Journey to the West is an allegorical novel about a monk named Tang Sanzang/Tripitaka

who is tasked to retrieve the scriptures of the Buddha from India to bring to China.
Alongside him are:

- Sun Wukong/Monkey, the quintuply-immortal reckless and overpowered Monkey King

- Zhu Baije/Pigsy, a lazy, hedonistic former celestial being turned pig demon after he hit on
a goddess one too many times

- and Sha Wujing/Sandy, another former celestial being turned river demon after he broke
a vase (no really), plays the peacekeeping big guy

Fun things:

- The main character is Tripitaka but the first seven chapters are about Wukong messing
with and pissing off the gods of China’s three major religions

- A rock splits open to reveal another rock, which splits open again and Sun Wukong is
born. After bowing to the four cardinal directions he accidentally activates his laser eyes
and disturbs the Jade Emperor in Heaven

- The monkeys on the mountain decided the monkey stupid enough to jump through the
waterfall and see what’s on the other side will be crowned king. Wukong immediately
jumps

- Despite his full title being the Handsome Monkey King the book describes Wukong as
looking ugly as sin. He is also less than four feet tall

- Wukong goes on a quest for immortality after being hit with an existential crisis He
eventually joins a Taoist temple in a cave to learn ways to become immortal. Here he gets
his name of Sun Wukong, meaning “the monkey who wakes to the void”

The opening of Chapter 2 is essentially:

Master: You might be interested in this school of learning.

Wukong: What is it?

Master: *paragraph-long explanation*

Wukong: Will it make me immortal?

Master: No.

Wukong: Then I don’t care.

- Wukong can now shapeshift into 72 different forms, fly via cloud-surfing, turn his hairs
into clones of himself, and grow into a monstrous giant form. He’s also effectively immortal

- When Wukong decides he needs a weapon he heads to the East Dragon’s armory and
asks for one. When none of the weapons satisfy him, he picks up a massive iron rod that
measures the Milky Way, makes it shrink, and starts practicing with it immediately,
terrifying the hell out of the East Dragon

- He then asks the East Dragon for cooler clothes. The East Dragon calls up his brothers,
asks them for clothes and tells them not to mess with Wukong since he’s playing with the
Milky Way rod like it’s a stick

- Wukong celebrates his new look by growing into his monstrous form, terrifying the hell
out of the local demon kings enough that they immediately ally with him so they don’t get
in his way

- One day, Wukong gets carried into Hell by two emissaries. Since he’s supposed to be
immortal, he’s pissed off, and ravages his way into the palace of Hell

- The Ten Kings claim they must’ve mistaken him for another guy named Sun Wukong, and
Wukong asks them to prove it by showing him where they list the names of people to die.
When he finds his name, he scribbles it out and goes “Oh wow, my name isn’t here, guess
I’ll live”, meaning he’s now doubly immortal

- The Jade Emperor realizes Wukong’s a bit of a problem and invites him to Heaven to kill
him. The Gold Star of Venus decides against it, suggesting that keeping him under the
watch of Heaven would be better because at least they can use his power if they need to

- They give Wukong the title of BanHorsePlague, aka the stable boy, a job which Wukong is
happy to do until he finds out that his position is so low it doesn’t even have a proper rank

- Wukong gets angry, goes home to sulk, and decides to call himself the Great Sage Equal to
Heaven, an extremely blasphemous title

- Heaven sends all of their best warriors to fight Wukong but Wukong defeats them, leading
the Gold Star of Venus to say they should just give him the empty title and a proper place
and rank in Heaven to stop it before it escalates further

- Wukong doesn’t have any duties and basically hangs around Heaven eating and sleeping
all day. In Heaven Wukong calls the big shots “Your Majesty” and “Your Reverence”,
everyone else he calls “bro”
- They get worried Wukong would get bored eventually and give him the simple but long
task of guarding the Garden of Immortal Peaches and make sure no one eats them. So of
course Wukong eats them, making him triply immortal

- One day the Lady Queen Mother decides to hold a banquet for the Festival of Immortal
Peaches, so she sends her maidens to pick the best fruit from the orchard. The garden is
unsurprisingly lacking in peaches, and when they find him, the maidens ask Wukong why.
Wukong discovers he wasn’t invited to the banquet and so immobilizes the maidens with a
spell and disguises himself as someone who was invited

- Wukong happens upon Daoists finishing making heavenly wine. So of course Wukong
makes everyone fall asleep and drinks it all, making him quadruply immortal

- Wukong is now extremely drunk and tries to go home and sleep it off, but instead he
wanders into Laozi’s palace. He walks into the alchemy lab and finds Laozi’s immortality
pills. So of course Wukong eats them all, making him quintuply immortal

- Wukong gets immediately sober, realizes how bad he fucked up, and flies back home to
avoid punishment. Back in Heaven, everyone’s angrily reporting what Wukong did to the
Jade Emperor. This leads to them sending their best warriors to fight Wukong again, and
Wukong trashing them again

- A goddess named Guanyin arrives for the banquet and sees all the chaos. She decides to
call upon Erlang, another immortal being, to fight Wukong, which leads to an epic and long
shapeshifter battle, which ends with Laozi simply restraining Wukong with his diamond
snare

- Heaven agrees to execute Wukong but since he’s quintuply immortal nothing works. Laozi
then suggests they boil him in his brazier to separate the pills and melt Wukong’s body.
They stick him in and open it up after 49 days. Instead of pills and Wukong slush, they find
an even more invincible Wukong with cool red eyes that can see through illusions

- Wukong then fights the entire army of Heaven by himself, and he destroys everyone

- Guanyin calls in the cavalry, the Buddha himself. The Buddha asks Wukong what he
wants, and Wukong says he’s going to overthrow the Jade Emperor and rule Heaven.
Buddha then makes a bet that if Wukong can somersault off of his palm, then he can rule
Heaven.

- Wukong jumps off, reaches the edge of the universe and finds five tall pillars. He writes
“The Great Sage Was Here” on one of them, pisses on it, and jumps back into Buddha’s
hand. Wukong brags until Buddha shows him his hand, which has writing and the faint
smell of monkey pee. Buddha then traps Wukong under a mountain and puts a seal at the
top, leaving Wukong to stay there for 500 years