Did Jin Yong intentionally design (main) characters that would annoy people?

[Ken Cheng]

There are some characters that are just not meant to be endearing, and their creators are very conscious of this as they develop these characters. For example, Jin Yong wrote characters such as Ah Chi, Gwok Fu, Mit Jeut See Tai, and Ding Mun Gwun knowing (or at least reasonably surmising) that most readers would dislike these characters: they were characters designed so that most readers would hate them.

There are a few Jin Yong *main* (or major) characters, however, that he probably didn't deliberately design to be annoying, but do tend to be disliked (for various reasons) by a sizeable number of his readers. In particular, I'm thinking about Deun Yu, Wong Yu Yin, Yeung Gor, and Little Dragon Girl. Among the primary characters, these four get criticized for being irritating by more people than others (not that even popular characters such as Kiu Fung, Ah Chu, Gwok Jing, Wong Yung, Ling Wu Chung, and Yam Ying Ying don't have their detractors, but not like those first four I mentioned do). Cheung Mo Gei and Hui Juk also get criticized fairly often.

So the question is: when Jin Yong created these characters, did he deliberately create them with their distinct personality characteristics KNOWING that at least some of his readers would react negatively to them, or did he design them for maximum appeal to a wide audience and got caught off-guard when some readers didn't embrace those characters?

[kyss of the sword]

you can please some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not please all of the people all of the time.

jin yong probably based his characters partially on himself and on those around him.

[sheraldine]

whatever jy's intention or not, CMG definitely irrites me - hehe. but seriously, at times, i think it is the way actors and actresses played the character out. If one reads from the novels, you dont feel annoyed often, (but i still hate that MITJUTSITAI straight from the book) but when one saw it on screens with their dialogues changed as per versions, it is the directors' scene or producers' script that annoying.

sheraldine lim

[Pacifian]

Jin Yong's main goal was to create characters that are believable and are individually unique in their personality (strangely, there are a few of them who are quite static). As such, his characters appeal to the reader as they are not too "way up there" such that readers can understand and the connection between readers and the characters become much closer.

Such characters would definitely have flaws, in order to portray them as ordinary human beings who each had their individual adventures which made them god-like, but nevertheless human all the while. It would be boring if he had characters like that of Gu Long's who all love saying the same old speech over and over again.

[Bai Qi44]

whatever jy's intention or not, CMG definitely irrites me - hehe. but seriously, at times, i think it is the way actors and actresses played the character out. If one reads from the novels, you dont feel annoyed often, (but i still hate that MITJUTSITAI straight from the book) but when one saw it on screens with their dialogues changed as per versions, it is the directors' scene or producers' script that annoying.

sheraldine lim

Wow. I can't believe you're actually posting. You haven't posted in a wuxia forum in how many years now???

Anyway, I do not think the people named so far are anything annoying. Even Kwok Fu isn't that annoying. People who are annoying are people who constantly does the same thing over and over again. I find Duan Yu very annoying cause it seems throughout the novel, all he thinks about is WYY. Yau Tan Chi is annoying cause all he does is follow Ah Chi around.

Oh yeah. I was never a Fann Wong fan. Hell, I always said when she did ROCH, she looked like a 12 year old kid to me. I was a much bigger Athena Chu fan and guess what? I actually got to see her in person at a HK shopping mall. She was still so hot even at 35. And no, I don't get into the YG vs GJ debates anymore. I actually grew quite bored of those ages ago. I meant to reply to you in your pm, but hey I'm a lazy person. Oh yeah. during the time that we've last chatted, I read Romance of the Three Kingdom 6 times, really got into the Warring States era, and gained much knowledge in astronomy (I think I'm quite annoying when it comes to this cause I post astronomy related topics in threads that have nothing to do with astronomy...like this one. )

[sheraldine]

Wow. I can't believe you're actually posting. You haven't posted in a wuxia forum in how many years now???

many many years.... hehe... actually three years i think....

Anyway, I do not think the people named so far are anything annoying. Even Kwok Fu isn't that annoying. People who are annoying are people who constantly does the same thing over and over again. I find Duan Yu very annoying cause it seems throughout the novel, all he thinks about is WYY. Yau Tan Chi is annoying cause all he does is follow Ah Chi around.

Kwok Fu isnt annoying but a spoilt brat! she annoys only when she happens to be at the wrong place and sat/do things at the wrong time...
As for Duen Yu, i didnt know why the adaptation make him such a jerk...but then again, a guy who kept following a girl around is a nuisance even though he is a prince... hehe... ok ok.. in the novel, he supposed to be young, a mere lad compare to KiuFung, and in all fairness and for once a upon a time, one cannot help blame another or help it when hormone/puberty started to kick in when it comes to a fair maiden... WYY is a fair maiden isnt she? though like a piece of wood and i suppose many of us doesnt know which is worse, boy being a jerk or a a girl being the plank! YTC is a character i have problem recalling but never mind him and ah chi.... i dont think their part was written by JY.... or were they?


sheraldine lim

[Bai Qi44]

Kwok Fu isnt annoying but a spoilt brat! she annoys only when she happens to be at the wrong place and sat/do things at the wrong time...
As for Duen Yu, i didnt know why the adaptation make him such a jerk...but then again, a guy who kept following a girl around is a nuisance even though he is a prince... hehe... ok ok.. in the novel, he supposed to be young, a mere lad compare to KiuFung, and in all fairness and for once a upon a time, one cannot help blame another or help it when hormone/puberty started to kick in when it comes to a fair maiden... WYY is a fair maiden isnt she? though like a piece of wood and i suppose many of us doesnt know which is worse, boy being a jerk or a a girl being the plank! YTC is a character i have problem recalling but never mind him and ah chi.... i dont think their part was written by JY.... or were they?


sheraldine lim

The adaptations didn't make DY such a jerk. Even in the novel, he was annoying as hell. I mean when his two brothers were fighting, his eyes gazed over at WYY and noticing that her eyes were fixated on her cousin and he thinks how lucky MRF is. The guy is a stalker to the extreme. I can't stand him.

Yup, Yau Tan Chi was in DGSD and so was Ah Chi. Yau Tan Chi is the guy with the iron mask. Ah Chi is the girl who was obsessed with XF. Since they were both in DGSD, I'm pretty sure JY wrote them. I think your wuxia knowledge is too rusty now. You need more time here.

[sheraldine]

The adaptations didn't make DY such a jerk. Even in the novel, he was annoying as hell. I mean when his two brothers were fighting, his eyes gazed over at WYY and noticing that her eyes were fixated on her cousin and he thinks how lucky MRF is. The guy is a stalker to the extreme. I can't stand him.

hahaha!!! a stalker?!! i suppose nobody could stand that....


Yup, Yau Tan Chi was in DGSD and so was Ah Chi. Yau Tan Chi is the guy with the iron mask. Ah Chi is the girl who was obsessed with XF. Since they were both in DGSD, I'm pretty sure JY wrote them. I think your wuxia knowledge is too rusty now. You need more time here.

iron mask? ah well..... as for ah chi, one of the DY sisters? u r rite, the last time i saw DemiGod was back in the eighties.... heh!

sheraldine

[owbjhx]

So the question is: when Jin Yong created these characters, did he deliberately create them with their distinct personality characteristics KNOWING that at least some of his readers would react negatively to them, or did he design them for maximum appeal to a wide audience and got caught off-guard when some readers didn't embrace those characters?

I'd guess it's sort of a mixture of both. On a basic level, Jin Yong was trying to sell newspapers, so the important thing was to write characters who his audience wanted to read about. But at the same time, he had to differentiate his new stories from his older ones, and his works in general from those of his competitors. In terms of being "annoying", straightforward hero-types like Guo Jing, Zhang Wuji and Xiao Feng would probably be low-risk, with more demanding characters like Yang Guo and Duan Yu being high-risk. Maybe you could say there's a low-risk/high-risk pattern in the early major novels:

* 'She Diao' - GJ (low-risk)
* 'Shen Diao' - YG (high-risk)
* 'Yi Tian' - ZWJ (low-risk)
* TLBB, sort of a Trilogy in itself:
- DY (high-risk)
- XF (low-risk)
- Xuzhu (?)

Perhaps this is like musicians sandwiching their 'experimental' albums in between the poppier ones.

I'd also guess that, as JY's career progressed, he became less commercially-focused and more concerned with leaving a 'literary' legacy, so worries about some section of the readership disliking Linghu Chong and Wei Xiaobao may have been subordinated to the loftier concern of writing 'literature'. All this is conjecture.

There are some characters that are just not meant to be endearing, and their creators are very conscious of this as they develop these characters. For example, Jin Yong wrote characters such as Ah Chi, Gwok Fu, Mit Jeut See Tai, and Ding Mun Gwun knowing (or at least reasonably surmising) that most readers would dislike these characters: they were characters designed so that most readers would hate them.

I'd contest the assertion that JY wrote A'Zi to be "hated" - especially in the 3rd edition. Whatever JY intended with Guo Fu is somewhat less important than the fact that he wrote her incompetently, which is what makes her irritating to me. As for Ding Minjun, does anyone know what happened to her in the 3rd edition? (In 2e, she just seems to disappear. I was hoping she'd get her comeuppance in 3e, but I can't find anything in it.)

[TommyH]

jin yong probably based his characters partially on himself and on those around him.

I wonder who he based Ah Zhi off...

[Felix]

I wonder who he based Ah Zhi off...

The typical little sister who always hanged around with the wrong crowd. You know, virtually half the girls in high school.