Aside from Dong Zhuo and Lu Bu, who were the 'really' bad actors in the Three Kingdoms?

[Hexagoros]

Who were the other 'bad guys,' the tyrants, the genocidal maniacs. Or weren't there any?

[Cuddlefission]

Cao Cao gets a really bad edit in the books, whether it's deserved is a complicated question.

[The Former]

^

Also Cao Pi evidently ordered one of his wives to poison herself because she was being needy or something.

[Remosu37]

Cao Cao is more amoral than anything. He murders his uncle at one point because he suspects the uncle of plotting to kill him (with some, but little justification), and feels no remorse when he realizes he falsely suspected him. He ruthlessly will put people to death, but generally for strategic or risk-management reasons.

Then again, Cao Cao was famously frugal--on his deathbed, he told his wives they should make sandals in their spare time for sale to help pay for their own upkeep. He rarely lavished on unnecessary luxury, beyond what was needed to maintain the dignity of his regal office and intimidate his enemies. He mostly cared about becoming the ruler of China, and creating a smoothly running orderly nation--he's way more Augustus or Sulla than Caligula or Nero in Roman terms.

There's a lot more of a case to be made against Dong Zhuo, who legends say taxed heavily to pay for his lavish feasts, immediately created a large harem and took up residence in a palacial estate, and left the emperor (whom he nominally served) to scrape by sometimes without even enough food to eat.

Lu Bu is villainous, mostly because he pretty literally betrays every person he served during the novel, including not one, but TWO adoptive fathers.

Sun Hao, the 4th Emperor of Eastern Wu and the great grandson of Sun Jian is a doozy. He shows up late in the novel, and dooms the nation founded by his grandfather with his incompetence and tyranny. He finally agrees to go ona campaign, but decides he needs to take a THOUSAND women from his harem with him, and the soldiers almost mutiny at needing to carry all the supplies and luxury items needed to make this happen.

Sun Hao randomly punished many of his generals on a whim, until a general he had innocuously ordered to come to the capitol became understandably paranoid he's about to be executed, and rebelled. With the disoder, Eastern Wu was powerless to stop the Jin Empire's invasion, and Sun Hao was deposed.

[RubyCante]

pretty much everyone is a "bad" guy at that time,because it is normal to be that way
but liu bei is a two faced snake that is parading as a "good" guy but is no less as evil as other warlord

[Nero]

You wouldn't wanna serve under Zhang Fei.

[Straybow]

Ma Chao was a nice boy who did nothing wrong.

[IlluminaZero]

In the novelizations Cao Cao is basically the devil with Liu Bei being basically a saint.

In history Cao Cao was actually a pretty awesome warlord who rewarded meritocracy and had many moments of brilliance.. In contrast Liu Bei spent a significant amount of his career basically being a bandit and constantly back stabbed his allies. Consider for example that Zhang Fei's future wife was actually kidnapped during their bandit phase and forced to marry him when she was like 14.

That said there is something to be said for Liu Bei's absurd persistence if nothing else. Liu Bei 's competence might actually be underrated historically - With Zhang Fei, Guan Yu's, and Zhuge Liang's competence vastly overrated in contrast.

Wu is also extremely underrated. Sun Jian was the most effective military general in the coalition against Dong Zhuo by far. Sun Ce expanded in the south with absurd aggression and speed. Sun Quan developed the South from a backwater into such an economic juggernaut that Wu would be the beginning of a succession of southern Dynasties that lasted millenia. Hell Jin actually fled to former Wu territories shorlty after northern China was conquered by "barbarians."

[Valore]

Diposting pertama kali oleh illuminazero:

That said there is something to be said for Liu Bei's absurd persistence if nothing else. Liu Bei 's competence might actually be underrated historically - With Zhang Fei, Guan Yu's, and Zhuge Liang's competence vastly overrated in contrast.

I can sympathise with this, as can probably every person who has been asked to manage gifted but flawed personalities.

[Subzero]

Main reason why cao cao is considered a trayannt was because he destoryed a few town and killed everyone muilitepul time

[Eumerin]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Lysimarkos of Ermor:

Ma Chao was a nice boy who did nothing wrong.

Heh.

I think Koei Tecmo's in a bit of a bind with him right now. When Dynasty Warriors first came out, they played up his portrayal in the novel. As a result, he's one of the poster boys of the series. But the series has been moving closer and closer to the actual history over the years. And this creates some... issues... where Ma Chao is concerned.

And then there's the comparison with Wang Yi. Ma Chao in Dynasty Warriors is treated as a noble, heroic character for wanting to get revenge on Cao Cao for the death of Chao's father, Ma Teng. Wang Yi, who wants revenge on Ma Chao over the death of her son, is depicted as overly single-minded and obsessed.

[IlluminaZero]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Subzero:

Main reason why cao cao is considered a trayannt was because he destoryed a few town and killed everyone muilitepul time

Yeah this is a blight on Cao Cao's legacy. IIRC Cao Cao was basically blinded in pursuit of revenge for his father's murder and went to the extremes to punish Tao Qian. Not only did that tarnish his name but it even allowed Lu Bu establish himself in Cao Cao's former lands as a rival warlord.

[Remosu37]

Cao Cao is like Caesar Augustus in my opinion. The biographies of Augustus don't dwell on his ruthless prescriptions where he had over a thousand political enemies put to death and their fortunes confiscated, which put him in a position to be benevolent for the rest of his reign.

Cao Cao was almost never violent for is own sake. He cared little for personal luxury. He cared about power, not for its own sake, but so he could run China the way he thought it should be run.

He just had the misfortune of the Jin dynasty historians needing to justify the Sima clans takeover of the Cao dynasty, and the author of Rot3k blaming the Cao/Sima dynasties for the barbarian invasions of the 4th century.

[AlwaystheMage]

Of the opening warlords, Gongsun Zan was a paranoid tyrant who was very unpopular. Yuan Shu becoming Emperor made him very unpopular with the history writers, meant to have been very extravagant as well and there is "ok this sounds good but really, he did it because he was evil". Cao Cao divides people (I'm a fan but I can accept some find he goes too far) and is a complex baddie in the novel.

Dong Zhuo's replacements Li Jue/Guo Si/Fan Chou/Zhang Ji were unpopular and ramshackle regime who abused their control of Emperor. Ma Teng's son Ma Chao gets viewed a little harshly perhaps but was brutal, Sun Hao though historians put caveats on that being at least partly due to last Emperor tropes (aka dynasty fell ergo you must be evil and corrupt) and a bad situation (Wu was dying badly way before he got the throne). Cao Pi wasn't a bad ruler but had quite the jerk side

[Jerroser]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Sheriff of Nothingham:

^

Also Cao Pi evidently ordered one of his wives to poison herself because she was being needy or something.

From what I understand, the main cause of that was that another one of his wives managed to convince him that Lady Zhen badmouthed him behind his back or something, plus I think there where a few other controversies going on as well and their relationship had declined a lot over the years. (To over simply things a little bit). In ancient china though it was apparently quite a common thing for someone to be forced in to killing themselves via drinking poison. Pretty much being execution via being locking in a room with a single poison cup.

As for Cao Pi's character as a whole, the most accurate impression I've seen of him is that he was generally a good administrator who got Wei up and running quite smoothly as a nation but wasn't nearly as cunning as his farther and not so great at commanding armies on the battlefield. He was also pretty ruthless when dealing with his two brothers and making sure they where no threat to him as a ruler. Plus some of speculated (although there is no real poof) that he was involved in the untimely death of his younger brother Cao Xiong due to fearing his father might think he might grow up to be the better successor.

[Truen]

Yuan Shao maybe...