Blindness (and other physical impairment) as a theme/leitmotif in HSDS

[Ken Cheng]

Wuxia fiction has no shortage of blind characters; there's scarcely a wuxia story out there that doesn't feature at least one blind character.

HSDS, however, featured an extraordinary number (even for a wuxia story) of blind characters, including an inordinate number of characters who became blind during the story. The blind characters in HSDS included Tse Tsun, Sing Kwun, Shaolin monks Yeun Yum and one of the Dao-generation elders (one eye each), and Monk Pang (also one eye) of the Ming Cult. Bak Gwai Sau of the Heavenly Eagle Sect even tried to evade pursuers from the Kunlun and Hung Dung sects by pretending to be a blind man.

That much blindness in one story convinces me that Jin Yong had some intentional leitmotif or theme going on with blindness here.

In fact, being physically impaired seems to be a leitmotif of HSDS in general; in addition to all those blind people listed above, we also have the following disabilities: Yu Doi Nam was paralyzed for twenty years (and never regained full mobility); Yan Lei Ting suffered similar crippling injuries, but recovered thanks to Chiu Mun's black jade ointment; Granny Golden Flower's lungs were impaired by her dip in the icy pool during her youth; Yan Lei was disfigured by practicing Thousand Poisonous Spider Hands; Ah Dai had his arm cut off by Cheung Mo Gei, and Cheung also crippled Ah 2 and Ah 3 to avenge their crippling of his Mo Dong Sect martial uncles; Beggar's Union Chief Shih For Lung was paralyzed by a failed attempt to learn Hong Lung 18 Palms; Sung Ching Sheu was critically wounded and rendered a quadriplegic vegetable by Yu Lin Chou.

Wuxia fiction in general has no shortage of characters who are maimed, but HSDS features such an inordinate number of them that I wonder if Jin Yong wasn't trying to communicate some theme to the audience.

[tape]

Aside from Xie Xun's blindness though, the one eye blindness of the others didn't really play an important part in the story though.

In XAJH, LHC is physically debilitated for most of the story, Ren Woxing gets captured due to the illness from Essence Absorbing, half the story features doctors and powerful men attempting to heal LHC, fifteen men are blinded in one swoop, limbs are constantly being chopped off, YBQ, DFBB, and LPZ eventually castrate themselves, Tian Baguang gets castrated by Monk No Commandment, ZLC gets blinded, etc. Tons of physical ailments there.

ROCH of course features the main character losing an arm and being poisoned, and just by being the main character exposes us to the theme of physical ailment much more.

I think wuxia in gneral has lots of injuries.

[Ken Cheng]

Ling Wu Chung's injuries were severe, but none left him permanently maimed. He eventually recovered from all his injuries.

In HSDS, however, multiple people received the same kinds of permanent injuries (blindness or paralysis). In literary analysis, when an author continuously refers to a single theme throughout a single work, we're alerted to the likelihood of a leitmotif, through which the author might be trying to convey some thematic point. I believe that the HSDS injuries were not incidental or coincidental, but part of a thematic and symbolic plan.

[tape]

I suppose it could be showing how people deal with (permanent) injuries in different ways, with Xie Xun learning to cope and accept it as part of himself without hatred, with the younger Shaolin monk being bitter for 20 years, and the Du Monk brooding for like 40 years trying to attain peace but not really succeeding.

The Wudang heroes were much more accepting of their fate, and I guess eventually got healed. Maybe a prelude to the DGSD theme in that those who accept their fate are the ones that are able to change their fate....or something like that (though I'm sure even if Wuji's Uncle Yu was an angry old paralyzed jerk he'd still do everything in his power to heal him !)

[Ken Cheng]

My take on it is that it was Jin Yong's commentary on the state of wulin during the era of HSDS: it was an era in which wulin's heroic spirit had become both blind (unable to distinguish clearly between justice and evil) and paralyzed (unable to organize/unify against the common Mongol enemy).