Jin Yong was not a kind god to his characters. He killed beloved heroes, separated lovers for decades, and gave his most virtuous characters the most tragic fates. His endings are powerful precisely because they don't give readers what they want — they give readers what the story demands.
But that hasn't stopped fans from imagining alternatives. For decades, Chinese internet forums have hosted passionate debates about how Jin Yong's novels should have ended. Some of these alternative endings are wishful thinking. Others are genuinely compelling arguments that the story's logic pointed in a different direction.
Here are the endings fans can't stop rewriting.
Xiao Feng Lives
The ending of Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils (天龙八部, Tiānlóng Bābù) is the most devastating in all of Jin Yong. Xiao Feng (萧峰, Xiāo Fēng), having prevented a war between the Song and Liao empires by forcing the Liao emperor to swear a peace oath, kills himself at Yanmen Pass (雁门关, Yànmén Guān). He does this because he's betrayed his own people (the Khitan) to save another people (the Han Chinese), and he can't live with the contradiction.
It's a perfect ending. It's also unbearable.
The fan alternative: Xiao Feng survives and becomes a bridge between the two cultures. Instead of dying from the impossible contradiction of his dual identity, he embraces it — becoming the first person to truly belong to both worlds. He settles somewhere on the border, perhaps with A'Zhu (阿朱, Ā Zhū) — who, in this version, also survives (see below).
Why fans want it: Because Xiao Feng is the most admirable character Jin Yong ever created. He's brave, honorable, loyal, and genuinely good. His death feels like a punishment for being too noble for the world he lives in.
Why Jin Yong was right: Because the world Xiao Feng lives in IS too broken for someone like him. The Song-Liao conflict is based on real history, and real history doesn't have clean resolutions. Xiao Feng's death is a condemnation of the nationalism and tribalism that made his life impossible. If he'd survived, the condemnation would lose its force.
A'Zhu Doesn't Die
A'Zhu's death in Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils is the moment that breaks Xiao Feng — and breaks readers. She disguises herself as her father, Duan Zhengchun, to protect him, and Xiao Feng kills her with his own hands before realizing who she is.
| What Happened | What Fans Wish Had Happened | |--------------|---------------------------| | A'Zhu disguises as Duan Zhengchun | A'Zhu reveals herself before the fatal blow | | Xiao Feng kills her unknowingly | Xiao Feng stops in time | | She dies in his arms | They flee together to the grasslands | | He's consumed by guilt forever | They raise cattle and live in peace |
The fan alternative: Xiao Feng recognizes A'Zhu's disguise at the last moment. They escape together to the Mongolian grasslands, as A'Zhu had dreamed. They live a simple life herding cattle and horses, far from the jianghu's violence.
Why fans want it: Because A'Zhu and Xiao Feng's love story is the most tender thing Jin Yong ever wrote. Their dream of a simple life on the grasslands is heartbreakingly modest — they don't want power or glory, just each other. Having that dream destroyed is almost too cruel.
Why Jin Yong was right: Because the novel is about the impossibility of escaping your identity. A'Zhu's death is what transforms Xiao Feng from a hero into a tragic figure. Without it, Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils is a different — and lesser — novel.
Yang Guo Chooses Guo Xiang
In The Return of the Condor Heroes (神雕侠侣), Yang Guo (杨过) waits sixteen years for Xiao Longnu (小龙女). During that time, he meets Guo Xiang (郭襄, Guō Xiāng), the teenage daughter of Guo Jing and Huang Rong. Guo Xiang falls deeply in love with Yang Guo. He's kind to her but never reciprocates — his heart belongs to Xiao Longnu.
The fan alternative: Xiao Longnu really is dead (as everyone believes for sixteen years), and Yang Guo eventually opens his heart to Guo Xiang. Their relationship develops slowly, built on mutual respect and shared grief rather than the passionate, all-consuming love he had with Xiao Longnu.
Why fans want it: Because Guo Xiang is one of Jin Yong's most beloved characters — brave, spirited, and genuinely good. Her unrequited love for Yang Guo is one of the saddest subplots in the entire canon. She spends the rest of her life searching for him, eventually founding the Emei Sect (峨眉派) as a nun, never marrying. Fans feel she deserved better.
Why Jin Yong was right: Because the novel is about the power of absolute devotion. Yang Guo's sixteen-year wait is meaningful precisely because it's irrational — everyone tells him Xiao Longnu is dead, and he waits anyway. If he'd moved on, the story's central theme collapses. And Guo Xiang's unrequited love, while painful, is what gives her character its depth. She becomes the founder of Emei BECAUSE of her heartbreak, not despite it.
Wei Xiaobao Stays with One Wife
Wei Xiaobao (韦小宝, Wéi Xiǎobǎo) from The Deer and the Cauldron (鹿鼎记) ends up with seven wives. Seven. This is played partly for comedy and partly as a satire of the harem fantasy that pervades Chinese fiction.
The fan alternative: Wei Xiaobao chooses Shuang'er (双儿, Shuāng'ér) — the loyal, gentle maid who loves him unconditionally — and lets the other six go. He settles down, becomes slightly less terrible, and lives a quiet life.
Why fans want it: Because Shuang'er is the only one of the seven who loves Wei Xiaobao for who he actually is, rather than being tricked, coerced, or politically motivated. And because the seven-wife ending feels like it rewards Wei Xiaobao's worst qualities.
Why Jin Yong was right: Because The Deer and the Cauldron is a satire. Wei Xiaobao is a deliberate inversion of the traditional wuxia hero — he's cowardly, dishonest, and morally bankrupt. The seven-wife ending is absurd on purpose. It's Jin Yong laughing at the genre he created, and at readers who want a conventional happy ending for an unconventional character.
Guo Jing Abandons Xiangyang
In the backstory of The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber, Guo Jing (郭靖) dies defending Xiangyang against the Mongol invasion. He knows the city will fall. He stays anyway, because "a true hero serves the nation and the people" (侠之大者，为国为民).
The fan alternative: Guo Jing recognizes that Xiangyang is lost and retreats with his family and followers. He preserves the martial arts knowledge and the people who carry it, rather than dying in a futile last stand. He lives to fight another day, perhaps leading a guerrilla resistance.
Why fans want it: Because Guo Jing's death feels wasteful. He's the greatest martial artist of his generation, and he dies in a battle that changes nothing — the Mongols conquer China anyway. His death is noble but strategically pointless.
Why Jin Yong was right: Because that's the point. Heroism isn't about winning. It's about standing for something even when you know you'll lose. Guo Jing's death at Xiangyang is the ultimate expression of the wuxia ideal — not clever strategy, not martial arts supremacy, but moral courage in the face of certain defeat. If he'd retreated, he'd have been a smart general. By staying, he became a legend.
The Pattern
Notice something about all these alternative endings? They're all happier. Fans want Xiao Feng to live, A'Zhu to survive, Yang Guo to find new love, Wei Xiaobao to settle down, and Guo Jing to escape.
Jin Yong understood something that his fans sometimes resist: tragedy is not the opposite of a good ending. It IS a good ending, when the story demands it. His characters suffer because the world they live in is unjust, and pretending otherwise would be a lie.
The alternative endings fans imagine are beautiful. They're also lesser stories. Jin Yong knew the difference, and he had the courage to write the endings his novels needed rather than the endings his readers wanted.
That's why we're still arguing about them decades later. A satisfying ending is forgotten. A devastating one is debated forever.