I like that idea! Kind of like a more fraught Mulan/Shang situation.
Welllll depending on how you view these descriptions (and your tastes, I guess) these powerful dudes in the ancient world ARE examples of superpower ugliness. Guan Yu, Liu Bei's sworn brother from The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, was said to be nine feet tall with a beet-red face, red eyes, and eyebrows that looked like caterpillars. There's a reason I say that unusual looks in these historical/mythological works are not about teh sexay XD
These descriptions are also highly symbolic, btw, for instance red faces represent loyalty in traditional Chinese opera so Guan Yu's description in the novel draws from that. The history doesn't say anything about how he looked other than that he had a beautiful beard.
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Welllll depending on how you view these descriptions (and your tastes, I guess) these powerful dudes in the ancient world ARE examples of superpower ugliness. Guan Yu, Liu Bei's sworn brother from The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, was said to be nine feet tall with a beet-red face, red eyes, and eyebrows that looked like caterpillars. There's a reason I say that unusual looks in these historical/mythological works are not about teh sexay XD
These descriptions are also highly symbolic, btw, for instance red faces represent loyalty in traditional Chinese opera so Guan Yu's description in the novel draws from that. The history doesn't say anything about how he looked other than that he had a beautiful beard.