Talk:Wang Chongyang
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Part of the problem with this page is that it really has two topics: Wang Chongyang the Taoist religious figure and Wang Chongyang the literary character based on the religous figure. I'm not sure if the best way to fix this would be to break it into two articles or to leave it one article but make the distinction more obvious.
The suggestion was made, then withdrawn, to keep it one article. I agree, the Wang Chongyang in the Jing Yong novels is clearly based on the historical figure-- it isn't a situation where they just happen to share the same name. I think we need a short introduction explaining who Wang Chongyang was and the probable reason why Jing Yong included him in the novels. Then we need to have a section on the real Wang Chongyang and a section on how he is portrayed in the novels.
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[edit] Novel Character
The History section of the article seemed to focus on Wang Chongyang as a novel character according to Jin Yong. I made a few renditions and added sub-sections. I also added at the start of the history section a note saying that this is according to the Jin Yong universe. I think perhaps, the section heading "History" should be changed to something more appropriate so readers will know that this part focuses mainly on Wang Chongyang according to Jin Yong's novels. Any suggestions?
I'm just wondering, is there an actual difference between the real Wang Chongyang and the novel Wang Chongyang? Because when you say "based on the historical figure", it's vague. Is it just loosely based where Jin Yong took a few liberties with facts? Or is it really based on actual facts? Jute 04:55, May 25, 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Funny you should say that.
But Jin Yong really used sort of legends on Wang Chongyang in his novels. For example according to legend, Wang Chongyang really died twice. Some say that he used (Taoist) magic to return to the world.
[edit] Depends on what you mean by facts.
Like many religious figures, while Wang Chongyang was a person who really existed, there are also traditional legends about him that are difficult to back up with facts for one reason or another. (e.g. St. Augustine, after his death, swooping down out of heaven like Superman to save a baby falling from a balcony, etc.) The difficulty in the context of this article is distinguishing legends about Wang Chongyang from legends about Wang Chongyang that Jin Yong/Louis Cha made up on his own. That's why I suggested that we should try to keep the parts separate.
Otherwise we will be in the position of having an encyclopedia article about an important religious figure that is based on a novel. It would be like having an entry on Siddhartha Gautama (a.k.a. Shakyamuni Buddha) that is based primarily on the character in Hermann Hesse novel Siddhartha. But if we left out the stuff from the (extremely popular) novels, then we wouldn't be giving the whole story. We need both the traditional story and Louis Cha's expansions. Crypticfirefly 03:28, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
Ok, I get you. I don't know much about Wang Chongyang really, except for what I read in Jin Yong's works so I guess what I meant by facts was the actual facts. I didn't know that he's really the stuff of legends that Jin Yong made him out to be. So yeah I agree with what you have in mind for this article. Jute 00:13, May 27, 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Do we still need the clean-up tag on this article?
Personally, I find the article to be okay now. What are your thoughts?
I think it is much better now. I am removing the cleanup tag as you suggested. Good work, guys! Crypticfirefly
