So one of my favorite writings by jin young has been the condor triology and I know it has been a famous work in asia, haven been adapted in various media forms. Although the stories are well written there are so many details I still wonder about.
My question is are there theories circulating out there about the triology? I’m not chinese so I can’t really look them up but I have heard about some, for instance,
One reason of the reason xiang yang fell had to do with yelu, gou fu’s husband.
Yang Xiao was taught martial arts by Cheng Ying, huang yaoshis last disciple.
Xiao long nu and yang you couldnt grow old together because Xiao long nu dies later due to her injuiries relapsing.
Gou Fu and Yang Gou are actually in love and hook up later_( this one I doubt).
I also have some of my own after reading the translations but I know the eng translations doesn’t really reflect the complex meaning in chinese but please clarify for me.
Yellow dress maiden is the descendant of Guo Xiang, (&maybe he zu dao).
Adopted or intermarried into the yang_long couple.
The gentlemen and maiden sword are the gan jiang and mo ye sword?
Zhao min and Zhang Wuji, are jin young’s incarnation of Lin Chao Ying and Wong Chong Yang.
Zhang San Feng had a crush on Guo Xiang.
I would just like to think about it more because I think there were some many things that hasn’t been explored yet. I dearly wish jin young was still alive so maybe one day when I learn chinese I could ask him directly or read more about any of his commentaries.
Well… some of these I tried looked up on forums and tried translating. Some of them I thought up on my own. The one about Zhao Min and Zhang Wuji being the incarnations of Ling Chao Ying and Wang Chong Yang’s is probably my favorite speculation. Some how I have the feeling that Jin young wrote these two characters as his way of giving a happy ending to the LCY and WCY couple story line. When I think about Zhao Min and Zhang Wuji’s character and their relationship dynamic, I always found it was in a way similar to another couple in the trilogy. At first i thought of Huang Rong and Guo Jing, but then again, I found that it wasn’t quite the same, as huang rong and Guo jing had a more harmonious relationship. Then I thought about it more and it suddenly clicked when I re-watched a scene from HSDS 2003, where Zhao Min makes Zhang Wuji promise her 3 things. I was reminded of the story of how Lin Chao Ying challenged Wang Chong Yang on Mount Zhong Nan and then it all started connecting.
We don’t know too much about WCY and LCY other than that they were “rivals” in love. This idea of being “rivals” can be seen with ZWJ and ZM, one is fighting for the Ming rebel Sect and one is fighting under the Yuan Dynasty. In HSDS we can see that ZM is able to outmaneuver ZWJ in almost every way. Even though ZWJ had high marital arts, ZM was always able to get under his skin. The same can be seen with LCY, who if you remember, outsmarted WCY in same manners too, tricking him into coming out of seclusion, cheating him out of their competition, and even created a martial arts skill that became the “black star” to his quanzhen sect. To elaborate more, even through all their trickery, both female character never wished to harm their “rival”. Although ZM was capable in many opportunities to harm ZWJ, her heart was unwilling. The same can be reflected with Lin Chao Ying, who’s jade maiden heart skill, reflected her deep hatred towards WCY. But again we find out in ROTCH that the skills actually reflected her affections for him and to be with him, mirroring the true heart of the Jade maiden. There’s still a whole lot of more other details too if you look into it more.
This is a further stretch to this theory, but what if LCY and WCY are star crossed lovers who are reborn throughout each generation in the triology. LCY-> Gou Xiang->ZM and with WCY->He Zu Dao-> ZWJ. This also connects with my little theory on why Guo Xiang might be the ancestor of Yellow Dress Maiden and not the YangLong Couple.