Which character was most unfairly revisionized by SGYY?

[Crazedmongoose]

Pretty self explanatory. Was there any that I missed? I guess we could add a few.

I'd say Lu Su was the most unfairly treated. At least Cao Cao and Zhou Yu are still depicted as brilliant men, just very flawed (or in Cao Cao's case positively villainous). Lu Su got turned into a bumbling comic relief.

[Rydain]

Cao Ren has to be way up there. Historically, he had a 30-year career with many successes in a variety of campaigns, including several that demonstrated significant leadership aptitude and personal valor. Ren only lost twice, and one such campaign - the year-plus defense of Jiangling, from which he was forced to retreat after running out of supplies - was more of a Pyrrhic victory for the opposing side. He was known for strict adherence to code and raising morale in arduous situations. At the time of his death, Ren held two of the highest titles in Wei's military.

ROTK warped him into an arrogant, hot-headed failure, downplaying the few accomplishments noted in its narrative and inventing a slew of losses that never happened.

[Qu Hui]

Han Xuan and Hua Xin were both turned into jerks in the novel, as opposed to the fact that historically they were friendly men. Perhaps you could add them as one choice?

As for the question at hand, I'd have to say Sima Yi (who could also be a choice). He was transformed from a bright man and able commander to Zhuge Liang's punching bag.

[Lady Wu]

At least Sima Yi still has his moments, like fooling Cao Shuang, dealing with Gongsun Yuan, predicting what's going on in Shu, not falling for Zhuge Liang's taunts, etc. Poor Lu Su had all his good moments stolen from him (like the meeting with Guan Yu).

I would have picked Wei Yan next, but seeing what Koei did to him in DW, I guess his treatment in SGYY was pretty mild...

[Tarrot]

Liu Fu. Fantastic minister, is credited by Rafe as being responsible for why Wu never was successful when attacking Wei even long after his death, and he gets killed by a sleeping Cao Cao.

[hahaguy]

Chunyu Qiong. He wasn't a drunkard. He was shown to be at least capable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chunyu_Qiong

Kind of a sad fate for him, doomed to be known by most people as an incompetent drunkard, perhaps even one of the most useless person, when in reality he wasn't that bad.

[Dong Zhou]

Of the list, Lu Su by a long shot. He goes from political master mind to bumbling idiot who is patronized and used by Batman and Superman.

Zhou Yu may turn into a git but at least gets an ability boost. Cao Cao becomes more of a military genius and gets a bit of a cleanup in some respects. The Wei Yan thing doesn't work on modern western audiences, people seem to hate Zhuge Liang for it if anything.

Cao Ren and Liu Fu are good shouts. Would add He Jin, turned from overly nervous, popular and able politician into an arrogant man who gets everything wrong

[Crazedmongoose]

Yeah I highly considered putting Cao Ren in. Considering he beat Liu Bei silly in Runan and some of his failures in SGYY don't even exist in history (ie. loss at Xinye to Xu Su). I do agree though that in SGYY Cao Ren is the general who you expect to be arrogant, lose and then go cry to Cao Cao about it.

I wouldn't say Sima Yi got a raw deal. He probably turned into a better commander than he actually was. SGYY has him ranking probably second, right after Zhuge Liang.



Dong Zhuo: What cleanup does Cao Cao gets? Well I guess he doesn't execute as many people maybe? But then the executions he commits becomes for much worse reasons. And also some of his most compassionate achievements, ie. fleeing with a refugees at Baima because he was afraid they were going to get massacred, gets ignored.

And how is his military skills elevated? I think he becomes much worse militarily. A few examples of the top of my head.

His empty fort strategy against Lu Bu is not mentioned.

His victory over Liu Bei in Xu Zhou is credited to Xun Yu who predicted the future or some crap and saw that Zhang Fei was going for a night raid.

His ploy to have Gongsun Kang kill the Yuan brothers is credited to Guo Jia.

Changban, which is historically one of his biggest victories in terms of efficiency and strategic maneuver, becomes instead a moral defeat because he gets fooled by Zhang Fei and his generals all get destroyed by Zhao Yun. From what I remeber SGYY makes no mention that Cao Cao achieved every one of his campaign goals with his brilliant Jing Zhou maneuvers. He destroyed Liu Bei's army, captured Xiangyang and received the surrenders, captured Jiang Ling before Liu Bei could get to it and got it's massive military supplies and navy.

Red Cliffs becomes his tactical fault and he just gets fooled again and again by Zhuge Liang, Zhou Yu and Pang Tong. (Though granted, historically it was his strategic fault, I always argue Red Cliffs is more Cao Cao's loss than Zhou Yu's win)



Oh another few people just came to my mind.

Jiang Gan. Historically meant to be a really great guy. Is now a sneaky fool to be tricked by Zhou Yu.

Zhang Zhao? I mean yes SGYY makes a few mentions of his talent but for the most part he's "that cowardly scholar who wants to give up to Cao Cao". Where as in reality Wu probably wouldn't exist without Zhang Zhao.

[Dong Zhou]

Cao Cao is an anti hero (probably not meant to be), he isn't the massacre of several cities, the execution man of 80,000 soldiers, he may be ruthless and paranoid but he his dark streak his hidden somewhat. People end up assuming the novel makes up a lot of his evil and yes, sometimes it doesn't always show his best side but nowadays he has a PR boost for being the "victim" of the novel

What empty fort? Quite a bit of Cao Cao's campaign against Lu Bu includes things like "luring Lu Bu into an ambush" which he historically didn't, I find his int gets tweaked up. Nor do I think it dismisses Chang Ban as much as you believe. Ok there is the paranoia which affects him and he is a bit of a coward in the novel but nearly nobody doubts his military genius in it

[Qu Hui]

I wouldn't say Sima Yi got a raw deal. He probably turned into a better commander than he actually was. SGYY has him ranking probably second, right after Zhuge Liang.

How so? In the novel, Sima Yi's personality takes a drastic turn to a paranoid and borderline cruel man and his skills drop to the point where he can't even hold out against Zhuge Liang when Zhuge attacks. For example, the Empty Fort Strategy, where Sima Shi sees through Zhuge Liang's plot but Sima Yi retreats anyway because he fears an ambush. Then, there's the horrible defeat Sima Yi suffers at Qishan that didn't happen historically. And of course, there is the famous Shanfeng Gorge incident. During the campaign against Gongsun Yuan, he is painted as a cruel man; he kills envoys, refuses Yuan's request for surrender and executes those who complain about the heavy rain when he preivously retreated from invading Hanzhong because of heavy rains.

Lu Su, meanwhile, wasn't an officer of Shu or someone who directly opposed Zhuge Liang, so he didn't appear as much and some of his deeds were reattributed, but the role he played was still somewhat close to what happened in history. Heck, he even came up with the Longzhong Plan several years before Zhuge Liang did, which is something that one would expect the SGYY to omit.