A slight change of pace... normally this is the kind of thing I'd post in my personal journal, but I'm submitting this to the Feminist Carnival Beauty Edition.

How can a video game undermine a centuries-old attempt to subvert the notion that a woman must be beautiful in order to have worth?

Zhuge Liang is a major character in Romance of the Three Kingdoms -- he was also a real dude, but since he lived nearly two thousand years ago it gets tricky to peel legend apart from reality. In any case, it's the legend I mostly want to talk about; in particular, the legend of his wife.

Simply put, Zhuge Liang was a goddamn genius. He was a scholar, inventor, and one of the most brilliant strategists in history. To this day in China, saying his name is synonymous with wisdom and intelligence. He tried living a quiet life as a farmer, but even then, word of his brilliance got around; the warlord Liu Bei doggedly sought him out so he could bring him on as a strategist.

Zhuge Liang had a wife, known in fiction as Huang Yueying. Yueying was an inventor, like her husband. And what's more, she was homely. The story goes that when Zhuge Liang was in search of a wife, Yueying's father said to him (I paraphrase), "My daughter is kind of an uggo, but I'd say she's about as smart as you." I think it varies depending on the story which part of that is more emphasized -- the warning about her looks, or the boast about her intelligence -- but in either case, Zhuge Liang wanted to marry her.

Let's think about that for a second. This is a guy whose freaking name is used as a synonym for wisdom, and he meets a woman who's as smart as he is. I'm astounded in a good way that such a woman could show up in legends from a patriarchal culture hundreds of years ago. It may be a bummer that Zhuge Liang gets all the glory while his wife gets next to none, but the fact remains that he supposedly met his match.

Yueying is a playable character in Dynasty Warriors. Here is a portrait of her from Dynasty Warriors 6.


courtesy of Wikipedia

When I saw this, I was like, um... yeah, she's hideous. I just kind of rolled my eyes at first. This is a video game we're talking about; what more could I expect? Only the makers of Dynasty Warriors went a bit further. They felt the need to explain. Yueying isn't homely at all; she's incredibly gorgeous -- but she spreads rumors that she's ugly so she'll be able to find a man who loves her for more than her beauty!

It's okay, guys, she's not really ugly! What a pleasant surprise for Mr. Zhuge -- he thought he'd just have someone to keep him intellectually stimulated, but thank god there's actually more to her than her brains!

I'm hearing a very clear message from Dynasty Warriors. It doesn't matter if a woman is intelligent, or cunning, or a skilled fighter (because she is a fighting character in the game) -- what's really important is that she be beautiful.

It's not just Dynasty Warriors. Wiki tells me that a "popular interpretation" of Yueying's alleged homeliness is that it was a rumor spread by jealous women. Now we're throwing some girl-on-girl crime in along with the requirement for beauty. And in pretty much any adaptation of Rot3K that features Yueying, she's beautiful -- here she is in the video game Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI, here's the actress who plays her in a modern day parody.

Meanwhile, depictions of Zhuge Liang range from meh to yowza!, but regardless, there isn't any attention played to his appearance. There are no stories about how beautiful or ugly he is; no explanations of how those stories are just rumors. His character unquestionably has value outside his appearance.

Yueying, sadly, does not seem to share that privilege.