The Ravages of Time: Brothers From Different Mothers

[grazzt]

The main characters of the original Romance of the Three Kingdoms were, arguably, the Three Brothers. Their back story goes that when the Yellow Turban (a religious cult) Rebellion threatened the Han, three men from different families swore an oath in a peach orchard to preserve the Han and declaring themselves as brothers to each other. They were the charismatic distant relation of the Emperor Liu Bei; the wandering warrior Guan Yu; and the impulsive, alcohol-loving butcher Zhang Fei. Their oath of brotherhood is so popular that some Chinese secret societies, including the Triads, use variations on it. As you can imagine, the three are used as examples of filial rectitude, even to this day. Guan Yu, in particular, has been deified and is now a god of brotherhood amongst warriors (which, ironically enough, makes him popular amongst both police officers and criminals).

Of course, The Ravages of Time is a darker take on the Three Kingdoms. So what are they going to do with our original, idealistic protagonists? Let's find out.




Reads right to left.

The brothers get off to a less than auspicious start, as we see here:



"I knew I should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque."

In any case, they quickly settle into Jin Yang, kidnapping the mayor and having him beaten to within an inch of his life. Liu Bei then addresses the crowd:



The crowd begins to get noisy and insulting, calling Zhang Fei a "fancy face raccoon" and generally saying they won't put up with Liu Bei. Unfortunately, that makes Zhang Fei angry:



"Team rocket's blasting off again." Okay, so this post has a lot of cartoon references, so sue me.





Liu Bei says that you can still get water from the rind of a melon, and sends his men out to search the people's homes for valuables. This goes on until word comes that the Guandong Army (an anti-Dong Zhuo coalition under the leadership of Yuan Shao) is on its way, at which point Liu Bei hightails it, all the while being stoned by an angry populace.

It's at this point that Liu Bei's genius actually kicks in:



And the old guy who was tossed out of the city:



The loot that Liu Bei took is then used to save another city that didn't treat the Guandong Alliance so well and was looted for it. We then leave off with Zhang Fei and Guan Yu discussing their older brother (the conversation is longer, but the summation is the best part):



And that's the three brothers. They'll have their personalities a bit more well defined as the story goes on. Both Liu Bei and Guan Yu have their more traditional appearances, although Guan Yu's face isn't nearly as red as it usually is (in a shout out to his traditional appearance, Guan does mention that his face goes really red whenever he drinks). Zhang Fei's appearance is also traditional, but in a different way: his facepaint is based off the mask worn by actors playing Zhang Fei in Chinese Opera. It's odd, because his appearance in the novel is fairly distinctive to start with, so you wouldn't think he'd need anything to tell him apart from the average generals. Still, I like the look and it goes with his slightly more refined personality in this manhua (I might get into that at a later date).

Up next: Cao Cao's monsters.

Comments

[shadowpsykie]

hmmm without looking at any of these in detail, they call to mind thewarriors three :)

[karthzon]

... You know, that actually works. Not perfectly, of course, but it works. All of them have traits of each, but Volstagg is mainly Zhang Fei, Hogun is mainly Guan Yu and Fandral is mainly Liu Bei. The question now is, was that intentional? Romance of the Three Kingdoms is not as famous in cultures of European descent as it is in Asia, but it's still pretty well known.

[grazzt]

It might just be that this sort of trio is fairly archetypal, so it pops up in all sorts of places independently of one another.

[renface]

I was looking forward to this, so thanks for sharing!

It seems strange seeing Guan Yu and Zhang Fei without crazy beards, and I can't stop imagining Zhang Fei as belonging in DMC...

Interesting stuff though! I hope you post more. :)

[grazzt]

Well, Guan Yu is still early on in his career, so maybe his beard will have time to reach epic proportions yet. It's still a pretty nice bit of facial hair, anyway.

On the other hand, I don't think Zhang Fei is ever going to look like his traditional appearance. Which is sort of a pity, because it was a pretty cool look.

[psychopathicus_rex]

So basically, he gets the cityfolk to hate and fear them, so when the army comes and drives them out, the people go 'oh thank the gods, we're saved!', treat the soldiers like heroes, and thereby save their city from destruction?
Niiiiiiiice. THAT is some tricky strategy.

[grazzt]

Yeah, and he's one of the lesser intellects in the story, too. Wait until you see one of the Eight Geniuses in action.

[psychopathicus_rex]

The name kind of says it all, I take it...