I recently read the popular novel THE DA VINCI CODE (haven't seen the movie version yet). While reading it and following its line of intrigue, I couldn't help but wish that HEAVEN SWORD & DRAGON SABRE had the same level of intrigue before revealing the two eponymous weapons' secret.
Jin Yong was not a mystery writer, and his intent in HSDS was to write a wuxia adventure/romance, not a great mystery/conspiracy story a la THE DA VINCI CODE. Nevertheless, there was an element of mystery to the Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre that created suspense and intrigue until that secret was revealed. The thing is, however, is that the secret was revealed too easily. We went from knowing nothing to everything very quickly when Mit Jeut See Tai explained it all to Chow Chi Yerk. I kind of wish that Jin Yong had included subtle clues along the way to hint at the weapons' possible origins (including a few false leads to throw the reader off-track). That would have made it more amazing and more rewarding (for the reader) to discover that the two mysterious weapons that HSDS's characters had been fighting over were the remaining legacies of an earlier generation of heroes (i.e. the L/ROCH heroes). I mean, finding out that Gwok Jing and Wong Yung forged the Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre from Yeung Gor's Heavy Iron Sword was a wuxia revelation analogous to (if not nearly as momentuous as) THE DA VINCI CODE'S revelation that the Merovingian line of French monarchs was descended from Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene.