张无忌 never had a choice anywayz...

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".

No "con"dor fairytales please... :p

Finally, I can start my favourite series from maestro 金庸Louis Cha’s Condor Heroes series. I’ll go into an even more in-depth analysis of the third and final installment from this series, 倚天屠龙记 Heavenly Blade and Dragon Sabre, in my next blog entry, choosing to concentrate on the first two today. It was these two Louis cha classics that had gotten me immersed in the genre of swordfighting pugilistic novels. Now at an older age, I still love these two staples, though in retrospect with age, my feelings towards them have changed drastically, especially their romance plots.

射雕英雄传 Legend of the Condor Heroes

Basically there are two main romance plots running parallel, the first being between 郭靖 and 黄蓉, the second between 杨康 and 穆念慈. During my younger days, I was besotted with the 郭黄 romance, because of its simplicity and straightforwardness, whereas I had neglected the 杨穆 romance plot. Yes, there was a Mongolian Princess in the picture as a “third party” obstacle of sorts, but frankly she never posed of any threat to the romance, as the reader knew point blank that 郭靖 was merely bound by integrity to fulfill his engagement to her. However in life, sometimes romances are not that straightforward or safe ground for treading. Some of them are downright dangerous, as in the case between 杨康 and 穆念慈. Many swordfighting literature scholars have delved into the “who loves who more and first, 杨 or 穆” topic, while outright critiquing the 郭黄 romance to be a complete fairytale. Personally, I would choose not to delve into this area, because the dynamics of speed and intensity of passion within a couple simply cannot be measured in a linear manner. What leaves me in awe is that author Louis Cha, whether knowingly or not, employs the method of contrasting the complexity of the 杨穆 romance with the simplicity of the 郭黄 one, leaving this reader “mourning wistfully” of sorts for 杨康 and 穆念慈 when reading the novel again now…

神雕侠侣Return of the Condor Heroes

Frankly, I didn’t really like this one as much as the previous one even in my younger days, though I hadn’t figured out clearly why when I was younger. Now I’ve finally realised the simple reason. This novel’s romance is really a “man’s fairy tale”. We all know the typical genre of fairytales, which has the female protagonist on the run by villains, only to be rescued in the end by a dashing prince, and then living happily ever after. In the novel, main protagonist 杨过 perseveres through many challenges in having 小龙女, his teacher master, as his life partner, despite being bound by ethical norms (teacher masters are akin to parents in traditional hierarchy, thus having them as life partners would equate to incest in those times). In the process, the suave protagonist charms many other female characters, eventually leaving majority of them pining for him for the rest of their lives, or even sacrificing their life for him as in the case of a very unfortunate character 公孙绿萼.

From many literature analysis books on Louis Cha’s novels, I have gathered that Mr Cha had actually not intended to let the plot end the way it eventually did, wanting to have it close in a sadder, greyer note and with more ambiguity. Sad to say, under the pressure of overwhelming feedback for the novel when it was released in installments in 明报Ming Pao, Mr Cha then changed his mind and decided to accede to popular demand. Well, unfortunately Mr Cha did not realize he had just written the first full-scale pugilistic fairytale romance for men to indulge in. In contrast, Legend of the Condor Heroes’ 郭黄 romance seems more along the lines of Shrek…

At the risk of offending many guys, I’ve noticed recently that more and more men are having a杨过 mentality when it comes to romance, be it through my own experience or that of some female peers. As they go about their conquests in search of their 小龙女, they expect other females on their waiting list to stay pining away for them. When to their horror they realize it does not turn out this way, they are severely offended, and even display pettiness in greater magnitude than females, which is actually quite entertaining in some aspects. :p Unfortunately, most of these men fail to question themselves whether they truly have the capacity of being as suave and charming as 杨过, but yet are all too ready to take up his mindset.

In life there is unfortunately no one “all size fits all” combination. Every person is a unique individual and their dynamics with other people will differ, despite similarities and parallels. This applies for all human relationships, be it be within the family, workplace, and of course romantic relationships. What matters is that when we are maintaining these relationships, we need to pray for God’s guidance and instruction as we proceed. When looking solely at the 杨穆 romance there is eventually no need for questioning, but what brought their relationship to its conclusion was the unrepentance of 杨康 in other aspects of his life, which eventually doomed their relationship, implicating even their son 杨过 in the next novel.

Every time when I reach any point of ambiguity in my life, I need to pray hard for God’s wisdom, direction and strength, because all aspects of my life are intertwined. One can never underestimate the repercussions of one’s actions in one area, on another area, as look what happened in 杨康's case. This is all the wisdom I need to gather from the romance of the first novel. Meanwhile for the second novel, I just need to warn myself from having any female 杨过or 小龙女 mindset too. Life may be a story written by God, but it is definitely no fairytale… :p