Golden Winged Great Peng

The Golden Winged Great Peng (in Japanese: 金翅大鵬雕), originally known as The Eagle, is an antagonist of the classic novel Journey to the West. He is a demonic eagle who was spawned from the primordial Phoenix.

Personality
Like your typical demon, Peng is extremely arrogant. His powers and position being technically the uncle of the Buddha fuels his big ego as he considers himself above everyone else.

After his defeat at the hand of the Buddha, Peng admits that he enjoys his life as a demon and eating humans, though after listening to the Buddha, Peng has no choice but abandoned his evil goals and redeemed himself in the process.

Past
During the primordial times, the original Phoenix, the leader of flying beings, gave birth to the Peacock Mahamayuri and the Eagle. The Peacock once consumed the Buddha, who however managed to escape via cut her stomach. The Buddha intended to kill the Peacock, however the Deities told him to stop, thus the Buddha promoted her to be his godmother, therefore the Eagle would be his uncle. This gave the Eagle a high position on Heaven and unfortunately only serves to fuel his big ego.

For unknown reason, the Eagle transformed himself into the Golden Winged Great Peng, and ate all the residents of the Lion Camel Kingdom and ruled it for 500 years, and befriend the Azure Lion Demon and the Yellow Toothed Elephant Demon to eat Xuanzang.

Original novel
The Eagle, like most of other demons in the story, attempted to eat Xuanzang. He set up several plans to capture Xuanzang and his companions and even successfully captured Sun Wukong himself.

After numberous humiliating failures under the hand of the three demon kings, Wukong met the Buddha for help and learned about the backstory of Peng. After a battle between Wukong and the three demons, both the Lion and the Elephant are forced to revert back to their original form, and the Buddha shows up to subdue Peng and take him back to Vulture Peak.

1986 series
In the 1986 series, while it follows a similar format as the original novel, there are some changes in the role of Peng. While in the novel he appeared from the start along with the other two demon kings, in the series he did not appear until when Sun Wukong arrives at his kingdom to find Xuanzang, though was mentioned frequently prior to that. Additionally, the series also added his lust towards the Peacock Princess (an original character for the 1986 version who does not appear in the novel). Also, given the appearances of the Peacock Princess and her female servants, it appeared that not all the residents of the Lion Camel Kingdom were eaten like in the novel.

Following the defeat of the other two fellow demon kings, Peng attacks the deities on Heaven. He triumphed, but the Buddha used his magic and forced Peng to revert back to his true form and fly back to him, abandoned his evil goals in the process.

Powers and abilities
The Golden Winged Great Peng is armed with a ji and capable of flying over great distances. He possesses a Flask of Yin and Yang Essence (陰陽二氣瓶) which can suck in unsuspecting victims. After a while, the victim trapped inside the flask will be reduced to a bloody mash. He uses the flask to trap Sun Wukong but the latter breaks out and the flask is rendered useless because its essence has been spilt.

Trivia

 * The character is based on the legendary bird Garuda.
 * The Golden Winged Great Peng is possibly one of the oldest villain of the Journey to the West novel, as his age went back to the primordial times.
 * It is unknown why the Golden Winged Great Peng desired to eat Xuanzang, as he is already immortal. The Peacock Princess even pointed this out in the 1986 version.