Literature / The Smiling, Proud Wanderer

Complete Omnibus of the Series

The Smiling, Proud Wanderer is the 13th novel of Jin Yong and often considered one of his best works.

The setting of the novel takes place in medieval China, where the world of martial arts (Also known as "Jianghu") is sharply divided between the "orthodox" and "unorthodox" sects. The center of the conflict revolves around the self-declared "righteous" Five Swords Sects Alliance and the constantly vilified unorthodox sects, namely the Sun Moon sect.

The novel focuses on Linghu Chong, a senior apprentice of the Mount Hua Sect in the Alliance. Two martial artists who belonged on the opposite sides of the Orthodox/Unorthodox divide had composed a musical score Xiao Ao Jianghu (It is also the name of the novel, which literally means laughing at the martial arts world). Before their deaths, they passed it on to Linghu Chong, hoping he can pass on their message of living a carefree world from the martial arts world. The MacGuffin of the story is the Bixie Swordplay manual, which if the skills within were mastered, allows the user to become a formidable martial artist that would give him a chance to dominate the Jianghu.

Many among the orthodox sects schemed to get hold of the manual for themselves, while putting on a public appearance of dignity and heroism. The novel is often deemed as an allegory for real life politics, and power struggles are a recurring theme in the story. It has been adapted many times to movies (notably the Swordsman trilogy starring Brigitte Lin, Jet Li and Yu Rongguang), TV series, and even a video game.

The novels and its many adaptations provides examples Of:

Novel

• A Lighter Shade of Black: Ultimately, the "heroic" Five Swords Sect Alliance are just as bad or arguably worse than the Sun Moon sect. In fact, the "unorthodox" side of the Jianghu are given a slightly more sympathetic portrayal. Slightly indeed, and it is still arguable as to which side is the "lighter shade". The ending of the novel had confirmed that the Sun Moon sect did steal and rob treasures from the orthodox sects in the past, and Ren Woxing did indeed plot to destroy the orthodox sects, even if he outwardly shows some degree of honour about doing it.
• Always Second Best: How the other sects compare to the Mount Song sect within the Five Swords Sects Alliance. The numerous Mount Song Sect elders are one-on-one, arguably equal in terms of martial arts prowess to the respective leaders of the North Mount Heng, South Mount Heng, and Mount Tai sects. Only Yue Buqun demonstrably bests the individual Mount Song Sect elder one-on-one, but is still strongly implied to be weaker than Zuo Lengchan, the leader of the Mount Song sect. Before he masters the Bixie Swordplay anyway.
• Ambition Is Evil: Many ambitious characters in the novel are antagonistic, namely Zuo Lengchan, Yue Buqun, and Ren Woxing. And also do not forget the underlings/associates who are bribed or conspired to fall in line with their ambitions.
• An Arm and a Leg: During the proposal discussion for the full merger of the Five Swords Sects Alliance, the Six Immortals of the Peach Valley interrupted and annoyed Zuo Lengchan. The yes-man Yujizi bribed/appointed by Zuo Lengchan as the new leader of Mount Tai sect tried to fight them, only to result in them holding his limbs threatening to rip him apart. In response, Zuo Lengchan literally cut off Yujizi's limbs, claiming that he's doing so to spare Yujizi a painful death from the crazy Six Immortals, prompting a What the Hell, Hero? from these purported villains.
• Anti-Climax: This is a weakness of the novel with regards to its ending. After the deaths of almost every major player in the Five Swords Sects Alliance, Ren Woxing planned to conquer the orthodox sects and bring them under his control, and Linghu Chong was the only leader of the remnants of the alliance standing in his way. After hearing this threat from Ren Woxing, Linghu Chong and his remaining followers went back to prepare for their one last stand against the Sun Moon Sect, only to receive news some time later that Ren Woxing had passed away from illness. This ending is obviously deemed too anti-climatic to be a finale for a live-action TV or film, and hence all the adaptations always altered the ending for more drama and action.
• Artifact of Attraction: The Bixie Swordplay manual is implied to be this. The techniques listed within are so tempting that Lin Pingzhi, his grandfather, and Yue Buqun castrated themselves as the prerequisite for learning the dark martial arts within the manual.
• Asshole Victim: No one felt particularly sorry when Yu Canghai and his Qingcheng sect were systematically slaughtered by a vengeful Lin Pingzhi. This is quite a prominent portrayal of the trope, given that Linghu Chong and the North Mount Heng sect buddhist nuns just stood by and watch Lin Pingzhi slaughter the largely outmatched Qingcheng sect members, neither condemning nor condoning the violence.
• Authority Equals Asskicking: No different from most Jinyong novels, the leader of his/her respective sect is also the most formidable member in terms of martial arts.
• Big Bad: The novel is pretty deceptive here. The story began from the perspective of the Five Swords Sect Alliance, and the alliance clearly deemed the Sun Moon Sect (and its leader) as the ultimate villain. However as the novel progresses, one would quickly realize these "heroic" sects are hypocritical and at times worse than the villains they criticized. The true "villains" of the story are arguably the Five Swords Sects Alliance themselves, and hence Zuo Lengchan, leader of the Mount Song sect and de facto leader of the Five Swords Sects Alliance would be considered the Big Bad. Yue Buqun took over the Big Bad role after blinding Zuo Lengchan, and after both of them are killed off, Ren Woxing became the final Big Bad albeit a very brief one.
• Big Good: No, its not the Five Swords Sects Alliance. The Shaolin Sect plays sort of a neutral role in this novel, who is more open-minded and accepting of both the "Orthodox" and "Unorthodox" sect members. Fangzheng is the abbot of Shaolin, and as their representative he has a morally upright character and is also among the top tier martial artists in the Jianghu.
• Black-and-Gray Morality: The novel is an allegory for political power struggle, thus will have this trope as a consequence. The purported good guys i.e.: the Five Swords Sects Alliance, are mostly either hypocrites willing to do despicable acts in order to gain power (Zuo Lengchan, his conspirators, and Yue Buqun), or are unwitting pawns at their hands (Linghu Chong, Yue Lingshan, Lin Pingzhi, and almost everyone else in the Alliance). A minority within the Sun Moon Sect are indeed openly villainous, but the sect as a whole didn't bother to clean up its reputation and are willing to engage in conflict with the orthodox sects. The novel's ending also confirmed that the Sun Moon sect do indeed have a villainous past and the charges levied at them by the Five Swords Sect Alliance are not completely unjustified.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Ping Yizhi was a doctor whose reputation was that he can save the lives of people from terminal illnesses/diseases that other doctors couldn't. However, he has a rule: For each life he saves, another life must be taken. His rationale was that he is so talented that he fears offending Yamla (Chinese equivalent of the Grim Reaper) for saving too many lives, so a balance must be maintained.
• Broken Pedestal: Yue Buqun to Ning Zhongze, Linghu Chong, and Lin Pingzhi.
• Camp Gay: Dongfang Bubai was revealed to have transformed into a homosexual who prefers to dress as a woman and neglects the Sun Moon sect's affairs in favour of acting like a traditional housewife. This is due to the "corrupting" nature of the Sunflower manual that requires the practitioner to castrate himself. The novel also implies that Yue Buqun and Lin Pingzhi, who castrated themselves to master the Bixie Swordplay, would also eventually end up like this over the long term.
• Category Traitor: Linghu Chong is one among the Five Mountains Sword Alliance for having socialized with members of the unorthodox sects and having disagreements with some members of the orthodox sects. He did this one time too many and was eventually expelled from Mount Hua Sect. As sort of a parallel to Linghu Chong's situation, Xiang Wentian is also deemed one by the Sun Moon sect for his opposition to Dongfang Bubai.
• Chekhov's Gun: Remember early in the novel there were cave sketches of the moves to counter the Alliance's swordplays? Yue Buqun came upon them and had his daughter Yue Lingshan memorize them so she can defeat the rest of the Alliance leaders in a contest, with the exception of Zuo Lengchan. This allowed him to focus on defeating Zuo Lengchan with the Bixie Swordplay.
• Cherry Tapping: Yue Buqun ultimately met his end by getting stabbed by Yilin, arguably the weakest martial artist in the novel.
• Childhood Friend Romance: The romance between Linghu Chong and Yue Lingshan was doomed the moment Lin Pingzhi came into the picture.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Bujie's wife Mute Granny. Absolutely nothing on the "clingy" stalker part, but ridiculously high on the "jealous" part. She ran away and hid from Bujie for more than a decade after Bujie merely complimented on a woman passing by, who was praising their infant child Yilin.
• Cloudcuckoolander: The Six Immortals of the Peach Valley and Monk Bujie comes to mind. Incidentally, they are also the ones who incompetently tried to treat Linghu Chong's injuries only to made it far worse and destroyed his body's inner energy instead.
• Cruel Mercy: Lin Pingzhi arguably had the worst ending of all the characters in the novel. Yue Lingshan shouldn't have pleaded for her murderous husband to be spared. Linghu Chong kept his promise and spared Pingzhi, but disabled his limbs and imprisoned him. Be it intentional or not, this effectively rendered Pingzhi a blind and helpless cripple for the remainder of his life.
• Defeat Means Respect: Quite a few examples.
  • Linghu Chong defeated Tian Boguang twice in different ways. In the first battle, outmatched in martial arts, Linghu Chong used his wits instead and eventually got Tian Boguang to honor a humiliating promise. In the second battle, Linghu Chong was given a quick crash course by Feng Qingyang on just one move of the Nine Swords of Dugu swordplay so that he had a chance of (and succeeded) defeating Tian Boguang in an actual fight. In both encounters, the defeated Tian Boguang grugingly respected Linghu Chong and left as promised.
  • Feng Buping who was previously scheming to take over Yue Buqun's post was defeated by Linghu Chong. He dejectedly went back into exile but not before praising Linghu Chong for his excellent swordplay.
• Dented Iron: For most part of the novel, Linghu Chong had lost his internal energy due to a few injury incidents, which roughly means his sword skills lacked power and ferocity. This still doesn't stop him from defeating most high-tier martial artists who are stronger and decades more experienced than him. This is because of his talent in picking up the Nine Swords of Dugu swordplay that allows him to counter most moves using minimal strength.
• Disc-One Final Boss: Tian Boguang is the first highly skilled opponent that Linghu Chong had to overwhelm in the story. His defeat more or less marked the end of the first act of the novel, and the subsequent major antagonists are a lot more skilled or powerful.
• Dismantled MacGuffin: The Bixie Swordplay manual and Sun Moon Sect's Sunflower manual are actually derivations of the original Sunflower manual in a Buddhist temple. Two key members of the Mount Hua Sect had read the original manual and agreed to each memorize half of the contents, and upon returning to their headquarters they put together the Sunflower manual. Apparently, the incongruence of this Sunflower manual from combining two halves memorized by two different people caused a sharp dispute. The temple abbot eventually realized what happened and recognizing the source of trouble, destroyed the original Sunflower manual. He also sent his disciple Duyuan to resolve the dispute between the Mount Hua Sect members. Duyuan did just that but also secretly memorized the essence of the Sunflower manual copy, created the Bixie Swordplay manual and returned to the secular world as Lin Yuantu. This copy of the Sunflower manual was later stolen by the Sun Moon sect, and hence the Mount Hua Sect dispute was never resolved causing it to split into the "Qi" and "Sword" factions.
• Driven to Madness: Lin Pingzhi is the tragic villain in this novel. His descent into a remorseless villain was due to a combination of events: His family massacred, suffering a long period of being treated as a disposable pawn by Yue Buqun, castrating himself in order to master the Bixie Swordplay, and getting blinded from Mu Gaofeng's poison sack after his first revenge quest succeeded. Agreeing with Lao Denuo that Yue Buqun is the root cause of his misfortune, he allied himself with Zuo Lengchan in a separate revenge attempt on Yue Buqun, but not before mortally wounding his wife Yue Lingshan.
• Driven to Suicide:
  • Mortally wounded Liu Zhengfeng and Qu Yang committed mutual suicide when they realize that the self-righteous orthodox sects will never stop hunting them down for what's a simple friendship bonded over their love for music.
  • Ping Yizhi committed suicide over shame when for the first time he couldn't cure someone - Namely Linghu Chong.
  • Huang Zhonggong was the chief guard of the prison holding Ren Woxing and a retired member of the Sun Moon sect. After Ren Woxing returned to force him into submission, Huang gave a short but sorrowful speech about how he was disheartened with both Ren Woxing and Dongfang Bubai. He killed himself, choosing death over submission to a leader he doesn't like.
  • Ning Zhongze killed herself over shame and sadness after realizing that her husband Yue Buqun is an unrepentant and hypocritical powermonger and that her daughter is dead.
• Drunk with Power:
  • Soon after Ren Woxing retakes his position as the chief of the Sun Moon sect, the sect's fawning practices nurtured by their previous chief Dongfang Bubai still continued, and he sees himself as Zuo Lengchan's arch-rival with a similar ambition to conquer or dominate the other sects.
  • Yue Buqun isn't much different from Zuo Lengchan after he became the new chief of the Five Mountains Swords Sects Alliance.
• Easily Swayed Population: Other than the sect leaders involved in the politics, for the most part the rest of the sect members are background characters or merely following orders.
• Eunuchs Are Evil: Dongfang Bubai, Yue Buqun, and Lin Pingzhi castrated themselves in order to master the skills in the Sunflower Manual and Bixie Swordplay manual. But its a zigzagged trope, because some of these characters are villains even before becoming eunuchs and some non-eunuch characters are still villains.
• Good Is Not Dumb: Fangzheng of Shaolin and Chong Xu of Wudang are not at all ignorant of the power play going on within the Five Mountains Sword Sects Alliance, and recognized that in the longer term their own sects will also be in danger. They voiced their hope that Linghu Chong can either stop the merger of the five sects or at least become the Alliance's new leader, because a less ambitious leader would arguably lead to less bloodshed.
• Good Is Not Soft: Fangzheng of Shaolin and Chong Xu of Wudang may be the Big Good of the story, but they had no pretension of being squeaky clean faultless heroes, and actually do perceive and act on the lesser of two evils. In the ending of the novel, they planned to assassinate Ren Woxing, although that plan never materialized due to Ren Woxing's untimely death. Linghu himself agreed that this underhanded tactic is for the greater good.
• Guile Hero: Linghu Chong. When outmatched in martial arts skills, he resorted to outwitting his opponents to achieve his objective. Linghu has also explicitly expressed he had no qualms with using underhanded tactics to defeat his opponent. Feng Qingyang praised that Linghu's self-admission of playing dirty is still better than the hypocrisy among the Five Swords Sects Alliance.
• Handicapped Badass: The blind martial artists who are in or allied with Mount Song sect, namely Zuo Lengchan (blinded by Yue Buqun), the 15 Mount Song elders (blinded by Linghu Chong), and Lin Pingzhi. They headed to Mount Hua for revenge, but Yue Buqun anticipated it and trapped them along with the rest of the leaders in the Alliance inside the cave, where almost everyone fought each other to the death. In the dark cave, the blind martial artists had the advantage, although Linghu Chong eventually found a way around the problem and killed them.
• Happily Ever After: The novel ended with improved relations between the orthodox and unorthodox sects, the (relatively) moderate Xiang Wentian becoming the new leader of the Sun Moon sect, Linghu Chong's internal energy injuries finally healing, marrying Ren Yingying, and the couple subsequently retired from Jianghu. Some adaptations found this original ending too dull and added an additional stake where Ren Yingying is revealed to be dying from a time-based Cyanide Pill and Linghu had to find an antidote to rescue her.
• Hate Sink:
  • The Qingcheng sect and its leader Yu Canghai are portrayed as these for being jerkasses and murderers of Lin Pingzhi's family, which also kicks off the novel's plot.
  • The Mount Song Sect elders who persecuted Liu Zhengfeng by threatening his family are particularly unlikable Knight Templars.
• He Who Fights Monsters: How Lin Pingzhi is portrayed as when he finally killed Yu Canghai and Mu Gaofeng.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Ning Zhongze had to be extremely lovestruck, such that she can be married for decades and still not realize her husband's real character.
• The Horseshoe Effect:
  • Ren Woxing's re-taking leadership of the Sun Moon sect from Dongfang Bubai's hands is meant to be an allegory that a new government that overthrew the previous one with the support of the people may still not necessarily make life better for the people. Linghu Chong observed, to his dismay, that Ren Woxing isn't any better than the oppressive Dongfang Bubai.
  • The "Sword" and "Qi" factions within the Mount Hua Sect is an allegory of how in real life different perspectives on a subject can sharply divide people. Both factions agree that swordplay techniques and internal energy cultivation are important, what caused the sect's internal conflict is differing on what should be the foundation.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: Implied status of the Mount Hua sect. Mount Hua Sect used to be the most powerful sect of the Five Mountains Sword Sects Alliance, before an internal power struggle happened between the "Qi" and "Sword" factions who had disagreements in their martial arts practices. The "Qi" faction used underhanded tactics to overthrow the "Sword" faction, forcing them into exile, but also effectively weakening Mount Hua Sect's numbers and hence allowing the Mount Song Sect to become the dominant sect in the alliance instead. By the end of the novel, the disintegration of the Five Mountains Swords Sects Alliance further worsened Mount Hua Sect's status.
• Humble Pie: This is essentially what Feng Buping, leader of the exiled "Sword" faction of the Mount Hua Sect felt from his defeat at the hands of Linghu Chong, who was using the Nine Swords of Dugu swordplay. This is utterly humiliating because Linghu Chong is just an apprentice of a faction that emphasizes on good internal energy and he had lost his internal energy from an injury, while Feng Buping is the leader of a faction that emphasizes on good swordplay, decades more experienced and actually has much better internal energy by default. By this account, Linghu Chong should be hopelessly outmatched but he prevailed anyway.
• Hypocrite:
  • The purportedly heroic Five Mountains Sword Sects Alliance committed the same crimes and/or atrocities they accuse their enemies of.
    • Yue Buqun in particular is the biggest hypocrite among the Alliance, only revealed to be so late in the novel. Puts up an appearance of a gentleman, yet doesn't aid the North Hengshan sect when they are in trouble. Condemns the act of learning other sects' martial arts without permission, yet steals the Bixie Swordplay manual for himself and had his daughter learn the skills of other sects' martial arts. Waxes lyrical about heroism, restraint, and how good and evil cannot reconcile, yet secretly kills/cripples people to remove obstacles or to further his ambition, regardless of his victims' innocence.
  • Even Ren Woxing has his moments. Towards the end of the novel, while he publicly expressed that he doesn't want a reputation of ambushing and destroying his opponents unfairly, he secretly plotted to do exactly that against Shaolin and Wudang sects who he anticipate would come to the aid of Linghu Chong and the North Mount Heng sect.
• Instant Expert: Averted or downplayed for the most part when it comes to learning a new swordplay skill. There is little reference to the amount of time spent to master new martial arts like the Bixie Swordplay or the Anti-Alliance countermoves. Also, when Feng Qingyang gave Linghu Chong a few hours crash course on the Nine Swords of Dugu swordplay, he only had time to teach him the stance to counter knife moves - Partly as a test to see if Linghu Chong had what it takes to learn the Nine Swords of Dugu and defeat Tian Boguang. After Linghu Chong proved his intellect in comprehending the stance and returns victorious, Feng Qingyang decides Linghu Chong is worthy of learning the complete Nine Swords of Dugu swordplay, which takes far more time than just a few hours.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Mo Da of the South Mount Heng Sect never got along with Liu Zhengfeng, but in the face of political pressure he chose to kill Liu Zhengfeng's oppressor anyway.
• Knight Templar: While there are a few decent members of the Five Mountains Sword Sects Alliance, the best of them are consistently portrayed in this manner. Yue Buqun especially, at least until he was revealed to be a hypocritical powermonger who stole the Bixie Swordplay and mastered its skills.
• Last Girl Wins: Linghu Chong married Ren Yingying.
• Like Brother and Sister: Linghu Chong and Yue Lingshan initially looked like childhood sweethearts. It became this after Lin Pingzhi successfully romanced Yue Lingshan, thus making the romance one-sided on Linghu Chong's end.
• Mistaken for Profound: Linghu Chong held the musical score Xiao Ao Jianghu with him for a long time, which was almost forgotten until he was found with it, at a bad time when he inexplicably showed a tremendous improvement in his martial arts skills. This aroused many of his elders' suspicions as to whether the Bixie Swordplay manual's contents is hidden within this innocuous musical score. It took consulting many experts across town to conclude the musical score is what it is and nothing more, which embarrassed the elders for having wronged Linghu Chong.
• The Mole: Lao Denuo, the 2nd senior disciple of Yue Buqun, is actually the 3rd senior disciple of Zuo Lengchan who was sent to Mount Hua Sect to spy on the sect's activities.
• Next Tier Power-Up:
  • Learning the Nine Swords of Dugu turned Linghu Chong from a middling martial artist to someone who can challenge or even defeat most highly notable martial artists in the Jianghu, all these despite having lost his internal energy (i.e.: most of his physical strength) from an unrelated incident. After Linghu Chong somewhat recovered from his internal energy injuries and giving himself a bit more tactical thought, he was even able to counter the Bixie Swordplay empowered Yue Buqun towards the end of the novel. Justified, in that Linghu Chong is portrayed as an intelligent young man who had talent in quickly picking up sword moves, even ones that are reportedly as difficult as the Nine Swords of Dugu.
  • The Bixie Swordplay gives the practitioner superhuman speed in executing sword moves, which turns what is otherwise unimpressive moves into highly lethal ones. In particular, mastering the Bixie Swordplay elevated Lin Pingzhi from the bottom pile of martial artists into one of the most dangerous martial artists, within the timeframe of merely a few months. Linghu Chong had witnessed the true prowess of the Bixie Swordplay when Pingzhi used it to slaughter his family's murderers, and at that point in time even noted to himself he had no confidence in countering the Bixie Swordplay.
  • The martial arts that Dongfang Bubai learnt from the Sunflower Manual turned him into a One-Man Army capable of holding an edge over the combined efforts of Ren Woxing, Xiang Wentian, and Linghu Chong - And each of them are arguably One-Man Army themselves. This makes Dongfang Bubai the most powerful martial artist in the novel.
• Nice Guy: Besides being an occasional drunk and slightly crude in his language with either his drinking buddies or the people he despised, the core of Linghu Chong's character is that he's a morally-upright, usually respectful and friendly Guile Hero.
• Noble Demon:
  • Tian Boguang is probably the most extreme example in this novel, which seemed to be a deliberate decision by Jinyong to contrast him with the purported "heroes" of the novel. He is a bandit and serial rapist. However, while the character expressed utterly irredeemable villainous traits, he had also shown inexplicably honourable traits, such as keeping to his promise albeit grudgingly, and showing respect to Linghu Chong, who outwitted him the first time and defeated him the second time.
  • Various members of the Sun Moon sect, the so-called "unorthodox cult", are also portrayed this way: Namely Ren Yingying, Ren Woxing, and Xiang Wentian.
• No Honor Among Thieves:
  • Eight of the Jianghu lowlifes allied with the Sun Moon sect were commanded by Yue Buqun (Who at the time was holding the Sun Moon Sect's authority sign) to capture the North Hengshan nuns, with the promise of giving them access to the Bixie Swordplay manual. They encountered an incapacitated Linghu Chong and Ren Yingying by chance, and agreed to kill the pair to keep their own treachery a secret. The problem is these lowlifes feared that anyone killing Yingying would receive the full wrath of the Sun Moon sect, they couldn't trust each other to keep the murder a secret, and also couldn't trust each other to not keep the Bixie Swordplay manual for themselves. Linghu stalled for time while letting them kill each other over trust and greed issues. By the time he freed himself and Yingying, only three crooks were left alive for them to fight...
• Offstage Villainy: Tian Boguang is a serial rapist who failed to rape any women during the events of the novel, and was instead repeatedly humiliated by Linghu Chong and Monk Bujie, and gradually repented. This is probably the only way to make him look "redeemable" in the context of the story.
• One-Man Army: Most of the highly notable members of the Jianghu are either implied to be or are shown to be doing this. Dongfang Bubai is the most prominent example for having an edge even when fellow One-Man Army characters Ren Woxing, Xiang Wentian and Linghu Chong teamed up against him. Yue Buqun, even before mastering the Bixie Swordplay, had used his Huashan martial arts to briefly fight back 15 Songshan elders before getting overwhelmed by their sheer numbers.
• Out-Gambitted: The power-play in acquiring the Bixie Swordplay manual for the most part goes on between the major players Yu Canghai, Zuo Lengchan, and Yue Buqun. The final outcome is that Yue Buqun successfully acquired and mastered the Bixie Swordplay. Yu Canghai is the least intelligent of the three, using Lin Pingzhi's murder of his own son as an weak and blatant excuse to find the Bixie Swordplay manual at the cost of his sect's reputation. Zuo Lengchan sent out spies to keep a close eye on what's going on in the Alliance, subtly strongarmed his allies to fall in with his ambition, but he was unable to anticipate the moves of the third party: Yue Buqun, the leader of Huashan sect. Buqun knowingly let the destruction of the Fuwei Security Service play out to its completion, so that he has an excuse to recruit Lin Pingzhi into the Huashan sect. When the opportunity arises, he stole the Bixie Swordplay manual from Linghu Chong who was safekeeping it. Anticipating that spies are around, he created a fake Bixie Swordplay manual so that Lao Denuo could steal it. Finally, with his mastery of the Bixie Swordplay, he took the opportunity to challenge and defeat Zuo Lengchan in a battle to determine the new leader of the Alliance. This trope is somewhat downplayed as Yue Buqun is more of an opportunist than an actual chessmaster - how he ultimately stayed one step ahead of Zuo Lengchan is a combination of luck and his motives being harder to read.
• Out of Focus: So many characters, so many sects with different cultures... Yet the novel only majorly focuses on Mount Hua and North Mount Heng Sects of the Five Swords Sects Alliance, and besides Linghu Chong its the sect leaders who get the most attention in the story.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: The Qingcheng sect systematically killed Lin Pingzhi's family in their search for the family heirloom's Bixie Swordplay manual. Lin Pingzhi repaid the favour in kind after mastering the Bixie Swordplay.
• Poor Communication Kills: Yue Buqun and Ning Zhongze speculated that their disciple Linghu Chong's Qi injuries could have been deliberately arranged by their enemies in hopes that Buqun would expend his strength by using the Violet Mist Divine Skill to heal Linghu. There is actually no conspiracy of that sort, and this speculation highlights how real life people with their own framework of thought can misinterpret events.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Yue Buqun the leader of Mount Hua sect (Public appearances wise), his wife Ning Zhongze, and Fangzheng the abbot of Shaolin.
• Revealing Cover-Up: The Five Swords Sects Alliance had a dark history that was hidden within the mountain where Linghu Chong was serving his punishment via self-reflection: They used underhanded tactics to trap the elders of the Sun Moon sect in a cave to let them starve to death. As a last moment of spite against the Alliance, the Sun Moon sect elders used their remaining time to create moves that are specifically designed to counter the traditional swordplay moves used by the sects in the Alliance, and etched them onto the walls of the cave. A novice Linghu Chong stumbled onto the cave by accident and learnt of the Alliance's dark past. These counter swordplay moves became a major plot point much later on in the novel.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!:
  • Mo Da and Liu Zhengfeng of the South Mount Heng Sect reportedly never get along, and politically speaking there's not much loss to Mo Da if he opposes Liu Zhengfeng, who was persecuted by the Alliance for socializing with an elder of the Sun Moon Sect. However, when a Mount Song Sect elder gave Mo Da an option to kill Liu Zhengfeng, Mo Da attacked and killed that Mount Song Sect member instead, with Linghu Chong and Yilin personally witnessing this twist of events. While Mo Da's motives are never explained, it can be argued to be a combination of righteousness and anger at Mount Song's interference in his sect's affairs. It is therefore somewhat satisfying when novel ending revealed that Mo Da is the only survivor of his sect.
• Secret-Keeper:
  • Linghu Chong never revealed that Feng Qingyang taught him the Nine Swords of Dugu, just as Feng Qingyang made him promise, but nevertheless a few wise elders were still able to figure that out by observing his moves.
  • Linghu Chong and Yilin also kept the secret that Mo Da killed a Mount Song Sect elder, but much later on Zuo Lengchan found that out by himself anyway and not so subtly blackmailed Mo Da to fall in line with his orders anyway.
• Self-Imposed Exile: Feng Qingyang once belonged to the "Sword" faction in the Mount Hua sect and is their most powerful member. The "Qi" faction tricked him away during the last stand between the two factions of the Mount Hua Sect, knowing their key to victory was to have him stay out of the conflict. After learning that he was tricked, Feng Qingyang felt disgraced and became reclusive, staying out of the Jianghu's affairs. His only appearance in the novel is to teach Linghu Chong the Nine Swords of Dugu swordplay.
• Selective Obliviousness: While various characters of the novel despised or are wary of Yue Buqun for his hypocrisy, Linghu Chong who is presented as an witty and talented young hero, showed utter devotion and loyalty to his master for most of the novel. This is justifiable, as Linghu Chong was raised by Yue Buqun and sees him as a father figure.
• Story-Breaker Power: That's the reason why Dongfang Bubai only lasted one chapter in the novel. He's the most formidable martial artist in the novel and none of the other One-Man Army characters came close to beating him. The reason he was killed off was a Moment of Weakness when he got distracted from hearing his lover getting tortured.
• Take a Third Option: What the title of the novel suggests: Instead of supporting one side over another, and instead of politicking/fighting over power, some simply choose to completely wash their hands of the Wuxia conflict and retire. While its actually a seemingly common sense and even tempting idea, it is much easier said than done, as friends on opposing sides Liu Zhengfeng and Qu Yang can attest to.
• Taking You with Me: During a leadership dispute within Mount Tai sect, the leader Tianmen got into a fight with a troublemaker named Qinghai Yixiao, and both perished in that fight. This turn of events was strongly implied to be engineered by Mount Song's Zuo Lengchan, allowing Yujizi to take over as the new leader of Mount Tai sect.
• Token Good Teammate:
  • Among the leaders of the Five Swords Sects Alliance, most of them are either yes-men (Mount Tai's Tianmen, Yujizi, Yuqingzi), ruthlessly ambitious (Mount Song's Zuo Lengchan and Mount Hua's Yue Buqun), or apathetic (South Mount Heng's Mo Da). The only exception is that of the North Mount Heng Sect, namely the three elder Buddhist nuns Dingjing, Dingxian and Dingyi. Unlike the rest of the leaders in the Alliance, in the face of overwhelming political odds the elder nuns often expressed indignance and outrage at the overreaching actions of the Mount Song Sect, especially the persecution of Liu Zhengfeng of the South Mount Heng Sect.
• Undying Loyalty: Yue Lingshan for the most part of her doomed marriage to Lin Pingzhi. She stood by and supported Lin Pingzhi in his revenge, but eventually was too shaken by her husband's admission of being castrated and that his next target is her hypocritical father Yue Buqun, to the point of wanting to back off and retire as a nun. Finding her a burden and no longer of any use, Pingzhi mortally wounded her and left. She used her last words to plead for Linghu Chong not to kill her husband, saying that Pingzhi had a hard life.
• Unexpected Successor: Out of options after the remaining elder nuns in the North Mount Heng Sect were killed off, a dying Dingxian hastily passed on the sect leader role to fellow ally Linghu Chong, making him the first male member of the sect in history. It is however implied that Dingxian's last minute succession plan is not without intent. Without a leader, the North Mount Heng Sect will be easily gobbled up by the much stronger Mount Song Sect. Even if Linghu failed to prevent the sect from the merger, Zuo Lengchan would find him even more troublesome to handle as compared to the elder nuns. Arguably Dingxian's way of giving a final metaphorical middle finger to Zuo Lengchan on his alliance merger ambition.
• Unwitting Pawn:
  • What Linghu Chong, Yue Lingshan, and Lin Pingzhi are to Yue Buqun. He patiently let the massacre of Fuwei Security Service play to their logical conclusion, brought Lin Pingzhi under his protection and even let him join the Huashan sect so as to keep tabs on where the Bixie Swordplay manual could possibly be. After Linghu Chong found the manual and took it for safekeeping, he passed out from his injuries, giving Yue Buqun an opportunity to steal it and shift the blame onto Linghu Chong. He convinced his daughter to learn the Anti-Alliance countermoves created by the Sun Moon sect so she can put on a show of besting the rest of the leaders in a contest and allow him to focus on defeating Zuo Lengchan to become the new chief of the Alliance.
  • Linghu Chong yet again. When he was accompanying Xiang Wentian to challenge the Four Friends of Jiangnan he had no idea he was helping Xiang to free Ren Woxing from imprisonment, and didn't even know the prison break will involve him staying in the cell for more than a month.
• Weak, but Skilled: Linghu Chong for the most part of the novel had no internal energy but his grasp of the Nine Swords of Dugu swordplay allowed him to defeat most opponents.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Linghu Chong is almost supremely good at swordplay, but is relatively weak at internal strength, even after learning Ren Woxing's Star Sucking Power. And without being able to use his sword, he's relatively easy to defeat. Demonstrated when he tried to defend himself against Mute Granny, who rendered him helpless when she stopped him from drawing his sword.
• What the Hell, Hero?: The Six Immortals of the Peach Valley under the directions of Ren Yingying deliver a semblance of this to Zuo Lengchan - Although it must be noted that Zuo Lengchan is no hero. They pointed out the political ambitions/implications of Zuo Lengchan's various actions, words which are often left unsaid because its sort of an open secret but for the first time is clearly spelt out to the rest of the Alliance who are listening.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: The Sunflower manual's skills and the Bixie Swordplay are portrayed as mind-corrupting but seductive in that few who saw the contents of the manuals will refrain from practicing it. With the rather ambiguous exception of posthumous character Lin Yuantu, the rest of the practitioners are presented with some degree of insanity in different areas. Dongfang Bubai began to live and dress like a woman, Lin Pingzhi turned into a psychopath, and Yue Buqun gradually dropped his gentleman facade and became a full-blown sociopath towards the end.
• With Us or Against Us: The conflict between the Five Swords Sects Alliance and the Sun Moon Sect basically boils down to: "This person isn't part of the orthodox/unorthodox sects, so he must be killed". Both sides aren't faultless and had their own share of committing atrocities.
• Women Are Wiser: The all-female North Mount Heng Sect is the only sect in the Five Swords Sects Alliance with morally decent leaders who showed no ambition of dominating the Jianghu. Compared to the others sects in the Alliance, they are relatively humble and magnanimous. It is the only sect in the alliance whose seniors dislike taking on a leadership role, seeing it as a burden, and actually had a failed attempt to push the chief role to Yilin. It is also the only sect of the Alliance that survived the events of the novel.
• Worthy Opponent: How Tian Boguang views Linghu Chong as, and it shows in their first confrontation: Tian sat down while fighting off a senior member of Mount Tai sect, which is a sign of disrespect from Tian, but when it was Linghu's turn to attack Tian Boguang consciously stood up to defend himself despite Linghu's weakened condition compared to the disrespected senior of the Mount Tai sect.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness:
  • Once Yue Buqun had successfully gotten the Bixie Swordplay manual, he tried to get rid of Lin Pingzhi. A subsequent dialogue between Lin Pingzhi and Lao Denuo had confirmed this.
  • Similarly, Lin Pingzhi neglected Yue Lingshan soon after their marriage, gradually growing dismissive and callous towards her, and finally ended up killing her when she became no longer of any use to Pingzhi as a shield against Yue Buqun. It is implied that practising the Bixie Swordplay partially influenced his mind for the worse.

Specific tropes to the adaptations

• Adaptational Alternate Ending:
  • Taiwanese TV series (2000): It is strongly implied that Xiang Wentian abandoned his newly assigned role as the chief of the Sun Moon sect, deciding that he doesn't like his newfound power after all. Lin Pingzhi's fate was vague, one can either interpret he had a variation of Caught Up in the Rapture from encountering Yue Lingshan's ghost, or he went insane from his sorrows over Lingshan's death and somehow left Linghu Chong's care.
  • Taiwanese TV series (1985): Unlike the other adaptations where Lin Pingzhi was either killed or imprisoned with his eyes blind and limbs crippled, this version joined Shaolin sect to repent and thus had a relatively better ending (not shown, just mentioned in dialogue).
  • Chinese TV series (2013): There's an implication that a tiny part of Dongfang Bubai's personality was integrated with Ren Yingying after Dongfang Bubai secretly gave the then-dying Ren Yingying a heart transplant. In some sense, Linghu Chong's final love was both Ren Yingying and Dongfang Bubai.
• Adaptational Badass: The 2018 webseries' version of Lan Fenghuang, who is one of the main characters in the series too. The novel version, while still the leader of her own Five Venom Sect, she's a subordinate to Ren Yingying, subservient to the Sun Moon sect, and doesn't feature much in terms of fighting. This adaptation gave her more fight scenes, portrayed her Five Venom Sect as a near-equal rival to the Sun Moon sect, and feature her involving in a power struggle with Ren Woxing even after joining the sect as an elder. She ends up as the only one who successfully killed Dongfang Bubai, albeit via suicide.
• Adaptational Heroism: In the 2018 web-series, Dongfang Bubai appeared to be a loyal subject of Ren Woxing and with noble intentions too. Ultimately subverted as towards the end of the series, Dongfang Bubai revealed that he was only pretending to be a hero for the sake of getting close to and killing Ren Woxing, taking over the Sun Moon sect, and killing everyone who stands in his way of ambition. Arguably, he's portrayed as a bigger monster than Yue Buqun.
• Adaptational Jerkass:
  • Ren Woxing in the Taiwanese TV series (2000) is significantly more unlikable and rude towards Linghu Chong.
• Adaptational Sexuality: Dongfang Bubai is portrayed as a male homosexual for almost all the adaptations, even if at many times the role is played by a female actor. In the Chinese TV series (2013), the Dongfang Bubai role was inexplicably shoehorned into a straight woman masquerading as a man in order to rise up in a misogynistic Sun Moon sect. Which is unexplained in later parts of the script as this same Dongfang Bubai had mastered the Sunflower manual, which is clearly mentioned to require male castration as a prerequisite. Although female genital mutilation do exist, the novel itself never clarified whether women can master the contents of the Sunflower manual.
• Adaptational Villainy:
  • Yue Buqun had always been the villain in the novel, but in a few adaptations he is upgraded into the final villain. For instance, he is significantly more ruthless in the Singaporean TV series (2000) version, having challenged and killed Ren Woxing, and is also the actual culprit who murdered Lin Pingzhi's parents.
  • The 2018 webseries' version of Ping Yizhi inexplicably became Dongfang Bubai's sidekick.
• Adaptational Wimp: The 2018 web-series' version of Dongfang Bubai, even after mastering the skills in the Sunflower manual, struggles a lot more in fighting off his opponents as compared to novel's version of being the supremely invincible martial artist of his time. He was frequently injured from fighting his opponents. A match between him and Fangzheng also ended in a draw. Although to be fair, this could all be part of him obfuscating his true self, as revealed towards the end of the show.
• Adaptation Expansion:
  • Dongfang Bubai is such an unexpectedly popular character that he gets more screentime in many adaptations, be it that his motivations are further explored, or more dialogue and deeper characterization is given.
  • Ren Yingying is originally a supporting character who only appears in the second half of the novel, and ends up as the final and true love interest of Linghu Chong. Many adaptations turned her into co-protagonists with Linghu Chong, by giving her more story background and often appearing much earlier on in the series as compared to that of the novel.
  • In summary, many adaptations expand on the stories of various characters in the Sun Moon sect.
  • Singaporean TV series (2000):
    • Lan Fenghuang's origins are further explored here where her past is tied to Tian Boguang's.
  • Taiwanese TV series (2000):
    • Qu Yang and Xiang Wentian had more Character Development in the early episodes than the novel had given them.
• Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole: The Chinese TV series (2013) is notorious for doing a Gender Flip on Dongfang Bubai, which invoked several egregious inconsistencies between episodes. On the first few episodes, Dongfang Bubai was portrayed as a straight male character who sought to enjoy female companions before learning the martial arts in the Sunflower manual (which require castration). The scene where he/she was prancing around and dressed in women clothing was apparently meant to invoke confusion and barely masked revulsion within the eyes of Xiang Wentian (From his perspective he's looking at a man dressed as a woman). However, subsequent episodes apparently portrayed him/her as an Attractive Bent-Gender. Soon after, it was suddenly revealed that Dongfang Bubai is actually a straight woman who masquerades around as a man. And yet a future episode mentioned that the castration prerequisite in the Sunflower Manual had mentally and physically corrupted Dongfang Bubai. It seemed that the episodes' scripts were not proofread at all.
• Adaptation Name Change: Reportedly due to legal matters, the name Shaolin is no longer allowed to be used on TV and hence the Chinese TV series (2013) adaptation changed Shaolin sect's name to Lingjiu sect.
• Adaptation Personality Change: In the original novel Yang Lianting is the dominant man in a homosexual relationship with Dongfang Bubai, and is arguably the de-facto leader of the Sun Moon Sect. In the Chinese TV series (2013) he becomes a completely different character due to a differently motivated and actual female Dongfang Bubai. This version is instead a Linghu Chong look-alike (same actor) who Dongfang Bubai treats like a boy-toy and regularly abusing him. This version cowers under and secretly plots against Dongfang Bubai, and also had an intense hate for Linghu Chong because he's the root cause of his abuse at Dongfang Bubai's hands.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
  • The Chinese TV series (2013) made Dongfang Bubai the long-lost sister of Yilin.
  • And obviously, the Dongfang Bubai-Linghu Chong romantic relationship originally popularized thanks to the 1992 film adaptation, which never ever occurred in the novel.
  • The Singaporean TV series (2000) added a subplot where Tian Boguang and Lan Fenghuang were on-and-off lovers.
  • In the largely forgotten Taiwanese TV series (1985), Lan Fenghuang remarked on a past relationship with Tian Boguang, which was never brought up again. It is possible that there were later scenes that would revisit this but end up getting deleted.
• Artifact of Doom: In the Taiwanese TV series (2000), just before Lin Zhennan's death he implored Linghu Chong to pass down a secret message to his son Lin Pingzhi, hinting that the family heirloom Bixie Swordplay manual is a cursed item and the house (that hid the manual) should be burnt down. Sadly, just like what happened in the novel, Pingzhi never heeded his father's warnings.
• Ascended Extra:
  • In the novel, Dongfang Bubai's appearance only appeared in a single chapter and was killed off quickly. In various adaptations, Dongfang Bubai is given bigger focus and sometimes is even upgraded into the main antagonist and given romantic scenes with the protagonist Linghu Chong. This is in large part influenced by the classic film adaptation Swordsman II (1992) where the movie places major focus on Dongfang Bubai. For the Taiwanese TV series (2000) adaptation he's upgraded to a Disc-One Final Boss while the Singaporean TV series (2000) goes one step further and upgraded him into the main and final antagonist. The Chinese TV series (2013) played this trope to its logical conclusion and upgraded Dongfang Bubai into what's effectively both a co-protagonist with Linghu Chong and an occasional antagonist.
• Butt-Monkey: Tian Boguang became this in the Chinese TV series (2013) adaptation, which would have been so satisfyingly well-deserved if it had not been for the series treating him as a Nice Guy doing serial Black Comedy Rape.
• Canon Foreigner:
  • Ping Yizhi in the Singaporean TV series (2000) had a brother, amusingly named "Ping Erzhi" and played by the same actor. He serves pretty much the same role as Ping Yizhi does albeit sounding less crazy. The scriptwriters probably thought killing off Ping Yizhi early on was a mistake and simply created a new doctor character when they needed it, instead of you know, just spending a bit more effort to rewrite the earlier parts of the script to preserve Ping Yizhi's life.
  • The Taiwanese TV series (1985) in particular gave Ren Yingying her own recurring nemesis who doesn't exist in the novel.
• Composite Character:
  • In particular, the Chinese TV series (2013) version of Dongfang Bubai is an amalgamation of several supporting characters in the novel that managed to turn the character into the series' other main character besides Linghu Chong:
    • She completely replaced Monk Bujie and Mute Granny as Yilin's elder sister.
    • The roles of the Six Immortals of the Peach Valley are both split between her and Lan Fenghuang.
    • She replaced Ren Yingying in a few parts of the Character Development moments between Linghu Chong and Ren Yingying.
  • Many adaptations tend to give North Mount Heng sect leader Dingxian the (more interesting) personality of her hot-tempered junior Dingyi, or simply just making Dingyi the leader instead.
  • The long-forgotten Taiwanese TV series (1985) completely omits Mu Gaofeng, making Yu Canghai the only one responsible for deaths of Lin Pingzhi's parents and also the one who blinded Lin Pingzhi before his death.
• Compressed Adaptation:
  • The Taiwanese TV series (1985) greatly suffered from this in the third act, especially towards the end. The Mute Granny subplot, North Mount Heng leadership succession, Linghu Chong's Yijin Jing healing, Lao Denuo and Lin Pingzhi's ending, and the deaths of all the three Big Bad Zuo Lengchan, Ren Woxing, and Yue Buqun were all covered in the very final episode. Partly because it spent a lot of time in the early episodes establishing the characters from the Sun Moon cult, something that the novel did not do.
  • The Taiwanese TV series (2000) removed some characters and simplify some key events in exchange for greater focus on other events/characters. For instance, Mo Da of the South Mount Heng sect doesn't exist in this series, and so Liu Zhengfeng's death effectively wrote out the South Mount Heng sect, presumably absorbed into Mount Song sect.
• Deconstruction: The Taiwanese TV series (2000) adaptation do enjoy playing with this a little.
  • Xiang Wentian's Undying Loyalty to Ren Woxing was played to its ultimate conclusion. He's portrayed as a blindly loyal right-hand man to the point of near-idiocy, and while a relatively amiable man outside of work, he commits atrocities under the orders of his leader because he believes that his leader is doing all these things for the greater good.
  • Post-castration Lin Pingzhi is a Jerkass in the novel, but shown shades of Jerk with a Heart of Gold in this adaptation. After a long period of time romancing Yue Lingshan, it is difficult not to develop feelings for her, even if a huge part of the romancing is faked in order to get Yue Buqun off his back.
  • Bad habits die hard. Tian Boguang the serial rapist took way longer to repent from committing (or attempting to) rape atrocities than the novel version did. His full repentance only occurred in the final episode and was only accepted as genuine repentance when he revealed that he had castrated himself.
• Demoted to Extra: Poor Xiang Wentian. His role in the Chinese TV series (2013) was reduced into a Satellite Character revolving around the leader of the Sun Moon cult at any point in time. Not that he is a major player in the novel, but at least his novel counterpart served as a key role in bridging Linghu Chong into the Sun Moon Cult political conflict.
• Demoted to Satellite Love Interest: The character of Ren Yingying in the Chinese TV series (2013) suffered from this, due to the somewhat controversial decision by the writer to shoehorn a female Dongfang Bubai into the main love interest for Linghu Chong. What happened was that the key moment where Linghu Chong saw Ren Yingying's face for the first time followed by the subsequent Character Development moments was replaced with that of Dongfang Bubai instead. Perhaps partly due to contractual issues, the writers prevented the Ren Yingying actress from becoming a mere extra by giving Xiang Wentian's key role to her. However, even ignoring the general perception that the chemistry between Linghu and Yingying were ruined, the fewer bonding moments between the two means their subsequent romance doesn't feel "earned" and also prevented Ren Yingying from becoming her own character.
• Ensemble Cast:
  • Downplayed trope for the Singaporean TV series (2000), but its there. Still not quite to the level of sharing equal screentime with the lead role Linghu Chong, but Dongfang Bubai, Tian Boguang, Lan Fenghuang, Ren Yingying, Lin Pingzhi, and Yue Lingshan are given significantly more screentime thanks to Adaptation Expansion, when compared to their original novel counterparts.
  • For the 2018 web-series, besides the obvious Linghu Chong and Ren Yingying as the main characters, Dongfang Bubai, Lan Fenghuang, Lin Pingzhi and Yue Lingshan are the other two couples sharing more or less the same screentime with the other two main characters.
• Face–Heel Turn: Unlike what happened in the novel, the 2018 web series' version of Zu Qianqiu and Lao Touzi eventually grew disgruntled with Linghu Chong and Ren Yingying, resulting in them joining forces with Yue Buqun to kidnap the North Hengshan nuns.
• Gender Flip: Controversially, this happened to the character of Dongfang Bubai in the Chinese TV series (2013) adaptation, combined with Adaptational Sexuality.
• Grand Finale:
  • Singaporean TV series (2000): Linghu Chong and Lin Pingzhi made one last stand against Dongfang Bubai. Lin Pingzhi was permanently paralyzed from the fight while Linghu Chong eventually gained the upper hand and killed Dongfang Bubai. With all the major figures in the Jianghu killed off, Linghu Chong was the only one left to settle the leader succession roles with the remaining members of North Mount Heng and Mount Hua sects. Lin Pingzhi stayed in a cave to repent from his sins while Linghu Chong and Ren Yingying retired from Jianghu.
  • Taiwanese TV series (2000): The Five Swords Sect Alliance was wiped out by Ren Woxing, who went irreversibly insane. To prevent him from harming anyone else, Linghu Chong and Ren Yingying were forced to sent him down the dungeons to his death. Disillusioned with Wuxia politics, Ren Yingying declined to be the next Sun Moon sect leader, and the role was given to Xiang Wentian instead. But Xiang Wentian too gained an epiphany about the potential pitfalls of seeking greater power, laughed and destroyed the throne, leaving for parts unknown.
  • Hong Kong TV series (1996): Linghu Chong and Ren Woxing fought one final round, but just when Ren Woxing gained the upper hand, his stress and illness took a toll on him and he passed away. The threat of bloodshed over, Linghu Chong settled the leader succession roles with the remaining members of North Mount Heng and Mount Hua sects, followed by preparing for his marriage to Ren Yingying.
  • Chinese TV series (2013): Linghu Chong and Ren Woxing fought one final round with the latter gaining the upper hand, but with discreet help from Dongfang Bubai, Linghu Chong was saved while Ren Woxing passed away from stress and illness. The threat of bloodshed over, Linghu Chong settled the leader succession roles with the remaining members of North Mount Heng and Mount Hua sects. Ren Yingying's taking of the poisoned pill during Dongfang Bubai's reign started to take effect, but Dongfang Bubai made a final sacrifice by donating her heart to Ren Yingying, which acts as the cure.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Singaporean TV series (2000): Tian Boguang killed himself so that his blood can serve as an antidote to the Sun Moon sect members who are suffering an agonizing death from lacking the antidote supplied by Dongfang Bubai after swallowing the poisoned pill as a loyalty test. He did it partly to save his beloved Lan Fenghuang (Although it was for naught as she committed suicide with his corpse anyway).
• Hidden Depths: In the Taiwanese TV series (2000) adaptation, Dongfang Bubai had tearful flashbacks of his time when he was still a man - Enjoying his life with his multiple concubines. After he castrated himself to learn the martial arts in the Sunflower manual, he lost this interest and slaughtered them in his gradual process of becoming homosexual. At the present it was shown that Dongfang Bubai wanted to consummate his relationship with Yang Lianting, but its biologically impossible for him as a castrated homosexual.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy:
  • Chinese TV series (2013): Ren Yingying had earlier swallowed a poisoned pill as a test of loyalty to Dongfang Bubai. When Ren Yingying began dying from the effects of the poisoned pill, a secretly-in-exile Dongfang Bubai approached Ping Yizhi and told him that the antidote is literally her own heart - She told the doctor to transplant her heart to Ren Yingying, let her corpse sink deep in the ocean, and never tell Yingying and Linghu Chong who the donor is. So while Ren Yingying survived and married Linghu Chong, she literally had Dongfang Bubai's heart and hence symbolically Dongfang Bubai's heart belonged to Linghu Chong forever.
• Older Than They Look: If we are to believe that the Dongfang Bubai of Chinese TV series (2013) is the older sister of Yilin, and more than a decade ago had decided to masquerade as a man so that she can become Ren Woxing's underling for at least a few years before usurping her leader's role... This would mean she is significantly older than Linghu Chong. In fact, many of the characters in that series look a bit too young to be called "elders".
• Pragmatic Adaptation:
  • Sometimes, there's not enough budget to hire enough actors or the writers deemed that the numbers required are unnecessary for the purposes of the story. So many adaptations merged multiple characters into a single role, or reduce the number of characters in a group. Monk Bujie, Mute Granny, and the Six Immortals of the Peach Valley often had their roles either cut out or reduced in size.
  • The anti-climatic and cliche ending in the novel is arguably why every adaptation changed it. Be it setting up an actual Grand Finale battle between the final Big Bad and Linghu Chong, or further extending some throwaway references about the Sun Moon sect members swallowing poisoned pills to show their loyalty to Dongfang Bubai into a final drama plot point.
• Promoted to Love Interest: The film adaptation Swordsman II (1992), the Chinese TV series (2013), and the Singaporean TV series (2000) made Dongfang Bubai a love interest for Linghu Chong.
• Sliding Scale of Adaptation Modification:
  • The Hong Kong TV series (1996) is by far the most faithful adaptation of the novel and still generally regarded as the best one as of 2018. Its an almost perfect scene-for-scene reproduction, and some moments are even adapted line for line. The number of significant deviations can be counted with one hand: Changing the anti-climatic ending, additional scenes for some characters, Ping Yizhi survived, and the "Six Immortals of the Peach Valley" was reduced to four instead. Not fully a Near-Identical Adaptation, but this adaptation comes closest to being so.
  • The rest of the TV/web series adaptations are more or less Pragmatic Adaptation of the novel:
    • The Chinese TV series (2013) is inspired by (or less charitably, ripped off from) the Hong Kong TV series (1996), but with its own major changes in favour of a romance-themed story. Quite often the events do play out just like the older series/novel had shown, but different characters are involved and the motivations are different too.
    • The Taiwanese (2000) and Singaporean (2000) versions had the plot, events, and characters heavily altered, but very often the major scenes, tone, story's theme and aesops remained the same.
    • The 2018 web series is by far the least faithful adaptation and most reviled one as of 2018. Ignoring the criticism of the cast and choice of music, other criticisms leveled at changing some of the characterizations and the often unnecessary change of the sequence in events/flashbacks which also led to the occasional plot holes.
• Spared by the Adaptation:
  • Ping Yizhi, the talented but insane doctor, killed himself early in the novel, but survived the events in both the Hong Kong TV series (1996) and Chinese TV series (2013) adaptations.
  • In the novel, with the exception of the North Hengshan sect the rest of the sects in the Five Mountain Sword Sects Alliance are effectively wiped out after their seniors and leaders perished in a trap laid by Yue Buqun. In many of the adaptations, a successor was appointed to lead what remains of the Huashan sect after Yue Buqun's death. This deviation is in some sense considered an improvement over the novel, because other Jin Yong novels showed that the Huashan sect survived and are known for their swordplay skills, implying that either Linghu Chong or the "Sword" faction had a lasting influence on the sect's future.
• Villain Forgot to Level Grind: Ren Woxing in the Taiwanese TV series (2000) actually made a reference to this trope. After he solidly lost a fight to Fangzheng and was thus imprisoned by the latter, he ranted that his opponents had caught up to or exceeded him in his martial arts abilities during his prior 12 years of imprisonment under Dongfang Bubai - Specifically, Ren Woxing couldn't even defeat Zuo Lengchan, and now Fangzheng too. Although to be fair, Fangzheng's win was partly due to Ren Woxing's weakened condition from his earlier confrontations.
• Worf Had the Flu: In the novel, Ren Woxing never actually fought Yue Buqun. For a few separate adaptations, Ren Woxing met his end at the hands of Yue Buqun instead. This namely happened in the Taiwanese TV series (1985), Singaporean TV series (2000), and Chinese TV series (2001). Also in the Taiwanese TV series (2000), Ren Woxing lost to Fangzheng. Interestingly, in many of these instances, Ren Woxing lost partly due to his body's Qi acting up from constant usage of the Star Absorbing Power. Quite possibly an instance of one older adaptation influencing/inspiring another.

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