History Literature / WaterMargin

* DrunkenMaster: Wu Song kills a man-eating tiger with his bare hands largely because he was drunk off his ass. He later uses the same tactic later in the story to beat up Jiang the Door God.

* DrunkenMaster: Wu Song kills a man-eating tiger with his bare hands largely because he was drunk off his ass.

* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: Leaning very strongly towards the cynical side. The emperor being the most corrupt person in the story certainly did not help matters.

** A widely read 71 chapter version of ''Water Margin'' was produced in the 17th century, about 500 years after the original was written. What's special about revision is that the editor added several passages to develop the characters further, removed large sections he found boring to read and did not advance the plot, including several poetry sections as well as the entirety of chapters 71 to 120. A new prologue was added, which renumbered the entire book and made the old chapter 70 into chapter 71, which itself was reedited into a RevisedEnding featuring an outlaw having a dream vision of their future defeat. All of the changes were done to appease the imperial court in order to promote an {{Anvilicious}} message that while the outlaws may have sympathetic backgrounds, rebellions are nevertheless bad and needs condemnation, as the Ming Dynasty then was under constant upheaval by rebels.

** Li Gu, Lu Junyi's treacherous, adulterous and cowardly steward, who was basically Ximen Qing minus any of the cool or sympathetic aspects of the latter. For someone to be basically FlayedAlive by a ''"hero"'' and still come across as a satisfying end, it's not hard to imagine that the author had this trope in mind when he wrote him.

** Wang Lun, the selfish, paranoid, original leader of Liangshan who tried to send away Lin Chong for fear of losing his own position.

** And this method was not just limited to the government either. Lu Junyi used it to kill his steward and adulterous wife for having an affair and blackmailing him. [[ValuesDissonance In the time that the story was set, the killing was treated in a heroic light.]]

** And this method was not just limited to the government either. Lu Junyi used it to kill his steward and adulterous wife for having an affair and blackmailing him. [[ValuesDissonance In the time that the story was set, the killing was seen as a ''heroic'' act.]]

* CruelAndUnusualDeath: The infamous execution method known as [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingchi ''ling-chi'']], or "DeathByAThousandCuts" was used on multiple characters throughout the book, most notably Fang La, Madam Wang and Hao Siwen. [[AssholeVictim Though hardly anyone mourned for the first two]], Hao's death was particularly tragic, as he was a member of the 108 and the brutal method of execution used on him had hit Song Jiang ''hard''.

* HonourKilling: Yang Xiong gruesomely murders his wife for infidelity, requiring him to flee the law and join the Liangshan Marsh bandits. [[ValuesDissonance Given that this is a medieval Chinese novel, this is treated as a heroic act.]] Song Jiang's and Wu Song's killings of their wife and sister-in-law respectively also have shades of this, though with additional mitigating factors that make them slightly more reasonable to modern eyes (Song Jiang's wife was blackmailing him at the time, and Wu Song was avenging the killing of his brother-in-law by his unfaithful wife).

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: Well, there are well over a hundred main characters alone, each of whom have friends, family, and enemies, some of whom play significant roles.

** Several other characters in Wu Song's story count, if only to make his own crimes a bit more palatable. There's Jiang "the Door God", a thug who beat up Shi En to take over his business, and Zhang the military inspector, whose connections with Jiang helped temporarily imprison Wu before sending men to kill him. There's also [[SinisterMinister Wang the Toaist priest]], who regularly abducts and rapes women in his temple. All of them died horrifically, but the author already made sure that no one would shed a tear for them.

* StandarizedLeader: Deliberately evoked and subverted with Song Jiang. Compared to a colourful cast of warrior monks, Taoist priests, and barbarian bandits, [[LeadYouCanRelateTo Song Jiang seems almost ridiculously average]]. He's not terrifically smart, nor is he an especially skilled warrior. He's not as noble as Lin Chong or as cruel as Li Kui, but has enough of both to gain the respect of the outlaws. In fact, it's this sense of normality that provides him an extra level of complexity and depth and allows his greyness to shine, ensuring that he is not overshadowed by the more outwardly flamboyant supporting cast.

* * VanillaProtagonist: Deliberately evoked and subverted with Song Jiang. Compared to a colourful cast of warrior monks, Taoist priests, and barbarian bandits, [[LeadYouCanRelateTo Song Jiang seems almost ridiculously average]]. He's not terrifically smart, nor is he an especially skilled warrior. He's not as noble as Lin Chong or as cruel as Li Kui, but has enough of both to gain the respect of the outlaws. In fact, it's this sense of normality that provides him an extra level of complexity and depth and allows his greyness to shine, ensuring that he is not overshadowed by the more outwardly flamboyant supporting cast.

** Wang Lun, the original Liangshan leader, is a selfish, narcissistic [[TheParanoiac Paranoiac]] who is unable to accept those who are better than him out of fear of them usurping his position, and attempts to send away Lin Chong, Yang Zhi and Chao Gai just because.

** There's also the marriage between the marriage between Wang Ying, [[DepravedDwarf a bandit known for his]] [[{{Gonk}} grotesque looks,]] [[DepravedDwarf short height and also for being a bit of a pervert]], and the notably beautiful LadyOfWar Hu Sanniang. While Wang was obviously enthralled (though not exactly in a romantic way), Hu was unsurprisingly unhappy, though it worked out eventually.

** There's also the marriage between the marriage between Wang Ying, [[DepravedDwarf a bandit known for his short height and also for being a bit of a pervert]], and the notably beautiful LadyOfWar Hu Sanniang. While Wang was obviously enthralled (though not exactly in a romantic way), Hu was unsurprisingly unhappy, though it worked out eventually.

** [[FatBastard Zheng Tu]], nicknamed the [[SelfAppliedNickname "Guardian of the West"]], the ArcVillain for the first part of Lu Zhishen (then known as Lu Da)'s story, is a tyrannical butcher from Weizhou who uses his wealth to oppress the poor and ruin the lives of innocents civilians such as Jin Cuilian and her family.

** Probably the biggest example was Madam Wang, Wu Dalang's greedy nextdoor neighbour, who ran a teahouse as a front for snooping on the townsfolk. She masterminded Wu Dalang's murder in order to leech off Ximen Qing's money, and when Wu Song began investigating his brother's death, pinned the blame on the two lovers, whose affair she arranged. Hell, the ''author'' himself pretty obviously despised her, otherwise he wouldn't have given her such a dreadful death even if it breaks with historical Chinese criminal law.

* KnightOfCerebus: Downplayed, since this book was never light-hearted to begin with. However, Fang La and his men prove to be a far greater threat when compared to the numerous [[ArcVillain Arc Villains]] of the backstories, the two previous bandit kings and the Liao Empire (excluding the OverarchingVillain Gao Qiu). His army nearly crushed the outlaws, killing over half of them, and basically marks the point in which PlotArmor has been taken off the heroes.

* OverarchingVillain: Gao Qiu is first introduced in the first chapter of the novel, and sticks around until the very end, outlasting every single ArcVillain in the story, including the final antagonist Fang La. In fact, almost every single protagonist in the story has some form of connection to Gao. Astonishingly, this counts as a HistoricalVillainUpgrade. [[note]]Historically, Gao was not considered to be as bad as the notorious "Six Evils" of the era, which included Cai Jing and Tong Guan.[[/note]]

** Several characters in Wu Song's story count, if only to make his own crimes a bit more palatable. There's Madam Wang, the greedy teahouse owner who abetted in Wu Dalang's murder. There's also Jiang "the Door God", a thug who beat up Shi En to take over his business, and Zhang the military inspector, whose connections with Jiang helped temporarily imprison Wu before sending men to kill him. Later on there's [[SinisterMinister Wang the Toaist priest]], who regularly abducts and rapes women in his temple. All of them died horrifically, but the author already made sure that no one would shed a tear for them.

* CruelAndUnusualDeath: The infamous execution method known as [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingchi ''ling-chi'']], or "DeathByAThousandCuts" was used on multiple characters throughout the book, most notably Fang La, Granny Wang and Hao Siwen. [[AssholeVictim Though hardly anyone mourned for the first two]], Hao's death was particularly tragic, as he was a member of the 108 and the brutal method of execution used on him had hit Song Jiang ''hard''.

** Several characters in Wu Song's story count, if only to make his own crimes a bit more palatable. There's Granny Wang, the greedy teahouse owner who abetted in Wu Dalang's murder. There's also Jiang "the Door God", a thug who beat up Shi En to take over his business, and Zhang the military inspector, whose connections with Jiang helped temporarily imprison Wu before sending men to kill him. Later on there's [[SinisterMinister Wang the Toaist priest]], who regularly abducts and rapes women in his temple. All of them died horrifically, but the author already made sure that no one would shed a tear for them.

* OneSteveLimit: Played with. There are two notable Zhang Qing's, who are both part of the bandits, that appear in the story. The first to appear was "Gardener" Zhang Qing, the owner of an InnOfNoReturn, and the second, "Feathered Arrow" Zhang Qing, was an imperial officer who turned to the outlaws. Clarity is only provided to a certain degree in that the "Qing" is altered by three strokes to seperate the officer (“张清”) from the inkeep (“张青”), and the fact that both characters are pronounced the same means that their monikers are almost always going to be mentioned to mitigate the confusion.
** Also played with in the three characters named "Granny Wang", each more fleshed out than the last. The first Granny Wang, Lin Chong's, was little more than a name in the crowd. The second, Song Jiang's, was a matchmaker who played a minor role in his story. The third Granny Wang, the teahouse owner, is the most prominent of the three, as she was instrumental in facilitating the murder of Wu Dalang. There are hints that these three Granny Wang's are one and the same, though it's left up to reader interpretation. [[note]]In the TV adaptations, the latter two "Granny Wang"s are made to be seperate characters, possibly to remove the need to turn Song Jiang's into the full-fledged HateSink that Wu Song's is notorious for being.[[/note]]

In Chinese however, the "Qing", so the confusion when translated into .
The first one However, in Chinese character

** Also played with in the three characters named "Granny Wang". The first Granny Wang, Lin Chong's, was little more than a name in the crowd. The second, Song Jiang's, was a matchmaker who played a minor role in his backstory. The third Granny Wang is far more fleshed out, and was instrumental in facilitating the murder of Wu Dalang. It's up to interpretation whether these three Granny Wang's are one and the same. [[note]]In the TV adaptations, Song Jiang's Granny Wang and Wu Song's Granny Wang are made to be seperate characters, possibly because they'd rather not turn matchmaker Granny Wang into a full-fledged HateSink.[[/note]]

** Also played with in the three characters named "Granny Wang". The first Granny Wang, Lin Chong's, was little more than a name in the crowd. The second, Song Jiang's, was a matchmaker who played a minor role in his backstory. The third Granny Wang is far more fleshed out, and was instrumental in facilitating the murder of Wu Dalang. It's up to interpretation whether these three Granny Wang's are one and the same. [[note]]In the TV adaptations, Song Jiang's Granny Wang and Wu Song's Granny Wang are made to be seperate characters, possibly because they'd rather not turn Song's into a full-fledged HateSink.[[/note]]