Something that legitimately surprised me was seeing Chén Dào showing up on the manhua The Ravages of Time, where he's portrayed as being the leader of Liú Bèi White Feathers unit, who were portrayed as being an elite military unit armed with Zhūgě Liàng's repeating crossbow, which they use to great effect of creating carnage.
Later on he's also positioned alongside Zhào Yú, Guān Yǔ, Zhāng Fēi and Huáng Zhōng, pretty much being portrayed as their equal, almost as if the author is presenting him as the Fifth Tiger General, replacing Mǎ Chāo... which isn't that surprising, considering the author has always made parallels between Mǎ Chāo and Lǚ Bù, presenting both as living Gods of War, but also showing how they are unfilial sons, Lǚ Bù through his killings of his adopted fathers, Dīng Yuán and Dǒng Zhuó , whereas Mǎ Chāo's rebelling lead to his father and brothers being killed, and he eventually turned on his adopted father, Hán Suì. And to make matters worse, Lǚ Bù is shown as being rather crafty and intelligent, whereas Mǎ Chāo is just overpowered dumb muscle.
Here's an example of how fiction has portrayed Chén Dào.
This is a cool read! The phenomenon of unqualified popular perceptions of 3K figures is an interesting topic. Your assertion makes sense. In my experience, armchair 3K historians love being contrarian. This tendency may also inform the "memeing" of figures like Chen Dao; folks want to have a unique position and flex their "knowledge" telling others that the Five Tiger Generals aren't all that. This is perhaps unsurprising given that a vast majority of western interest in 3K begins from games and media. If they pursue their interest further, it's easy to latch on to lesser known names and make unreasonable extrapolations from existing records, or even worse regurgitating what others have written and presenting it as straight facts.
Something that legitimately surprised me was seeing Chén Dào showing up on the manhua The Ravages of Time, where he's portrayed as being the leader of Liú Bèi White Feathers unit, who were portrayed as being an elite military unit armed with Zhūgě Liàng's repeating crossbow, which they use to great effect of creating carnage.
Later on he's also positioned alongside Zhào Yú, Guān Yǔ, Zhāng Fēi and Huáng Zhōng, pretty much being portrayed as their equal, almost as if the author is presenting him as the Fifth Tiger General, replacing Mǎ Chāo... which isn't that surprising, considering the author has always made parallels between Mǎ Chāo and Lǚ Bù, presenting both as living Gods of War, but also showing how they are unfilial sons, Lǚ Bù through his killings of his adopted fathers, Dīng Yuán and Dǒng Zhuó , whereas Mǎ Chāo's rebelling lead to his father and brothers being killed, and he eventually turned on his adopted father, Hán Suì. And to make matters worse, Lǚ Bù is shown as being rather crafty and intelligent, whereas Mǎ Chāo is just overpowered dumb muscle.
Here's an example of how fiction has portrayed Chén Dào.
This is a cool read! The phenomenon of unqualified popular perceptions of 3K figures is an interesting topic. Your assertion makes sense. In my experience, armchair 3K historians love being contrarian. This tendency may also inform the "memeing" of figures like Chen Dao; folks want to have a unique position and flex their "knowledge" telling others that the Five Tiger Generals aren't all that. This is perhaps unsurprising given that a vast majority of western interest in 3K begins from games and media. If they pursue their interest further, it's easy to latch on to lesser known names and make unreasonable extrapolations from existing records, or even worse regurgitating what others have written and presenting it as straight facts.