YMMV / The Deer and the Cauldron

• Applicability: One major reason for this story's enduring legacy is how Wei Xiaobao's people skills and what they reveal about people in general can remain relevant for decades to come.
• Alternate Character Interpretation: Wei Xiaobao, because he's nothing like Jin Yong's previous protagonists (and nothing like conventional Wu Xia heroes, either), gets a lot of this. Is he a completely selfish, self-serving bastard, or does he also have his own (albeit twisted) sense of honor and morality? Does he serve the Emperor out of fear or friendship? Does he love any of his wives or is he just collecting them for bragging rights? And so on. Jin Yong enthusiasts have written entire books discussing Wei Xiaobao's character.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Princess Jianning tends to be the highlight of each Live-Action Adaptation; actresses who had portrayed her include Ruby Lin and Chingmy Yau^note Coincidentally, The Royal Tramp and Royal Tramp II were both released in 1992, the same year as Naked Killer.
  • Elvis Tsui Kam Keung has made a career out of being the Ensemble Darkhorse extraordinaire, and his take on Ao Bai in Royal Tramp helped to drag his name out of B-movie obscurity and straight into the mainstream. Tsui's character Panther in Hail the Judge is an Expy of Ao Bai in terms of martial prowess and appearance.
• Funny Moments:
  • The Dragon Sect manage to infiltrate Lichun Court and take the people hostage, replacing the staff and all the prostitutes with their own people before Wei and his people get there - only for Wei to be two steps and a Disneyland worth of mickeys ahead of them. How did he cotton on so fast? The prostitutes were all mingers.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Li did nothing to sort out his guards' generations blood feud instigated by his fake death and ploy having Hu becoming a double agent nor use his treasure to repel the Manchu overlords resulting in Flying Fox of the Snowy Mountain, he just guarded over his lover instead.
  • It may be a little hard to believe Wu Sangui's betrayal of the throne and collusion with Mongolia and Tibet, considering the way China has been treating them in the present. Then you get to the part where he's also colluding with Russia.
  • Mongolia and Tibet makes sense though, seeing how Wu Sangui is an usurper, and Mongolia did break the treaty and war against the Kang Xi Emperor later in history.
• Ho Yay: In the 1992 Live-Action Adaptation Royal Tramp, Xiaobao has some oddly intimate moments with the male characters, it's mostly Played for Laughs. To name a few:
  • Movie Xiaobao and The Emperor. Xiaobao learned and uses the breast grabbing dragon claw technique against The Emperor, explicitly stating that he usually uses it on women, but makes him the exception since he is a good man and also proceeds to tear off his pubic hair in a fight. The Emperor also has two moments where he casually grabs Xiaobao's groin.
  • Movie Xiaobao using the same dragon claw technique against Aobai and pinching his nipples to distract him.
  • Movie Hai Dafu (Ng Man Tat) after being injected by Long'er's needle becomes a Manchild really enthusiastic about penises and has an Undying Loyalty to Xiaobao because he's his "little dicky".
• Misaimed Fandom: Word of God says Xiaobao is never intended to be admired or imitated, but only a reflection of the ugliness of society.
• Values Dissonance:
  • What should have been the major turning point of the story, the gathering of the seven wives (and Jianning's mom), is somewhat marred by the fact that it leads up to date rape of six of them while are all paralysed or unconscious. And due to the conditions of the incident, Wei still needs their help to sort out who he did what to!^note The fact that Su Quan, A-Ke and Jianning all get pregnant and give birth at roughly the same time says a lot. And possibly Jianning birth mother included, when she was killed Wei still counted one short who he did the deeds to that day and was suspicious.
  • Even before that, one of the different factions scheming for the 42 chapters is from Tibet, which sends Bare-Fisted Monk lamas into China and give our heroes a pretty hard time. This may be a bit harder to take in in present day, where it's China that's still in the process of annexing Tibet.
    • Notably the later revised edition changed them to be from Qinghai (which doesn't gel well with passage mentions of the specifically Tibetan living Buddha - Dalai Lama) and scrapped some passages that may be construed as negative comments of Tibetan lamas.
• The Woobie: A-Ke was abducted as an infant, literally from a historical tragedy as her real mother Chen Yuanyuan had suffered just as much back in her day. She was not only raised as a weapon to kill Wu Sangui, but kept in a constant state of resent as the only Parental Substitute she really had was the One-Armed Nun, also the last living princess of the dynasty that A-Ke's parents had apparently destroyed. And without any of the proper guidance expected of a real parent she becomes a Horrible Judge of Character, being strung along by Zheng Keshuang until he decided she was of no more use to him. Not surprising that she was Driven to Suicide at least once.