Truly hilarious seeing this on opening the app

Love how you drew the last (and least photogenic) emperor

This isn't putting his own virtues at odds with those of Liu Bei - he's not failing from lack of persuasiveness - but he's sacrificing himself out of duty for an incompetent emperor and an unattainable cause. The show has him realize this futility in a dream, even if he never outwardly admits it.

Kongming on the other hand has more of a cosmic problem, because he's shouldered the entire burden of restoring the Han and won't let anyone absolve him of that duty given to him by the now-dead Liu Bei, even though its increasingly apparent that he's fighting fate.

But what Roberts doesn't point out in his intro is that the anti-Wu campaign works in the novel. Wu offers to undo its offenses, and is rejected. Xuande's virtue of treating those on his side well (disproportionate to their actions) means pursuing vengeance to the point of annihilation on principle.

But the tragedy of Liu Bei as a character is that the same qualities that propel him to leadership also put him in a position where those qualities are irresponsible, which is why his emotionality is so important to establish. He can't separate the personal from the political in a dynastic system.

Liu Bei is virtuous on a personal level. It's not just that he tries to do the right thing or refuses to do a wrong thing, his moral code is intertwined with emotional investment - so in the show he constantly wears his heart on his sleeve because he cares about his people. 2010 version doesn't.

Since I started watching the 1994 Romance of the Three Kingdoms, I picked up a book called "Three Kingdoms and Chinese Culture," and in Moss Roberts's introduction he talks about how ROTK is about values systems in conflict.

The show really gets at the central tragedy he identifies in the narrative

Just made it to the end of the 1994 Three Kingdoms fansub and man.

I empathize with the Shu people who are exhausted after 5 years of campaigning from Mount Qi in the Hanzhong region. I understand the concern, but the difference is back then we had dumb generals.

really love Crane's arc

It may be gone now, but this is my greatest accomplishment on this app so far.

Skies of Arcadia

The lack of sources in translation is a key part of it, like the one "complete and unabridged" translation of Romance (to say nothing of an actual history!) still was obviously just a mass Google translate, with predictable results:

The Heavenly Soldier Boys, I think

She has a boomerang. Her hair is also a boomerang. It's Aika!

Post a character and tag others to do the same!
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This new batch comes just as my friend and I were about to run out of weekly Three Kingdoms episodes.