Originally Posted by
owbjhx
Li Mochou was a psychopath. Nobody could do the things she did without being, at some level, rather deranged. However, from Jinyong's direct descriptions of her personality, and also from what can be implied from her behaviour, she probably wasn't "filled with hatred and evil" since youth. In fact, I'd argue that JY's depiction of her - as being someone with a rather sentimental side - was kinder than his depiction of, say, Guo Fu. Maybe JY was being indulgent or incorrect, but it's a sympathetic portrayal.
In Chapter 27, JY wrote that LMC "wasn't evil by nature. It was just that, after having her heart broken, she hated the world; her hatred and pain made her eccentric, and her eccentricity in turn made her ruthless, belligerent and violent." LMC's epitaph in Chapter 32 was also similarly understanding. In Chapter 22, Yang Guo - not always the world's most forgiving guy - thought of LMC: "Her behaviour was so vicious and extreme, but this must have been because of a time when she had to go through terrible suffering...he couldn't help feeling a little pity for her."
JY made a point of demonstrating how, under the horrendous, mass-murdering exterior, there was rather a lot of painful humanity. The most obvious example is the whole Guo Xiang episode, but it wasn't the first time she behaved maternally: she did take in Hong Lingbo and Lu Wushuang, after all (admittedly, she ended up sacrificing the former in an act of stupidity, but at least showed remorse about it afterwards - which is more than can be said for certain other characters), and tried to dissuade Gongsun Zhi from poisoning Gongsun Lu'e. She was sentimental, being moved by Cheng Ying's flute-playing and the tale of Feng Mofeng, and admiring YG's devotion to Xiaolongnu. And she liked a good cuddle!
None of this excuses LMC's crimes, but it does suggest she might well have been nice, gentle and demure before something clicked in her head.