Ravages of Time/YMMV

• Alas, Poor Scrappy: Yuan Shu. And while we're at that...
• Alas, Poor Villain: His brother, Yuan Shao.
• Anvilicious: Yuan Shu's advisor. Basically a caricature of the typical old-fashioned learned man in this era: misogynistic and of the opinion that women should Stay in the Kitchen, loyal to his master and prioritizes the master's interests well over his own, and can die very young without making a name for himself.
• Badass Decay: Crippled Legions are considerably less badass as a team after Liaoyuan Huo left, and are reduced to a legion of mere Mook after the Sima clan extermination.
  • The Mook part is somewhat justified, since its best fighters are either dead or permanently put out of action.
  • Compared to the book and history, several characters get this treatment, mostly the tacticians that work on the same side as the Genius(obviously to show of the skill of the Geniuses). Cheng Yu, one of Cao Cao's most brutally effective tacticians literally fall to his knees to worship Guo Jia. Cheng Yu were more accomplished than any of the militarily inclined Geniuses.
    • The guy Cheng Yu prostrated himself to was not Guo Jia, though. It was Sima Yi pretending to be a God.
    • Cao Cao himself falls under this same problem, due to Guo Jia and Jia Xu stealing his feats. Guo Jia gave very few plans during his work for Cao, while Jia Xu's entire military achievement list under Cao was causing a dispute between the Xi Liang warlords.
    • Note that while Ravages of Time's notably mixed with some realistic touches of various canon historical texts, it's still is an adaption of Luo Guanzhong's Romance of Three Kingdoms, a romanticized version of canon history which loves to exaggerate the "wisemen"'s intellectual feats and put down the warlords's. The Badass Decay with Cao Cao or Cheng Yu is just this series staying true to the source material.
    • It should be note that Cao Cao badass decay wasn't come from his adviser only. It also come from the fact that Chen Mou cut most(if not all) of his Establishing Character Moment (his first meeting with Guan Yu for example)and often thrash him and his army to make others look good, especially his battle with Sun Ce and his humiliation from Emperor Xian OF ALL PEOPLE!!!
    • Sure it's some lamentable Badass Decay for him, if you don't count the fact that whoever humiliates him ends up getting pulled off their mighty horse, and Cao Cao will get the last laugh no matter what.
• Base Breaker: Regarding the protagonist Sima Yi, fandom opinions are divided: they either love him for being such an awesome Magnificent Bastard of a Chessmaster, or finds it absolutely annoying that he plays a pivotal role in many major arcs to the point of being a Deus Ex Machina.
• Crowning Moment of Awesome: Goodness, where to start?
• Dude in Distress: Xun Yu. He gets kidnapped at the beginning of Xuzhou campaign, then gets shot at the beginning of Guandu campaign by orders of Yuan Fang.
• Mary Tzu: Almost everyone. Especially Sima Yi, and Jia Xu who so far never lost any battle. Yuan Fang also have a lot of this during early part in Battle of Guandu.
  • Not just everyone. Precisely, the Eight Geniuses or on a lesser level, competent strategists like Chen Gong or Lu Xun. True, they all have their bad days, but these guys are the only ones who can possibly outgambit one another or defeat them in a way that isn't already accounted for in some crazy gambits.
• Mr. Fanservice: Uh.. the entire main cast?
• Hilarious in Hindsight: In volume 3, when Dong Zhuo's puzzle was presented, until Sima Yi and the Seventh Genius solved it, the entire bunch of Guandong advisors spent a whole evening trying to decipher it but couldn't. In frustration, even Guo Tu (Yuan Shao's famous personal advisor) stomped out, declaring that the puzzle was unsolvable and urging everyone to not look into it any further, lest it be a trap of Dong Zhuo. Know what, dude was right! Of course it was not unsolvable, but indeed it was a trap to lure Yuan Shao to Luoyang.
• Ho Yay: Sun Ce and Ling Cao in the novel, being childhood buddies and mutual confidantes and all. In his monologue, Sun Ce even states that he takes a liking to Taishi Ci because the latter reminds him of Ling Cao. And then you remember what Sun Ce had to do to Ling Cao for the sake of his clan's future...
• Magnificent Bastard: Again, plenty of those.
  • Cao Cao. He feigned defeat, even using himself as a bait, to train his troops and test his generals so that they could become a Badass Army, and at the same time make them appear weak, so that Yuan Shao won't see him as an immediate threat.
  • Sun Ce. He dug up the grave of a loyal subordinate, and blamed it on the enemy, to incite his army to fight at their best
  • Yuan Fang. He's Yuan Shao's.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: Zhou Yu, anyone? He is a certified Magnificent Bastard with his fair share of the spotlight in the Sun faction, but Sun Ce is just... man.
  • Plot and scene time wise, Cao Cao, Li Ru, and Yuan Shao suffer a lot from this. Li Ru himself even said it outright in the end of vol 10.
• Progressively Prettier: Given the Art Revolution this series undergoes in 44 volumes, this is to be expected of anybody, but Guo Jia's case seems to be most apparent to the readers. Just read these comments.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Dong Zhuo, a Stupid Evil fat pervert bastard with zero good points in Romance of Three Kingdoms upgraded into a magnetic anti-heroic loyalist in Ravages of Time. Needless to say, he's attracted a considerable fanbase.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Despite trying to humanize several characters, Chen Mou has a bad habit of highlight some of his favorite and dumb down others. Although it should be note that he usually comes up with good backstories to keep them from being full-blown Mary Sues. For Example:
  • Lu Bu: Despite being one of the most well-written characters in this series, it cannot be denied that he got a lot of Character Focus after he appears that you could rename first 32 volume as 'Lu Bu: God of War'. His moral issue and inability to predict a long-term strategy is still there but dumbed down somewhat since no one seems to call him on it (at least until he's about to abandon his man). Chen Mou even saved his dignity somewhat on execution scene (strangling, which is an execution save for woman) by doing that to every single one of his soldier. Still, Chen Mou developed his character well enough that he become one of the most favorite characters.
  • Yuan Fang: An Original Character who is a bastard son of Yuan Shao, learns from both Sima Hui and Eight Freak, considers Zhuge Liang, the best strategist of Three kingdom to be his competitor. Outshines his father completely. Not to mention that someone theorize that his 'Northern Kingdom' is a foundation for barbarian force that invade Jin dynasty later.
  • While we're at this, let's just say the Eight Geniuses and Sima Yi are the Spotlight-Stealing Squad of Ravages, what with them being Mary Tzu chessmasters who take all credits for the most brilliant strategies.
• The Scrappy: Yang Qing aka Yang Xiu. Many fans are not happy when such a seemingly trivial character turns out to be a big shot who pretty much brings about the ruins of Yuan clan with his assassination of Yuan Fang and manipulating Yuan Shao to death. His Smug Snake attitude doesn't help his case a bit.
• Too Cool to Live: The list is long. Dong Zhuo, Lu Bu, Gao Shun, Chen Gong, Sun Ce, Yuan Fang,...
• Wild Mass Guessing: A lot, considering the number of plot twists the author has pulled on us over these years.
  • The Eighth Genius's identity, oh boy. It's likely the most commonly asked question in the fandom to date.
  • Following the clever twists with apparently original characters like Liaoyuan Huo and Xiao Meng turning out to be Historical Domain Character like Zhao Yun and Diao Chan, fans have taken to speculating other possible "identities" of characters who are fated to exit the stage early like Yuan Fang and Lu Bu. Many readers have theorized that Lu Bu will assume the identity of Lu Meng, which sounds plausible enough until Lu Bu officially kicks the bucket by a can't-get-any-deader decapitation after volume 32. But the Yuan Fang conspiracies are where things get ridiculous: a very popular fan theory is that he will become Cao Pi, which is impossible as anything more serious than blind Wild Mass Guessing. It's even outright jossed by the author.
    • Yuan Fang was a plot device/character he created to make Guandu cooler, while shooting down the idea of Yuan Fang as later becoming Cao Pi as "impossible to make it logical/plausible. Unless we involve aliens, or Cao Cao loses his mind while practicing some martial art thing..."
• The Woobie: Yuan Fang and Sun Ce.
  • Specifically, Sun Ce in the novel Bofu. Before things go downhill for the Sun clan, Sun Ce has constantly felt outshone by his little brother Sun Quan who is the apple of the clan's eyes due to his prodigious smarts, while he himself had had a reputation of being a goofy, lazy person and therefore generally more useless older brother. The fact that Sun Quan grows to resemble their father, while his bland looks is less indicative of their relationship than even that of the unrelated, but hunky and intimidating-looking Ling Cao is also a particularly sore spot to Sun Ce (during an encounter with Dong army, a halberd he'd thrown was even mistaken to be Ling Cao's, although he stood just nearby). To not help the matter a bit, Sun Jian is kind of a strict father, who finds it easier to open his heart to his younger son and daughter but not his eldest son. Before long, he cracks under the pressure and disappointment and puts up an aloof, carefree facade to cope with his self-esteem issues. As a result, his mighty talents and cunnings as a warrior go under the radar, which lower the clansmen's expectation even more. And when his father finally shows a bit of approval for him, guess what? He's killed in the very next battle, leaving Sun Ce completely broken.
  • Xiao Meng.