Due to obvious reasons, this page contains profile pictures of Sun Ce and Sun Quan - major in-universe Walking Spoiler and Chekhov's Gunman, respectively. Enjoy their entries at your own risk.
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Tropes Applying To Sun clan
- Indy Ploy: Frequently invoked by Sun Ce, who always counts on his men and Zhou Yu to be adaptive and makes use of the situational advantages offered by his "reckless" charges, no matter how much they might disagree with him for putting his life on the line.
- Legacy of Service: Most aged generals serving Sun Ce used to be his father Sun Jian's subordinates, and after Ling Cao's death in battle under the guise of Sun Ce his son Ling Tong was given a title and joined Sun Ce.
- One-Man Army: Zhou Tai, Taishi Ci and Sun Ce (especially Sun Ce) who frequently take on a vast number of enemy troops alone.
- Revenge Before Reason: Sun Ce takes Sun Jian's death at the hands of Jingzhou's general Huang Zu very personally and the first thing he does after amassing enough military might is raiding Jiangxia (Jingzhou's border), causing heavy loss for the Jingzhou people. Ten years after his passing, we learn that Sun Quan has only taken up his older brother's 'good' works, relentlessly rampaging Jingzhou lands and further exacerbating the bad blood between Sun clan and the Liu clan. It understandably causes the Jing citizens to hate their guts and join Liu Bei to fight them off at the first change they get.
- The Hero Dies: Sun Jian, Sun Ce, and as of the latest chapters, Zhou Yu. Given that all of them are figureheads of Sun clan, the Suns are notedly the team which has gone through most changes in leadership of all three factions.
- Took a Level in Badass: The Sun army was an elite force to begin with; their strength only dispersed under Yuan Shu's intentional mismanagement. After they reclaim a stronghold, recruit Zhou Yu and have the Shan clan and Sima clan to back them up financially, Sun Ce and the veteran generals swiftly get their acts together and embark on a successful conquest of the Sun's old lands.
- What Were You Thinking?: To Sun Ce whenever he does something reckless (which is often) like leaving the main troops to take on an entire army alone. Of course, according to Sun Ce it's always All According to Plan...
The clansmen
Sun Jian
Patriarch of Sun family and a famed general of Guandong warlord alliance. He's generally hailed as "one of the true last Loyalists" of the court, if not the true last Loyalist, given how treacherous most other warlords (even the respected Yuan Shao) turned out to be and how Cao Cao eventually shed this appearance in becoming an Evil Chancellor to the Emperor. Largely a Posthumous Character, the readers know about his heroic deeds for the alliance only through brief words of mouth until a conversation with Sima Yi in volume 14 tells us he died off-screen not long after the campaign against Dong Zhuo.
- Annoying Arrows: He died a Human Pincushion, a handiwork of Liu Biao's archer team and Gan Ning.
- Big Damn Heroes: He was the first man trying to put out the fire in Luoyang after Dong Zhuo left with only a cloth in his hands, inspiring many other soldiers to follow his example.
- Good Is Dumb: He didn't trust the Yuan clan regarding the Imperial seal, but that didn't stop him from obeying them in every other matter. In fact, he marched on his fatal campaign against Liu Biao on the order of Yuan Shu, who was very likely the Yuan brother who tasked his men to retrieve the Seal while Luoyang burned in the first placenote .
- Good Is Not Dumb: The whole reason that Sun Jian hid the Imperial Seal in Ravages was because he realized that he was one of the only "true" Loyalists in the Guandong Alliance — the other being Cao Cao — and he recognized, what with Yuan Shao having marched his army into Luoyang in hopes of recovering the Emperor and the Imperial Seal first (and Sun Jian presumably having realized how hollow any "support" from the other lords was), that the Imperial Seal wouldn't be "safe" from the other, greedier lords. And yet, when it really counts, he also manages to be...
- Horrible Judge of Character: He continued to trust and believe the best of Yuan Shao and the other Guandong warlords even after they sabotaged his march to Luoyang by giving him insufficient rations, but the discovery of the Imperial Seal in the hand of a Yuan clan soldier made him wise up. Sadly, this realization was not enough for him to completely abandon their cause.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: He was a famous Loyalist who fought for a just cause and protected the Imperial Seal from would-be usurpers, and all it did was getting him killed for Yuan Shu's ambition. Without a patriarch, the Sun family (which already had lost much control of the Eastern land) lost most of their military force (implied to be in no small part due to Yuan Shu's machination) and quickly declined in influence, forcing Sun Ce to submit to Yuan Shu and marry off his sister to Sima clan.
- Parental Neglect: Judging by the way he reacts to his daughter's near-death experience and Sun Ce's flashback, Sun Jian might be accused of this to his children. In the novel Bofu, Sun Ce gets this short end of the stick a lot and it damages his sense of self-worth quite severely.
- Red Baron: The Tiger of Jiangdong.
- Together in Death: If Zhou Yu's vision is anything to go by, Sun Ce's soul goes to rest with his father when he dies, and he does accept Ce with open arms.
- Too Good for This Sinful Earth: His ideals of righteousness and loyalty are way out of keeping with the era he lives in — he was basically the only "true" (or rather sincere) Loyalist out of the lords in the Guandong coalition, and he hid the Imperial Seal not out of ambition but rather out of fear of the other, less sincere lords getting their hands on it. Notably, no one except Sun Ce will speak ill of Sun Jian's loyalism, and in fact Sun Ce's enemies even use it to bash him with!
- Undying Loyalty: To the court, and Sun Ce is not pleased since it was the cause of his death and indirectly responsible for the craps his family had to endure thereafter.
Sun Ce/Ling Cao
- Back-to-Back Badasses: With Liaoyuan Huo when they were ambushed by Gan Ning and a rogue army.
- Body Double: He's the "someone taller" to Sun Ce's Expected Someone Taller.
- Due to the Dead: In a deliberate aversion, Sun Ce wrecked his tomb and blamed it on Liu Yao to raise army morale. It worked like a miracle, but Ling Cao's son Tong understandably wasn't impressed.
- A Father to His Men: His last request to Liaoyuan Huo before taking on an entire vengeful army was to help his subordinates get away.
- Heroic Sacrifice: He pretended to be Sun Ce in public throughout the clan's vassalage to Yuan Shu specifically so that whenever Ling Cao met his end, the Sun clan's forces — and the real Sun Ce — could slip out.
- Guile Hero: He saw through every bit of Yuan Shu's Faux Affably Evil PR spins but still played along, and he could act as Sun Ce convincingly enough that neither Yuan Shu nor his advisor discovered his identity until after he died.
- Hot-Blooded: Part of the public persona he endorsed.
- Legacy of Service: On both sides of this trope: his father Ling Zong served Sun Jian, and his son Ling Tong would serve both Sun Ce and Sun Quan.
- Mukokuseki: A factor in his being picked as Sun Ce's body double.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: It didn't fool Yuan Shu and his advisor though. That is to say, they could tell that "Sun Ce" is only pretending to be dumb... they just couldn't tell that he wasn't Sun Ce.
- The Reveal: His identity and the Body Double plan dawns on Liaoyuan Huo when he hears Ling Cao's last words: "I'm sorry, my Lord... My failure has killed a friend.."
- Secret Identity: Posthumously revealed as Ling Cao, subordinate of Sun Ce.
Sun Fu/Sun Ce
Heaven, I ask you. Are you on my side?
The young leader of Sun clan, a powerful clan in the Eastern region. Starting with the death of his father Sun Jian, the Sun clan slowly fell victims to outside manipulations and opportunistists who are after the Imperial seal, which Sun Jian allegedly recovered from the ruins of Luoyang after Dong Zhuo's arc and hid away to protect it from ambitious men and opportunitists; by the time of their first appearance what remains is a mere shadow of their old glory. Seeking a way to rebuild his clan and avenge his father's death, Sun Ce submits to Yuan Shu, one of his father's former direct superiors. The cover of amity does not fool either side, though: Yuan Shu, the mastermind behind Sun Jian's death, aims at possessing the Imperial seal and eradicating a future threat, and Sun Ce wants to win his support only to gain the resources to reclaim the Eastern region. Volume 16-20 center around their conflict, and end in Sun Ce's victory: he successfully escapes from under Yuan Shu's clutches to the Eastern region with a full army by means of one of the most clever Body Double strategy to date, Yuan Shu's forces is reduced by half, and the Imperial seal ends up in Yuan Shu's hands to be used in his ascension plan - as Sun Ce wishes - which will make him an enemy of the people. Also, by the end of this arc, we see that the Fifth Genius, Zhou Yu, is in his service.
After he's conquered all of the Eastern region's warlord, his archenemy reveals itself to be the remnant of Taiping rebellion, led by the so-called "Great Saint" Yu Ji, a Taoist who uses his medical and shaman knowledge to gather an overwhelming legion of followers. The 2nd arc featuring the Sun clan revolves around the Sun clan vs. Taiping cult battle in Eastern region.
Despite his age, Sun Ce is a very powerful warrior and is considered to be Lu Bu's equal in prowess, a reputation duly justified. He's also a highly cunning schemer in his own right, and is very clever at manipulating people. What his generals and advisors unanimously regard as his Achilles' Heel is his over-enthusiasm with expanding their territory in the Eastern region and exacting revenge on his father's former foes, namely Liu Biao's general Huang Zu and the Taiping cult. In his eagerness to subdue them, more than once Sun Ce has recklessly put his own life on the line, a fact Zhou Yu's greatly concerned about. Still, none of their warnings dampen Sun Ce's spirit: he wholeheartedly believes that great sacrifices make the foundation for Sun clan's rule, and as the spearhead of the clan's offense force, he should do everything he can while Heaven is still on their side.
With Pang Tong's aid, the Sun clan manages to defeat Yu Ji and annihilate his influence in their home base. However, in volume 39, another leader of Taiping called Zuo Ci shows up and sends assassins after Sun Ce to avenge Yu Ji. Their ambush takes him by surprise, and he dies of a poisonous arrow to the head after three months of struggle and insanity induced by extreme agony.
- The Ace: Almighty warrior, certified
Magnificent Bastard, "Little Hegemon" at an impossible age, almost never plays by the rules and pulls crazy stunts not even the Eight Geniuses could predict, only to always emerge victoriousnote . - Ambition Is Evil: His father Sun Jian was a famous Loyalist who sacrificed his life to protect the Imperial Seal from falling into the hands of wannabe usurpers, while Sun Ce only wants to restore his clan's reign in the Eastern region and extricate it from any obligatory ties with the imperial clan, which practically means declaring the eastern region autonomous at best and a separate country at worst. His objective is thus relentlessly denounced by opponents, whonote also like to remind him what a terrible son he is for not upholding his late father's "loyalty and righteousness". It causes him to develop self-doubts, exacerbated by his daddy issues, which later return to haunt him amid the bouts of delirium he suffers in his deathbed.
- Animal Motif: The tiger.
- Armor-Piercing Question: To Taishi Ci - "What is the meaning of loyalty?"
- Arranged Marriage: With the eldest daughter of Qiao family, one of the richest families in the Eastern region. His little brother got him this match by putting a sword to his would-be father-in-law's neck and offering to wed the old man's daughters to two most desirable men in Eastern land at that period (one being The Ace and an court-appointed general, the other
one of the Eight Geniuses) provided that the Qiaos became their ally. - Badass Boast: "Heaven... you still protect the Sun clan."
- Batman Gambit: The Battle at Shenting Peak, second round. Which more or less relied on [his men getting sufficiently enraged at Liu Yao's desecration of Ling Cao's tomb (and not finding out that it was Sun Ce who intentionally did it) to trash Liu Yao's army despite their massive difference in number. And it went off spectacularly.
- Body Double: [He pulled an epic one with Ling Cao, with Sun Ce playing younger cousin "Sun Fu", and everyone not in on it was fooled.
- Break the Badass: A horrifying and heartbreaking example in "A Hundred Days of Pain".
- Break the Haughty: As the Young Conqueror he's broken a good number of badasses in his warring days. But he himself also gets this every time people tell him he fails as a son of the Loyalist Sun Jian, and Cao Cao takes it even further by warning that he will not receive Heaven's blessings; this latter one strikes a big chord with Sun Ce since he's always believed that he is so successful with the conquest of the Eastern region because Heaven is on his side. This trope is played terrifyingly straight during the hundred-day period of agonizing pains he suffers from an assassin's poisoned arrow, which culminate in him seeing himself flat-out condemned by his father in a dream for being a renegade who betrays Imperial Han, rather than a dutiful son his father'd wished him to be. The entire scene is tear-jerking to behold.
- Break Them by Talking: To Taishi Ci. Of course, this is after he botched Taishi Ci's entire retaliation siege by luring him into an alliance with turncloaks who were charged with keeping siege weapons and subjected Taishi Ci and his entire troops to heat stroke. His Armor-Piercing Question was the final touch.
- Broken Ace: Yet is also a resenter with daddy issues and deep-seated insecurities about the righteousness of his belief.
- Call-Back: Just like Ling Cao 19 volumes earlier, Sun Ce meets his end with an arrow to the head, and the last sane thought passing through his mind is also the narration line hanging in Ling Cao's death scene. Moreover, the one who indirectly caused him to drop his guard and thus be vulnerable to that arrow? None other than Ling Tong, Ling Cao's son, to whom Sun Ce had even said, "If there is justice, when Heaven reprimands, pray that I suffer a hundred days of pain before I die!" after desecrating Ling Cao's tomb and blaming the enemy for the act.
- The Chessmaster: A much more successful example than Lu Bu of an One-Man Army dishing out a plan of his own.
- Combat Pragmatist: When it's him versus a horsed fighter, he aims for the horse and it works. When it's him on a horse versus Zhang Liao, he knows Zhang Liao would aim for the horse and gives Zhang Liao a sound ass-kicking.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Not quite on Lu Bu's level yet, but holy shit this guy is pretty close. No one pulls a proud warrior (or a proud cavalry battalion for that matter) off of his high horse like Sun Ce.
- Cutting the Knot: The primary advocate in Ravages. Throwing together all the toughest nuts and drop a freakin' hammer on them at once is Sun Ce's way of doing things, and the way his gambits play this trope to all its worth cements his status as one of the major Magnificent Bastard in-universe.
- Cynicism Catalyst: The death of his beloved father caused his disbelief in loyalty to Han.
- Despair Event Horizon: Sun Jian's death was one for him, since it brought about the clan's near collapse and left him with little choice but to kowtow to Yuan Shu, the instigator of his father's demise.
- Didn't See That Coming: He thought getting rid of Yu Ji would be the end of his problems with the Southern Taiping sect...but then comes assassins from Zuo Ci, Northern Taiping cult leader and their ambush.
- Dual Wielding: Two halberds, but he also has a curious tendency to slip his hands with deadly accuracy.
- Expecting Someone Taller: And it worked against everyone.
- Faking the Dead: Once against Yuan Shu's assassination attempt, twice against Yu Ji's.
- Face–Heel Turn: Sun Jian's premature death and the subsequent fall of the Sun clan turns Sun Ce completely off to the (traditionally valued) idea of following his father's loyal footsteps and returning to the court's service — from then on he's looking out for number one.
- Generation Xerox: Just like his father who died being shot full of arrows, Sun Ce also met his end with a poisoned arrow to the head.
- Genius Bruiser: As Zhou Yu puts it: "A Lu Bu with Sun Zi's wisdom".
- Improbable Age: He leads the Sun army on a swift conquest of the eastern region, defeating and outwitting men twice his age, and established the foundation of the Sun clan in eighty-one states in five years. Historically he's only in his mid-twenties when he dies.
- It's Personal: As he tearfully admits in his deathbed, his unyielding opposition to Yu Ji's Taiping cult in Eastern region and continual siege on Jiangxia (Liu Biao's province) against his advisors' cautious reservations are motivated by his desire to finish his father's works (in battling the Taiping sect) and avenge him (as he was killed by Liu Biao's general Huang Zu).
- King Incognito: No, he's not that burly, manly warrior with funny hairstyle and cool headband. See his cousin, the nondescript, laid-back, unassuming guy who is sent to take charge of Yuan Shu's asylum and has a good time with it with Liaoyuan Huo? Yeah, that's Sun Ce.
- Leeroy Jenkins: We find it awesome, but this aspect of Sun Ce isn't exactly encouraged in-story - after all, he's still the leader of an army and giving all precautions and advices the middle finger to charge right into the middle of the enemy line is not a risk-free, and therefore not at all recommendable, idea.
- Magnificent Bastard: Outmatches his sworn brother Zhou Yu in this regard.
- Meaningful Echo: What was spoken by Ling Cao at his moment of death dawns on Sun Ce when he's shot in the head, similar to how Ling Cao died. And how could we forget "A Hundred Days of Pain"?
- Mukokuseki: Blond hair, freckles and all, though this is actually a plot point, being [both a factor in Sun Ce's jealousy of his younger brother (explicity in novel only) and why his body double is Ling Cao.
- "No More Holding Back" Speech: A variation which leads to I Am What I Am-esque moments. Sadly, the last one he has gets him too high and and off-guard, leading to his death.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: We only get to see the beginning and end of his conquest of the Eastern region, which is said to last five years, made of pure awesomeness, and has granted him legendary fame among the battle-weary eastern warlords.
- One-Man Army: A flashback reveals that he was one even as a teen - he once beat up an entire garrison (with him ending up none the worse for wear) with a wooden stick because some of them bullied his brother.
- Peaceful in Death: When Sun Ce finally dies after three months of suffering, Zhou Yu sees his spirit gradually returning to his child form and running back to his father's arms.Sun Jian's spirit: He's tired. Let him rest.
- Rank Scales with Asskicking: In charge, and is the best fighter of his clan.
- Revenge Before Reason: Is accused of this whenever his eagerness to eradicate the Taiping cult, his father's former archenemy, and to defeat Huang Zu, his father's murderer gets out of hand.
- Rule of Three: He avoids death at the hands of Taiping cult's assassins twice. He's not so lucky on the third time.
- Schmuck Bait: Sun Ce is going out with very few escorts to visit his subordinate Ling Cao's grave, unguarded and trapped in the high mountain for the first time, sure let's bring out your entire army to surround the tomb and leave your base defenseless! What Could Possibly Go Wrong?, right Liu Yao? The irony is that he almost avoids it too, but Sun Ce's fight with Taishi Ci ends up longer than expected and he eventually falls for the bait all the same.
- Smug Smiler: Almost his default expression, because he's way too good at kicking asses.
- Sparing the Aces: To Taishi Ci and Zhang Liao after handing their respective asses to them. In the later case, it turned out to be a bad move for his camp posthumously: in Chibi, the spared Zhang Liao couldn't have the rematch with Sun Ce that he wanted, so he settled for his next best bet - Sun Ce's friend Taishi Ci. Taishi Ci was killed in this fight.
- Stepford Smiler: Shows signs of this in the manhua whenever it comes to the subject of his father and during his nightmare in "A Hundred Days of Pain"]]. The novel plays it straight, where his carefree facade hides a world of unspoken self-esteem issues, including but not limited to his desire for his strict dad's approval and his jealousy of Sun Quan for being the main focus of Sun clan's adoration and Sun Jian's fatherly love.
- The Reveal: The "Sun Ce" that Gan Ning killed was actually Ling Cao, who acted as a bait to fool Yuan Shu into thinking Sun Ce was dead, so that the real Sun Ce (so far disguised as a distant cousin) could escape safely from servitude to Yuan Shu.
- Walking Spoiler: It's hard to post any picture of him without spoiling the 'fake Sun Ce' plan.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Turns out to be one, despite his constant condemnations of his father's characteristic loyalty which got him killed. In the side-story novel Bofu, he is this trope personified.
- You Killed My Father: To Yuan Shu and Huang Zu, and by proxy to Huang Zu's boss Liu Biao.
- Young Conqueror: An actual in-universe Red Baron of his, right out of the novel and folklore alike!
Sun Quan
- The Apprentice: To Liu Da in martial arts and Shan Wu Ling (and for a few months Sima Yi) in business intrigues.
- Break the Cutie: During Sun Ce's hundred-day period of suffering from a poisoned arrow, especially when Sun Ce mistakenly calls him "Yu Ji". It got even worse in Bofu, where at one point "his brother in his madness had taken him as Ling Cao, how he had hugged his thigh sobbing and groveling on the floor, ceaselessly kowtowing on the floor begging for his forgiveness."
- Chekhov's Gunman: He's the boy who calls Shan Wu Ling "big sister" in a blink-and-you-will-miss-it moment in volume 6. Turns out they're not related at all.
- Despair Event Horizon: He must have crossed it once when Sun Jian died, but it doesn't make the blow any less easier to take when his brothers Sun Ce and Zhou Yu die one after another. The circumstance of Zhou Yu's passing (slowly dying by illness and then secretly passing away in a great fire he set up to take Cao Cao with him, with very few high-ranking generals privy to his death, leaving Sun Quan with no chance to properly mourn him) takes a great toll on his mentality - he's shown to have taken to drinking, which is a Foreshadowing of his (historically infamous) alcoholism in his twilight years.
- Large Ham: His morale-raising speech to his troops in chapter 406 shows that Sun Quan is on the fast track to becoming a motivational speaker on par with Cao Cao or Liu Bei.
- Magnetic Hero: Solidifies his status post chapter 406.
- Mentor's New Hope: Sort of; Liu Da's first student Liaoyuan Huo turned out to be a disappointment as he failed to cut his ties with Sima clan and make a name for himself despite his talents like Liu Da did, so he hopes Quan will be more successful in whatever he does, and to this end he grants him the service of his warrior-assassins Xu Sheng and Pan Zhang.
- Sibling Yin-Yang: With Sun Ce, but only in terms of their expertise - Ce is a warrior whose duty is to conquer more land and people for his clan, Quan is an administrator whose job is to manage the Eastern region's internal affairs. And they manage to balance the roles perfectly. (Afterward, Zhou Yu takes his oath-brother's place and by extension is also Quan's sworn brother as well.)
- Strong Family Resemblance: The only one of three siblings to take after Sun Jian.
- Walking Spoiler: Like his brother, impossible to have any pictures of him posted without spoiling one of the longest Chekhov threads in Ravages so far.
- Youngest Child Wins: In the novel Bofu, at least. Of the three children, Quan is the smartest child and takes after Sun Jian the most and thus is the clan's favorite.
Sun Shu
- All Love Is Unrequited: For a girl who isn't a bad catch at all, her streak of chasing after men who already have their significant others is really unfortunate.
- Altar Diplomacy: She gets roped into one with Liu Bei to forge an Sun-Liu alliance. Unlike most examples, the two clans' interest are at odd from the very start - both want Jingzhou and want to trap the other into taking it for them, for one thing - so this marriage is just a device for the Suns to spy, manipulate, put Liu Bei under house arrest and have his best men at their beckon when needed.
- Arranged Marriage: Has three over the course of Ravages and none of them ends well for her: her first fiancé Yuan Fang tried to kill her, the second one Liaoyuan Huo cancelled the engagement shortly after it's begun — his heart having irrevocably gone for Xiao Meng — and left her waiting for over ten years. And when she gets to meet him again, her brother Quan and his cohorts wed her to the much older and recently widowed Liu Bei.
- Break the Cutie: When Yuan Fang pushed her into a river to help him escape to safety, it really hammered home the truth that he wasn't in love with her and detested political marriage.
- Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places: Her first love is Yuan Fang, who is almost obsessively loyal to the memory of his dead girlfriend; the novel version indicates that she's not unaware of his love for Xiao Cha but falls head over heel for him anyway because it just makes him a more romantic figure in her eyes. Her second paramour is Liaoyuan Huo, who maintains a close relationship bordering on romantic with Xiao Meng; she continues to pursue him because she's confident she wouldn't lose to Xiao Meng. And sure enough, Huo ditches the engagement once Xiao Meng is supposedly dead. Years later, we find out she still holds onto her affections for him despite the long wait and her recent engagement to Liu Bei, his master. Given his character, no one's surprised that he rejects her the second time out of loyalty to Liu Bei, to say nothing of Xiao Meng's death.
- Mukokuseki: Blonde like her brother Ce.
- Old Flame: Zhao Yun is one to her, as shown when they meet again in Chibi arc. However by that time he has ceased to have any lingering feelings for her, either because of Xiao Meng or her subsequent engagement to his master Liu Bei.
- Old Maid: When she meets Huo again in Chibi arc, it turns out she's been waiting for him ever since their engagement was cancelled. When he (rather bluntly) asks her why she isn't married yet at that age, she isn't happy.
- Relationship Sabotage: In the eyes of many in-universe characters and the fandom, Huo and Xiao Meng were an item in all but name, until Shu comes back on a bus and gets engaged to him to foster an alliance between Sun clan and Sima clan. Huo readily agrees on Sima Yi's order, but Xiao Meng's heavily implied to be driven across Despair Event Horizon with this turn of event, which might have factored in his decision of Heroic Sacrifice in volume 18.
- Smitten Teenage Girl: To her fiancé Yuan Fang, but she got over it after the events in Break the Cutie above.
- The Bus Came Back: She disappeared after the Luoyang arc, then returned briefly to announce her engagement with Liaoyuan Huo as a ploy to gain Sima clan's supports for the Sun clan's return to the Eastern regions. After Huo left to find Xiao Meng, Sima Yi told Zhang Lei to cancel the engagement and send her home. Then it came back again when she reappeared a decade later in the Sun clan while the Sun and Liu clan forces were meeting up. And then she tries to beat Huo — now Zhao Yun — with a stick for 'abandoning' her, whereas she'd waited over ten years for him.
- Rescue Romance: She started to fall for Huo after realizing he saved her life twice during the course of the hostage rescue mission.
- Unequal Pairing: Zhang Fei uses the difference in 'rank'note as an excuse to reject Lu Su's offer to wed her to the "brute" Zhao Yun and instead proposes a match between her and Liu Bei. Needless to say, Lu Su jumps at that chance.
The generals
Cheng Pu
- Brainwashed and Crazy: In the Sun clan's plan to eradicate Taiping cult, he acts like he's hypnotized by Yu Ji's spell to attack Sun Ce, but as it turns out, Cheng Pu isn't.
Word of God suggests that he had just been playing along, and such form of mind control doesn't work on people like him. - Four-Star Badass: During the Red Clif arc, he acts as the Commander of Sun army, with equal rank to Zhou Yu.
- The Mole: He pretends to be brainwashed by Yu Ji and kill Sun Ce as an excuse to the backstage. Once he's out of Yu Ji's sight, Cheng Pu swiftly wipes out Yu Ji's troops and insiders without arousing suspicion.
Huang Gai
- Cool Uncle: Among Sun Jian's generals, Huang Gai is the closest to his children. During the Luoyang arc, he looks after Sun Shu when she runs wayward trying to follow her fiancé. When Sun Quan was little, it's said that Huang Gai could always calm his crying fits. This relationship continues to the Sun's next generation - it turns out Sun Quan's child loves him as well.
- Old Soldier: He can take on younger fighters with relative ease due to his long experience, and he can instruct the Sun siblings.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: He takes the fall for Taishi Ci's death and asks Sun Quan to beats him until his legs can no longer walk, all to get inside Cao Cao's ranks and becomes The Mole for Sun army. Xun You doesn't buy it one bit and sees through his act before he even sets foots on their ship. Fortunately, Huang Gai fooled the Cao army doctor into thinking his condition worse than it actually was, so Huang Gai nevertheless overpowered the Cao marines and escaped to shore, having scouted the Cao navy formation.
Ling Tong
- Bash Brothers: Ironically enough, with Gan Ning.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: After some direct contact with Yu Ji, he fell under the influence of his hypnosis and tried to take out Sun Ce.
- Leeroy Jenkins: He assumes Sun Ce's role as the vanguard in the siege of Jiangxia.
- My Master, Right or Wrong: When he's sent to supervise Yu Ji's actions, Yu Ji implants this idea in his mind to get him argue with Sun Ce and possibly weakens his loyal mindtrack enough for the hypnosis to slip through.
- What the Hell, Hero?: When Sun Ce desecrated Ling Cao's tomb, gave Liu Yao's army his memento headband and blamed it on the enemy to inspire his troops, Ling Tong was the first to notice and call him out on this.
- You Killed My Father: Subverted in that he knows his father's sacrifice was needed to revive the Sun clan and harbors no resentment towards Sun Ce or whoever has a hand in the 'fake Sun Ce' plan... but the deliberate desecration of Ling Cao's tomb is a different story. The subversion even applies to his father's killer Gan Ning, who defected to the Sun camp before Chibi - he will never stop hating the man's guts, but as long as they both fight for the Sun family they're brothers-in-arms and Ling Tong would risk his life and limbs for him like he'd to any other, and and after protecting Gan Ning from Zhang Liao, Ling Tong makes a show of helping him back to his feet — a gesture that Gan Ning accepts with tears of either gratitude or shame.
Lu Meng
- Buffy Speak: When discussing war strategies, Lu Meng preferred vulgar and simple metaphors to using the proper military textbook terms. This, like his tendency to drop the F word, becomes a thing of the past after he devotes himself to study.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: He's a very talented tactician and general yet is illiterate note and crude to the point that Sun Ce and Zhou Yu has to (constantly) tell him to study up.
- By the time of Sun Ce's death, he's shown to be a much more eloquent and studious man, and eight years later during a naval battle with Liu Biao's forces he's no longer spouting scatalogical insults.
- It turns out he also keeps a personal hit squad - the White-Clothed troop (a nod to the historical Lu Meng's victory over Guan Yu when he ordered his troop to disguise as merchants in white clothes to sneak into Jingzhou
. During the Sun army's siege of Xiangyang, this troop pulls the wool over the Cao army defense officer's eyes and breaches the fortress' defense. Sima Yi's troops are swiftly annihilated and Sima Yi himself is also seriously injured. Lu Meng nearly becomes a Hero Killer right then and there, if not for San Chuan sacrificing himself to help his master escape.
- Cluster F-Bomb: His speech can get liberal with a huge amount of scatological vocabulary, to people's exasperation. He no longer drops these after he bothers to read books.
- Cultured Warrior: After Sun Ce's death.
- Number Two: After Zhou Yu's death.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: With Lu Xun.
- Sir Swearsalot: When he debuts. Drops it after he resolves to become a learned man following Sun Ce's death.
Gan Ning
- Bash Brothers: Together with Huang Zhong, they make a fine team guarding Jiangxia against Sun clan's advance. Later when he joins the Sun clan, his partner is Ling Tong.
- Combat Pragmatist: He's not above using hidden weapons in close combats. Also, guy deserves credits for his creative way of putting arrows to good use in a fist fight... This is a trick he learned from the foremost master of the bow of Ravages, Huang Zhong.
- Defector from Decadence: At the climax of the Battle of Jiangxia, he joined the Sun clan thanks to Pang Tong's Informed Ability of persuasion. It helps that by then Gan Ning was already disinclined against his lord Liu Biao and his commander Huang Zu for their incompetence.
- Hero Killer: Though it never really goes the way he intends: He killed 'Sun Ce' only for that to turn out to be Ling Cao, and the one time he actually went against Sun Ce he managed to give Ce a hard time at best. When he fights Zhang Liao in the Chibi arc, he boastingly declares himself this to Zhang Liao's face as before giving him a knife on the sides, but Zhang Liao just shrugs it off and proceeds to kick his ass before Ling Tong jumps in.
- Mix-and-Match Weapon: His polearm can also be used for shooting arrows thanks to the strings attached to it.
Taishi Ci
- Defeat Means Friendship: How Sun Ce got him to come over to Sun clan's side. Trolling the hell out of him helped, too.
- Friendly Enemy: Started out as this to Sun Ce.
- Irony: He's killed by Zhang Liao, the man whom seven years earlier his late friend Sun Ce had spared and challenged for a rematch.
- The Call Put Me on Hold: He is a young and talented warrior, always eager to prove himself to his lords (first Kong Rong, then Liu Yao) who were either too conservative to use his strategies or just plain disapprove of his hotbloodedness. Of course, he gets his due after joining the Sun clan.
- Undying Loyalty:
- His response to Sun Ce trying to recruit him after he trashed Liu Yao's army and led to his death was, not surprisingly, telling him to suck it. Sun Ce had to make a show of demonstrating the transient and hypocritical nature of loyalty in this Crapsack World setting to break his resolve and make him switch sides.
- Ironically, his death scene is accompanied by a monologue mocking loyalty, quoted from Sun Ce the day he surrendered to him: "Loyalty is a method; with false words the men of letters can send ignorant to their deaths. It is a despicable method by a lord to protect his own interest."
- Unwitting Pawn: Of Liu Yao's generals he alone fell for Sun Ce's Schmuck Bait and ran off to fight Sun Ce for long enough to worry Huang Gai, forcing the old man to come up to the mountain and retrieve Sun Ce. It all played into Sun Ce's gambit to fool Liu Yao into believing he was indeed in a tight spot and ripe for capture, and the moment Liu Yao's troops left the base Zhou Yu attacked them with full force.
- A friendly exchange of souvenir soon after had him bring back Ling Cao's headband (which he was led to believe was Sun Ce's) and Sun Ce in possession of his weapon. Sun Ce later combined them into an even deadlier Batman Gambit by sticking them onto Ling Cao's tomb that Sun Ce himself vandalized to raise his army morale, which delivered the finishing blow to Liu Yao's force.
The advisors
Zhou Yu
Pang Tong
Lu Xun
- Big Damn Heroes: As he surveyed Shouchun, he showed up just in time to save Sima Yi from certain death at the hands of Yuan Fang's assassins.
- Call-Back: His appearance reminds Sima Yi of himself - a hidden schemer operating in secret who happens to rescue another schemer who was acting openly, just like how the Crippled Legion saved Yuan Fang back in Luoyang.
- I Fight for the Strongest Side!: The Lu clan was previously an ally of the Taiping cult, but under his command has surrendered to the emerging Sun clan despite Sun Cenote having previously slain Xun's father, Lu Kang of Lujiang while Sun Ce was still Yuan Shu's vassal. (It's explained that Lu Xun doesn't hold it against Sun Ce, considering the blood debt already paid by both Ling Cao and Yuan Shu subsequently dying as well.)
- Number Two: To Lu Meng.
- Oh, Crap!: A big one in Chibi, when his side's entire scheme to burn Cao Cao's fleet was seen through and taken apart by Jia Xu and Xun You. As the situation looked bleaker than evernote and with no other cards in his hand, Lu Xun had to order his men to swim to safety. Fortunately, the Cao navy underestimated just how good the men of the Southland were at that...
- Later subverted when it turns out the joke was on Jia Xu and Xun You: Huang Gai escaped with information on the Cao navy's formations, Kan Ze's role had been a misdirectionnote , and Lu Xun's fleetsnote were just baiting Xun You to move in for the killing move, leaving them and Jia Xu's troops in the forest, which the fleets were shielding, wide open for Zhou Yu's fire attacks... and the Sun troops that were supposedly 'lured on land', led by Lu Meng, were actually aimed for Cao Cao's base all along.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Blue Oni to Lu Meng's Red.
Lu Su
- Didn't See That Coming: He proposed to Sun Quan a plan similar to Zhuge Liang's Longzhong plang - that is, a plan to allly with Liu Bei to fight Cao Cao and kickstart the formation of the Three Kingdom divisions. For this reason, he's the most vocal advocate of the alliance with Liu Bei on Sun clan side. Sun Quan and Zhou Yu accede to this proposal - but they do not reveal to him until later that they intend for Ma Chao, of the Ma clan in Xiliang, to be the third party of the Three Kingdoms.
- Nice Guy: He's still Genre Savvy enough to avoid being Good Is Dumb, a fatal attribute for any characters in Ravages' political scenes. In fact, Sun Quan points out that being a decent guy actually works to Lu Su's advantage in his capacity as a diplomat, because it's just harder for people to refuse himnote .
Kan Ze
- Didn't See That Coming: When acting as The Mole for Sun Quan in Cao camp, the involvement of Sima Yi, one of his old "students" and Taiping leader/shaman extraordinaire Zuo Ci completely screwed up his plans. Another thing he didn't see coming is that Zhou Yu were also just using him as a pawn.
- Faking the Dead: After being exposed as a mole, Kan Ze's corpse is seen tied to a floating pole in the path of the Sun navy to shake their morale and warn Lu Xun that the couterespionnage strategy was completely derailed. It turned out that Zuo Ci used his medical skills to fake another corpse to be his, and Sima Yi later secretly released Kan Ze to the Sun to take back Hua Tuo, as part of his deal with Zhuge Liang.
- Old Master: The Eights' professor in meteorology.
- The Mole: He retired from the Sun clan's service on the pretext of his political differences with Zhang Jiao to find a chance of being recruited by Cao Cao. Cao Cao & co. didn't take much time to figure out his true intents, but not the fact that that whole scheme was a charade staged by Zhou Yu to lure Cao Cao into a false sense of security after Kan Ze's exposure, setting up the stage for the game-ending fire attacks on Cao Cao's fleets in Chibi.
