Was xln the top female protagonist in the condor trilogy

[juvetb]

There are arguably only 4 contenders for top female protagonist.

let's rule out the first - the yellow-dressed lady in HSDS, due to the inprobability of her surpassing XLN. She is likely younger, and havelesser fight experience and likely less inner power. It is also unlikely that XLN and YG would have been super keen in ensuring their kids have top notch martial arts.

The he second is Huang Rong. This is controversial, because by Skill set, Huang Rong is extremely formidable. Additionally, she is perceived in these forums as far surpassing XLN in intelligence. but let's break these 2 points down.

1) having "mastered" a complete set of powerful martial arts is not a guarantee of success. This might sound counter intuitive, but let's take Yelu Qi, who mastered the entire set of XL18Z. He was hardly setting the world alight with his martial arts. Similarly, Lu Youjiao would have picked up the skills of the Dog Beating Stick, yet can hardly be considered a top pugilist. While it is generally accepted that Each beggar sect leader would have some proficiency in DBS, it is not clear, and less believable that HR might have attained the highest level of DBS as H7G, which was eventually broken by OYF. We should also consider that HR did not have a natural liking for Martial Arts, and might not have trained super hard at it. Finally, I thougth empirical evidence was important. HR won only one major fight alone, vs LMC, whom she tricked.

in contrast, XLN is likely to have mastered hug proficiency in the Jade Maiden Sutra; furthermore, with L/r proficiency, she is able to wield the stances of both parts of the jade Maiden. She was also described to have exceptional lightness kungfu. Most strongly, she demonstrated her abilities empirically, especially in the fight against GWM and friends at QuanZhen, where both her opponents and the onlookers were stunned at her skill. GWM alone is stronger than LMC at all points of the story, but he had 3 additional allies, each stronger than a QZ elder.

2) HR was described to be exceedingly smart, and it is her smarts that people bank on to propel her to beat XLN. My sense is that this is inaccurate on 2 counts. First, XLN was simple minded and unfamiliar with worldly affairs. However, she was not stupid (and was never shown to be stupid in the book). Second and more importantly, intelligence and fighting abilities are 2 different cognitive measures. Indeed, the irony would be that if intleliengece was such a crucial factor, wouldn't GJ, explicitly described as slow, suffer? Yet GJ was a top pugilist, because he had great fighting sense. XLN might not match GJ in fighting know-how, but she demonstrated great resourcefulness in her fights against GWM. Other examples could be HYS vs say H7G. HYS was definitely an intellectual genius, as is his daughter. yet he was never able to outwit H7G despite his superior brainpower, even if they were roughly equal in all parts of the story till Hong's death. If the skills were comparable and the theory of great intellect holds, wouldn't Huang have an advantage over Hong?

so the real question is, was XLN Bette than her master, Lin Chaoying? As creator of ancient tomb martial arts, Lin must be a martial arts genius. However, my own take was that because of L/R proficiency, XLN would be able to exceed LiN as she would be able to accomplish what Lin cannot be proven to be capable of.

thogughts?

[Ken Cheng]

I do not believe Little Dragon Girl surpassed the founder of her sect, Lam Chiu Ying. Little Dragon Girl's greatest weakness was always her relative lack of inner power, a weakness she never rectified and that was not a problem for Lam Chiu Ying. Lam Chiu Ying was able to stalemate Central Divinity Wong Chung Yeung, a feat that I cannot see Little Dragon Girl duplicating.

[Riverlake]

XLN was never better than LCY. LCY is the most powerful female character in LOCH, ROCH, and HSDS. She created the skills that XLN learned. XLN never created anything on her own. LCY was a genius of the art, and besides DGSD - where everyone is ridiculously stronger than everyone else in other novels - the top female character in all of Jin Yong's novels.

[Mandred Skavenslayer]

Off topic, but how good was Qiu Qianchi's Martial Arts?

Before her crippling she was easily more powerful than her husband, who was no slouch himself. Her ability to turn date pips into deadly missiles shows an impressive level of Qi power and during the fight between YG, XLN and Gongsun Zhi her contribution was decisive. So if in ROCH QQC was on top form how highly would she be rated?

[juvetb]

Oh I missed out a super formidable lady in the condor trilogy: Guo xiang.

It'd be interesting and dare I say impossible to compare between LCy, XLN, and gx. We only ever knew got a description of how well xln went.