View Poll Results: Should wulin's best fighter also be its most moral person?

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Thread: The most heroic character should have the best martial arts - agree or disagree?

  1. #1
    Moderator Ken Cheng's Avatar
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    Default The most heroic character should have the best martial arts - agree or disagree?

    At the end of LEGEND OF THE CONDOR HEROES, Yau Chui Gei all but declared that North Beggar Hung 7 Gung should be the winner of the Second Mt. Hua Sword Tournament and the # 1 Martial Artist in the World not necessarily because he was a better fighter than the other Greats, but because he had (in Yau's view) the best character and was the most heroic.

    For the most part, I agree with Yau Chui Gei's viewpoint: I think that ideally, the best martial artist in wulin *should* be its most heroic and moral individual. Nevertheless, it seldom worked out that way. The Janitor Monk was highly enlightened, compassionate, and moral, but hiding away in Shaolin, he wasn't necessarily heroic. Of Dook Goo Kau Bai's character we don't know; he was probably not an immoral man, but he seemed more amoral than anything. Central Divinity Wong Chung Yeung was perhaps the most moral of the pre-LOCH era Greats. Gwok Jing was definitely the moral leader of the New Five Greats at the end of ROCH, but it is not certain that he was the best fighter (see the long Gwok Jing vs. Yeung Gor debate). In the time of HSDS, Cheung 3 Fung was probably the moral leader in wulin as well as its best martial artist. In SOD...forget it: the most powerful people were Dong Fong But Bai, Yam Ngor Hang, and Ngok But Kwun.

    Do you feel wulin's most powerful person should also be its most moral?

  2. #2
    Senior Member CC's Avatar
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    Its when you might not have the best arts or tools but you fight with your spirit to ensure that justice prevails that makes a Hero.

    If its just tap tap tap. Game over. Not too heroic!
    Its BIxie Jianfa Gawdammit you guys!!!!

  3. #3
    Senior Member Ardor's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ken Cheng
    AtThe Janitor Monk was highly enlightened, compassionate, and moral, but hiding away in Shaolin, he wasn't necessarily heroic. Of Dook Goo Kau Bai's character we don't know; he was probably not an immoral man, but he seemed more amoral than anything.
    They were the same person. Incidentally, before sword nerdism, Dugu Qiu Bai was also a eunuch in the palace. The same one who wrote the KHBD. All mysteries solved. Have more? Blame it on the swordnerd.

    And about the topic, i say no. Evil characters need to have power as well. If all the power went to the good, then there will be an imbalance in the world.
    Burying his Dugu 9 Jian manual under an epitaph, Dugu Qiubai felt he has left his legacy for the next generation. He then moved to Shaolin to study Buddhism, sweep floors and tap elite fighters.

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    That's unnecessary.
    It's a hero's personal characters that make him a true hero, not his highest level of Kung Fu in wulin.
    Guo Jing in LoCH, LHC in SPWanderer, Xiao Feng in DGSD, they all were not at the highest level of Kung Fu in wulin but they are all still among the most favourite heroes of the readers, and of course in the novels, they also got the respect of other characters.

  5. #5
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    It would be nice if the noblest person had the best martial arts, but I don't believe the definition of "best martial artist" includes ethical standards or heroism.

  6. #6
    Senior Member PJ's Avatar
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    For the story to work itself out optimumly, I believe the most heroic character should not possess the best martial arts. If it is to be believed that hard work yields great respect, then the heroic character needs to work extra hard in order to earn our respect.

    For example, Guo Jing worked extra hard due to his slowness. In his story He had the Greats to learn from.

    Xiao Feng worked extra hard at fighting his own brutal instincts in order to spread unconditional love throughout the realm. In his story he had the Sweeper Monk to learn from.
    忽见柳荫下两个小孩子在哀哀痛哭,瞧模样正是武敦儒、武修文兄弟。郭芙大声叫道:「喂,你们在干甚麽?」武 修文回头见是郭芙,哭道:「我们在哭,你不见麽?」

  7. #7
    Senior Member Bangs's Avatar
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    I disagree. Moral virtue has nothing to do with being a great martial artist. Just look at all those villains who had very high levels of martial arts; Do you mean to say that they have the worst martial arts because they are evil?

  8. #8
    Moderator kidd's Avatar
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    Hero is hero, martial artist is martial artist. They are mutually exclusive.
    什麼是朋友?朋友永遠是在你犯下不可原諒錯誤的時候,仍舊站在你那邊的笨蛋。~ 王亞瑟

    和諧唔係一百個人講同一番話,係一百個人有一百句唔同嘅說話,而又互相尊重 ~ - 葉梓恩

  9. #9
    Moderator Ken Cheng's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by kidd
    Hero is hero, martial artist is martial artist. They are mutually exclusive.
    No they're not. If they were, we'd have no heroic martial artists.

    I must clarify one point, however: I mean that by the end of a story, should the most heroic and moral individual be the most powerful fighter? Naturally, we can't always (or even often) have the heroic individual be the most powerful fighter in the beginning (especially since we sometimes follow said heroic individual's life from birth). By the end of the story, however, should the most heroic person have gained the greatest martial arts?

  10. #10
    Moderator kidd's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ken Cheng
    I must clarify one point, however: I mean that by the end of a story, should the most heroic and moral individual be the most powerful fighter? Naturally, we can't always (or even often) have the heroic individual be the most powerful fighter in the beginning (especially since we sometimes follow said heroic individual's life from birth). By the end of the story, however, should the most heroic person have gained the greatest martial arts?
    Nope . The most heroic person could have the greatest martial arts, but it's not a must.

    I have a feeling this thread will lead to 'Yang Guo go wandering with Gugu instead of staying back to defend Xiang Yang/Yi Zhou' argument.
    Last edited by kidd; 10-03-06 at 02:50 AM.
    什麼是朋友?朋友永遠是在你犯下不可原諒錯誤的時候,仍舊站在你那邊的笨蛋。~ 王亞瑟

    和諧唔係一百個人講同一番話,係一百個人有一百句唔同嘅說話,而又互相尊重 ~ - 葉梓恩

  11. #11
    Senior Member Bai Qi44's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by kidd
    Nope . The most heroic person could have thee greatest martial arts, but it's not a must.
    I agree. Such writing styles would not be very interesting cause it's redundant and great authors would not have endings that always go "happily ever after" or in this case the main hero becoming the most powerful martial artist at the end of the story. That fits more for kids books. If JY made every main hero of his the most powerful fighter at the end of the novel, I'm pretty sure he'll turn off a lot of readers *cough* Gu *cough* Long *cough*.


    On a side note: I always find Guo Jing to be a super boring hero just like Superman is a super boring hero. They're both the typical "good is good and evil is evil" type of heros. Great read, if you're a kid. YG and Spiderman, on the other hand, would be very interesting heros that people could relate to or get interested in. You can either love them or hate them, but you wouldn't stop reading about them. Anyone wonder why Superman Returns bombed in the box office and both Spiderman movies did so well.
    青山不改,绿水长留. 请啊!

    http://www.geocities.com/wackyjlee/Others/lee.swf <----Chen Zhen (Bruce Lee version) kicking arse

  12. #12
    Moderator Ken Cheng's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bai Qi44
    If JY made every main hero of his the most powerful fighter at the end of the novel, I'm pretty sure he'll turn off a lot of readers *cough* Gu *cough* Long *cough*.
    Gu Long is hardly the most guilty of this: Luk Siu Fung eventually encountered villains that could brush him aside like a fly. Chor Lau Heung usually dealt with opponents who could outfight him. Even Lee Chum Foon lived in a world where Seung Gwoon Gum Hung could have beaten him had the latter not had one of the Great Brain Farts in the annals of wuxia.


    Quote Originally Posted by Bai Qi44
    On a side note: I always find Guo Jing to be a super boring hero just like Superman is a super boring hero. They're both the typical "good is good and evil is evil" type of heros. Great read, if you're a kid.
    That's a matter of opinion. There are no inherently boring character concepts (except maybe Little Dragon Girl)...only ineffectively written characters (in which case it's the author, not the character concept, that's at fault). Moreover, not everyone is a fan of the "rebel hero." Some people like their heroes straightforward and traditional...and these people aren't immature simpletons, Jason.

    Quote Originally Posted by Bai Qi44
    YG and Spiderman, on the other hand, would be very interesting heros that people could relate to or get interested in.
    I like Spider-Man, but I don't relate to him. I prefer my heroes to be larger than life. They shouldn't be like me. They should be better than me: that which I aspire to be, not that which I am.

    Yeung Gor I just plain dislike most of the time, but that's not news. Did you hear that the Union won the Civil War?

    Quote Originally Posted by Bai Qi44
    Anyone wonder why Superman Returns bombed in the box office and both Spiderman movies did so well.
    That probably had more to do with how the movies were written rather than the characters themselves. It also had to do with the fact that the Spider-Man films were new whereas SUPERMAN RETURNS was the fifth SUPERMAN movie (and done in a style not all that different from SUPERMAN I and SUPERMAN II, which were as huge in their day as the two SPIDER-MAN movies have been more recently).

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ken Cheng
    Of Dook Goo Kau Bai's character we don't know; he was probably not an immoral man, but he seemed more amoral than anything.
    DGQB threw his violet flexible sword down the valley merely because he had killed a righteous man with it, how could he be amoral?

  14. #14
    Moderator Ken Cheng's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pacifian
    DGQB threw his violet flexible sword down the valley merely because he had killed a righteous man with it, how could he be amoral?
    Given his allegedly superior skills, Dook Goo Kau Bai probably killed scores of opponents over the years. I have trouble believing that other than that one particular man, all those other opponents were scoundrels who deserved to die (Dook Goo Kau Bai was not Sai Mun Chui Sheut, who deliberately hunted down men he considered evil to kill; Dook Goo Kau Bai was concerned only with the potential challenge of facing a superior martial artist).

    Just another one of those weird attributions of Dook Goo Kau Bai that doesn't quite add up.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ken Cheng
    Given his allegedly superior skills, Dook Goo Kau Bai probably killed scores of opponents over the years. I have trouble believing that other than that one particular man, all those other opponents were scoundrels who deserved to die (Dook Goo Kau Bai was not Sai Mun Chui Sheut, who deliberately hunted down men he considered evil to kill; Dook Goo Kau Bai was concerned only with the potential challenge of facing a superior martial artist).

    Just another one of those weird attributions of Dook Goo Kau Bai that doesn't quite add up.
    Must he really kill those his opponents who challenged him in a friendly spar, just for the sake of competing. I got the impression he was merely wanting to battle them, just like the Hua Tournament.

    We know little of his history, hence we cannot claim him being amoral because of his eccentricity. Nothing in ROCH tells us he massacres all his opponents who were weaker than him.

  16. #16
    Moderator Ken Cheng's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pacifian
    Must he really kill those his opponents who challenged him in a friendly spar, just for the sake of competing. I got the impression he was merely wanting to battle them, just like the Hua Tournament.

    We know little of his history, hence we cannot claim him being amoral because of his eccentricity. Nothing in ROCH tells us he massacres all his opponents who were weaker than him.
    My intuition is that he probably did kill, not because he was cruel, necessarily, but because his chosen weapon was the sword. More than any other melee weapon, the sword was a killer's weapon. With blunt weapons such as sticks or even single-edged blades such as sabres, there was more of an option for not going lethal. Wielding the sword, however, nearly always meant "kill." Dook Goo Kau Bai seems to fit the mold of the Gu Long swordsmen such as Sai Mun Chui Sheut, Yip Goo Sing, Yin 13, and Tse Hiu Fung in that the victorious stance is almost always a lethal stance.

  17. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ken Cheng
    My intuition is that he probably did kill, not because he was cruel, necessarily, but because his chosen weapon was the sword. More than any other melee weapon, the sword was a killer's weapon. With blunt weapons such as sticks or even single-edged blades such as sabres, there was more of an option for not going lethal. Wielding the sword, however, nearly always meant "kill." Dook Goo Kau Bai seems to fit the mold of the Gu Long swordsmen such as Sai Mun Chui Sheut, Yip Goo Sing, Yin 13, and Tse Hiu Fung in that the victorious stance is almost always a lethal stance.
    For a person who reached that level in swordplay, do you for once think he will accidentally lose control of his sword and start killing righteous men after that. I think that time when he killed that man with his violet sword was a rare accident, or we have to see millions of tombstones made for swords that have been thrown into the valley.

    When YG used the Heavy Iron Swordplay, he could have killed Nimoxing, Xiaoxiangzi etc. Yet he didn't, all the more showing the exaggerating aspect of DGQB divine swordplay.

    We are comparing Sword Demon DGQB here, comparing him to the likes of GL characters seems somewhat inappropriate.

  18. #18
    Moderator Ken Cheng's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pacifian
    For a person who reached that level in swordplay, do you for once think he will accidentally lose control of his sword and start killing righteous men after that.
    It happened to the great Yin 13. Sai Mun Chui Sheut and Yip Goo Sing also both understood that between them, only the victor would walk away with his life.

    Quote Originally Posted by Pacifian
    We are comparing Sword Demon DGQB here, comparing him to the likes of GL characters seems somewhat inappropriate.
    Why? From my point of view, those Gu Long swordsmen are every bit as accomplished in the sword arts as Dook Goo Kau Bai...maybe even more so since we're actually able to verify their capabilities.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ken Cheng
    It happened to the great Yin 13. Sai Mun Chui Sheut and Yip Goo Sing also both understood that between them, only the victor would walk away with his life.

    Why? From my point of view, those Gu Long swordsmen are every bit as accomplished in the sword arts as Dook Goo Kau Bai...maybe even more so since we're actually able to verify their capabilities.
    The point is not that DGQB is necessarily stronger that GL characters, I should have said my point clearly. DGQB is a JY character, like Sweeper Monk, he has the ability to "control" the lives of his foes, to kill or not to kill is entirely his decision. GL characters were more of in a killing frenzy, once they triggeres the power in their swords, there is no stopping it kind of thing, which doesn't exist just in Yan 13's final sword. Somehow, to them, letting an opponent leave alive is a terrible sin.

    And just because you can verify one's capabilities he must be stronger than DGQB?

  20. #20
    Moderator Ken Cheng's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pacifian
    And just because you can verify one's capabilities he must be stronger than DGQB?
    No. But I do have more credulity for those who've actually shown me their capabilities versus those who've just made claims about their capabilities.

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