What did Wai Siu Bo's wives like about him, exactly?

[Ken Cheng]

Most of the Jin Yong main character heroes end up with *one* spouse/permanent love interest. Each of them wins the girl through some combination of the following virtues:

1. Supreme or at least extremely formidable martial arts skill.

2. Valiant character.

3. Good looks.

Most Jin Yong protagonists have at least two of these three qualities, and a few have all three.

Wai Siu Bo had *seven* wives, but he lacked all three of the above virtues (occasionally showed flashes of valiant character, but never as consistently/reliably as the other heroes, and counteracted by many more acts of skullduggery). Yes, he had money and power in abundance, perhaps greater than any of the other heroes, but as is typical of wuxia heroines, Wai Siu Bo's wives (excluding perhaps So Cheun and the Qing princess) didn't really care about such things. These ladies weren't exactly gold-diggers, and were committed to Wai Siu Bo even if he lost all his fortune.

So what was it about Wai Siu Bo that attracted seven women to be his wives, considering his lack of the traditional three attractive virtues of wuxia heroes?

[charbydis]

So what was it about Wai Siu Bo that attracted seven women to be his wives, considering his lack of the traditional three attractive virtues of wuxia heroes?

I always thought that out of all the wives, only Shuang Er truly loved him. Not sure why though. She followed him because her mistress told her to and she was bound by honour and gratitude, then learnt to love him through their time together. He got the others through deception and manipulation (e.g Ah Ke, Fang Yi, Su Quan after he raped them) or seduced them because they were naive (e.g Zeng Rou, Mu Jian Ping) and didn't know any better. I never really though Princess Jian Ning loved him and saw him more as a plaything.

The girls did not have better options at the time considering the useless men hanging around in DOMD (e.g Fang Yi's cowardly fiancé, the hypocritical Zheng Ke Shuang, the old and ugly Hong An Tong, the castrated Wu Ying Xiong) and to them, Wei Xiao Bao appeared to be the only option at the time considering that some of them were pregnant. At least he was honourable to some extent (despite some other motives) towards the Heaven and Earth Society, to Kang Xi and he never abandoned the girls.

[Ian Liew]

While the rape scene kind of sealed things for most of the girls, some of them were rather fond of him even prior to that. Scoundrel though he was, WXB did know how to butter up girls and engage in small talk with them, mainly due to him having grown up in a brothel. While he wasn't really a man of good character where women were concerned, he did show genuine concern for their well-being and went out of his way to make sure they were okay - as far as many of the girls were concerned, that alone made him much better than the other cowardly options charbydis listed. I always got the impression that Fang Yi was already fond of Wei Xiaobao when they had escaped from the Forbidden City, and the way he reacted when he found out she was poisoned (and had not willingly betrayed him) kind of sealed the deal for her - he really cared for her. Ah Ke and Su Quan are probably the only two cases in which they really had no other option and nowhere else to go, although in Su Quan's case it's less clear cut since she did flirt with him at the island (although she didn't really show much indication that she despised her husband as far as I remember). Ah Ke's case was really just... tragic.

[shortsight]

Where's Trien Chieu when you need him?

[Ken Cheng]

Wai Siu Bo had seven wives, all of whom grew deeply committed to him. What was the source of his appeal to all these women? Wai Siu Bo was not a "pretty boy" like Deun Yu, Yeung Gor, or Cheung Mo Gei. At times, he had great power and wealth, but his wives (overall) were not "gold-digger" types, and they stuck by him even during hard times. He got of to bad starts with half of them, but they were unwavering in their devotion to him after they decided to commit to him. What was his appeal?