Why Dragon Saber and Heavenly Sword?

[Billsy]

WTH was the purpose the Dragon Saber and Heavenly Sword? Why couldn't GJ just hand over the 9 Yin and War manuals to his daughter GX?

[Ken Cheng]

WTH was the purpose the Dragon Saber and Heavenly Sword? Why couldn't GJ just hand over the 9 Yin and War manuals to his daughter GX?

She wasn't around. She'd been missing for a number of years, and they didn't know if she'd *ever* come home.

Besides, it wouldn't be a good idea to leave the manuals out in the open where who knows what kind of unsavory characters could get their hands on them.

But maybe the Gwoks should have tried something less conspicuous...like hiding the manuals inside a horseshoe or something.

Of course, where would the great wuxia drama be in that?

[Billsy]

She wasn't around. She'd been missing for a number of years, and they didn't know if she'd *ever* come home.

Besides, it wouldn't be a good idea to leave the manuals out in the open where who knows what kind of unsavory characters could get their hands on them.

But maybe the Gwoks should have tried something less conspicuous...like hiding the manuals inside a horseshoe or something.

Of course, where would the great wuxia drama be in that?

But GJ and HR were still alive, so what's the point of making the weapons. If anything, just allow GJ to retreat so that he could run away with the two manuals.

[CC]

She wasn't around. She'd been missing for a number of years, and they didn't know if she'd *ever* come home.

Besides, it wouldn't be a good idea to leave the manuals out in the open where who knows what kind of unsavory characters could get their hands on them.

If she had been missing and uncontactable, how did they

. Tell her about the secrets of the 2 weapons.

. Pass her the weapons?

[Ken Cheng]

If she had been missing and uncontactable, how did they

. Tell her about the secrets of the 2 weapons.

. Pass her the weapons?

It's somewhat murky, but from what we can gather, she returned to Seung Yeung not long after the city fell to the Mongols. At that point, she gained possession of the Heaven Sword through means not discussed in any detail. How she would have known the specifics of her parents' plans is never explained.

Somehow, Yeung Gor must have been involved. He's the only conduit through which the transferral could have happened (assuming the other Greats were dead by this time).

[tape]

And the little poem that comes with the two weapons is rather idiotic to spread. Someone who is attracted to being the supreme ruler of wulin is normally most unsavory to say the least, and not the best choice to give even more powerful martial arts + a war manual to.

Did any of the old threads come up with an explanation for how the 9 Yin manual and the war manual is supposed to wind up in two different peoples' hands? (9 Yin user is supposed to safeguard against crazy war manual guy remember, but you need both weapons to crack it open so one who gets one has to get both )

[tape]

Plus a wulin guy is pretty useless with the war manual without an army backing him up. Guo Jing had an army sort of, and he couldn't do jack. That war manual/Dragon sabre is probably the most overhyped thing ever -- the Ming sect's one or two million members probably did a wee bit more than war strategy from a couple hundred years ago.

[Ken Cheng]

Plus a wulin guy is pretty useless with the war manual without an army backing him up. Guo Jing had an army sort of, and he couldn't do jack. That war manual/Dragon sabre is probably the most overhyped thing ever -- the Ming sect's one or two million members probably did a wee bit more than war strategy from a couple hundred years ago.

I think conditions in China were different in the waning years of the Sung era from what they would be in the waning years of the Yuan era. Gwok Jing and his allies put up a valiant resistance for decades, but they were understaffed and undersupplied. All they had going for them was the good morale that Gwok Jing's presence supplied, and a few tricks from the Mo Muk War Tactics Manual that let them hold things together for a while.

But once the supply lines were cut and the bulwark of morale was eliminated, well...that was all she wrote.

By the time of HSDS, it was the Yuan Dynasty that was stretched to the limit. The Mongols had occupied China for nearly a century, but no new leaders of Genghis or Kublai's caliber emerged after Kublai's death. The Yuan army of the HSDS era could not compare to the powerful Mongol armies of the ROCH era, and so they fell prey to rebel groups that had nothing to lose.

[tape]

Well, yeah.

The Ming sect and the weak Mongol army was more of a reason that they succeeded rather than an outdated war manual.

[forgot password]

The Guos hidding the manuals inside the 2 weapons could be justified from a statistics and probability point of view. HR was highly smart so she mustve been aware that the chance to obtain both weapons was very low so whoever came into possession of both of them would most likely be a powerful, and hopefully morally worthy, person from jianghu. That person would then give the war manual to a worthy military leader as per the instruction in the manuals, and keep the 9yinzhenjing for himself.

[tape]

hopefully morally worthy, .

high hopes....

[Ken Cheng]

Well, yeah.

The Ming sect and the weak Mongol army was more of a reason that they succeeded rather than an outdated war manual.

Having it is still better than not having it. The manual can't conjure up supplies for soldiers in desperate need of weapons, food, water, or medicine, and it can't conjure up the will to fight after that's been pissed away by generations of inept leadership from the top (i.e. the emperor and his ministers). If everything else isn't stacked against you, however, the manual is useful.

It worked well for Ngok Fei until a traitor brought him down. The manual doesn't have anything about what to do if a snake shows up in the grass.

[forgot password]

high hopes....

well, its hard to blame them for that, as most people in ancient china believed in the concept of heaven's will (tian yi) that is the baddies will eventually be terminated by the goodies.

[Ken Cheng]

well, its hard to blame them for that, as most people in ancient china believed in the concept of heaven's will (tian yi) that is the baddies will eventually be terminated by the goodies.

It worked out pretty well in the end anyway, despite taking a long, tortuous route that nobody in the time of ROCH could have anticipated.

[Billsy]

It worked out pretty well in the end anyway, despite taking a long, tortuous route that nobody in the time of ROCH could have anticipated.

If it wasn't for Emei, it wouldn't have worked out.

I think it was a terrible joke that GJ undirected played at Xie Xun. I feel sorry for Xie Xun for having to sleep around with the saber for a decade trying to find out its secret.

[PJ]

WTH was the purpose the Dragon Saber and Heavenly Sword?

It's been speculated to be mostly a plot device. It was necessary to conceive the novel HSDS.

[person135]

actually a wulin guy without an army can do a lot.
look at how xf got that king guy with the big army in DGSD (i forgot his name)

with supreme martial arts, its easy to assasinate the king. that's why when GJ was injured, no one else could stop a high level fighter like GWM even though GJ was in XY city surrounded by an army.

[tape]

actually a wulin guy without an army can do a lot.
look at how xf got that king guy with the big army in DGSD (i forgot his name)

with supreme martial arts, its easy to assasinate the king. that's why when GJ was injured, no one else could stop a high level fighter like GWM even though GJ was in XY city surrounded by an army.

If that were the case, Wuji would have just easily assassinated the Mongol ruler then. Even with an assassination, you don't automatically save the people or become ruler yourself. Assassinating the king doesn't do much if you can't take advantage of it with an army of yourself.

[Aventinus]

It worked well for Ngok Fei until a traitor brought him down. The manual doesn't have anything about what to do if a snake shows up in the grass.

You'd think a great war manual would have something to say about being wary of traitors in your midst.

[Ken Cheng]

You'd think a great war manual would have something to say about being wary of traitors in your midst.

Considering that Ngok Fei met his own demise at the hands of a traitor, I doubt it.

Moreover, the greatest theory in the world is just that...a theory. It's not some magic formula that produces miracles out of the ether. If that were the case, all those millions of people who have read those Tony Robbins self-help books would all be rich and successful by now (most of them aren't). In the end, it's up to individuals to make it happen.

And don't lay that one at the feet of Gwok Jing and Wong Yung: they did the best they could with what they had. If anyone was to blame, it would be the useless Sung emperors and their equally useless administrations.