The Great Sage who wreaked havoc in Heaven
The chief hero of Journey to the West, a stone monkey sprung from a magic rock. He learns seventy-two transformations and the cloud-somersault that carries him thirty-six thousand miles at a leap, wields the gold-banded staff, once wreaked havoc in Heaven, styled himself "Great Sage Equal to Heaven," and was at last pinned under the Five-Elements Mountain by the Buddha for five hundred years. Freed, he dons a tightening headband and guards the monk Xuanzang on the westward road. He is at once the lawless rebel and, once tamed, the seeker growing toward maturity — the most vital character in all of Chinese literature, bar none.
Scorning the petty office Heaven gave him, Sun Wukong fights his way out of the celestial palace, styles himself "Great Sage Equal to Heaven," disrupts the Peach Banquet, steals Laozi’s elixir, and battles a hundred thousand heavenly troops. This "havoc in Heaven" is the most exhilarating passage of the book, and made Sun Wukong the classic symbol of "defying authority" in Chinese culture — even pinned under the mountain, his unbowed wildness was never worn away.
Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.