"fab four" combos in DGSD

[Ken Cheng]

Jin Yong seems to have certain numerical hangups. In the CONDOR HEROES TRILOGY, he seemed to be obsessed with groups of seven: the Gong Nam 7 Freaks, the Cheun Jen 7 Disciples, and the Mo Dong 7 Heroes.

In DGSD, Jin Yong seemed fascinated by "fab four" combos: the Four Great Evils, the Four Royal Guardsmen of Dali, Mo Yung F'uk's four flunkies.

I wonder if Jin Yong selected these numbers for a specific reason.

[Snafu3721]

In Condor trilogy, we also had the significant numbers of 4 and 5: There were 4 Greats.. or 5 Greats depending on how you read the story!

Technically, numerology has always been important in Chinese culture.

We start with

1 Guan-- 1 unity
2 Ji -- the opposites, Ying/Yang
3 Cai-- Usually the 3 treasures "Heaven, Earth, Man"
4 Xiang -- The 4 directions/cardinals "East, West, South, North"
5 Xing-- The five elements "Gold, Wood, Water, Fire, Earth"
6 He-- Six unity
7 Xin-- The seven stars
8 Gua-- The eight Trigrams
9 Gong-- 9 Temples

Of course there are other uses for the numbers named above. For example 9 used in context of 9-yang/yin: because 9 and 6 are respective numbers to represent I-Ching's "yin/yang" binary system.

Or in DGSD, TSTL also used the 8 directions in her crazy "I rule the fricken world" kung fu.

So I guess JY just decided to use certain numbers to represent different numerological aspects of the Chinese culture.

P.S. I find it amazing that JY was able to construct the names of the 4 evils using an idiom each-- whereby the use of the word "Evil" was placed chronologically analogous to their respective ranking status.