His wide range of great martial arts skills was unmatched among the martial artists of the Central Plains. He is widely considered to be the platonic ideal of the Confucian Xia, a somewhat ironic fact given that he is only barely literate, of lowly birth and is raised amongst the Mongols, and in no way the learned Confucian scholar.īy the time Guo Jing entered his 30's, he was among the most accomplished and powerful martial artists of his era. His character, of course, is not without fault, for the flipside of his moral rectitude is his intolerance for things that run against traditions, and his sometimes rigid interpretation of what is right, such as wanting to cut off his daughter Guo Fu's arm after she cut off Yang Guo's right arm, but eventually his compassion won out. The matured Guo Jing is characterised by a supreme dignity, a complete unconcern for personal interests, magnanimity, generosity and an overriding desire to protect the people. Indeed, his definition of the duty of a Xia, "To serve the nation and the people, that is true chivalry" remained the most accepted definition of the term, even outside Jin Yong novels. In The Return of the Condor Heroes, we see a matured Guo Jing, the very pinnacle of Confucian virtue and the Xia ideal. In the Legend of the Condor Heroes, he was a simple boy raised in Mongolia, who considered personal loyalty to be the highest virtues, that gradually learned the importance of the sworn word and eventually compassion and the nature of violence. His most distinguishing characteristic, apart from mental slowness, is his constant fight for moral rectitude. Frequently described as dumb, slow, and inarticulate, Guo Jing is the complete opposite of his clever and witty wife, Huang Rong. Guo Jing is described as having thick eyebrows and large eyes, with a sturdy build, and a complexion that is somewhere between dark and fair. 2.3 The Seven Freaks of Jiangnan Martial Arts.
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