Monkey’s journey consisted of many encounters where appearance is deceiving. The evil wizard is one of the most deceiving characters throughout the story. Through changing his appearance, he is able to disguise his true self as a lion of the gods to complete his task in teaching the king a lesson for being unkind to a beggar who was asking for help. The evil wizard pretended to help the king of the Crow-Cock Kingdom but instead shifts his form into the king and steals his throne. When Monkey confronts the evil wizard about this change he then again shifts his form into Tripitaka so that Monkey cannot attack him. Through these appearances, the evil wizard was able to hide the reality that he was truly a lion on a mission.
Though the evil wizard was one of the most manipulative characters, Pigsy and the Dragon both deceived reality with their appearances. Pigsy fooled those of the woman he married into believing he was a hard working young man, but once his true identity of a pig was known they soon became fearful of him. Another instance was when the white dragon was punished for eating the white horse so he was then transformed into Tripitaka's white horse for the journey. The appearances that deceived were all to complete their own missions and ultimately teach a