The Saga of Darren Shan



The Saga of Darren Shan is a 12-part Fantasy Horror series by Irish author... Darren Shan (his real surname is O' Shaughnessy, but that's not quite as marketable). It's very popular across the world and was made into a movie. There is also a Manga adaptation... which, oddly enough, is actually made and published in Japan.

The Saga follows a perfectly normal Teenager in a perfectly normal town who after an unfortunate chain of events winds up faking his own death and living his life as a half-vampire assistant to the vampire Mr. Crepsley. Hilarity and nightmare fuel ensues. The story starts off with the appearance of a Goosebumps-esque non-serial horror series, but then (intentionally) grows into a war involving the good Vampires and the evil Vampaneze. Cue violence, character development, time travel, and plot twists. Lots and lots of plot twists.

The books in the Saga are:
 * Cirque Du Freak (A Living Nightmare in the US)
 * The Vampire's Assistant
 * Tunnels of Blood
 * Vampire Mountain
 * Trials of Death
 * The Vampire Prince
 * Hunters of the Dusk
 * Allies of the Night
 * Killers of the Dawn
 * The Lake of Souls
 * Lord of the Shadows
 * Sons of Destiny

There is currently one movie, Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant, which combines the first three books. It has many spoilers for later books put in and a rushed feeling - dropping a lot of minor plots in favor of plots that weren't in the book and speeding through everything.

The Author also wrote a second series, The Demonata, which could be considered a Spiritual Successor of sorts.

The Saga also has a prequel series that started in 2010, concerning the life of Mr. Crepsely.

The City Trilogy is his first -and so far only- adult series

This series provides examples of:

 * Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The sewers in the city Mr Crepsley grew up in are very large, spacious and labyrnthine. They are seen in Tunnels in Blood (where they are the eponymous Tunnels) and in a later book
 * Action Girl: Arra Sails, one of the few female vampires.
 * Adaptation Distillation: The manga illustrated by Takahiro Arai, who Darren Shan personally chose out of several possible artists. Yes. It's awesome.
 * Anyone Can Die: And how.
 * Arc Words: "Even in death, may you be triumphant!"
 * Artifact Title: In America, the series is called 'Cirque du Freak' (the title of the first book). This gets weird after Book 4 when the focus of the series shifts away from Cirque du Freak and onto the struggle between the Vampires and the Vampaneze. Ultimately, only about half of the books in the series prominently feature the Cirque.
 * Ascend to A Higher Plane of Existence: Vampires have their own afterlife in the form of 'Paradise', and thus this is played completely straight.
 * Awesome McCoolname: Almost everyone. Particularly a few: Larten Crepsley, Paris Skyle, Arra Sails, Debbie Hemlock.
 * Awesome Moment of Crowning:
 * Badass Grandpa: Paris Skyle, the 800-year old Vampire Prince, who later dies wrestling a bear.
 * Badass Longcoat: Mr. Crepsley
 * Bad Future: A whole book based on it.
 * Because Destiny Says So: Literally.
 * Big Bad: Desmond Tiny for the series as a whole.
 * Bittersweet Ending: The last book ends with
 * Blade Lock: Subverted in Hunters of the Dusk. Darren gets in a sword fight with a vampaneze and tries blade locking. The vampaneze simply runs his blade down the length of Darren's and maims his hand.
 * Break the Cutie: Darren. And he's broken indeed...
 * Illustrated with the writing style. Remember the way Cirque du Freak was written? Lots of exclamation marks, quite often after a one word sentence, almost like a very skilled child had written it. Well, all that disappears right after that one book...
 * Chekhov's Gunman: Played epically.
 * Circus of Fear: Subverted.
 * Compulsory School Age: In Allies of the Night Darren is forced to attend school as he appears to be fifteen.
 * However, the Vampaneze had organized the whole thing, presumably to distract the Hunters.
 * Cultural Translation: The movie.
 * Dhampyr: Sort of. Darren is originally made a Dhampyr due to his young age.
 * Downer Ending
 * Divide By Zero: Apparently if anyone with the ability to look into the future were to do something to change that future, some sort of monsters, even more powerful than Mr Tiny, could cross over and wreak havoc./
 * Eats Babies: It is implied that Mr. Tiny likes to eat children.
 * Even Evil Has Standards:
 * Evil Detecting Dog: Subverted. Dogs and cats despise vampires, who are -under normal circumstances- no threat to humans. Wolves on the other hand hate Vampaneze, but okay with vampiries. Rats and bats are also okay with them.
 * For the Evulz: Mr. Tiny's main motivation (as well as his hobby; he once refers to needing to catch a volcano which is going to kill hundreds as though it was a show).
 * Flynning: Subverted and lampshaded. In Tunnels of Blood Darren expects a long and drawn out battle between Mr.Crepsley and Murlough, when in fact the fight lasts just three seconds. He does accept that they were fighting to kill, not to entertain.
 * Fur Against Fang: Subverted. Vampires-Vampaneze and wolves are infact from the very same bloodline, and wolves are rather friendly with Vampires. However they really hate Vampaneze, and more than happy to battle them.
 * Classical Mythology: On that note, the - disturbing - chapter in The Vampire Prince where Darren feeds from the teet of a she-wolf heavily resembles the Roman Myth of Romulus and Remus.
 * Grandfather Paradox: The end leads into an endless paradox because
 * However, there may actually be an end. However, this is all speculation from a relatively young vampire, so he may be wrong.
 * Graying Morality
 * Hitlers Time Travel Exemption Act: Subverted.
 * Healing Factor: Cormac Limbs.
 * Exaggerated, in that
 * Honor Before Reason: The vampaneze have a complex code of honour which, among other things, forbids them from lying and allows them only to feed on humans who they have chosen through a ritual several days in advance. A vampaneze will never break this code, even when violently insane.
 * The vampaneze code also prevents them from using projectile weapons. The vampires have a less restrictive one which just disallows guns and bows (shurikens are fine). Then the vampaneze start to raise an army of human soldiers who are exempt from their code (and can thus lie and use guns), to the outrage of the vampires.
 * I Hate You Vampire Dad: In the beginning, Darren feels this way about Mr. Crepsley, but eventually grows to like him.
 * Jerk With a Heart of Gold: Mr. Crepsley is bitter, snarky, perfectly willing to let Steve die, and not averse to smacking Darren around to teach him a lesson, and yet he genuinely cares for Mesdames Truska and Octa, and comes to the rescue every time Darren gets into trouble (which is often).
 * Kick the Dog: Mr. Crepsley making Darren fake his death and make him sit through his own grieving funeral and burial. But at least he did it to save his best friends life, right? Too bad, as said best friend thinks Darren did it to spite him and vows to kill him. Break the cutie indeed.
 * I Should Write a Book About This: The series ties into the real world at the end, when.
 * Impaled With Extreme Prejudice:
 * Infant Immortality:.
 * It Gets Easier: Darren mourns the first vampaneze he kills. Years later, he has no problem with one of his friends torturing a man to death to get information.
 * Large Ham: Larten and Mr. Tiny.
 * Limited Wardrobe: In the Second book for most of the book Darren wheres the same suit and it is lampshaded as him wearing all this time until eventually in this book he gains a pirate suit which he wears for the whole of the third book where he never changes his clothes for no discernable reason. It's not for lack of money because Mr Crepsley supposedly has loads.
 * Literary Agent Hypothesis: The entire point.
 * Luke I Am Your Father:
 * He also learns that.
 * Market Based Title: In America, the series is called 'Cirque Du Freak' (The title of the first book).
 * Master Apprentice Chain Seba -> Mr. Crepsley -> Darren
 * Meaningful Echo: In Trials of Death, we see the Death's Touch(see Strange Salute).
 * Meaningful Name: Mr. Desmond Tiny.
 * Mind Screw: The 12th book.
 * Necessarily Evil:
 * Never Learned to Read: Crepsley admits this in the beginning of Book 8.
 * Noble Demon: Even while killing them, the vampires admit that the vampanezes' sense of honour is admirable.
 * No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Darren gives up his life as a human to save Steve's life. Steve, however, becames convinced that Darren betrayed him, and becomes his mortal enemy. ; see the below trope.
 * No Place for Me There:
 * Our Vampires Are Different: Very, very different.
 * The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Literally.
 * Perpetual Frowner: Mr. Crepsley.
 * Pet the Dog: Mr Tiny shows a small capacity for love when he gives  his Due to The Dead.
 * Proud Warrior Race Guy: Almost all vampires and vampaneze.
 * Refused By the Call: In Allies of the Night Oh, and by the way,
 * Then again it's understandable he didn't want to risk A Pupil of Mine Until He Turned to Evil. Esspecially since according to him Steve is Made of Evil.
 * Senseless Sacrifice:
 * Screw Destiny: Literally.
 * Significant Anagram:  in book 10.
 * Sliding Scale of Vampire Friendliness: Somewhere in the middle. The degree of viciousness or friendliness of a vampire is their choice rather than being forced.
 * Strange Salute: In Trials of Death the vampires do a strange sign, placing their hand in front of their face with the middle finger on their forehead, with the index and ring fingers placed on the eyelids. This is called the Death's Touch, which is meant to mean "even in death, may you be triumphant.
 * The Spartan Way: Those who wish to become a Vampire General must take the Trials of Initiation, a series of five difficult, randomly-chosen tasks, each the day after the last (excepting holidays) where death is highly likely, and even survival without success results in execution. When Darren has to undergo the Trials to prove himself, he has to go through a flooding maze with a huge rock shackled to him, cross a cave filled with very sharp and brittle stalagmites and stalactites which drop at the slightest noise, spend 15 minutes in a metal chamber which randomly shoots spurts of flame, and fight two massive, rabid wild boars. They note that due to his youth and being only a half vampire, they actually removed the most difficult tasks from the roster.
 * Trailers Always Lie: The trailers for The Movie imply that Crepsley just randomly asks Darren if he wants to be a vampire. "Dude, wanna be a vampire?" while in the actual movie Darren agrees to become one in exchange for saving Steve(part of the line survives, but it's part of a speech about the trials of being a vampire)
 * Teacher Student Romance Darren and Debbie. Subverted in that they're actually the same age, they even dated when they were about twelve, Darren is simply younger than he looks like, and despite this Debbie refuses to get involved with him again, because she feels really bad about dating "a boy". However when she learns that Darren will grow up as a side-effect of the Purge she's more than happy to point out that will change her view on the issue. Altought by then she's not a teacher.
 * Two Part Trilogy: The twelve-book saga is divided into four trilogies, the latter two of which are Two Part Trilogies in their own right (with "Hunters of the Dusk" establishing what has happened during the Time Skip and setting the premise for the next two books, and "The Lake of Souls" bridging the Grand Finale and the previous Wham Episode).
 * Unable to Cry: Darren for a long time after the death of.
 * Ungrateful Bastard: Steve, in spades.
 * Unreliable Narrator: In book 9,.
 * Vampire Monarch: The Vampire authority are the Princes, and to a lesser extent, the Generals.
 * Vampire Vannabe: Steve.
 * Well Intentioned Extremist:
 * Wham Episode: "Killers of the Dawn", "The Lake of Souls" and "Lord of the Shadows" could all qualify.
 * Where the Hell Is Springfield: Played straight.
 * Xanatos Roulette:
 * Your Vampires Suck: Mr.Crepsley finds the thought of fangs hilarious.
 * After all, how would they keep their existence a secret if they left huge, gaping holes in their target's neck?
 * In the movie Crepsley calls the "turning into bats" myth bullshit.