Romance of the Three Kingdoms (novel)/Awesome: Difference between revisions

* Guan Yu calmly playing a game of go with one arm while the other is operated on without anaesthetic.

* Guan Yu plowing his way through six generals and their five "gates" (checkpoint forts) on his journey to meet back up with his sworn brother Liu Bei... only for Cao Cao, whose service he'd been leaving, to let him keep the famous stallion Red Hare (after Guan Yu had explicitly said that he would use it to reach Liu Bei!), offering him gold to cover expenses and then a robe when that was refused, and [[Karma Houdini|letting him off the hook every step of the way]] (except by not giving those commanders the heads up...). Oh and by his sheer awesome he gets a would-be ambusher to betray the plot and gets followers, including Zhou Cang and Guan Ping (portrayed alongside him in many a depiction) and later Zhao Yun, in the course of things! (The "awesome" is mildly averted {{spoiler|posthumously, when a priest who in life had warned him of an ambush by one of those generals, then calls Guan Yu's ghost on them and all of his other victims}}.)

** Actually, this troper heard that Zhao Yun caught the boy just before he hit the ground. If he let the baby fall then perhaps a better [[What If|successor]] would have been found.

* [[Old Master|Huang Zhong, simply for being on the battlefield at all, and then topping it by kicking ass. (Later Zhao Yun for outdoing Huang Zhong at his own trope.)]]

* Zhang Liao (of Wei) holds off the Wu army: 800 against 10000 (historical records claim 7000 versus 100000), and nearly takes Sun Quan's head in the process. Not to be outdone, in the next engagement, Gan Ning (of Wu) proceeds to round up 100 of his best men, raids the Wei encampment and ''comes out without a single casualty''.

** Gan Ning was also a badass at the battle of Huancheng, where he climbed a castle wall (while fending off arrows with a chain). He used said chain to capture an enemy commander, pulling him off the wall.

** Later Lu Bu also manages to fight to a draw [[Bash Brothers|Dian Wei and Xu Chu]].

** On the battlefield in duels, anyway. When it came to strategy/tactics, or off the battlefield... not nearly so much. (Correspondingly, in the video game series of the same name, he is ''far'' less "[[Game Breaker|broken]]"/useful than in the ''[[Dynasty Warriors]]'' series. This troper has (as Cao Cao) held off multiple invasion attempts by Lu Bu in ''Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI'' just by having units cast Misinform... causing him to turn around and go back the way he came ''every time''.)

* Sun Ce's army was being taunted by an officer of inconsequential rank while they laid siege to a city. While taunting, the officer's hand is resting on a beam. Taishi Ci decides not to take this anymore, and shoots the guy through the hand with an arrow, pinning him to the beam. Even more awesome: he called the shot ("Watch me hit his hand") before making it.

* Sun Ce gets ambushed and a guy shoots him in the cheek with an arrow. Sun Ce pulls the arrow out, takes out his own bow, shoots the arrow back at the guy, and kills him.

* Zhang He slashes his way out of Zhuge Liang's ambush, and then goes back in to rescue his buddy. Zhuge Liang watches from afar, and is impressed.

* The otherwise insignificant Liu Qi, one of Liu Biao's would-be heirs in the whole Jingzhou brouhahaha, wanted Zhuge Liang's advice to get through the impending succession crisis, but Zhuge Liang wanted none of it, especially since he was serving Liu Bei who refused to simply take the damn thing. As a result, Liu Bei secretly told Liu Qi that Zhuge Liang would help, and pretended to be ill so as to force Zhuge Liang to go. When Zhuge Liang saw Liu Qi, he was repeatedly beseeched to help and kept there, finally being lured into an attic where he was begged for again...