Coming full circle: the end of HSDS and the beginning of LOCH

[Ken Cheng]

LEGEND OF THE CONDOR HEROES started a chain of events that would take numerous twists and turns over the course of next 150 or so years and directly affect the lives of hundreds of characters. By the time a reader/viewer reaches the end of HEAVEN SWORD & DRAGON SABRE, a look back reveals a very long and winding road spanning the entire rise, peak, and fall of the Mongol Empire in China.

But the structure of the CONDOR HEROES TRILOGY provides a fascinating symmetry at its beginning and end...and one wonders if Jin Yong didn't consciously plan the trilogy that way.

In LOCH, the first significant martial art we are introduced to is the 9 Yum White Bone Claws, practiced by Chan Yeun Fung and Mui Chiu Fung. After 9 Yum White Bone Claws, numerous other martial arts are introduced in LOCH, ROCH, and HSDS...but 9 Yum White Bone Claws did not figure much in LOCH after the deaths of Chan Yeun Fung, Mui Chiu Fung, and Yeung Hong...and was never even mentioned in ROCH. It would have been very easy to simply forget that this martial art even existed by the middle of HSDS, but surprise: 9 Yum White Bone Claws makes an unexpected reappearance at the end of HSDS as Chow Chi Yerk's martial art...long, long after all of its practitioners in LOCH were dead and after not being even alluded to in ROCH.

In LOCH, the primary romantic conflict existed among a young Han Chinese man (Gwok Jing), a young Han Chinese woman (Wong Yung), and a Mongolian princess (Hua Jeng). In the end, the Han Chinese man chose the young Han Chinese woman, leaving the Mongolian princess to take up a monastic life. No parallel relationship existed in ROCH, but in HSDS, a young Han Chinese man (Cheung Mo Gei) chose a young Mongolian (Chiu Mun, though technically a Uighur, was nevertheless a member of the Mongolian aristocracy) woman over a Han Chinese woman (Chow Chi Yerk), who also chose a monastic life. Doubly ironic is that Chow Chi Yerk, as member (and Leader) of the Ngor Mei Sect, was in some ways the heir of Wong Yung's father, East Heretic Wong Yerk See (the Ngor Mei Sect was founded by Gwok Seung, Wong Yerk See's granddaughter who was known during her youth as "Little East Heretic")...and Chiu Mun, of course, was an indirect heir to the lineage of Genghis Khan (and thus, Princess Hua Jeng).

Finally, LOCH depicted the founding of the Mongols' empire in China, with the rise of Genghis Khan and his conquest of the Hsi Hsia Kingdom and the Jin Empire, while HSDS depicted the Mongols' Yuan Dynasty in its final throes before being overthrown by the native Ming Dynasty. Here, there is an irony in that Gwok Jing, the hero of LOCH, was a subordinate of Genghis Khan, the Mongol conqueror of China, while Cheung Mo Gei, the hero of HSDS, was the superior of Chu Yeun Cheung, who would expel the Mongols and become the founder of the Ming Dynasty.

In some ways, HSDS seemed to have been written as a bookend with LOCH...almost like LOCH in reverse.

[wkeej]

good insights and observations, ken.

possibly jy may not want a hero to "forsake" a mongolian princess twice.

[Ken Cheng]

good insights and observations, ken.

possibly jy may not want a hero to "forsake" a mongolian princess twice.

There might be symbolic message in that too...when the Han man failed the marry the Mongolian woman in LOCH, war broke out between the Chinese and the Mongolians (not BECAUSE of the failed marriage, but the failure of the marriage mirrored the conflict between the Chinese and Mongol states). With the union of the Han man and the Mongol union in HSDS, there seemed to be established new peaceful harmony between the Chinese and the Mongols...almost like some kind of karmic balance had been restored.

[wkeej]

hi ken, gave some thought to this topic again.
1. assuming that it is hsds first, and then loch. will it change history of mongol conquering china? quite unlikely. because zwj married zm and off they go out of politics.
2. even if gj married hua zhen, it is also unlikely to change history unless gj becomes the most powerful khan himself and prevent the attack and forbid further generations from attack.

[Ken Cheng]

hi ken, gave some thought to this topic again.
1. assuming that it is hsds first, and then loch. will it change history of mongol conquering china?

Nah. The personal relationships were of no literal effect on the bigger picture. However, they did mirror and symbolize what was going on in society in general.

2. even if gj married hua zhen, it is also unlikely to change history unless gj becomes the most powerful khan himself and prevent the attack and forbid further generations from attack.

Gwok Jing was highly esteemed among the Mongols, but even if he had remained loyal to them, his Han heritage would have barred him from ever being proclaimed Khan of the Mongols. The Mongol Khans had to be blood descendants of Temujin, and although Gwok Jing was highly regarded by Temujin, he was not a blood relative.

[wkeej]

hi ken, may i twist another event? suppose it was GX who was born earlier. do you think it will be easier for GJ+HR to matchmake her to YG? so maybe the Guo-Yang saga can continue in hsds?

[Ken Cheng]

hi ken, may i twist another event? suppose it was GX who was born earlier. do you think it will be easier for GJ+HR to matchmake her to YG? so maybe the Guo-Yang saga can continue in hsds?

No hope at all. Yeung Gor was hung up on Little Dragon Girl and I don't think anything would have changed that. The only way is if Yeung Gor's time at Peach Blossom Island was so pleasant because of Gwok Seung that he never left and never met Little Dragon Girl.

[wkeej]

yah, i think you are correct. just kind of sad that the guo-yang saga ended like that,