Strictly speaking, 张无忌 never did choose 赵敏 over any of the other three ladies. His choices were merely conveniently eliminated till he was left with her as the only "best choice". Let's run through what happened to get a better idea.
小昭 was "axed off" early on when it was revealed that her mum was the Sacred Virgin of the 明教, and in order to resolve the pressing extermination of the entire group due to her mum's flaunting of the cult's regulations, she had to sacrifice her own happiness by standing in for her mum and going off away to Persia.
殷离's case is slightly a bit more complex to the readers as it looked it as though "无忌 never loved her anyway". However, if we read carefully in volume 2 pertaining to the stretch where both were stranded together for companionship, with him lame from injury then and her disfigured, there was some ambiguous relationship between them two that had way surpassed that of mere friends. However in the aftermath of 周芷若's "ultimate faceoff", by attempting to murder 殷离, banish 谢逊, steal both the Heavenly Sword and Dragon Sabre and put the blame on 赵敏 all in one move, something may have caused the unfortunate lady to have felt greatly jaded with her relationship with 张无忌, resulting in the final chapter when she "returns from the dead" to reveal the truth, but totally relinquishes her participation right in the competition over the man, ranting continuously like a mental patient that she loved the former him, not the "current him".
Considering 周芷若's villainous turn two-thirds into the novel, attributed to her vow to her 师傅灭绝师太 to resort any means possible to obtain both the sword and sabre, while never to fall in love with 无忌, it is only natural that she does not end up with 无忌. I have not yet read of any Chinese swordfighting novel with the main male protagonist ending happily ever after with an evil female protagonist of such proportions.
The most remotely closest to such a case was 《云海玉弓缘》, and even then it was a romantic tragedy with 金世遗 realising his intense hatred for 励胜男 was actually a mask for his passionate love for her, as the two of them were way too alike in nature. Also strictly speaking, 励胜男's actions were never evil-intentioned, as shown during the revelation in the last chapter, leading to 金世遗's eternal agony. However maetsro Louis Cha and master 梁羽生 have very different writing styles and themes, so that I'll leave to a future discussion.
It is a great move on maestro Louis Cha's part, that he ended 《倚天屠龙记》with a scary clifthanger-ish ending where while 张无忌 and 赵敏 are finally literally enjoying life, 周芷若 appears with a "you still owe me one reminder" to scare the heck out of 无忌. Thus,《倚天屠龙记》's ending surpasses 《侠客行》's twin's birth mystery, and even can match the renown "to kill or not to kill" dilemma in《雪山飞狐》, as its possibilities are just as "juicy".
小昭 was "axed off" early on when it was revealed that her mum was the Sacred Virgin of the 明教, and in order to resolve the pressing extermination of the entire group due to her mum's flaunting of the cult's regulations, she had to sacrifice her own happiness by standing in for her mum and going off away to Persia.
殷离's case is slightly a bit more complex to the readers as it looked it as though "无忌 never loved her anyway". However, if we read carefully in volume 2 pertaining to the stretch where both were stranded together for companionship, with him lame from injury then and her disfigured, there was some ambiguous relationship between them two that had way surpassed that of mere friends. However in the aftermath of 周芷若's "ultimate faceoff", by attempting to murder 殷离, banish 谢逊, steal both the Heavenly Sword and Dragon Sabre and put the blame on 赵敏 all in one move, something may have caused the unfortunate lady to have felt greatly jaded with her relationship with 张无忌, resulting in the final chapter when she "returns from the dead" to reveal the truth, but totally relinquishes her participation right in the competition over the man, ranting continuously like a mental patient that she loved the former him, not the "current him".
Considering 周芷若's villainous turn two-thirds into the novel, attributed to her vow to her 师傅灭绝师太 to resort any means possible to obtain both the sword and sabre, while never to fall in love with 无忌, it is only natural that she does not end up with 无忌. I have not yet read of any Chinese swordfighting novel with the main male protagonist ending happily ever after with an evil female protagonist of such proportions.
The most remotely closest to such a case was 《云海玉弓缘》, and even then it was a romantic tragedy with 金世遗 realising his intense hatred for 励胜男 was actually a mask for his passionate love for her, as the two of them were way too alike in nature. Also strictly speaking, 励胜男's actions were never evil-intentioned, as shown during the revelation in the last chapter, leading to 金世遗's eternal agony. However maetsro Louis Cha and master 梁羽生 have very different writing styles and themes, so that I'll leave to a future discussion.
It is a great move on maestro Louis Cha's part, that he ended 《倚天屠龙记》with a scary clifthanger-ish ending where while 张无忌 and 赵敏 are finally literally enjoying life, 周芷若 appears with a "you still owe me one reminder" to scare the heck out of 无忌. Thus,《倚天屠龙记》's ending surpasses 《侠客行》's twin's birth mystery, and even can match the renown "to kill or not to kill" dilemma in《雪山飞狐》, as its possibilities are just as "juicy".
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