DYNASTY WARRIORS CHARACTER ANALYSIS

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This is the part where I share my opinions on the cast of Dynasty Warriors. I ramble on about what I think of them in game, touching on anything that seems relevant to that. If I can, I like to take a bit of time to talk about how a particular character is represented in other fiction. And I like to spend a lot of time talking about the historical figure the Dynasty Warriors character is based on and comparing the two.

In order to encourage readers to do their own research on people who interest them, I’m going to be sure to include the sources of my information. Most of these titles are a bit of a mouthful, so I’ll be using a lot of abbreviations. There are some common ones:

SGZ: The “sanguozhi” or “Records of the Three Kingdoms” by Chen Shuo. These are the most accurate records of the Three Kingdoms, compiled during the reign of Sima Yan (so not very long after the fact). While by far the most reliable source, the SGZ isn’t perfect and is subject to Chen Shuo’s personal biases in certain areas. And because the SGZ is based primarily on the government records of Wei, Wu, and Shu, it is only as good as its sources. The records of Shu, in particular, are particularly questionable as they were written by Zhuge Liang himself and therefore are subject to extreme personal bias. Furthermore, there are many SGZ biographies that are not translated into English and are therefore unavailable to me.

PSZ: Pei Songzhi was a historian who wrote a commentary on the SGZ. He provides excellent clarification on many subjects that Chen Shou glosses over or ignores and also makes an effort to provide alternative accounts of events. His comments and additions have greatly improved the accuracy and usefulness of the SGZ. While not infallible, one should not argue with Pei Songzhi’s analysis without very good reasons. While I generally cite Pei Songzhi’s information as SGZ work, it might be important for readers to know who he is and what he did.

RdC: Rafe de Crespigny is generally considered the West’s greatest expert on the Three Kingdoms. He has written numerous books and essays about the time period. His work demonstrates no personal bias and has greatly expanded Western understanding of the Three Kingdoms. I rely heavily on his work and will try to indicate which of his works I am drawing my information from.

ZZTJ: The “Zizhi Tongjian” or “Comprehensive Mirror For Aid in Governance” by Sima Guang is an extremely large history book. It tells the history of China from 1046 BC to 960 AD and thus contains a good deal of information about the later Han, Three Kingdoms, and Jin. The ZZTJ is excellent for providing context for the events of the SGZ biographies. Furthermore, due to the number of untranslated SGZ biographies, the ZZTJ is sometimes the only reliable source of information for certain historical figures that appear in Dynasty Warriors. Rafe de Crespigny wrote a translation (and commentary) of the ZZTJ chapters that deal with the years 157-220. Achilles Fang translated the chapters of the ZZTJ that tell of the events from 220-264. As such, it is a very good source of information.

JS: The “jinshu” or “Book of Jin” is the official history of the Jin dynasty. Though considered “notoriously unreliable” by historians like ZZTJ translator Achilles Fang, it is the most comprehensive source for information on the Jin dynasty. There are several different works by the same title, with varying degrees of accuracy. As such, anything cited from the jinshu should be viewed with extreme skepticism. This is particularly true regarding events early in the dynasty’s history, as many of the records from that time were lost long before the work was written.

Ratings:

In order to help differentiate between the positive and negative reviews, I’ve started assigning ratings to these characters. So if you don’t want to deal with my negativity, you will know which ones to skip. The first rating is for the DW character, the second is for the historical figure.

WEI

WU

SHU

JIN

OTHER

*: Indicates that there is not enough historical information for me to form an opinion on this individual.

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