Guo Jing/Yang Guo v Zhang Sanfeng/Zhang Wuji

[Ken Cheng]

Zhang Wuji was around par with Zhou Ziruo (and even found her jiu yin zhen jin hard to manage)

Chow Chi Yerk wasn't even close. She was only about at the level of one of the Mo Dong 7 Heroes. Her martial arts *looked* powerful because they were vicious and unusual, but if Cheung Mo Gei really wanted to, he could have crushed her like an insect any time he wanted.

[TommyH]

ZWJ should be around Great-level (matching with either GJ or YG). And Z3F should be a bit above Great-level so I voted for ZWJ/Z3F.

[immakiku]

I think the premise of this thread is that slight differences in skill is insignificant and that the way the duos can work as a pair is the deciding factor. I think Z3F alone will find a way to work well with ZWJ, and ZWJ's QKDNY will help him see what Z3F's doing to help him and make the best of it.

Against an ROCH Great, it'd be extremely difficult for Cheung Mo Gei (who might outclass them slightly in inner power, but only match them at best in techniques and suffer a tremendous disadvantage in battle experience and fighters' mental affinity) to identify and then exploit any weaknesses.

It's great that you've put a name to the mental difference between fighters of a similar/equal class; and I see that you keep using that word. But I do not think it means, what you think it means. I'd much rather call it mental rigor or mental resolve. But either way putting a name to it is better than describing it in detail every time we want to talk about "mental affinity".

[MysteriouX]

Hmm GJ+YG vs ZSF+ZWJ, in my opinion, as some people already wrote

1> GJ+YG have both a balance in experience and skills while with ZSF+ ZWJ, ZSF has far more experience and ZWJ has powerful skills but doesn't have the experience to use them efficiently. But I also think ZSF's own level is superior to either GJ or YG. So I think its more like for GJ and YG (5+5) while for ZSF and ZWJ (7+3) which both total 10.

So which ever side wins, they will win by a very narrow margin, a pyrrhic victory, and most likely the victor will end up being seriously injured too.


However I think we should also ask ourselves this:

"If all things being equal, and that all the characters have enough time and lifespan, which character is most likely to reach the pinacle of martial arts (e.g. where everything comes from nothing) first? Who would have the ability to grasp the deepest understanding of martial arts?"
(not just GJ, YG, ZSF, ZWJ, add any martial arts character from any Wuxia writer you like, good or evil no matter what. Uhh of course DGQB is excluded from this question as JY seemed to have implied he reached the highest stage of swordsmanship.)

[immakiku]

Why do people insist that the victors will have heavy injuries? GJ/YG and Z3F/ZWJ are all reasonable, orthodoxed people. I think any kind of fight between the groups will be set like a competition. Even if the teams are opposed to each other, considering their characters, they would most likely not even kill the defeated team. Think pre-16 YG vs JLGS, ZWJ on Guang Ming Ding.

[Ken Cheng]

Why do people insist that the victors will have heavy injuries? GJ/YG and Z3F/ZWJ are all reasonable, orthodoxed people. I think any kind of fight between the groups will be set like a competition. Even if the teams are opposed to each other, considering their characters, they would most likely not even kill the defeated team. Think pre-16 YG vs JLGS, ZWJ on Guang Ming Ding.

It depends on how serious the four combatants are about winning. If it's like North Beggar Hung 7 Gung and West Poison Au Yeung Fung on Mt. Hua during ROCH, it really could get lethal. If it's more like the two official Mt. Hua Sword Tournaments, however, they'll back off before anybody is seriously hurt.

[Ken Cheng]

Well, contrary to that 9:1 ratio on that other forum's poll, we've got a dead heat here.

[immakiku]

It depends on how serious the four combatants are about winning. If it's like North Beggar Hung 7 Gung and West Poison Au Yeung Fung on Mt. Hua during ROCH, it really could get lethal. If it's more like the two official Mt. Hua Sword Tournaments, however, they'll back off before anybody is seriously hurt.

Yea that's what I'm saying. Do you see any of these four characters being as "Hao Sheng" (Hou Sing especially for you Ken ) - English "tendency to want to outdo others)? These are not the type of characters who would kill or lose their lives over nothing. It'd have to be something like fighting for the fate of the nation to get them to kill each other. And since they're all allied to the same nation ...

[Ken Cheng]

Yea that's what I'm saying. Do you see any of these four characters being as "Hao Sheng" (Hou Sing especially for you Ken ) - English "tendency to want to outdo others)? These are not the type of characters who would kill or lose their lives over nothing. It'd have to be something like fighting for the fate of the nation to get them to kill each other. And since they're all allied to the same nation ...

At the same time, however, if they don't go all out, we might not get a true measure of who is superior (because one or more of the fighters will be holding something back). That's why, in Gu Long's universe, Sai Mun Chui Sheut and Yip Goo Sing knew that it would be impossible for both of them to survive their duel.

[Wu Wudi]

The collective might of Dao Ngak, Dao Geep, and Dao Ngan could conceivably equal that of an ROCH Great, but multi-person formations have an inherent exploitable weakness that a single great fighter doesn't: the weakest link problem. Cheung Mo Gei had all kinds of trouble with the Shaolin senior trio, but understood that the key to defeating them would be to attack their weakest link and break their formation. Once the weakest link is down and the formation is broken, it's just a matter of time.

That's harder to do against a single great fighter. There is no "weakest link," per se; you need to identify and capitalize on weaknesses in his technique. Against an ROCH Great, it'd be extremely difficult for Cheung Mo Gei (who might outclass them slightly in inner power, but only match them at best in techniques and suffer a tremendous disadvantage in battle experience and fighters' mental affinity) to identify and then exploit any weaknesses.

You made good observations about the weaknessess of a multi-person formation but in the 3 monks and the quanzhen 7 daoists' cases, I think that JY makes it clear that it was a strength to have multiple people and not a weakness because they worked so well together. Especially in the case of the 3 monks, there was not a weak link because whenever one was attacked, the other two would time a counterattack perfectly. There was no weakness in the 3 monks' fighting style, the only way to be them was to be even more powerful. In the case of monks, it wasn't 1+1+1=3, their increase in power together was more exponential.

I agreed that Cheung Mo Gei does suffer from a lack of battle experience compared to GJ and YG because the only really elite foes he had were the 3 monks. CMG/ZWJ is also by far the most merciful fighter and almost got himself killed several times because he got sneak attacked by people that he spared. In a fight against GJ/YG, this mercy might hurt him.

In terms of technique, ZWJ might end up being far greater than GJ and YG. At first, I thought that GJ/YG would have an edge on ZWJ because of their versatile backgrounds. But I just remember that at the end, ZWJ also received the complete copy of the 9yin manual, making him the only person other than GJ to have the 9yin manual. With the combination of yin and yan, and Z3F's Tai Chi, it's not hard to fathom that ZWJ might even beat both YG and GJ by himself. If you're just talking about the characters during the time in the book then ZWJ might be weaker than YG or GJ but logically, n terms of how they'll progress, it would seem that ZWJ would attain a much higher level than both of them.

Of course GJ still possess the dual-hand technique and YG the iron sword techiques, but a 9yin + 9yan combination is probably near invincible which is probably why JY waited till the end for ZWJ to gain posession of the 9yin manual.
I'm still not quite sure who would win a fight but I just think that ZWJ is severly overrated by some people on this board. It's clear that JY meant for the 9yin and 9yan martials arts to be at the pinnacle of what martial arts can reach, and someone with the posession of both arts can probably jump over the ocean.

[Wu Wudi]

Chow Chi Yerk wasn't even close. She was only about at the level of one of the Mo Dong 7 Heroes. Her martial arts *looked* powerful because they were vicious and unusual, but if Cheung Mo Gei really wanted to, he could have crushed her like an insect any time he wanted.

Actually, JY said that Chow was quite a bit less powerful than the 7 heroes and that if she fought any one of them again, she would be beaten easily because she would no longer have the element of suprise with her unorthodox moves.

[Wu Wudi]

Yea that's what I'm saying. Do you see any of these four characters being as "Hao Sheng" (Hou Sing especially for you Ken ) - English "tendency to want to outdo others)? These are not the type of characters who would kill or lose their lives over nothing. It'd have to be something like fighting for the fate of the nation to get them to kill each other. And since they're all allied to the same nation ...

The willingness to win is actually a detriment when you reach the very top of martial arts according to JY's books and some other wuxia related books/comics that I've read. According to JY, the 3 monks that fought ZWJ at the end would have been even much more powerful if they can completely put their desires to win aside. Sweeper monk has also reached a super high level understanding of martial arts because victory/revenge meant nothing to him. It kinda makes no sense but then a lot of theories about martial arts in Wuxia are counter-intuitive.

[Wu Wudi]

You made good observations about the weaknessess of a multi-person formation but in the 3 monks and the quanzhen 7 daoists' cases, I think that JY makes it clear that it was a strength to have multiple people and not a weakness because they worked so well together. Especially in the case of the 3 monks, there was not a weak link because whenever one was attacked, the other two would time a counterattack perfectly. There was no weakness in the 3 monks' fighting style, the only way to be them was to be even more powerful. In the case of monks, it wasn't 1+1+1=3, their increase in power together was more exponential.

I agreed that Cheung Mo Gei does suffer from a lack of battle experience compared to GJ and YG because the only really elite foes he had were the 3 monks. CMG/ZWJ is also by far the most merciful fighter and almost got himself killed several times because he got sneak attacked by people that he spared. In a fight against GJ/YG, this mercy might hurt him.

In terms of technique, ZWJ might end up being far greater than GJ and YG. At first, I thought that GJ/YG would have an edge on ZWJ because of their versatile backgrounds. But I just remember that at the end, ZWJ also received the complete copy of the 9yin manual, making him the only person other than GJ to have the 9yin manual. With the combination of yin and yan, and Z3F's Tai Chi, it's not hard to fathom that ZWJ might even beat both YG and GJ by himself. If you're just talking about the characters during the time in the book then ZWJ might be weaker than YG or GJ but logically, n terms of how they'll progress, it would seem that ZWJ would attain a much higher level than both of them.

Of course GJ still possess the dual-hand technique and YG the iron sword techiques, but a 9yin + 9yan combination is probably near invincible which is probably why JY waited till the end for ZWJ to gain posession of the 9yin manual.
I'm still not quite sure who would win a fight but I just think that ZWJ is severly overrated by some people on this board. It's clear that JY meant for the 9yin and 9yan martials arts to be at the pinnacle of what martial arts can reach, and someone with the posession of both arts can probably jump over the ocean.

Oops, typo, I meant that ZWJ is severly underrated by some people.

[Whsie]

lol, I was just about to comment how in the world is ZWJ serverly overrated? Everyone actually severly underrates him.

But it's pretty clear that even with only 9 Yang, ZWJ has already reached YG and GJ's level in internal.

[immakiku]

Can someone tell me how ZWJ got 9Yin?

[Whsie]

Can someone tell me how ZWJ got 9Yin?

Zhao Min took it from ZZR in one of the last 2 chapters. But ZWJ didn't have the time to practice it yet because it was already near the end of the book.

[ChronoReverse]

lol, I was just about to comment how in the world is ZWJ serverly overrated? Everyone actually severly underrates him.

But it's pretty clear that even with only 9 Yang, ZWJ has already reached YG and GJ's level in internal.

Haha, "ONLY" 9 Yang.


I'm not disagreeing with ZWJ being under-rated, I'm just laughing at 9 Yang being described with an "only" =)

[Whsie]

Haha, "ONLY" 9 Yang.


I'm not disagreeing with ZWJ being under-rated, I'm just laughing at 9 Yang being described with an "only" =)

Well, his internal trully was ONLY 9 Yang. If he had trained 9 Yin, he would be at a whole new level.

[Whsie]

Anyhow, this forum's vote is much more balanced than the 9 YG/GJ to 1 vote Z3F/ZWJ on the other forum.

[Wu Wudi]

Anyhow, this forum's vote is much more balanced than the 9 YG/GJ to 1 vote Z3F/ZWJ on the other forum.

Was the other forum just a forum with discussion on the TV shows? The GJ/YG stories are probably more popular in TV form because they have better love stories. JY himself commented that ZWJ had a pretty lousy love story beause 1)ZWJ doesn't really know who he loves most 2)the women are too cunning and not very lovable. Do you think that it might be a little sexist of Mr. JY to consider ambitious women to be not very lovable?