Seung Gwoon Gum Hung - most psychologically complex wuxia villain ever?

[Ken Cheng]

The typical wuxia villain is motivated by lust for power. They pursue great martial arts, wealth, or political influence so that they can have power to bend others to their will. Typically, this is done by using a combination of brute force and deceit to kill or intimidate their enemies.

Seung Gwoon Gum Hung of Gu Long's SENTIMENTAL SWORDSMAN, RUTHLESS SWORD has power aplenty. In his wulin, no one can truly threaten his power (not even Lee Chum Foon). Unlike most wuxia villains, Seung Gwoon Gum Hung rarely directly used his martial arts to enforce his will upon others. Instead, Seung Gwoon Gum Hung seemed to enjoy playing mind games against his enemies. Ah Fei, Lam Sin Yee, Ging Mo Meng, Lung Siu Wan - during SSRS, we saw Seung Gwoon Gum Hung play psychological games against all of them at various times. Seung Gwoon Gum Hung's martial arts were so powerful that he could have killed any of these people through physical force quite easily, but he preferred to not kill any of them...instead playing mind games with them that intimidated them and weakened their willpower and planted self-doubt in their minds without any overt threat of physical force.

The thing is, Seung Gwoon Gum Hung seemed to enjoy playing these mindgames more than anything. It's not that wealth and power meant nothing to him; he had accumulated plenty of these goods, but he seemed to be driven more by being able to psychologically dominate his opponents than anything. Wealth and martial arts seemed to only be tools through which he achieved psychological domination of his enemies, and he seemed to achieve more through clever and canny emotional manipulation and intimidation than through his powerful martial arts.

No other wuxia villain that I'm aware of does this...at least not as elegantly as Seung Gwoon Gum Hung. He's a villain, and he's evil, but there's a twisted nobility about him that you almost have to admire.

[mawguy]

i think Happy King from the mo-lam ngoi-si (wulin waishi) books could give him a run for his money. considering that sum long (shen lang) is supposedly the smartest guy in the GL world and barely survives the confrontation, this means that Happy King is at least on par with Seung-Koon Kam Hung, if not more superior.

Happy King did trick the most reknowned heroes of the day to abandon their families and disciples in pursuit of a treasure trove and a re-discovered martial arts manual, both of which turned out to be bogus and caused the death of practically every major player in the MA world at the time. there was a huge void for more than a decade before sum long came onto the scene and agreed to help defeat him.

Siu Yiu Hau of the Siu Sap-Yat Long (xiao shiyi lang) stories was also a formidable opponent. while he may be remembered more for the MA skills he had, he did have that puppet house that played some horrible mind games with SSYL and Sum Pik Kwan before they finally escaped.

[kwekmh]

I believe Shen Lang did not really lose to Happy King. My memory might be a bit messed up, as I watched the adaptation only after I have read the novel. But from what I can recall, Bai Fei Fei was the one who sabotaged Shen Lang.

Sorry if I am wrong.

[mawguy]

I believe Shen Lang did not really lose to Happy King. My memory might be a bit messed up, as I watched the adaptation only after I have read the novel. But from what I can recall, Bai Fei Fei was the one who sabotaged Shen Lang.

Sorry if I am wrong.

no, you're correct. i didn't mean to imply that shen lang lost to happy king, but there was a point in the story where things could have gone badly for him, and it wasn't just smooth-sailing. and yes, shen lang was outdone by a girl. :P

[kwekmh]

no, you're correct. i didn't mean to imply that shen lang lost to happy king, but there was a point in the story where things could have gone badly for him, and it wasn't just smooth-sailing. and yes, shen lang was outdone by a girl. :P

Which is much worse than losing to Happy King. At least Happy King was the strongest villain in the novel; I don't remember Shen Lang losing to Bai Fei Fei in any aspect. =P

[mawguy]

I don't remember Shen Lang losing to Bai Fei Fei in any aspect. =P

the fact that she drugged then seduced him...then later on left him tied-up in the desert...

good thing he had friends; otherwise, he'd've become a well-preserved mummy lost in the sands of time...

[Ken Cheng]

Seung Gwoon Gum Hung is becoming one of my favorite all-time wuxia villains. He really does the whole "evil" thing with a greater sense of style and sophistication than almost any other wuxia villain.

"I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die." That was a line from a classic country and western song by Johnny Cash, and the song sort of defined Cash's outlaw singing persona. The line also could be used to define Seung Gwoon Gum Hung's character.

Seung Gwoon Gum Hung isn't one of those villains whose evil is somehow "justified" through some sort of past suffering or vengeance or even conventional-style villainous ambition; he just f*cks with people because he can. That's the *ultimate* evil.

Seung Gwoon Gum Hung had absolutely nothing to gain in terms of power, prestige, or wealth when he f*cked with characters such as Ah Fei, Ging Mo Meng, the Lung Siu Wan father and son, Lam Sin Yee, etc. To him, none of these people mattered. He didn't hate any of them, nor did f*cking with them gain him anything tangible. He f*cked with them just because he COULD.

Seung Gwoon Gum Hung reminds me of the DC Comics villain Darkseid who, when written well (as by his creator Jack Kirby and by modern comics scribe Grant Morrison), gives off the same kind of vibe.

Gu Long created one classic of a villain in Seung Gwoon Gum Hung. I can't think of a Jin Yong villain who can match him in sheer evilness.

[BlackRaven]

Me too, I think SGJH is an interesting villain. Ambitious like a dynasty founding emperor, with the ruthlessness required to succeed, and like Ken said he was evil yet noble and sophisticated.

Gu Long created one classic of a villain in Seung Gwoon Gum Hung. I can't think of a Jin Yong villain who can match him in sheer evilness.

I agree that he is one of the most interesting villains, I especially like his dealings with the 12 years old Long Xiao Yun. But he is not as evil as say the treacherous main villain from Ming Jian Feng Liu (sword and exquiseteness)

SGJH usually gives people a choice and the possibility to stay alive, such as with his "stay in your circle with the gold coin on your head for a while and you can live"

He did not kill Lu FengXian either, an instance where he displayed his adeptness at psychological warfare.

He also spared old Long Xiao Yun (LXY) because SGJH was impressed by little Long Xiao Yun's courage and filial piety.

And when he opened the stomach of mr. Ximen who attended the brotherhood ceremony between SGJH and LXY, he clearly said that if his experiment to find food in Ximen's stomach (a liar who claimed that he was full and was not hungry) failed, SGJH would pay with his own life.

He felt bad when he saw his dead son, and he spared Li XunHuan during that day because he admired LXH for being intelligent enough to understand that SGJH was stronger than usual due to discovering that his son died.

SGJH strikes me as someone who would never use poison, when he kills someone he always gives them a chance to fight back, and that attitude carried down to his student Jing Wuming too.

[Ken Cheng]

All these years later, and I still think Seung Gwoon Gum Hung is a strong candidate for the greatest wuxia villain ever: he is the living embodiment of nihilism.