YMMV / Three Kingdoms

• Badass Decay: Compared to his traditional portrayals, Zhuge Liang is shown as a much more human character here, but this also makes him less all-knowing and insanely capable. Many viewers were apoplectic that he needed to be "saved" by Xiao Qiao from Liu Meng's pursuing forces after summoning the east wind.
• Contested Sequel: Despite enjoying much media exposure and popularity overseas, in its home country the 2010 series has a mixed to outright negative reception due to what many see as off-putting story and character changes, flawed and Narmtastic writing and acting, and ahistorical visual style, especially in comparison to the beloved 1994 series.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Elsewhere in the world the series has a much more positive reception, thanks partially to relative ease of access. In Japan, the series was given a well received dub, featuring Kenyū Horiuchi as Zhuge Liang, and several crossover promotions with Dynasty Warriors Online and Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIII.
• Ho Yay: Completely unintentional - or is it? Director Gao Xixi has been recorded as saying, "I direct dramas with a lot of emotional relationships between men... to interest female viewers." In any case, due to this series' emphasis on character interaction, some characters come off as being very close indeed.
  • Zhou Yu and Lyu Meng. After Zhou Yu forces Xiao Qiao to leave him, Lyu Meng takes over her role; he stays at Zhou Yu's residence at night, does the housework, serves Zhou Yu tea, takes care of him while he's sick, tries to prevent him from overdrinking (and gets slapped for his troubles), literally prostrates himself to serve as a footstool so that Zhou Yu can get onto a horse for the would-be invasion of Jing^note for the sake of Zhou Yu's pride, as he found it beneath a general's dignity to ride into battle in a carriage, he's at Zhou Yu's deathbed... and when Lyu Meng finally takes Guan Yu's head, he dedicates the victory to his Grand Commander.
    • More subtly, he's the only one not moved by Zhuge Liang's mourning at Zhou Yu's funeral, and after Lu Su's initial disbelief^note and as he points out, Zhou Yu being in that coffin because of Zhuge Liang, Lyu Meng seems to just get angrier and angrier as Zhuge Liang's wailing goes on and on.
  • Cao Pi and Sima Yi skip right past subtext into forbidden love. Upon hearing that Sima Yi had been exiled from the capital by Cao Cao (for wanting to become Cao Pi's retainer instead of Cao Zhi's), Cao Pi chases down Sima Yi's carriage on horseback, stating that he'd rather risk his father's anger than lose Sima Yi, and begs Sima Yi to come home with him.
  • Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang are a pair "as close as fish and water". They share meals and sleep in the same bed offscreen; hold hands and share knowing glances onscreen; and show the most mutual respect, friendship, and trust for each other out of all lord-advisor pairs in the series besides perhaps Sun Quan and Lu Su.
    • During the Sun-Liu marriage arc, on the night before Liu Bei's very-likely-one-way departure for Wu, the two had a tearful heart-to-heart complete with declarations of trust and a private qin performance. Furthermore, knowing that his brothers might not obey Zhuge Liang, Liu Bei tried to give him a secret order that would let him use Zhao Yun to "deal with" his brothers, but Zhuge Liang simply set the order on fire because it was much more important to him that Zhao Yun go with Liu Bei to Wu in order to protect him.
    • The only time Liu Bei gets visibly, deeply angry with his sworn brothers is when they're antagonizing Zhuge Liang. When he returned to Jingzhou after his marriage to find that Guan Yu and Zhang Fei had managed to drive Zhuge Liang into resigning his position and leaving, Liu Bei was livid.
  • Lu Su is introduced by Zhuge Liang noting, "Sun Quan treated Lu Su as his teacher, and for a month, they ate and slept together and were inseparable. No one knows what they talked about during that month, but afterwards, Sun Quan's entire bearing changed, and he now exudes a regal aura."
    • Zijing, what did you teach him? And Kongming, how do you know this in the first place??
    • Of all of Wu's Grand Commanders, his relationship with Sun Quan is the most mutually respectful and understanding, and he held no grudge whatsoever when Sun Quan apparently dismissed him in a fit of rage.
  • Chen Gong and Cao Cao's entire arc in episodes 2 and 3 plays like a relationship gone bad, and both of them frequently bring the other up throughout the rest of the series, not to mention their final scene.
  • Cao Cao's respect for Liu Bei and his many attempts to recruit the latter come off as this. In fact, his reaction to Liu Bei's declaration of enmity against him feels like that of a jilted lover.
  • Zhou Yu obsessively pores over Zhuge Liang's written work in an attempt to understand and defeat him.
  • Sima Yi also seems quite taken with Zhuge Liang. After Zhuge Liang's death and the Shu army's retreat, he has Zhuge Liang's wooden statue brought back to mourn over him, referring to himself and Zhuge Liang as "a match not found in a thousand years."
• Memetic Mutation: The moment where Cao Cao trolls Yuan Shao and runs off like a giggling madman became a reaction on imageboards for a reason.
• Moral Event Horizon: Even if Wang Yun had good intentions, forcing his daughter to become Dong Zhuo's concubine in order to provoke Lu Bu's rage towards Dong Zhuo — after he'd made Diaochan fall in love with Lu Bu — was not something a good man would do although he admits as much when she calls him out on it... only to fast himself to near-death to guilt her into assenting. It was obvious he couldn't live long after that.
• Narm: Liu Bei tosses his infant son to the ground◊ after all the trouble Zhao Yun went to save him on his behalf. ^note Liu Bei values Zhao Yun as an irreplaceable general for his exceptional loyalty and capability. In other words, Liu tossing his baby was a gesture of meritocracy as valuing your own family over someone you had undying respect and appreciation for would've been selfish. Especially when they had put their life in mortal danger for your own sake.
• Nightmare Fuel: Liu Bei's near-constant state of grief and anger after both of his sworn brothers are killed is unsettling. He orders a punitive expedition on Wu out of revenge, attempts to execute an official who tried discouraging him and angrily brushes off Zhao Yun (one of his most loyal retainers up to that point) when he tried to speak in favor of sparing him, to the point where Zhuge Liang asks to spare him in exchange for being willing to draft the war declaration. Liu Bei listens and spares the official... by throwing said official into prison instead while warning that he will make enemies out of anyone who attempts to dissuade his revenge. Then, when Wu under Lu Xun's command executes a fire attack on his camp (which he relocated to the forests to dissipate the heat that is exhausting Shu troops), he doesn't attempt to run away, instead taking his sword and wanting to fight to the death, even angrily throwing it into a cavalryman- he is still shouting death threats to Wu, Sun Quan and Lu Xun even as his troops and officers try to restrain him. Liu Bei during this time is an ominous reminder of how even the most benevolent of folks can be reduced to a self-destructive state by revenge.
• Never Live It Down: Chen Gong threatens to make Cao Cao's murder of Lyu Boshe become this if Cao Cao doesn't execute him. In a more meta example, Cao Cao is still known to most Chinese people as a villain and "traitor to the Han," due to the popularity of his RoTK characterization, although director Xixi Gao and Cao Cao's actor Jianbin Chen specifically set out to portray a more complex, ambiguous and non-traditional version of Cao Cao.
• Squick: When Sun Quan boiled that poor Wei diplomat in a vat of oil (luckily, offscreen).
• Tear Jerker: This series takes even unavoidable, historical death scenes and adds a healthy dose of heart-wrenching.
  • Chen Gong's steadfast refusal to accept Cao Cao's pragmatic-but-cruel way of bringing peace to the land, and his final cry of "My country! My beautiful country!", had even Cao Cao shedding tears.
  • Diao Chan's mourning of Lü Bu.
  • Instead of falling for an ambush due to overconfidence as in the novel, Pang Tong provokes and willingly walks into the ambush, sacrificing himself in order to give Liu Bei a "moral excuse" for invading the Riverlands. Liu Bei's grief and fury upon realizing and reading Pang Tong's last message explaining this is both this and awesome to watch.
    • To add to this, after the capitulation of Liu Zhang and thereby Liu Bei's takeover of Yi Province, the latter has a conversation with the captured Huang Quan, basically the only loyalist of Liu Zhang's. Huang Quan tries to go for a Defiant to the End by copping to the masterminding of Pang Tong's death... only for Liu Bei to hand over Pang Tong's last message to Liu Bei, received posthumously, where Pang Tong specifically complimented Huang Quan as the foremost official of Yi Province and begged Liu Bei not to hold his death against Huang Quan.
  • Huang Zhong's death, made a double Tear Jerker for the death of Cheng Pu in the same battle. In the war against Wu, Huang Zhong comes up with a plan to entice and ambush Han Dang and Zhou Tai into attacking him, but Liu Bei objects on account of his age. Huang Zhong is dejected and, completely in tears, begs Liu Bei to give him a chance, saying "In all my life, I have never found a worthy lord to serve until the end. And now that I have found him, I can't just stand around!" Liu Bei is moved to tears, and accepts his plea. The day after, Huang Zhong's plan is successful, and not only are Zhou Tai and Han Dang ambushed losing many troops, the elderly Grand Commander Cheng Pu is killed while trying to bail them out. Huang Zhong, however, takes an uncountable number of arrows, falls off his horse and gets back up again, to finish the battle. He dies later as a result of his wounds, laughing throughout his pain that he fought valiantly. One more time, Liu Bei is moved to tears.
  • Even knowing what happens - especially knowing what happens - Zhuge Liang's absolute joy upon being convinced of Sima Yi's defeat leads to this in spades. His cry of "My lord! The Central Plains will know peace at last!" is all the more tear-jerking when one realizes that he's addressing the late Liu Bei, not Liu Shan.
• The Woobie: Oddly enough, Zhuge Liang. From confronting self-doubt during Guan Yu and Zhang Fei's near-rebellion, to facing the growing coldness of the lord he was willing to give his life for (particularly after Guan Yu's death) to carrying out Liu Bei's dreams alone as his former comrades-in-arms died one after another, to his broken-down sobbing when he hears of Zhao Yun's finally expiring with the last words "Attack northward!" and ultimately dying with his task uncompleted - he's gone through more than enough for several lifetimes. (Fandom seems split between wanting to hug him and wanting to make him cry more, however.)
  • "O Heaven, how you have just severed one of my arms!".

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