History Literature / RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms

''[[BookEnds "The empire, long united, must divide; long divided, must unite. Thus has it ever been."]]''

* BigBookOfWar: ''Literature/{{The Art of War|SunTzu}}'' and various contemporary texts. Oddly enough, it's treated somewhat sceptically - while a worthwhile strategist will study the texts, he should also be able to improvise. Meanwhile, characters who rely exclusively on theories and ideas they derive from ancient texts are more likely than not to be GeneralFailure.
* BloodBrothers: The Oath at the Peach Garden between Liu Bei, Zhang Fei and Guan Yu is one of the most famous incidents in the novel. Note though that they're not the only such brotherhood (Sun Ce and Zhou Yu are as well), just the most famous and celebrated.

And, as you'd expect from a pivotal work like this, it's managed to gather quite a collection of tropes. Interested tropers can find the full text of an older English translation, [[http://www.threekingdoms.com/ now in the public domain, here.]] The site has added [[TheAnnotatedEdition some annotations]] to help readers keep track of events and characters.

* DesignatedHero: Liu Bei does a lot of morally dubious things, even by the book's own standards. His enemies often point this out.
* DisposableWoman: Thanks to a colossal helping of ValuesDissonance, female characters tend to end up as collateral damage, examples to discourage others, or, in one case, [[ImAHumanitarian emergency rations]].

** In the official Chinese histories, Cao Cao and his successors are generally considered the bearers of dynastic legitimacy. In the novel, they are portrayed as the main villains even if a MagnificentBastard family.

* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: Chen Gong, who believes that first [[MagnificentBastard Cao Cao]], then [[BloodKnight Lü Bu]] are righteous heroes worthy of ruling the land.

* AbusiveParents: 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. So what does Liu Bei do? He throws his kid to the ground, pissed that he nearly lost a great general. The kid later grows up and loses the kingdom, and is considered by most readers to be completely useless. [[LaserGuidedKarma Probably because he was dropped on his head as a kid.]] In a major example of ValuesDissonance, ''no one'' in the story calls Liu Bei out on this. Then again, he's the one who quoted lore as saying that "Brothers are as hands and feet; wives and children are as clothing. You may mend your torn dress, but who can reattach a lost limb?"

** Lady Sun (Whom you might know better as Sun Shangxiang in most opera adaptations and ''VideoGame/DynastyWarriors''), Sun Quan and Sun Ce's sister, practiced swordplay, has an entourage of a hundred maids decked out in armor and weapons, scared Liu Bei half to death on his wedding night, and scolds her brother's generals into submission when she eventually elopes with her husband. Historically, she raised havoc on a regular basis and had to be monitored by Zhao Yun.

* Sanguosha (三国杀), or Legends of the Three Kingdoms, is a Chinese card game that combines elements of role-playing, team combat and strategy. After its initial release in 2008 it has received huge popularity in China, and has been followed by several expansion packs, as well as online and mobile versions.

* OneManArmy: Zhang Fei scares off an entire army at the bridge of Chang Ban. Also possible TruthInTelevision, since most fights tended to be decided by duels between the generals.

** A famous example was Guan Yu's and Liu Bei's intercession on Zhang Liao's behalf after the fall of Xiapi Castle, ironically just after Liu Bei had thrown Lu Bu under the bus. Zhang Liao would end up being the envoy who would convince Guan Yu to surrender to Cao Cao.

** ''VideoGame/RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms'' (13 in this series of strategy games and counting since 1985.)

** ''Series/RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms1994'': The first major TV adaptation, aired in 1994.

* BladeOnAStick: TONS of warriors in the book are decked with such weapons. From the average spears and halberds (the mainstay battlefield equipment of the time) of your average {{Mooks}}, to those big fancy pole-blades used by generals (Zhang Fei's spear with a snake-shaped blade, Lu Bu's halberd, and Xu Huang's battle-axe to name a few) used by the author as a symbol of each character's personalities and as [[RuleOfCool making action scenes appear more flashy]] to the readers, since most of those weapons didn't even exist at the time. But among these, the most famous would be Guan Yu's "[[NamedWeapon Green Dragon Crescent Blade]]". He's the reason why the Chinese glaive is called the "Guan Dao".

* AssInAmbassador: Mi Heng, a talented but rude scholar, came out swinging in his only appearance and manages to insult the courts of Cao Cao, Liu Biao and Huang Zu, all in a single chapter. So how did anyone think he'd be a good ambassador? Afraid of directly executing a popular figure, Cao Cao hoped that Liu Biao would execute Mi Heng for him; Liu Biao saw through Cao Cao's trick and sent him to Huang Zu with the same intent.

* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: Chen Gong, who believes that first [[MagnificentBastard Cao Cao]], then [[BloodKnight Lü]] [[WhatAnIdiot Bu]] are righteous heroes worthy of ruling the land.

* ''Anime/RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms'': A relatively-faithful anime adaptation of the source material.

* ''Kunio-kun no Sangokushida yo Zen'in Shūgō!'' is a ''VideoGame/KunioKun'' game where characters from that series portray characters from ''Romance of the Three Kingdoms'' while reenacting events from the story such as the Yellow Turban Rebellion and the Battle of Red Cliffs. Title character Kunio plays the role of UsefulNotes/GuanYu.

* CharactersDroppingLikeFlies: Due to the hundred years that the story spans across, it's not much of an exaggeration to say that two characters are introduced and two die every chapter. Characters die in their sleep, characters die in battle, some get full poems dedicated to their passing and even some are introduced and then killed off seemingly in the same breath, with little fanfare. By the time the story finishes, no character that was alive at the start is still alive at the end.

* KillEmAll: Redundant, but all the famous characters are dead by the end of the novel. It lasted a hundred years - should you be surprised?

* CombatByChampion