Legend of Condor Heroes is one of the most iconic epics by the legendary writer Louis Cha (Jin Yong). The beloved classic has been remade through multiple adaptations over the last 5 decades. Yet despite the story's grandeur and profundity, it also contains undeniable flaws and plot holes.
This is not surprising as JY wrote the novels with the primary intent of promoting his upstart political newspaper through serialized novel updates. In many ways, JY was the original 'web novelist' as he hooked audience with his regularly updated stories. There are inevitable drawbacks to this format as JY never had the luxury of time and dedicated focus to carefully plan and craft his novels as most professional fiction novelists. Considering these limitations, it's astounding how he was able to craft so many captivating, ground-breaking, and well-written novels in the first place.
So it's only out of respect that I'm pondering about ways to improve the stories. Below are some thoughts for discussion. Disclaimer: I've not read the book and is mostly relying on viewing of the 2017 version and extremely hazy childhood impression of the 1983 version.
1) Guo Jing's character - While I understand JY's intent of casting GJ as honorable hero that succeeds despite his good-hearted nature often getting in the way, he's often portrayed as exasperatingly stupid in many versions. This introduces some major issues. First, an excessively dense hero is difficult to root for, and may overshadow GJ's positive qualities that JY is trying to espouse. Second, it detracts from the plot as it begs the question why so many masters who were initially dismissive of GJ end up mentoring him--it often seemed like they helped him because of his lottery gfs of Hua Zhen and Huang Rong.
Which brings us to the third point--what Hua Zhen and more confusingly Huang Rong sees in GJ. HZ's case is more understandable as they developed closeness as childhood friends. But HR's attraction to GJ is often not adequately explained. We are given the explanation that she's moved by his loyalty and kindness, but I think more setup is needed. Considering HR's extraordinary assets in so many dimensions--beauty, intelligence, people skills, precociousness, family background--she might as well be the most marriageable maiden in Jianghu. Oh but surely men would be scared off by her outsized personality. While that may be occasionally true in traditional Chinese culture, it seemed to be treated as an asset in the stories where exceptional wuxia heroes often preferred other exceptional women in a power-couple setup. If anything, her combination of mischief, brattiness, and perceptiveness renders GJ an even tougher sell as she would be far too precocious to not foresee problems with falling for someone who's handsome, kind, loyal, but still kind of a dumbass.
2) Hua Rong's character
3) Huang Yaoshi (Daddy Huang)
4) Yang Kang
5) Mu Nianci
6) Ouyang Feng, Ouyang Ke, 7 Freaks, etc.
(To be continued)
