the ballad of Lo Si – on manipulation

I’ve been re-watching the show Kung Fu: The Legend Continues this week, because I’m a huge David Carradine fan. I love the way he drew on myth and history and put them back into martial arts. His death was a huge loss to martial arts and their image on tv and in the movies IMO.

In the show, the back story of father and son reunion is heart wrenching as well. A family brought back together after adversity pulled them asunder.
Nine times out of ten though, there is someone who is at the bottom of their separations. Lo Si. He let Peter and Kwai Chang think the other was dead for 15 years. And let Kwai Chang think he had lost the love of his life and Peter his mom for almost 30 years.

Lo Si was a charming and funny character, but that level of manipulation really didn’t sit well with me. If someone did that in my life, he wouldn’t be a good friend or mentor in anything that is moral based either.

It begs the question, what level of manipulation is tolerable in the name of “good intentions”? Lo Si was a caring and moral man, but he did serious grievance to people he claimed to care about. Is that ever ok? And under what terms? If that had been done to me, Lo Si would be a dead man.