns are used by different kinds of character with different kinds of authority.

The pronoun is easy to misread as genuine humility. In context it is a formula, and the genre uses the gap between the formula and the speaker's actual power as a running source of irony.

What readers confuse it with

This Poor Daoist 贫道

The Buddhist counterpart, from the same conventional family. Both are modest self-references that claim a tradition, and novels use them to mark which school a speaker belongs to.

This Old Man 老夫

The age-claiming version. Where this one claims a tradition, that one claims years, and the two are the most common senior self-references in the genre.

This Venerable One

The rank-claiming version, and the least humble of the family. The three pronouns together map the kinds of authority a senior character can claim.

Common questions

Does it mean the speaker is actually poor?

No. It is a conventional modesty marker, the same way a humble servant might refer to themselves in a historical drama. The genre is full of extremely wealthy characters using the word.

Is it only for Daoists?

Yes, and that is its main function. The pronoun announces the school, and the Buddhist equivalent covers monks. A character using the wrong one is either a joke or a fake.

Why do cultivators use self-deprecating pronouns?

Because the convention is old and the genre inherited it. The modesty is formulaic, and what the formula actually communicates is that the speaker belongs to a tradition with rules about how one speaks.

What is the difference between this and this venerable one?

One claims a tradition and performs humility; the other claims a seat and performs rank. Both are senior pronouns, and the choice tells you what kind of authority the speaker believes they have.

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Source: cultivationnovel.com · Cultivation Glossary