Did the blurring of good and evil first surface in ROCH?

[PJ]

The blurring of good and evil, and the theme of fake gentlemen being worse than outright evil ppl (or so labeled by the so called gentlemen), were prominent in HSDS, DGSD, ADS and SPW (and probably DOMD as well, though I'm less familiar). We see a little bit of it in ROCH as well:

-YG and GX were radicals and on the good side -> first time such character showed up in JY universe?
-Their friends, like the ones who came to GX's birthday, were also considered too weird by some, but were shown to be mostly good and upright.
-Certain people from Quanzhen Jiao, a good sect, acted despicably.

In LOCH, HYS is about all I can recall that kinda fits this. In BXJ, JINSHE LANGJUN Xia Xueyi might fit this. The other Pre-ROCH novels, I'm not as familiar with.

Were there more such characters in Pre-ROCH novels?

[ToastedRossi]

It sort of starts in BXJ. He Tieshou was a villain, and she was the leader of an evil Cult, but she wasn't very evil herself. On the other hand, Hua Shan was supposed to be the good guys, but some of them were awful people misusing their powers.

And of course, there's Li Zicheng himself. Everyone pinned their hopes on him to restore righteousness to China, but he squandered all of that and turned out to be as bad or worse than Emperor Chongzhen.

ROCH's innovation is that it pitted the protagonist against the prevailing society.

[PJ]

On the other hand, Hua Shan was supposed to be the good guys, but some of them were awful people misusing their powers.

Do you mean the Gui couple?

[ToastedRossi]

Do you mean the Gui couple?

It's more their students, especially Mei Jianhe. IIRC, she had her finger cut off as a punishment for her misdeeds.

[Doc Kwok]

It's more their students, especially Mei Jianhe. IIRC, she had her finger cut off as a punishment for her misdeeds.

Mei Jianhe was the senior student, and is male - his main problem was a ridiculous degree of arrogance. Liu Peisheng was pretty decent.

The problematic student was Sun Zhongjun, who cut peoples' arms and ears off for next to no reason, and then tried to kill Qingqing again for no good reason. Her most heinous deed was probably slaughtering Hong Shenghai's entire family (including his 70-year old mother, wife and children) with Gui Erniang. I find the fact that they got away with that scot-free is particularly irksome, and a black-mark against most of the Hua-shan members, since they (including Yuan Chengzhi) basically conspired to keep it from their master's attention by dismissing it as 'it was your fault first' (when it was Sun Zhongjun who took the first offensive action) despite internally acknowledging it as a violation of the cardinal rule of not harming innocents.

[PJ]

It's more their students, especially Mei Jianhe. IIRC, she had her finger cut off as a punishment for her misdeeds.

Yes, you're right, Mei and Sun Zhongjun became arrogant, thanks to the Guis' lack of discipline.