The ‘Sun Bu’er phenomenon’
Before I begin explaining what the ‘Sun Bu’er phenomenon’ is, I will begin with a brief introduction of Sun Bu’er.
Sun Bu’er (孫不二 - 清淨散人) was one of the ‘Seven Masters of Quanzhen’; she is also known as the Sage of Tranquillity. She was the last disciple of Central Divinity Wang Chongyang. She was a known sword heroine throughout the realm (ROCH chapter 11) and was the teacher of Cheng Youjia. For an old Taoist priestess she was known to be rather temperamental and judgemental. She was not as open-minded as Ma Yu, Qiu Chuji and Wang Chuyi. Some other facts about the Sage of Tranquillity: She was willing to forget about Yang Guo’s problems with the Quanzhen School and offered him her blade – one of the finest swords available in the realm. However, Yang Guo’s refusal also led to her holding a grudge against him, not very Taoist of her. She was the also most vocal opponent of the Yang Guo and Xiao Longnu marriage in front of Wang Chongyang’s portrait. Ironically, she was the one who accepted their union and was touched by their innocent and pure love, which was rather sweet.
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I liked this picture because of the line that was uttered by Sun Bu'er. Strong words from somebody with 'questionable' skills. This screenshot is from LOCH 1983
The Seven Masters of Quanzhen were portrayed in the early chapters of LOCH as renowned and powerful martial arts experts. It was not till perhaps volume 2 when the readers find out that we have masters like East Heretic, West Venom, South Emperor, North Beggar, Central Divinity, etc. who were the real elite of the martial arts realm. But before that time seemingly there were few people who could equal Qiu Chuji and his fellow martial arts brothers. Even Mei Chaofeng questioned herself whether she was a match for any of those Taoist priests in Mongolia. The Freaks thought that only Mei Chaofeng or Chen Xuanfeng could match Qiu Chuji. Most likely in the beginning Jin Yong had the intention that the martial arts level of the Seven Masters was to be comparable to Chen Xuanfeng and Mei Chaofeng. In the end, the readers found out that maybe only Ma Yu, Qiu Chuji or Wang Chuyi might have been able to match Mei Chaofeng's martial arts level.
Where does Sun Bu’er fit into this, you may ask? Well, Sun Bu’er does not make a lot of appearances in LOCH and ROCH. But she is referenced quite a number of times in both LOCH and ROCH. As mentioned above she and her fellow martial arts brothers were said to be renowned and experienced martial arts experts who had roamed the realm and had fought and encountered many worthy and powerful adversaries (LOCH chapters 6, 34, ROCH chapters 5, 6, 11, 27, 28). So, it is beyond any doubt that Jin Yong intended to portray Sun Bu’er as an established martial arts expert.
However, because she was put down as an established martial arts expert, she usually ended up getting the short end of the stick. Due to her role as a mere and minor supporting character in the novels, her martial arts reputation always had to take numerous blows and injuries – some of them were irreparable. Hence, I used her name to establish the ‘Sun Bu’er phenomenon’.
Let us examine the Sage of Tranquillity’s track record first. First in LOCH she did not make a lot of appearances and there were few references about her martial arts. In chapter 25 of LOCH the author commented that Ouyang Ke had more advanced martial arts training and a higher martial arts proficiency (精純) compared to Sun Bu’er. Due to the fact that Ouyang Ke started training at the age of 5 and Sun Bu’er started her martial arts training only as an adult. But in her defence this does not mean that Ouyang Ke could defeat her, because we have seen this before Zhang Wuji, Yang Guo’s levels were not as 精純 compared to older experts (even weaker opponents; especially in the case of Zhang Wuji’s adversaries). It was in ROCH her martial arts reputation really bore the brunt of these downgrading blows. First of all in chapter 5 of ROCH we learnt that Sun Bu’er was defeated by Li Mochou, however Li cheated and used one of her poisonous ice needles and immediately gave the Quanzhen experts the antidote. Li Mochou wickedly escaped a direct and any further confrontation with the other Quanzhen experts (Liu Chuxuan, Qiu Chuji and Wang Chuyi).
This incident was referenced by Li Mochou in chapter 10. Li was fighting Yelu Qi and she thought:
‘This youngster is very good. His martial arts may not match that of Qiu, Wang and Liu (Liu Chuxuan, Qiu Chuji and Wang Chuyi), but he is certainly not inferior to Sun Bu’er.’
This is in my opinion stretching it a lot. Yelu Qi was taught by Zhou Botong for some years (8 to 10 years). He was not trained intensively by Zhou for many years and Zhou Botong did not teach him a lot of Quanzhen skills (chapter 29). Sun Bu’er was taught by Wang Chongyang for a good many of years. Sun Bu’er was around 70 years old around the time of chapter 10 – 32 of ROCH. She had been training Quanzhen martial arts for perhaps thirty years. Yelu Qi only trained (some) Quanzhen martial arts for only eight years or so and to my certain knowledge he never received any extra freebies (like precious snake blood a la Bai Zizai, Energy Absorbing skills a la Duan Yu or Linghu Chong, special martial arts manuals like Jiuyin or Jiuyang). I do believe that Yelu Qi was more talented than Sun Bu’er, but I do not believe that Zhou Botong could be a better teacher than Wang Chongyang. Secondly, how can someone with only eight years of training in the same martial arts style be equal to a person who was trained by the founder of the style and trained for about 35 to 40 years in this style? Would we believe that Xiao Feng after training Shaolin arts for nine years under the tutelage of reverend Xuanku be as good as some of the weaker Xuan generation Shaolin monks? Could Xiao Feng at the age of 16 (after nine years of Shaolin training) be equal to a Xuan generation monk like Xuantong, Xuansheng? I doubt that very much, as much as I like Xiao Feng but I do not think that would be logical and Jin Yong never wrote something like that either. Nevertheless, Yelu Qi was supposed to be as good as Sun Bu’er by the assessment of Li Mochou. The only reason why I can imagine why Sun’s martial arts were downgraded was to raise Yelu Qi’s martial arts level because Yelu was deemed to be an important character. Sun Bu’er was an established martial arts expert, by making Yelu Qi’s martial arts comparable to her Yelu’s position in the story was raised too. If Jin Yong said that Yelu was better than Zhen Zhibing, Zhao Zhijing or Yin Zhiping there was hardly any awe because the readers will not be that impressed with that feat. So, in a way Sun Bu’er was sacrificed to establish Yelu Qi. As good as Yelu Qi may be for a younger generation fighter, he is not a true player in the realm of martial arts yet. So, therefore Yelu Qi may have risen in ranks, Sun Bu’er definitely was demoted by this.
The list of insults continues. Then in chapter 11 at the first Heroes’ Meeting, Sun Bu’er, for the first time, had a more active role in the story. She witnessed how Yang Guo easily mocked and sealed Zhao Zhijing’s acupoints and was quite angry to hear that Yang Guo managed to portray the Quanzhen School as mere bullies. She unsealed Zhao Zhijing’s sealed acupoints with a swift move. In edition three of ROCH Yang Guo quickly moved away from Sun Bu’er after she helped Zhao because he was afraid of her. He saw that she was vastly superior to Zhao Zhijing, but then Sun Bu’er thought that she may not be able do defeat Yang either. That was another line inserted to boost Yang Guo but at the expense of Sun. Yang Guo could easily deal with any one of the third generation Quanzhen disciples, but in my humble opinion he and Xiao Longnu in chapter 11 were not capable yet of defeating or being equal to any of the Six Masters of Quanzhen. Unfortunately, Jin Yong decided to rub some salt into Sun Bu’er’s wounds, because in chapter 13 of ROCH Xiao Longnu wounded Zhao Zhijing within one stance. After injuring Zhao Zhijing, Sun Bu’er drew her sword and was about to defend the honour of the Quanzhen School. In edition three Jin Yong added that Sun Bu’er drew her sword and was ready to fight Xiao Longnu, but she was also afraid that she would be easily defeated by Xiao Longnu. That was again rather unnecessary; in my opinion these extra lines were added to raise Xiao Longnu’s level, but again dear old Sun Bu’er’s reputation as a martial artist had to suffer. I still stand by that Xiao Longnu could not defeat Sun Bu’er at this point of the book. I would like to remind everyone that Xiao Longnu never really defeated Hao Datong in chapter five of ROCH. Xiao Longnu and Hao Datong knew that it was series of circumstances that lead to Xiao Longnu’s victory over Hao. Personally, I think that the 2006 ROCH adaptation did the scene with Sun Bu’er and Xiao Longnu at the Heroes’ Meeting much better and it was more logical. For those who forgot that scene in the 2006 ROCH adaptation.
The scene was quite the same with Sun Bu’er being angry and drawing her sword. But then Yang Guo intervened and blocked Sun’s sword, Hao Datong chided Yang Guo for being rude to his grandmaster Sun. Yang Guo, who hated Hao Datong with passion, took this opportunity to vent his anger at Hao and claimed that he would use Quanzhen swordplay to kill Hao. This way he would realise Hao’s claim that he was rude to his seniors. Hao and Yang duelled; naturally Hao’s proficiency in Quanzhen swordplay was far above Yang and after only a few bouts Yang was at the losing end. Xiao Longnu immediately jumped in to help out with her Jade Maiden Swordplay, the coincidental combination of Quanzhen and Jade Maiden immediately overwhelmed Hao and Sun Bu’er quickly entered that duel to help her martial arts brother. So the four of them duelled with one another and reached a draw, which was shocking to all four of them; then Guo Jing broke up the fight. At this point Yang Guo and Xiao Longnu had not experimented with their combo attack and it was this preliminary and experimental fight which led to their realisation of combining Quanzhen and Jade Maiden.
This would have made more sense to me; at this point of the story Yang Guo and Xiao Longnu were, logically speaking, not around the level of Hao Datong and Sun Bu’er. Furthermore, this scene paved the way for Yang Guo and Xiao Longnu to experiment and to understand that the Jade Maiden and Quanzhen Swordplay combination is a sophisticated and powerful art.
The injury does not end there, because in chapter 27 of ROCH, there was another reference of Sun Bu’er. Huang Rong and Li Mochou were the most famous female martial arts experts in the realm. Sun Bu’er became famous much earlier than the two of them, but she was stated by the author to be vastly weaker than the two of them. Ouch again…. Adding insult to injury here! I agree that Sun Bu’er should be weaker but vastly weaker than them? That was really rubbing it in.
By now, I think the ‘Sun Bu’er phenomenon’ is quite self-explanatory. An established and renowned martial artist has his martial arts level lowered or compromised unnaturally and/or bizarrely to raise the level of another more important martial arts expert. We see this phenomenon (or variations of it) quite a number of times in Jin Yong’s novels:
- Murong Fu suffered from this phenomenon a few times for other people (Jiumozhi, Duan Yu, Xiao Feng, etc.) or circumstances (The Myriad Immortals’ Meeting).
- In a way reverend Xuannan (the head of Shaolin’s Bodhidharma Hall) had suffered from a variation of this phenomenon. In chapter 30 of DGSD he was defeated by Ding Chunqiu as a rookie; he lost because he was fated to lose (and because Ding Chunqiu was a more important character than him).
- Zhu Ziliu in ROCH was said to be better than experts like Wang Chuyi and Hao Datong. (Personally, I do not agree with this statement, but that is a different story).
- Qiu Qianren in LOCH, despite being described as being as good as any Great he was constantly only marginally better than a 18/19-year old Guo Jing.
However, the ‘Sun Bu’er phenomenon’ is more frequent in Gu Long’s novels. I do not know how many times I had to read about some martial artist with an illustrious history which filled two or more paragraphs. Suddenly, half a page later he is as dead as a dodo and has a dagger in his throat or has his throat pierced by a sword (The Little Flying Dagger Li, indeed!).
Why did I choose to use Sun Bu’er’s name? I like sticking up for the underdog and this is my way of presenting an ELOC. And I think she really did have her martial arts downgraded preposterously. After thirty to forty years of training she is only as good as a child (okay, young man). What is his excuse? None! He neither received any internal power transfers, nor did he receive any special supreme martial arts manuals. Did he learn any energy absorbing skills? No, he just received almost an equivalent training in the same style for perhaps a shorter number of years and he is as good as the Sage of Tranquillity. Yelu Qi, at that point, was never awesome. He was good for his age, but that was it. Having Sun’s level to be around his level does not make a lot of sense. Where would I place Sun Bu’er? Well, I would assess her level to be around Ouyang Ke and the other Jin Empire mercenaries in LOCH and in ROCH I would place her around Huo Du’s level. Hao Datong was repeatedly mentioned to be around Da’erba and Huo Du’s level, so I thought maybe if Hao was around Da’erba and Sun’s level was around that of Huo Du.
Sorry for the long post. I started working on this article years ago (in 2005), but I never had the time and energy to finish it until recently. Just some of my demented ramblings and thoughts years ago.
