The Deer and the Cauldron

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Wei Xiaobao is the lazy, uncouth, trouble-making ne'er-do-well son of a prostitute who does nothing but hang around all day making questionable friends. One day, he smooth talks his way into the palace and befriends a young boy named Xuan Luo...then, to Xiaobao's surprise, he discovers that Xuan Luo is the current Emperor.

So begin Wei Xiaobao's life as a reluctant pawn of the Emperor, trying to stay alive as he constantly finds himself the target of innumerable attempts to kill him. Meanwhile, he travels China in search of great treasure and adds more and more women to his growing harem.

The Deer and the Cauldron (also known as The Duke of Mount Deer) is the second to last work of Jin Yong that plays with, if not outright breaks, quite a bit of the author's previous Wuxia conventions.

Tropes used in The Deer and the Cauldron include:
  • Absurdly Sharp Blade: Wei Xiaobao picks up a dagger that can cut through anything.
  • Anti-Hero: Wei Xiaobao.
  • Bondage Is Bad: Princess Jian Ning is one of the most open characters about her love of BDSM out of all of Jin Yong's characters... and she certainly is one of the more insane characters of the series. But at the same time, Xiaobao plays along with it...
  • Book Dumb: Wei Xiaobao, who is illiterate and constantly recites idioms incorrectly. However, this is simply attributed to his extreme laziness, as he has proven more than enough times that he's certainly smart enough to learn.
  • Cluster F-Bomb: Wei Xiaobao is incredibly foul-mouthed. Of course, this is for the effect of showing the readers that Wei Xiaobao is an uneducated boy who was raised in a red light district.
  • Deadly Decadent Court: The Imperial Court.
  • Disc One Final Boss: The seemingly unkillable General Ao Bai, whose death ingratiates Wei Xiaobao to the Emperor and kickstarts the plot.
  • Genre Deconstruction: Of Wuxia.
  • Grey and Gray Morality
  • The Gump: Wei Xiaobao blunders his way into several historical events, including the signing of the first equal treaty between China and a foreign power and being the first to step foot on an island that later fell into dispute between China and Japan.
  • Heroic Bastard: Wei Xiaobao.
  • Historical Domain Character: The Emperor Kangxi and several prominent members of the imperial court.
  • Hot Mom: Chen Yuan Yuan, who despite being a middle-aged woman still manages to be the most beautiful woman in any room (even outshining her own daughter). Wei Xiaobao remarks to himself that she is most definitely a woman worth throwing away a country for.
  • Interplay of Sex and Violence: Princess Jian Ning and Wei Xiaobao's relationship. With a whip. And candles. Yikes.
  • Karma Houdini: Wei Xiaobao. Sure, he has better moral principals than some of the villains... but seriously? The guy did a lot of... evil things. Like raping some of his love interests. And the result? They marry him and become his happy little wives. Of course, him being a Karma Houdini was pretty much the entire point of the story...
    • Not really the entire point, but certainly one aspect of the adventures.
  • Live Action Adaptation: Several, from the classic '70s Pragmatic Adaptation that turned Tony Leung into a star to the outright parodic movies starring Stephen Chow.
  • Marry Them All: What Wei Xiaobao had in mind, pretty much ever since the beginning. With all seven of his love interests. In his defense, people in those days could do that, and there was absolutely nothing wrong with it.
  • Rape Is Love: Wei Xiaobao and three of his wives (that he did during the same night - yes, don't ask). Though it's debatable whether two of his wives ended up with him after that out of love, or whether they just got pregnant, had nowhere to go, and knew he was rich and would take responsibility.
  • Screw the Rules, I Have Money: Wei Xiaobao, Wei Xiaobao...pretty much the only thing that keeps him in line is the Emperor himself.
  • The So-Called Coward: While Wei Xiaobao's first instinct is to run away (he even learns a martial art based entirely on running away), when push comes to shove he can be incredibly heroic.
  • Son of a Whore: Wei Xiaobao again
  • Spoiled Brat: Princess Jian Ning... although she also tends to like being mistreated, since she's a masochist.
  • Too Kinky to Torture: The ultimate example might very well be Princess Jian Ning. Wei Xiaobao hits her, and she likes it. She's very explicit in her adoration of BDSM.
  • Tsundere: A Ke.
  • Would Hit a Girl: Wei Xiaobao doesn't care for chivalry when his own life is own the line.
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