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Thread: Lin Yuantu brain fart/plot device/loophole

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    Senior Member CC's Avatar
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    Default Lin Yuantu brain fart/plot device/loophole

    Now, I think it is safe to assume that Lin Yuantu was mentally strong enough to resist having KHBD/BXJF turn him into a crazy genderbender like DFBB. (since no mention of anyone in Jianghu or Lin family took any notice of him being weird).

    He was also sane enough to put the decree that Lin descendants should not practice BXJF (probably understood that without his degree of training/monkhood experience, they would go nuts without their nuts.

    Since Lin was already an accomplished martial artist, why did he not create or leave some better orthodox martial art for his descendants? He left them with nothing but a big reputation and a useless set of 72 stroke sword art. That's like a recipe for disaster!
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    Senior Member Mandred Skavenslayer's Avatar
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    True, but apart from KHBD the only martial arts LYT was knew were Shaolin martial arts, which he could not teach his descendants. Conceivably he could have invented something of his own, but that would again have had to based on either Shaolin or KHBD the only arts he knew.

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    How did he come up with the 72 sword strokes? Wouldn't he had to base it on some shaolin swordskill?

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    Senior Member Mandred Skavenslayer's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Stance View Post
    How did he come up with the 72 sword strokes? Wouldn't he had to base it on some shaolin swordskill?
    The 72 strokes were quite simple, so he could have just invented them from the basic principals from swordplay in general.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Mandred Skavenslayer View Post
    True, but apart from KHBD the only martial arts LYT was knew were Shaolin martial arts, which he could not teach his descendants. Conceivably he could have invented something of his own, but that would again have had to based on either Shaolin or KHBD the only arts he knew.
    Given that Southern Shaolin was destroyed, I don't see who is going to come after the Lin family for learning their arts.

    Also, Lin was supposedly quite the genius, even if he couldn't create a great level art, he could have given his family something, anything which was better than the 72 crap strokes. Even something like Songshan or Huashan internal/external would have made a big difference.

    Imagine if the Lin family had a martial arts prodigy like Guo Jing or Yang Guo. With only the 72 strokes external, they would be paste.

    Also, thinking back that Lin Yuantu had probably many years of KHBD + he seemingly controlled himself better than DFBB, it is very likely he was even stronger than DFBB. Which would be quite staggering.
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    Senior Member Mandred Skavenslayer's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by CC View Post
    Given that Southern Shaolin was destroyed, I don't see who is going to come after the Lin family for learning their arts.

    Also, Lin was supposedly quite the genius, even if he couldn't create a great level art, he could have given his family something, anything which was better than the 72 crap strokes. Even something like Songshan or Huashan internal/external would have made a big difference.

    Imagine if the Lin family had a martial arts prodigy like Guo Jing or Yang Guo. With only the 72 strokes external, they would be paste.

    Also, thinking back that Lin Yuantu had probably many years of KHBD + he seemingly controlled himself better than DFBB, it is very likely he was even stronger than DFBB. Which would be quite staggering.
    Whether Shaolin was destroyed or not is irrelevant as LYT had enough respect for his master to listen to him when he advised him not to pass BXJF on. This same respect would also stop him teaching Shaolin's art to his family as it is considered a great insult to teach the art without getting express permission from your own master.

    LYT only had a few days with a copy of KHBD not years and BXJF was merely the parts of the KHBD he managed to remember, then added the 72 strokes to cover it up. To create something completely new and on a par with already established schools is very difficult, even a bona fide genius like Zhang Sanfeng took many decades of near isolation. LYT had to run a business he could not hide himself for decades and come up with something amazing from scratch.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Mandred Skavenslayer View Post
    LYT only had a few days with a copy of KHBD not years and BXJF was merely the parts of the KHBD he managed to remember, then added the 72 strokes to cover it up.
    If this is the case then KHBD is more complete than BXJF but KHBD required great understanding of martial art in order to practice. While BXJF is not as complete but LYT already explain the difficulty of the subject to the so the practitioner can easily understand. If LYT did not want his descendant to practice BXJF, why did he not destroy it before he passed away? Why did he leave a copy behind?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Mandred Skavenslayer View Post
    Whether Shaolin was destroyed or not is irrelevant as LYT had enough respect for his master to listen to him when he advised him not to pass BXJF on. This same respect would also stop him teaching Shaolin's art to his family as it is considered a great insult to teach the art without getting express permission from your own master.

    LYT only had a few days with a copy of KHBD not years and BXJF was merely the parts of the KHBD he managed to remember, then added the 72 strokes to cover it up. To create something completely new and on a par with already established schools is very difficult, even a bona fide genius like Zhang Sanfeng took many decades of near isolation. LYT had to run a business he could not hide himself for decades and come up with something amazing from scratch.
    LYT took 2 incomprehensible X + Y parts and made something workable out of it. Wrote it down and his Huashan manuscript became the DFBB KHBD.

    He then made his own version called PXJF. Who is to say a guy smart enough to put X + Y together couldn't after some more contemplation, gain a better understanding and then write something better. To put the 2 parts together, he already showed a high level understanding of KHBD.
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    Quote Originally Posted by CC View Post
    LYT took 2 incomprehensible X + Y parts and made something workable out of it. Wrote it down and his Huashan manuscript became the DFBB KHBD.

    He then made his own version called PXJF. Who is to say a guy smart enough to put X + Y together couldn't after some more contemplation, gain a better understanding and then write something better. To put the 2 parts together, he already showed a high level understanding of KHBD.
    The Mount Hou brothers asked him for advise and he helped them rectify some of the inconsistencies. Yes his understanding of Martial Arts was greater than their's, but that does not prove he was a genius. The problem with coming up with something new is you need a broad understanding of Martial Arts to start with. LYT only had Shaolin and KHBD to draw on. Social convention prevented him from using the former and his own promise stopped him from using the latter.

    Given three or four decades of isolation, maybe he could have come up with something, but he did not have this.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Mandred Skavenslayer View Post
    The Mount Hou brothers asked him for advise and he helped them rectify some of the inconsistencies. Yes his understanding of Martial Arts was greater than their's, but that does not prove he was a genius. The problem with coming up with something new is you need a broad understanding of Martial Arts to start with. LYT only had Shaolin and KHBD to draw on. Social convention prevented him from using the former and his own promise stopped him from using the latter.

    Given three or four decades of isolation, maybe he could have come up with something, but he did not have this.
    That's not even my point. If he could make out 2 fragments into something usable (KHBD) for Huashan, why would his own understanding (i.e. BXJF) be necessary lower? If anything it should be higher.

    Its like 2 guys come to me asking to solve a maths theorem they been arguing with. I solve it for them, write it down. Would a version I wrote down for myself a week later be worse?
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    Quote Originally Posted by CC View Post
    That's not even my point. If he could make out 2 fragments into something usable (KHBD) for Huashan, why would his own understanding (i.e. BXJF) be necessary lower? If anything it should be higher.

    Its like 2 guys come to me asking to solve a maths theorem they been arguing with. I solve it for them, write it down. Would a version I wrote down for myself a week later be worse?
    Yet what evidence is there the the 2 parts of the KHBD was unusable? Just because the Mount Hua brothers had trouble understanding it does not mean their copy was no good, just that they had limited understanding of it. Even if LYT's BXJF was neater than the copy of KHBD, it does not mean it was of a higher level.

    Besides even if LYT could have remembered the bulk of KHBD it does not mean he could come up with a completely new form of Martial Arts capable of rivalling established schools. Lin Pingzhi memorized the entirety of BXJF in a few days, does that mean he was Martial Arts genius?

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    DFBB's copy of KHBD came from LYT's interpretation of the 2 halves, so his BXJF should be on par if not better than DFBB's KHBD, after having some time to refined it.
    Last edited by Stance; 10-10-17 at 05:49 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by CC View Post
    LYT took 2 incomprehensible X + Y parts and made something workable out of it. Wrote it down and his Huashan manuscript became the DFBB KHBD.

    He then made his own version called PXJF. Who is to say a guy smart enough to put X + Y together couldn't after some more contemplation, gain a better understanding and then write something better. To put the 2 parts together, he already showed a high level understanding of KHBD.
    I have heard this interpretation many times on this board, but as far as I can see, there is no textual support for it. The business about there being two mutually dependent halves was only mentioned at the beginning of chapter 30, then never referred to again (despite multiple practitioners having overcome the problem without a single mention as to how - it seems like Jinyong simply forgot about this plot point). The two brothers asked for clarification about portions of KHBD - no mention of incompatible halves at all. LYT definitely didn't write anything down for them, but scribbled what he could recall on his sash afterwards.

    As for how much of LYT's explanations made it into the Huashan copy, and how much of the manual it comprised - it could be anywhere from 0 to 100%, as it was not stated exactly when they wrote the manual, or what they put into it. The Huashan brothers definitely had more access to the original material - FZ stated that there was bound to be generational loss from the brothers to LYT (不過嶽蔡二人所記的,本來便已不多,經過這麼一轉述,不免又打了折扣). He also seemed to think that PXJF was derived from the incomplete Huashan manual (辟邪劍法是從《葵花寶典》殘本中悟出來的武功), which implies that the manual was completed before LYT's visit.

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    what is the real reason LYT retired from shaolin just to learn incomplete KHBD ?
    are shaolin martial arts inferior to KHBD ?

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    Quote Originally Posted by serdtje View Post
    what is the real reason LYT retired from shaolin just to learn incomplete KHBD ?
    are shaolin martial arts inferior to KHBD ?
    Shaolin Arts are a complicated case. They are far better and even mastering a few arts (>10 out of 72) can easily make the practitioner elite level. But they are apparently quite hard to learn (they require some sort of enlightenment but as monks become more enlightened they got less desire to fight thus creating a paradox) and only a monk from pre-DSGD era managed to learn 23 out of 72. Sweeper Monk is a possibility and Jiu Mozhi only learned a superficial version.
    In short, LYT took a shortcut since he apparently isn't enlightened enough to learn the essence of 72 arts, but he did pay homage by creating exactly 72 strokes of his own.

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    I think he believed that the armed escort agency he created would be huge and strong enough to protect his family I guess.

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    Looking back it does seems unreasonable. Wang Chong Yang, knowing non of his 7 disciples are capable of defending against OYF and other greats, left them the Great Dipper Formation.

    Lin Yuantu obviously cares about the 'family line', hence his will. He is also extremely talented.

    He definitely could have left them some better martial arts even if it weren't Great LV tier.

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    Quote Originally Posted by serdtje View Post
    what is the real reason LYT retired from shaolin just to learn incomplete KHBD ?
    are shaolin martial arts inferior to KHBD ?
    Elite martial arts of Shaolin are better than KHBD but required lot of knowledge and decades of training to be an elite fighter. On the other hand, KHBD provides a big boost in a short period of time.

    Quote Originally Posted by hyoyatika View Post
    I think he believed that the armed escort agency he created would be huge and strong enough to protect his family I guess.
    Yeah, it could be. He simply put them in a vulnerable position.

    Quote Originally Posted by WuxiaMaster View Post
    Looking back it does seems unreasonable. Wang Chong Yang, knowing non of his 7 disciples are capable of defending against OYF and other greats, left them the Great Dipper Formation.

    Lin Yuantu obviously cares about the 'family line', hence his will. He is also extremely talented.

    He definitely could have left them some better martial arts even if it weren't Great LV tier.
    He was genius in martial art and already an elite fighter of Shaolin prior to KHBD. He could have created something new based on martial art of Shaolin. The 72 strokes of Bixie he left for his family is simply useless. He should know better.

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