Throughout these stories, Sun encountered many characters who were above him in status. This was just not acceptable. He strived to overcome each of his instructors and was successful most of the time. His first teacher, a spiritual master, was fooled by Sun (in my opinion) to hand over the secret to immortality. Sun did not deserve this information. He wanted it for no other reason than to live forever. Maybe he was afraid to die.
As the unit came to a close, Sun had grown even more selfish. He stole in order to guaranty immortality and manipulated others' free will for his gain. When the gods tried to quench his power, he just flexed his muscles. The search for wisdom was no longer his disguise. Everyone knew that he just wanted power and would do anything to obtain it. After conquering several fine warriors, Sun was finally tricked by Buddha. His physical strength and weapons couldn't save him against the thing that he pretended to search for. The wisdom of someone else was his downfall. If only he had truly listened to his first master, he might have become the most powerful being and would not have had that title stripped away from him. In the end though, having strength and being a bully doesn't mean you will succeed.
I like that you criticized the main character of the story you read. I think that readers are too often swayed to sympathize with main characters who really aren't good people or who do bad things (I actually talked about this in my essay for this week). For example, we cheer on the main characters who are bank robbers or some other kind of criminal in a number of movies. Sometimes they are good people but they do bad things; this still isn't acceptable. I think many people would have been rooting for Sun to come out on top at the end of the day, but you saw things differently (and maybe for how they should be seen). Overall, I really liked your point of view and insight into the story.
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