Then again, he's the one who quoted lore as saying that "Brothers are as hands and feet wives and children are as clothing. In a major example of Values Dissonance, no one in the story calls Liu Bei out on this. Probably because he was dropped on his head as a kid. The kid later grows up and loses the kingdom, and is considered by most readers to be completely useless. So what does Liu Bei do? He throws his kid to the ground, pissed that he nearly lost a great general.
Abusive Parents: Liu Bei's infant son, Liu Shan, was lost at Chang Ban, so Zhao Yun made a selfless charge into enemy lines to bring the kid back.Abnormal Limb Rotation Range: Sima Yi could supposedly turn his head 180° to look behind him.Some of the scenes in the book never really happened, or did not happen as described That Other Wiki has a list. Luo Guanzhong's sources included not only historical records, but period Chinese operas, poetry and folktales as well. Very Loosely Based on a True Story: One early editor referred to it as 70% fact and 30% fiction.Stealth Parody: Despite having been written to satisfy the Imperial guidelines, Luo Guanzhong managed to sneak in a few subversions on the nature of loyalty.Divided for Publication: Most publishers break the novel up into multiple parts, thanks to its length: at 800,000 words and 120 chapters, it's a Doorstopper.The site has added some annotations to help readers keep track of events and characters.
#Romance of the three kingdoms book full
Interested tropers can find the full text of an older English translation, now in the public domain, here.
And so the three kingdoms contend with one another over the century, and heroes rise and fall in the strife, until the nation is finally reunified.Īnd, as you'd expect from a pivotal work like this, it's managed to gather quite a collection of tropes. All seek to unify the nation for one reason or another, and claim the right to rule for their own. Gradually, out of the chaos, three kingdoms take shape: the kingdom of Shu, led by the virtuous Liu Bei (a distant cousin of the Emperor) and his sworn brothers, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei the kingdom of Wei, led by the scheming Cao Cao and the kingdom of Wu, led by the ambitious Sun family. The tale begins in the last days of the corrupt Han Dynasty, showing how the government and Emperor lost the "Mandate of Heaven" (天命), and the land fell into anarchy, with various warlords carving out their own territories in a struggle for supremacy.
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