< Journey to the West

Journey to the West/Characters


A character page for Journey to the West. Note that they all qualify as a Public Domain Character.

Sun Wukong/Monkey

  • Adult Child
  • Almighty Janitor: Before he finally became a Buddha, his official job in Heaven was a stableboy, until he found out how unimportant the job was and stormed off back to earth. As a side-effect, all Earthly horses love and admire him, because they can sense he was once a celestial groom.
  • Arrogant Kung Fu Guy: No matter who you are, he is a better fighter than you and will demonstrate if you say otherwise.
  • Blood Knight
  • Born as an Adult: From a stone.
  • Byronic Hero: It took 14 years of journeying with Tang Sang Zang to make him an actually good hearted and unselfish person.
  • Character Development: Journey to the West is as much about Son Wukong learning the value of kindness, humility and compassion as it is about him kicking demon-ass.
  • Crazy Prepared
  • Depending on the Writer: He ranges from a fully fledged Byronic Hero without a decent bone in his body to a bad-tempered Jerk with a Heart of Gold who only needed love and patience to truly grow up.
  • Everything's Better with Monkeys: Duh.
  • Exact Words: He doesn't like following Sangzang's orders so he gets around them with this trope. For example, Sangzang said "Never kill anyone." So when a group of greedy monks tried to kill them both to steal Sangzang's cossack, Monkey didn't kill them. Instead he fanned the flames of the fire they started to ensure their monastary burned down.
  • Eyes of Gold
  • Folk Hero: In real life
  • Hair-Trigger Temper: With a hubris to match.
  • The Hero: For a given value of "hero".
  • Hot-Blooded
  • I Have Many Names: In order they are: Stone Monkey, Handesome Monkey King, Protector of the Horse, Great Sage Equalling Heaven, Sun Wukong, Victorious Fighting Buddha.
  • Jerkass Gods: He is one, and he also showcases just how the other gods in heaven can be ones.
  • Living Forever Is Awesome: Back when he was mortal he sought out immortality and only regretted it once; when he was trapped under that mountain.
  • Manly Tears: Sheds them for the first time after Tripitaka forgives him and takes him back in (the first time), and with some surprising-regularity later on when he gains a sense of compassion.
  • Munchkin: Practically their patron saint. In the first seven chapters all his actions are about gaining things for himself: the most powers, the best weapon, the best armor, the greatest title, etc.
  • Not in This For Your Revolution: Monkey is only interested in joining the pilgrimage in the first place because it was join, or stay under the mountain for the rest of eternity. Afterwards, he comes along only in hopes of getting the Circlet of Headaches off his head.
    • Mind though, that he eventually does come to genuinely care about Tang Sangzang as a father figure that he loves and respects.
  • One-Man Army: In the first part of the story, Monkey takes on the entire military force of Heaven. He wins singlehandedly.
  • Rage Against the Heavens: Due to wounded ego and bruised pride more than anything; life on earth was pretty sweet for him, he just got so arrogant he thought he should be a god as well.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: He has red-colored eyes, since that little sojourn inside Laojun's kiln.
  • Remember When You Blew Up a Sun?: He likes reminding people that he trashed Heaven.
  • Restraining Bolt: To be able to control him, Tripitaka tricked Monkey into putting on a magical headband so that he could cause Monkey intense headaches whenever he got up to mischief.
  • Screw the Rules, I Have Supernatural Powers: The Jade Emperor, Ruler of Heaven, will relax any kind of rule concering him because of his tremendous power.
  • Smug Super: Monkey is incredibly powerful, and unbelievably full of himself as a result.
  • Stock Super Powers: His sheer variety of powers and the feats he can do as a result.
    • Super Strength: His trademark "As You Will" crudel is really freakin' heavy, yet he said all other weapons were "too light".
    • Not Quite Flight: His cloud jumping allows him to reach Heaven In a Single Bound or cross an ocean.
    • Nigh Invulnerable: The reason the Buddha dropped a mountain on him is because the gods failed in outright destroying him.
    • Me's a Crowd: One of Monkey's signature moves has him pulling out a bunch of his hair and blowing on them, resulting in each hair turning into a clone of him.
    • Enlightenment Superpower: His magic comes from studying taoism and learning secrets from his master.
  • Trademark Favorite Food: Peaches
  • Trickster Archetype
  • True Sight: He can see through any disguise, illusion, or transformation.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: With Pigsy
  • Voluntary Shapeshifting: 72 Earthly ones due to his Enlightenment Superpower.
  • Weaksauce Weakness: Despite being almost allmighty on earth or air, he sucks at underwater battles, and is forced to rely on Pigsy and Sandy to fight against water-bound enemies.
  • Weapon of Choice: Simple Staff, though Monkey's is by no means simple. Not only can it hit hard enough to take down gods, but it can extend to any length (from toothpick size to several hundred miles long) and provide Monkey a bridge to heaven.

Xuanzang/Tripitaka

  • Celibate Hero: Despite women lining up to have sex with him.
  • Chick Magnet: Basically every female they encounter, whether human or demon, desires him.
  • Decoy Protagonist: Possibly the oldest extant example. His primary purpose is to be kidnapped every two minutes so Sun Wukong can get all Badass while rescuing him.
  • Dude in Distress: He's not only a pacifist but completely untrained in magic or fighting.
  • The Face: He does all the talking with Muggles etc because he is a courteous monk and his companions are scary-looking (and in Wukong's case, very rude) demons.
    • The Chick: Honorary status as this because he's so feminine a character that a lot of live-action portrayals of the series often have women playing the part.
  • Incorruptible Pure Pureness: The reason why he was sent on the pilgrimage in the first place... but also the reason why he gets into so much trouble, as A: he's too "pure" to resist even the most obvious deceptions or trapes, and B: his purity draws swarms of monsters that hope to consume that purity and increase their own power.
  • The Load / The Millstone: Tripitaka not only constantly gets into trouble, he frequently diverts his disciples from their quest to pursue other minor goals, refuses to heed their advice, and places restrictions on their actions that make them harder pressed to go about their tasks. He also has absolutely no skills at all that let him contribute anything of worth when they get in trouble.
  • Non-Action Guy: He prays and preaches. That's about it.
  • Stupid Good: Tripitaka takes "goodness" to levels of life-threatening stupidity on more than one occasion. His disciples call him on this often, but he never listens to them.
  • Supernaturally Delicious and Nutritious: Quite literally, as he's so infused with holy power that eating even a single bite of his flesh will extend a demon's lifespan. Female demons though, seem to find him quite sexually attractive as well.
  • Thou Shall Not Kill: Being a buddhist monk one of his vows is not killing anything ever. His companions think this is ridiculous.

Zhu Bajie/Pigsy

  • Adorkable: Depends on the Writer though.
  • Adult Child: Has an almost endearing naievity about him.
  • Big Eater / Gluttonous Pig: And how. So much so, in fact, that when the quest is over, the still-too-crude Pigsy is offered the existence as a lesser god; "Cleaner of the Heavenly Altar", which means eating all of the food that is offered to Buddha for the rest of time. He thinks this is the best job ever.
  • Butt Monkey: Other demons often think of making hams out of him, and Sun Wukong loves to prank him.
  • Casanova Wannabe: Pigsy really likes the ladies -- in fact, he was thrown out of heaven for trying to make off with a celestial maiden -- but his efforts at wooing them are poor to say the least.
  • Early-Bird Cameo: In the novel both he and Sha Wujing are actually met by Guanyin earlier and informed of Tripitaka.
  • The Lancer
  • Lovable Coward
  • Not in This For Your Revolution: Pigsy just wants to go back to Heaven, he doesn't care about the scriptures at all. Being turned into something more attractive than his current humanoid pig-monster shape would also be nice.
    • Like Monkey, though, he does come to genuinely care about Tripitaka as a surrogate father, maybe even moreso due to his immature nature.
  • Pig Man
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: With Monkey
  • Worf Effect: When first introduced, Pigsy battles better against Monkey than many of the actual gods did during Monkey's war against heaven. Later on, he's usually swiftly beaten so that Monkey can then beat the creature who beat up Pigsy.
    • In his defense, he can often fight several demons on equal ground, but they either run away or call for help.
  • Weapon of Choice: A steel rake, which is actually a precious, deadly weapon.

Sha Wujing/Sandy

  • The Atoner: Though all three disciples are nominally working for their atonement, Sandy seems to be the only one who actually cares about making himself a better person.
  • The Big Guy: Though often mistakenly portrayed as a Kappa, the original source material depicts Sandy as a kind of river-dwelling Oni. In either case, he's the tallest of the disciples, though he's much more the thoughtful type than the bruiser type.
  • Color Coded for Your Convenience: His appearance in modern productions is incredibly inconsistent, so most dress him in blue or green to identify him..
  • Early-Bird Cameo: In the novel both he and Zhu Bajie are actually met by Guanyin earlier and informed of Tripitaka.
  • Genius Bruiser
  • Not in This For Your Revolution: Sandy just wants to be let back into heaven.
    • And just like his two elder "brothers", he comes to care for Tang Sangzang too, though more as a friend rather than a father-figure.
  • Out of Focus: Sandy is usually a secondary character in all the stories.
  • The Quiet One: Sandy rarely has much to say, but is often the most practical and philosophical of the group.
  • The Smart Guy
  • Weapon of Choice: In the actual novel, his weapon is a precious jewelled club, though in many versions he'll be armed with a giant halbeard instead.
  • Worf Effect: When he first appeared, he was good enough to fight Pigsy to a draw. Later on, he's described as the weakest of the three.


Yu Lung

  • Baleful Polymorph/Attractive Bent Gender: At one point he turns into a beautiful, big-breasted damsel to slay a demon who already took out Sandy and Pigsy.
  • Out of Focus: Even the original author seems to forget he exists more often than not. Yu Lung's big character moment is when he first appears and eats Tripitaka's horse, then has to turn into a replacement horse. After that, he's in the background until they reach the end of the Journey and he can turn back into a dragon and fly off home.
    • This turned out very badly for him. The Other Wiki calls him "the horse" or "the dragon prince", insists there are four main characters, and doesn't have a page on him. Ninja Sentai Kakuranger claims that there are four main characters, and that their fifth is a totally original creation. Most local theatre productions of the story leave him out entirely.
  • Team Pet

The Demon King of the Confused World

Erlang

  • Badass: Fought Sun Wukong, forced him to flee and eventually captured him.
  • Genius Bruiser: Not only he's strong enough to fight Sun Wukong to a draw, but he can also see through all his transformations.
  • Prongs of Poseidon: His weapon is an edged trident.
  • Size Sifter: Turn himself into a colossal, fanged giant to scare Sun Wukong and his army.
  • Unusual Ears: Being and immortal, his lobes reach his shoulders.
  • Weaksauce Weakness: There's a particular bird that he won't touch or even get close to.

Gold Horned and Silver Horned Kings

Two of the most famous antagonists, are two demon lords who posses five magical treasures: the Crinsom Gourd, the Jade Pot, the Seven Star Sword, the Banana Fan and the Golden Canopy Rope

The Red Boy

  • Arrogant Kung Fu Guy
  • Badass: One of the few villains that Sun Wukong couldn't beat by himself.
  • Breath Weapon: Can spit fire from his mouth and smoke from his eyes and nostrils.
  • Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: When he sits on Guanyin's throne it transforms into a bunch of swords, and then into halbeards.
  • Playing with Fire: His flames are so powerful that water do nothing against them, and Sun Wukong was barely able to survive them.
  • Restraining Bolt: Ends up with five of them when he's forced into a Heel Face Turn.
  • Too Dumb to Live: Leaves the fight against Sun Wukong after spitting some fire against him without checking out his health status. Later when he sees Guanyin's empty Lotus throne he smugly sits on it acting as her. It goes as well as you could possibly imagine.
  • X on a Stick: As if his fire powers weren't enough, he has a spear tipped with flames.

The Scorpion Lady

  • Affably Evil: Towards Tripitaka. Much less so towards the three disciples.
  • Dark Action Girl: She's more than capable of fighting the three heroes on equal footing.
  • Femme Fatale: Actively tries to force Tripitaka to sleep with her.
  • Poisonous Person: Her touch (actually the stinger), which she uses on Monkey and later Pigsy.
  • Prongs of Poseidon: Her weapon is described as a large trident-like spear. Apparently it was her pincers.
  • Scary Scorpions

Buffalo Demon King

Iron Fan Princess

  • Blow You Away: Her giant fan can summon storms capable of putting off giant fires. Probably the Ur Example of all the wind-generating fans.
  • Dark Action Girl: She's a Rakshasa, so...
  • Dual-Wielding: With swords.
  • Mama Bear: Hates Sun Wukong for hurting her son, the Red Boy.
  • Paper Fan of Doom: Her Palm Leaf Fan. She also has a fake one which makes flames higher.
  • Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: With the Buffalo Demon King.
  • Villainous Breakdown: After getting all drunk and flirty around her "husband" and giving him the Fan, he reveals himself as Monkey. She wasn't pleased.
  • Womb Level: In order to beat her, Sun Wukong turn into a fly, get in her mouth and start punching her stomach from the inside.
  • Yandere: Hates her husband for having a lover.

The Three Kings of Lion Camel Cave

The Rhino Kings

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