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Romance of the Three Kingdoms


Jedi
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This novel is one of my absolute favorites. It also has a lot of great media attached to it be it video games (Strategy series with the same name, Dynasty Warriors a hack n slash series of fun, etc)

It is about the Three Kingdoms era of China and how they were established. Starting with the Yellow Turban rebellion in the 180's and ending with a total victory in around 270ish. Historical somewhat, fictional a fair bit. Its great

From Chinese live action TV (which have translations and are quite amazing)

To anime (Rotk, Ikki Toisen very very loosely that is extremely fanservice, etc) and manga (Ravages of Time etc)

Needless to say I'm a big fanboy of the novel and all its various counterparts. Its characters so full of dreams, some loyal others greedy, many fall by the way side and we cheer for their glorious moments and such.

I figured I'd get a thread together to share and talk with fellow readers/gamers/watchers of these various things

Edited by Jedisupersorry
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I've owned the book for a while, unfortunately it's still on my to-do list. The Dynasty Warriors games are the best mindless fun you can ask for, and I remember enjoying the strategy games back in the PS1 era.
My favourite characters are Zhang Fei (Shu), Xiahou Dun (Wei), aaaaaaaaand Wu has always been sort of meh for me in terms of characters, but I do like their family dynamic. Sun Juan would probably be my favourite.

Also Cow Cow and Cow Pee are my favourite mispronunciations ever.

Zhang Fei is my favourite because he was my main in DW4, not because of his personality or story. Also Changban Bridge.

Edited by Hawkeye
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I see. Some nice favorites and they finally fixed the pronouncing of the names haha.

My favorite per Kingdom would probably be Sun Ce (Wu), Zhuge Liang (Shu) and Xiahou Duj (Wei.) Deng Ai (Jin)

I like numerous other characters but those have been my personal favorites.

The games are quite fun I have been playing Dynasty warriors since 3 and I still enjoy each game. 7 did the story the absolute best and I highly recommend it. I wanna get 8 so bad.

Rotk been playing since 8 and I highly enjoyed it, 9, 10 11 and I went back and played 4 on the SNES due to virtual console

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Read it the first time way back when I still lived in China ~ 13 years ago when I was 7. Subsequent re-reads happened. I haven't read the translation, though, but once I get more time I'd like to read that. Also would like to play Dynasty Warriors sometimes. I really like most of their character designs.

Favourites from the book are Zhuge Liang and Zhao Yun.

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YES! Love the story, really need to get the book though, only read excerpts so far. Red Cliff (Based off the battle of chi bi) is an absolutely insane film, and surprisingly accurate, bar Gan Ning blowing himself up (And a few other creative things, which didn't bother me so much). ROTK 8 is an absolutely insane game, and Kessen 2 is possibly my favourite game ever.

My favourite characters, per kingdom are probably Pang Tong (Shu) Gan Ning(Wu) Pang De(Wei). Pang Tong is a total wise ass, and I love how he solved a load of problems in a day when given motiviation, having been a lazy drunkard before. Gan Ning was a jerk, but the whole 'bells to let the enemies know' was both badass and clever psychological warfare. Pang De... Just... The coffin. That's conviction.

I see. Some nice favorites and they finally fixed the pronouncing of the names haha.

My favorite per Kingdom would probably be Sun Ce (Wu), Zhuge Liang (Shu) and Xiahou Duj (Wei.) Deng Ai (Jin)

I like numerous other characters but those have been my personal favorites.

The games are quite fun I have been playing Dynasty warriors since 3 and I still enjoy each game. 7 did the story the absolute best and I highly recommend it. I wanna get 8 so bad.

Rotk been playing since 8 and I highly enjoyed it, 9, 10 11 and I went back and played 4 on the SNES due to virtual console

DW8 is good. The hypotheticals are pretty well done, for the most part. (You can have Pang Tong and Guo Jia survive!) The only real turn off is the Shu story, where pretty much every character spams the word benevolence, even more than usual.

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Read it the first time way back when I still lived in China ~ 13 years ago when I was 7. Subsequent re-reads happened. I haven't read the translation, though, but once I get more time I'd like to read that. Also would like to play Dynasty Warriors sometimes. I really like most of their character designs.

Favourites from the book are Zhuge Liang and Zhao Yun.

Oh that's cool! Have you been to any of the tombs or monuments to people of the three kingdoms period by chance?

Zhao Yun's whole being is Valour and Badassery. He is my Dads personal favorite

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YES! Love the story, really need to get the book though, only read excerpts so far. Red Cliff (Based off the battle of chi bi) is an absolutely insane film, and surprisingly accurate, bar Gan Ning blowing himself up (And a few other creative things, which didn't bother me so much). ROTK 8 is an absolutely insane game, and Kessen 2 is possibly my favourite game ever.

My favourite characters, per kingdom are probably Pang Tong (Shu) Gan Ning(Wu) Pang De(Wei). Pang Tong is a total wise ass, and I love how he solved a load of problems in a day when given motiviation, having been a lazy drunkard before. Gan Ning was a jerk, but the whole 'bells to let the enemies know' was both badass and clever psychological warfare. Pang De... Just... The coffin. That's conviction.

DW8 is good. The hypotheticals are pretty well done, for the most part. (You can have Pang Tong and Guo Jia survive!) The only real turn off is the Shu story, where pretty much every character spams the word benevolence, even more than usual.

Red Cliff surprised me in how good it was.

It is Shus thing after all i can see i getting grating though. Does Jiang Wei still have his defeated officer quote from 7 because it amused me and annoyed my Dad :P

Alot of people seem to think my favorite of the lords would be Liu Bei he is close but I just like Sun Ce a lot.

I have not. I left China relatively young and I haven't been back since.

Your dad has great taste :D

I see! I kinda want to visit China someday just to see the locales and stuff.

Also my Dad and I share the same favorite kingdom, Shu (we both also like Liu Bei but our favorite leaders are Lu Bu and Sun Ce respectively, Although I also like Wu a lot. We do like some people in Wei but my Dad despises Cao Cao :P. So in rotk games if we aren't created officers and we pick the 194 era we team up as Lu Bu and Sun Ce try to crush Cao Cao before he gets strong. Sometimes we can get Yuan Shaos or the Gongsuns Help lol

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Red Cliff surprised me in how good it was.

It is Shus thing after all i can see i getting grating though. Does Jiang Wei still have his defeated officer quote from 7 because it amused me and annoyed my Dad :P

Ya, I really enjoyed Red Cliff. I also liked the change they made at the end of the film as compared to the book (they just tell Cao Cao to gtfo instead of nearly capturing/killing him 5 times, IIRC). And Jiang Wei is also one of my favorite characters.

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Red Cliff surprised me in how good it was.

It is Shus thing after all i can see i getting grating though. Does Jiang Wei still have his defeated officer quote from 7 because it amused me and annoyed my Dad :P

Alot of people seem to think my favorite of the lords would be Liu Bei he is close but I just like Sun Ce a lot.

MY GOD! Jiang Wei annoys me so much in DW8. In the history, he was okay, seeing as he was fighting a losing battle, but his voice acting actually hurts. And yes, it does grate, mostly because the localisation team seem to be lacking a thesaurus.

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MY GOD! Jiang Wei annoys me so much in DW8. In the history, he was okay, seeing as he was fighting a losing battle, but his voice acting actually hurts. And yes, it does grate, mostly because the localisation team seem to be lacking a thesaurus.

Tbh I don't really know if I agree with Jiang Wei's (or Zhuge Liang's for that matter) hyper-aggressive stance towards Wei. A lot of people probably lost their lives over those attempted conquests, with the lineage of their emperor being the primary justification. But I still think they come across as interesting and cool. My favorite dynasty is Wu, though.

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Tbh I don't really know if I agree with Jiang Wei's (or Zhuge Liang's for that matter) hyper-aggressive stance towards Wei. A lot of people probably lost their lives over those attempted conquests, with the lineage of their emperor being the primary justification. But I still think they come across as interesting and cool. My favorite dynasty is Wu, though.

All the 'classic rulers' like Sun Quan, Liu Bei etc. are kinda cool, but later on they're all pretty bad. The last rulers of Wu and Shu were both horrendous. I understand the mentality of Zhuge Liang, in that they actually had some chance at gaining ground, but Jiang Wei got pretty much no resources, and was totally outmatched strategically. I recently find myself rooting for Wei slightly more, more to do with the badassery of Officers like Zhang Liao (He Fei's defence was ridiculous), Pang De and Xiahou Dun (The eye story is incredible).

I don't really like any of the rulers that much, due to them either being so hyped that it's just stupid, Liu Bei in particular. I don't thing Luo Guanzhong did Cao Cao justice though.

Edited by eggs4king
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In my opinion Zhuge Liang and later Jiang Weis loyalty to their cause is very admirable.

I admire both for their persistence and I feel if Jiang Wei had a better ruler and said ruler wasn't being used as a puppet he may have done better, Zhuge Liang did cause a big fault for trusting Ma Su though granted Ma Su did have good plans for the Nanmans. (Win through their hearts not by conquest)

Jiang Wei still had some success against Wei and Deng Ai but yeah lack of resources etc doomed it

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Three Kingdoms is my favourite book of all time. I don't know if I have a "favourite" character at this point - it's too easy to just pick the Dynasty Warriors guys - but I tend to like the stories that don't get noticed much by Koei games. Kan Ze comes to mind.

To me, 3K has an effect the likes of which the Art of War has on others. I reference it in my day-to-day life as a reference point when it comes time to make hard decisions on just about anything. It's a truly wonderful read.

There's a free version in PDF format online, but I strongly recommend people check out the four-volume books that Moss Roberts translated and annotated, here: http://www.amazon.com/Three-Kingdoms-Chinese-Classics-Volumes/dp/7119005901/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1393645495&sr=1-1&keywords=Three+Kingdoms

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As some of you know, I love this story. I've only read about Chang Ban, and some of Chibi, the rest being from Dynasty Warriors or RTK...

I started RTK on the snes, RTK 2 If I recall, I loved 4, 10, and 11. Dynasty Warriors, started with 4XL, then continued from there(favorite is vanilla 5)

I rarely see people say their favorite kingdom is Wei. My favorites per kingdom would have to be: Shu- Zhao Yun, Wu- Err... Lu Su, Wei- Guo Jia/Jia Xu, Jin- Sima Yi... I've liked Guo Jia since my RTK days before I learned of Dynasty Warriors

While we're on DW8, I really liked how they handled Chibi, and Wei's hypothetical version of it, and then there was Jin, minus the pathetic treatment of Sima Yi, I liked Jin's story this time around.

In my opinion Zhuge Liang and later Jiang Weis loyalty to their cause is very admirable.

I admire both for their persistence and I feel if Jiang Wei had a better ruler and said ruler wasn't being used as a puppet he may have done better, Zhuge Liang did cause a big fault for trusting Ma Su though granted Ma Su did have good plans for the Nanmans. (Win through their hearts not by conquest)

Liu Shan as bad as he was, I guess you could say wasn't alone in his foolishness, If I recall, Huang Hao had a hand in bringng Shu down and was the one who advised Liu Shan to surrender, I can't remember the details though.

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As some of you know, I love this story. I've only read about Chang Ban, and some of Chibi, the rest being from Dynasty Warriors or RTK...

I started RTK on the snes, RTK 2 If I recall, I loved 4, 10, and 11. Dynasty Warriors, started with 4XL, then continued from there(favorite is vanilla 5)

I rarely see people say their favorite kingdom is Wei. My favorites per kingdom would have to be: Shu- Zhao Yun, Wu- Err... Lu Su, Wei- Guo Jia/Jia Xu, Jin- Sima Yi... I've liked Guo Jia since my RTK days before I learned of Dynasty Warriors

While we're on DW8, I really liked how they handled Chibi, and Wei's hypothetical version of it, and then there was Jin, minus the pathetic treatment of Sima Yi, I liked Jin's story this time around.

Liu Shan as bad as he was, I guess you could say wasn't alone in his foolishness, If I recall, Huang Hao had a hand in bringng Shu down and was the one who advised Liu Shan to surrender, I can't remember the details though.

Huang Hao corrupted him just like the 10 Eunuchs did to the last Han emperor. A very sad end to such a kingdom which started by Vagabond efforts.

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I have a question as a man of Wei(I guess), does anyone else also think, that if Guo Jia was alive during Chibi, it would've gone differently?(answers may not include Dynasty Warriors 8)

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I have a question as a man of Wei(I guess), does anyone else also think, that if Guo Jia was alive during Chibi, it would've gone differently?(answers may not include Dynasty Warriors 8)

Probably but I still think Cao Cao would have gotten routed still. He was facing not only Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu but also Lu Su, Pang Tong, Huang Gai and Kan Ze. I do think Guo Jia would have prevented the naval commanders death and maybe saw through Huang Gais scheme and maybe the boat chains but I'm unsure

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Probably but I still think Cao Cao would have gotten routed still. He was facing not only Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu but also Lu Su, Pang Tong, Huang Gai and Kan Ze. I do think Guo Jia would have prevented the naval commanders death and maybe saw through Huang Gais scheme and maybe the boat chains but I'm unsure

Plus he thought Pang Tong was on his side. Plus, a fire attack was more likely to help him with the wind, so he would have still probably not bothered being worried

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As some of you know, I love this story. I've only read about Chang Ban, and some of Chibi, the rest being from Dynasty Warriors or RTK...

I started RTK on the snes, RTK 2 If I recall, I loved 4, 10, and 11. Dynasty Warriors, started with 4XL, then continued from there(favorite is vanilla 5)

I rarely see people say their favorite kingdom is Wei. My favorites per kingdom would have to be: Shu- Zhao Yun, Wu- Err... Lu Su, Wei- Guo Jia/Jia Xu, Jin- Sima Yi... I've liked Guo Jia since my RTK days before I learned of Dynasty Warriors

While we're on DW8, I really liked how they handled Chibi, and Wei's hypothetical version of it, and then there was Jin, minus the pathetic treatment of Sima Yi, I liked Jin's story this time around.

Liu Shan as bad as he was, I guess you could say wasn't alone in his foolishness, If I recall, Huang Hao had a hand in bringng Shu down and was the one who advised Liu Shan to surrender, I can't remember the details though.

As some of you know, I love this story. I've only read about Chang Ban, and some of Chibi, the rest being from Dynasty Warriors or RTK...

I started RTK on the snes, RTK 2 If I recall, I loved 4, 10, and 11. Dynasty Warriors, started with 4XL, then continued from there(favorite is vanilla 5)

I rarely see people say their favorite kingdom is Wei. My favorites per kingdom would have to be: Shu- Zhao Yun, Wu- Err... Lu Su, Wei- Guo Jia/Jia Xu, Jin- Sima Yi... I've liked Guo Jia since my RTK days before I learned of Dynasty Warriors

While we're on DW8, I really liked how they handled Chibi, and Wei's hypothetical version of it, and then there was Jin, minus the pathetic treatment of Sima Yi, I liked Jin's story this time around.

Liu Shan as bad as he was, I guess you could say wasn't alone in his foolishness, If I recall, Huang Hao had a hand in bringng Shu down and was the one who advised Liu Shan to surrender, I can't remember the details though.

Huang Hao and the Eunuchs were only concerned about their own comforts. The state of the country meant nothing to them; the flag could have been anything so long as they had gold and wealth.

So in other words, the country's founding became utterly irrelevant, as time passed, the past was forgotten, and weak leaders were exploited by devious people with their own goals.

Take heed, America.

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Very true, If I recall Huang Hao was executed when Liu Shan surrendered?

Probably but I still think Cao Cao would have gotten routed still. He was facing not only Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu but also Lu Su, Pang Tong, Huang Gai and Kan Ze. I do think Guo Jia would have prevented the naval commanders death and maybe saw through Huang Gais scheme and maybe the boat chains but I'm unsure

I had forgotten about Lu Su and Kan Ze, yes yes, Guo Jia still would've had some trouble...

Heh, I guess on a related note, Fa Zheng... Zhuge Liang says that if Fa Zheng was still alive around the time of Yiling, It was either been prevented or they wouldn't have lost... what do you guys think?

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