History Literature / WaterMargin

* OneHundredAndEight

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: Well there are well over a hundred.

** Li Kui, an AxCrazy berserker with a HairTriggerTemper who's a danger to everyone around him. His long and inglorious career includes child-killing, caonnibalism, repeatedly massacring unarmed civilians, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and bullying]]. Even his fellow bandits eventually become sick of his shit, only letting him go out on missions after he agrees to a list of prohibitions (one of which he usually breaks). [[spoiler:Eventually, Song Jiang kills him in the epilogue by having him drink the same poisoned wine that was slowly killing him, ensuring that he won't avenge his death with a bloody rebellion and ruin all their efforts.]]

** Li Kui, an AxCrazy berserker with a HairTriggerTemper who's a danger to everyone around him. His long and inglorious career includes child-killing, caonnibalism, repeatedly massacring unarmed civilians, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and bullying]]. Even his fellow bandits eventually become sick of his shit, only letting him go out on missions after he agrees to a list of prohibitions (one of which he usually breaks).

* ArrangedMarriage: Song Jiang's marriage to Yan Poxi. Also, Wang Ying's marriage to Hu Sanniang.

* DownerEnding

* KarmaHoudini: Gao Qiu and a ton of other corrupt officials, who get away with poisoning and killing the remaining "heroes" scott free.

* KillThemAll: [[spoiler: [[DroppedABridgeOnHim A huge number of the "heroes" don't survive the encounter against a rival outlaw band]], and the government has the rest of them poisoned.]]

* DisposableSexWorker: If a prostitute shows up on-page, don't expect them to last long. Named prostitute? Even more doomed.

** Li Kui. There's main reason he is called the "Black Whirlwind". Kills anyone he feels like, even a four-year-old boy under orders, just so someone else will join them. Reckless and violent to a great degree.

* DefeatMeansFriendship: For the majority of characters that were recruited.

** Even Song Jiang has his moments. Some of his methods to recruit people he wants can be seen as an extreme "end justify means" philosophy, and the crime that gets him exiled is a textbook [[HonorRelatedAbuse honour killing]] (complete with a cover-up by the community).

* AntiHero: Every one of the 108 outlaws.

* {{Badass}}: Just about every hero in this novel

* YouAllMeetInAnInn

* ActionGirl: Hu the Third (a.k.a. Ten Feet of Azure), Sun the Second (a.k.a. the Night Witch) and Mistress Gu (a.k.a. the Tigress).

* BlackAndGreyMorality: The protagonists in this story aren't saints. There's a reason they are called outlaws. But when compared to the government....

* IAmAHumanitarian - Sun Er Niang runs a shop where she sells buns of "mystery meat" (i.e., the chopped up corpses of former guests). Lu Zhishen actually decides to ''become sworn brothers'' with this woman's accomplice and husband. After they narrowly made him into a human meat bun.

** Even Song Jiang has his moments. Some of his methods to recruit people he wants can be seen as an extreme "end justify means."

* UglyGuyHotWife: Wu Song's brother and his wife, Wu Dalang and Pan Jinlian.

The earliest surviving example of the {{Wuxia}} genre, ''Water Margin'' has been translated many times, and adapted to other media such as film, television and comics. Probably the best known adaption is the successful 1973 Nippon Television series which was broadcast in many countries, effectively introducing this epic work to Western popular culture. Perhaps the ''second'' best known, and much much looser, adaptation is the ''{{Suikoden}}'' video game series. Mostly just the first game, with the rest drawing basically ''nothing'' from the original story other than the concept of 108 protagonists. (Other video game adaptations include {{Koei}}'s TurnBasedStrategy game ''Bandit Kings of Ancient China'' and Creator/DataEast's FightingGame ''Outlaws of the Lost Dynasty''.) Another, even more loose adaptation is the cartoon series ''WesternAnimation/Hero108.''

The earliest surviving example of the {{Wuxia}} genre, ''Water Margin'' has been translated many times, and adapted to other media such as film, television and comics. Probably the best known adaption is the successful 1973 Nippon Television series which was broadcast in many countries, effectively introducing this epic work to Western popular culture. Perhaps the ''second'' best known, and much much looser, adaptation is the ''{{Suikoden}}'' video game series. Mostly just the first game, with the rest drawing basically ''nothing'' from the original story other than the concept of 108 protagonists. (Other video game adaptations include {{Koei}}'s TurnBasedStrategy game ''Bandit Kings of Ancient China'' and Creator/DataEast's FightingGame ''Outlaws of the Lost Dynasty''.)

* EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas: Depending on your views of whether or not some of these bandits are "[[HeroicSociopath bad]]", there's one thing that's undebatable: they love their mamas.

* HeroicSociopath: Li Kui. There's main reason he is called the "Black Whirlwind". Kills anyone he feels like, even a four-year-old boy under orders, just so someone else will join them. Reckless and violent to a great degree.
** Even Song Jiang has his moments. Some of his methods to recruit people he wants can be seen as an extreme "end justify means."

* UglyGuyHotWife: Wu Song's brother and his wife, Pan Jinlian.

The earliest surviving example of the {{Wuxia}} genre, ''Water Margin'' has been translated many times, and adapted to other media such as film, television and comics. Probably the best known adaption is the successful 1973 Nippon Television series which was broadcast in many countries, effectively introducing this epic work to Western popular culture. Perhaps the ''second'' best known, and much much looser, adaptation is the ''{{Suikoden}}'' video game series. Mostly just the first game, with the rest drawing basically ''nothing'' from the original story other than the concept of 108 protagonists. (Other video game adaptations include {{Koei}}'s TurnBasedStrategy game ''Bandit Kings of Ancient China'' and DataEast's FightingGame ''Outlaws of the Lost Dynasty''.)

''Water Margin'' (Traditional: 水滸傳 Simplified: 水浒传), also known as ''Outlaws Of The Marsh'', is one of the "Four Great Classical Novels" of Chinese literature along with ''Literature/JourneyToTheWest'', ''Literature/RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms'' and ''Literature/DreamOfTheRedChamber''.

The earliest surviving example of the {{Wuxia}} genre, ''Water Margin'' has been translated many times, and adapted to other media such as film, television and comics. Probably the best known adaption is the successful 1973 Nippon Television series which was broadcast in many countries, effectively introducing this epic work to Western popular culture. Perhaps the ''second'' best known, and much much looser, adaptation is the ''{{Suikoden}}'' video game series. Mostly just the first game, with the rest drawing basically ''nothing'' from the original story other than the concept of 108 protagonists.

* HoYay: Partly due to the ValuesDissonance, but almost all the males tend to prefer the presence of other males than women.
** How about Song Jiang and Li Kui? The fact that Li Kui happily dies with Song Jiang, and Song Jiang agrees to be ''buried with Li Kui'' instead of his wife?

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