I think she joined the army to save her father's life, but she stayed to prove that she could honor her family. She could have gone home, discharged as a poor soldier and her father would have been safe. But she would have dishonored the family. So she chose to stay.

yeah, i think the same . The first think she wanted when she decided to be a soldier was to save her father ; but then she wanted to make him proud of her and to prove she could bring honor to the family ( even if it wasn't like she was supposed to at first)

Probably both.The intention was to safe her dad,but somewhere deep inside herself she probably wanted to proove something.

i agree whit fanfly

Well, I think it was more for her father than to prove herself, but I definitely think that was part of it.

I agree to fanfly, too.

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she almost lost her life to save him

Here's what I think: initially she merely wanted to prevent her father from going, given his physical condition. Somewhere along the line, however, things changed a bit - when Shang decided to send her home after seeing her inability to perform well during training, she could have left back then, but instead decided to stick around to try and retrieve the arrow. She probably thought that if she had gone back home then, it would have made her family look bad. Also, her time in the military gave her a sense of responsibility & duty for her country, which explains why she delayed her return home upon discovering that not all of the enemy forces were dead - she felt she had to inform the military of her discovery, even if they no longer wanted her as part of their team.

Like many others have already said, I think her initial intention was this (and therefore this was the reason she committed herself to the army). I think she only started to realise that it was important to her that she proved herself after she had joined.

Like it have been said many times, her initial intention was saving father. She decide to stay in the army for proving herself.