#r3k

The contest of formations is cool, albeit hard to visualize. Is Kongming doing the same magic he did with his stones but now with how his soldiers are deployed? Seems like you could get an interesting magic system out of that, making figurative descriptions of tactical brilliance literal or having large-scale workings through the movements of well-drilled soldiers rather than ley lines.

I wonder if the elusive Zhuge Liang is in fact testing Liu Bei's patience with all the repeat visits to see whether he's impetuous and execution-happy? If I was in his position, I'd probably want to do that due diligence on my prospective lord

Zhuge Liang may be talented, but I'm not sure that comparing himself to famous past advisors is good evidence for that? Glad to see Guan Yu agrees. These scholars do seem to have a good setup hyping each other up.

The story ends in so much of an anticlimax that I don't really have any concluding thoughts? It feels like shaping a better narrative out of historical events is a lot easier if you narrow the scope to a tight enough cast or timescale that you can focus on the events that do produce a nice plot, while this sprawling tale has too much commitment to history despite its spin to be able to maintain a good pace.

I like Lu Kang's approach to handling Sun Hao's orders and his bromance with Yang Hu, feels like both of them were fully aware that a battle would only cause pointless suffering and so maintained a quiet peace. I bet you could do a lot with their body language in their encounter while hunting for a live-action adaptation

Liu Chen seems like an early example of a family annihilator?