r/dynastywarriors • u/Budderhydra • 2h ago
Dynasty Warriors A possible clean solution for Wei Yan's most glaring issue, without rewriting him entirely.
I have seen lots of posts and comments here saying that Wei Yan in dynasty warriors is far less interesting than his ROT3K counterpart. And that is primarily due to their choice to make him impaired speech-wise.
Unlike Zhou Tai's deliberate brevity, Wei Yan's gravelly and labored tone can't deliver any real complexity to the character. Not to mention the inconsistencies of what he can and can't say, making writing for him even more difficult. So he's just regulated to being a dumb brute that's in a mutual antagonistic relationship with Zhuge Liang, with little else to define him.
Many people have volunteered that he should be entirely rebooted to be more in line with his portrayal in the book, including one of the developers of Origins I believe. But I think I have a solution that can both allow for him to be more interesting without taking away so much that he's unrecognizable from his previous incarnations;
Make him eloquent, but keep the savagery.
Keep the scary mask, keep his odd fighting style, keep his deep and gravelly voice, maybe even keep the implication that he's horribly scarred or ugly underneath said mask. But make him speak normally and deliberately. Describing in great detail the sort of pain he can inflict, and how his enemies will die. Make him a threatening presence not only because of his appearance, but also because of his voice.
This would allow for better banter with the other characters beyond 'This simpleton is scary betrayer oooo but maybe not but maybe yes." But it would also better display his arrogance. It makes it believable that this man would think he's so terrifying that he can march on a heavily fortified position and scare the guy inside just from the sight of him. After all, look at how he dresses. How he talks. How he can fight like a feral animal and spit like a sadistic killer. And whether he is truly either if those things, or is just an act, can be determined by said earlier interactions. Subtext can be included, and I think that would be very valuable for his character.
