Song

Song is Chiun’s son and first pupil in The Destroyer. Chiun, the Master of the Korean martial tradition of Sinanju, loses him in a training accident before taking Remo Williams as his pupil. Song’s loss remains part of Chiun’s later discussions of succession. Later novels depict Song appearing to Remo as the child called the Master Who Never Was.

Chiun remembers Song as a slender, intelligent boy who learns the breathing exercises and early techniques quickly. His father takes pride in that progress and pushes him increasingly hard. Song also carves small figures with his fingernails for the village children; Chiun keeps a collection of them long after his death.

In Chiun’s account, Song is eight when the fatal test takes place on the first day of spring. The boy wants to join the villagers’ kite-flying celebration, but Chiun takes away his kite and brings him to Mount Paektusan. He makes Song climb while he waits below. When Song does not return, Chiun waits stubbornly for him to make the descent on his own before climbing to look for him. He eventually climbs the mountain and finds Song near the summit with a fatal head injury. He never establishes whether his son fell while climbing up or down.

Chiun says Song had taken hours to die and believes an earlier search might have saved him. He carries the body home. According to his account, Song’s mother refuses further intimacy because she no longer trusts him with another child; Chiun remains married under Sinanju’s lifelong marriage rule. In a later recollection, the villagers regard Song’s death as the event that aged Chiun and emptied his vitality. Their hope then shifts to his next pupil, his nephew Nuihc.

In A Pound of Prevention, a mysterious boy appears to Remo and calls himself the Master Who Never Was. He gives Remo a carved figure, and Remo feels an unnatural cold when the child touches him. At the end of the adventure, Chiun recognizes the figure as Song’s work. Remo then understands who the boy was. Chiun describes the gift as passing from his son in flesh to his son in spirit and tells Remo to treasure it as a gift from his brother.

Chiun later asks Remo to consider the words and purpose of Song’s visit while discussing Remo’s future pupil. Remo resists being given a fixed schedule or choosing a village infant under Chiun’s rules. No pupil is chosen during that discussion. In The Wrong Stuff, the narration explicitly describes Song as the ghost of Chiun’s biological son; he appears above the severely injured Remo and then vanishes. The apparition connects the lost child with the succession that Remo still has to complete.

By the Time of Succession in Father to Son, Chiun still remembers Song as an exceptionally gifted pupil who died before fulfilling his promise. Song never becomes the Reigning Master. His place in the family is instead expressed through Chiun’s treatment of Remo as an adopted son and Song’s brother.