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Thread: Did Jin Yong lose patience with letting his protagonists' martial arts grow gradually

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    Moderator Ken Cheng's Avatar
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    Default Did Jin Yong lose patience with letting his protagonists' martial arts grow gradually

    Discounting Chan Ga Lok of BOOK & SWORD: GRATITUDE & REVENGE, who first appeared as a fully-developed martial arts master, Gwok Jing was the first major hero in Jin Yong's canon whose martial arts development the audience followed from humble beginnings to eventual greatness. At the end of LOCH, twenty-year old Gwok Jing was the world's seventh best fighter, but it was generally known that he was still only 60 - 70% as good as the Greats, and would not reach parity with them until he was in his thirties. That's a good, gradual procession that makes a certain amount of sense.

    The next protagonist, Yeung Gor of ROCH, reached parity with the Greats at around age twenty...and with surprising abruptness. Only a good fighter when he lost his arm to Gwok Fu (probably considerably less than 70% of a Great), all it took was about a month of consuming snake organs and training with Dook Goo Kau Bai's Heavy Iron Sword to bring him to parity with the Greats, defeating two of them (the Golden Wheel Monk and Kau Cheen Yan) in short order.

    Cheung Mo Gei of HSDS also reached Greats-level in his twenties, although unlike Yeung Gor's strange quantum leap, Cheung Mo Gei's advances came through an uninterrupted five-year period of constant training with the best internal energy method available in wulin at the time, and was tempered by the fact that despite his incredible power, Cheung never had the sharpest combat instincts.

    Ling Wu Chung of SPW went from being a good fighter (like young Yeung Gor) to near-Elite level with the addition of Dook Goo 9 Swords to his repertoire.

    Finally, we get to DGSD, where the quickness of advancement from zero to hero reached ridiculous new heights: Deun Yu went from a complete non-martial artist to being the world's third or fourth strongest practitioner of internal energy within just a few months. Hui Juk's case was even more jaw-dropping, going from extremely weak fighter to perhaps the second most powerful fighter in the Jin Yong canon after the Janitor Monk almost *instantaneously* after power transfers from the Siu Yiu Sect Elders.

    It's almost as if Jin Yong got progressively impatient with letting his protagonists develop their skills at a believable, gradual rate and grew increasingly liberal about granting them elite-level martial arts sooner and with less fuss.

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    maybe he felt it would please readers more. You tend to get a thrill when a noob learns super martial arts and gets to pwn people that he normally can't, people who wreck havoc and talk trash all the time.

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    Senior Member CC's Avatar
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    Its variety. If every single JY novel followed the pacing and plot of GJ's development, we'd get bored of em double quick.

    And I DISAGREE with you on DGSD being the fastest in advancement. If you had to read thru the first few chapters of Duan Yu's pansy antics before Xiao Feng arrives, you'd wish the arse kickery would arrive faster.
    Last edited by CC; 09-07-09 at 05:34 AM.
    Its BIxie Jianfa Gawdammit you guys!!!!

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    Senior Member Linda's Avatar
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    i thought YG was reasonable, wasn't it stated his method of learning internal energy from the Ancient Tomb thread and natural 'smartness' enabled him to learn much quicker?

    i thought GJ internal energy leap was much faster, he had that snake blood very close to the begining of the story while YG stayed almost same level until at least midway when he got his arm chopped off.

    i think i talked about this somewhere...in the mainland HSDS, ROCH and LOCH thread.

    I wholeheartedly agree though...jin yong did lose patients. most of his heros advance way to quickly.

    the only reason GJ and YG seemed less hurried was because they had the constant presence of the greats on their back.

    DGSD was a joke...i still can't believe you can just download and install internal energy like that. anyone watched White Dragon with Cecilia Cheung and Francis Ng? same thing happened, she used broadband connection. lol.
    Currently in love with Bae Suzy...for superficial reasons.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Linda View Post
    i thought YG was reasonable, wasn't it stated his method of learning internal energy from the Ancient Tomb thread and natural 'smartness' enabled him to learn much quicker?

    i thought GJ internal energy leap was much faster, he had that snake blood very close to the begining of the story while YG stayed almost same level until at least midway when he got his arm chopped off.
    Yang Guo's basic martial arts didn't improve exponentially, except for the heavy sword, which was an uber weapon, and an uber technique that used it. His improvement was a little like Guo Jing before and after learning the dragon subduing palms, except that Yang Guo understaood his technique more. There's an incident where Yang Guo broke Guo Fu's sword with his sleeve, but other than that, whenever Yang Guo used martial arts other than the heavy sword, he didn't seem particularly strong, eg. when he used the divine flicking finger on Guo Fu's sword, he had less effect than Cheng Ying. I'd say it was later, when he had discarded the heavy sword and moved on to more abstract ways of controlling his strength, that he became a powerhouse.

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    Senior Member Ian Liew's Avatar
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    Yuan Chengzhi also started off pretty powerful, and although he had some improvement when he learned Golden Snake Sword, that also happened fairly early in the story. You'll have to discount him and Chen Jialuo together (as the first two novels) for that theory.

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    Senior Member Son of Light's Avatar
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    Well, people just want to the hero do awesome thing.
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    Senior Member PJ's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ian Liew View Post
    Yuan Chengzhi also started off pretty powerful, and although he had some improvement when he learned Golden Snake Sword, that also happened fairly early in the story. You'll have to discount him and Chen Jialuo together (as the first two novels) for that theory.
    When first introduced, Chengzhi was just a kid.
    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?」

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    Senior Member PJ's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ken Cheng View Post
    It's almost as if Jin Yong got progressively impatient with letting his protagonists develop their skills at a believable, gradual rate and grew increasingly liberal about granting them elite-level martial arts sooner and with less fuss.
    For DGSD, I believe JY was trying to illustrate that the more you want something, the more you can't have it; the less you want something, the more you can attain it. Yes, it's comical how he made DY and XZ so powerful so "easily" and quickly, but it gets to the point.
    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?」

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