Originally Posted by
Ken Cheng
That was a great sequence, wasn't it? Probably one of the all-time great heroic scenes in the history of wuxia fiction, especially for Gwok Jing fans such as me.
The text indicates that when Gwok Jing shot his arrow, the Golden Wheel Monk's arrow was already in flight. That means Gwok Jing really didn't have the luxury of time for ideal target selection. Gwok Jing just had to intercept the monk's arrow, first and foremost. As the greatest of archers, Gwok Jing had enough skill to also hit incidental targets such as the Golden Wheel Monk's bow and Kublai's flag, but circumstances probably prohibited Gwok Jing from hitting the ideal target (i.e. the Golden Wheel Monk's heart).