The way of a loyalist; full devotion until death.
“Whoever isn’t treacherous isn’t worth my time”
“I’ll tell you how everyone in this room is going to die. Even mysel-“
“Don’t”
JUSTICE
BENEVOLENCE
AND OTHER THINGS THAT END IN ‘EVOLENCE
As great as Ravages is… I will concede that Ma Chou and Ma Dai are at their cutest in Dynasty Warriors
I really like RoTK, and while I agree that it does make Shu very favorable and paint Cao Cao as a villain, it leaves room for other interpretation too - just subtle. I rant a bit, but it comes from all the class analyzing of the book. >_<
I think readers can always interpret it differently, it’s just been quite a while since I read the novel and I’ve read up a little on actual events since, so that’s the overriding impression I have. I understand why the Ming government wouldn’t have supported a book that was sympathetic towards a Han traitor! But to be fair, I don’t know how much of this is also influenced by the movies and TV adaptations I watched before/after reading..
Although I have to kind of say that SINCE Ravages of Time is so revisionist that it actually enhances it to have read the novel (the Moss Roberts translation is good, but there is also a free one on the internet!) or to have played Dynasty Warriors (which is actually a fairly conventional interpretation in many respects, at least as the chara personalities go, although wtf with Zhang He).
But everyone should STILL read Ravages of Time. XD
I have had zero success convincing people to read RoT so this is an extremely good point! Also yea it is fun getting shocked by how amazingly RoT twists and turns things you always thought were quite straightforward in the novel.
My brother randomly started playing DW7 and ended up unlocking everything and finishing the entire game for me so I think that is probably the most.. fun way.. to get into 3K. But I am echoing the ‘wtf with Zhang He’
Sorry tumblr is not an efficient way of replying to replies :(
Zhao Y- Liaoyuan Huo Leader of the Ha— Some guy
To the anon who wanted to know how best to enjoy Three Kingdoms: the best way imho is to read 火鳳燎原 (‘The Ravages of Time’ or ‘RoT’) by Chen Mou!
There is the original novel (Romance of Three Kingdoms) which is very long, probably as wildly embellished as RoT, and tends to white-knight the kingdom of Shu Han. The new TV series (‘Three Kingdoms 2010’) was ummm enjoyable once I accepted it was still going to be very biased towards portraying Shu as the heroes of the story… You could also play Dynasty Warriors (I’ve only played 7, I enjoyed it) or the old ROTK games (haven’t played, have heard good things about). Finally there is a 4-koma-ish webcomic in English but imo this is better enjoyed after playing DW and reading the novel
Sorry, I hope this didn’t scare non-3K fans / piss off 3K fans. I’m probably more of a RoT fan than real 3K fan tbh since in RoT everyoneis ruthless and scheming and awesome
Xiahou Dun
I’m posting this section from his wiki page here because it is really cute:
While his physical prowess was unquestioned, his military successes were few and far between. It was under his leadership that Cao Cao’s forces fell to an ambush at the Battle of Bowang, costing thousands of men their lives when he pursued Liu Bei’s forces into a nearby gulley.However, when he was made a governor, Xiahou Dun quickly found his calling. Besides damming up the Taishou River and encouraging people to plant paddy in the resulting inundated land, he was also said to have personally joined in the planting. He gained a reputation for generosity because of his habit of distributing wealth among his people and keeping very little for himself.
A loyal general in times of war… A TEDDY BEAR IN TIMES OF PEACE
Zhang Liao
hands up if you will forever remember him as ‘Prince Wenyuan’ instead
“Your move”
my screams as I read the translation of this chapter… ETA I’m forgetting my manners THANK YOU MERC FOR YEARS OF TIRELESS TRANSLATION ;_;
King of decisions, hoarder of regrets.
“Chinese ink” brushes courtesy of the amazing zhuzhu
When I tell people that The Ravages of Time is a HK comic loosely based off the Romance of Three Kingdoms I use ‘loosely’ as in ‘I am sure the historical Guo Jia was not this devastatingly beautiful’
ETA I mean Chen Mou’s design of Guo Jia is devastatingly beautiful sob
I really want to send a respectful fan letter to Chen Mou but I’ll have to write it in English since I don’t think he would react well to “ni de Guo Jia hen piao liang” and that is all the Mandarin I know
In other news Jia Xu has extremely beautiful hair in the newer chapters (when did you have the time to rebond in the middle of a battle???) and I hope Guo Jia gets to slap Sima Yi at least once before he dies
“Guo Fengxiao. The only Wei officer who could possibly turn up for work in thigh-highs*”
*Not historically.
“Benevolence? Isn’t that a country in Europe with a lot of dams?”
The kingdom of Shu will never know what hit them. Except that it was wearing Zhen Ji’s boots with the stilettos removed
