The Demonata



The Demonata is the second full-length Fantasy Horror series by Irish author Darren O' Shaughnessy Shan. Unlike The Saga, this series has three narrators, with different books told from different perspectives.

The plot features far too many twists to be quickly summarised, but it starts with our first narrator, perfectly normal teenager Grubbs Grady in a perfectly normal town, long story short, some demon related stuff happens and... things go bad. Really bad. And then they get worse. And worse. And worse. After which, things really start to get nasty.

To say this series is violent is like saying the ocean is wet; lets make this clear- this story is for children, but right from the get-go the reader will be treated to some of the most ludicrously over-the-top ultraviolence ever put to print. The Demonata are evil with a capital E, and many, many characters die explicitly gruesome and horrific deaths on-page, to say nothing of the countless others whose horribly mutilated corpses are come across. You have been warned.

The series consists of ten major books:
 * Lord Loss
 * Demon Thief
 * Slawter
 * Bec
 * Blood Beast
 * Demon Apocalypse
 * Death's Shadow
 * Wolf Island
 * Dark Calling
 * Hell's Heroes


 * And I Must Scream:
 * Anyone Can Die: And how!
 * Always Chaotic Evil: Demons, all the way.
 * Bald of Awesome: Kernel Fleck.
 * Bald of Evil: Lord Loss
 * Blessed With Suck: Kernel has always been able to see patches of light floating around, and can . On one hand, . On the other hand....
 * Plus, there's the whole "everyone thinks I'm insane" thing that he had to deal with.
 * Bloody Bowels of Hell
 * Break the Cutie: Here, it's considered lucky if you aren't disemboweled and eaten after getting broken.
 * Brown Note: When Grubbs sees Lord Loss slaughter his family, Grubbs is literally so terrified that he's driven insane. It's implied that if Dervish had not shown up to tell Grubbs that there were people who believed him, and to just play along with the psychiatrists, he would have wasted away and died.
 * Cavalier Competitor
 * Chess With Demons
 * Cute Mute: Bran
 * Crapsack World: All the demon realms.
 * Cruel and Unusual Death: Dios mio!
 * Demon Lords and Archdevils: The Demon Masters, most prominently Lord Loss.
 * Downer Ending: Darren Shan is the master of this trope.
 * Hell, Bec, the main character of the fourth book, is actually killed at the end.
 * Emotion Eater: Lord Loss. Its not totally clear if he is literally this and actually feeds on suffering, or is simply a lot more sadistic than the rest of his demon brethern, though they aren't mutually exclusive interpretations.
 * Eye Scream: In Book 2, Demon Thief, there are a good three pages where Kernel angsts about whether he's in the dark or he's gone blind.
 * Book 6.
 * There's also an unfortunate guard who opens fire on a demon-queen. The bullets stop, turn into horrific bugs, and
 * Face Heel Turn:  is revealed to have joined Lord Loss, masquerading as   in order to fool the others.
 * Family-Unfriendly Death: Boy, howdy. It would probably be easier to list those who don't die in the most horrific ways possible.
 * Gadgeteer Genius: Timas Brauss.
 * Good Is Not Nice: Beranabus, and later Grubbs.
 * Good Thing You Can Heal: Mages can reattach and regrow body parts to some extent, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt.
 * Gorn: Pretty much every fight scene. An extreme example shows up close to the beginning of the first book, with
 * Gory Discretion Shot: Subverted, and subverted hard. At best the characters will comes across corpses after they have bee brutally torn to pieces, but even this will be described in savage detail. More often than not the insanely violent death will be carried out on page. There is no such thing as this trope in this series.
 * Hell Gate: Windows, and the more powerful Tunnels.
 * Horrible Judge of Character: Let's just say that teaming up with these demons is a bad idea.
 * No seriously, a reeeaally bad idea.
 * It Got Worse: Every single effing book Every single one of the them.
 * I'm a Humanitarian: Demons seem to regard everything as potential food, including each other, and humans are no exception.
 * Immune to Bullets: This one's actually a subversion. The demons are only vulnerable to magical weaponry. Along with swords and axes, that includes magical bullets.
 * The Legions of Hell
 * Karma Houdini:
 * Kill It With Fire: Sharmila's usual technique of battling the Demonata.
 * Les Collaborateurs: Humans who side with the Demonata. It never ends well for them.
 * Unless you count
 * Magic Knight: Every mage or magician qualifies as this.
 * The Man Behind the Man:
 * Man of Wealth and Taste: Lord Loss. Kinda.
 * Mind Screw: Used frequently by Lord Loss to psychologically destroy his victims. It becomes a Crowning Moment of Awesome when Grubbs mind screw him back during the chess match.
 * Mix-and-Match Critters: The Demonata tend to be this, explanation being they envy natural forms and end up copying them.
 * The Mole:.
 * Our Monsters Are Different: To be specific, Our Demons Are Different, Our Werewolves Are Different, and Our Zombies Are Different.
 * Also, Our Souls Are Different
 * Narnia Time: Time travels differently in each Demon Universe so characters from different times can interact and end up similiar ages. Also leads to odd events such as Kernel returning to his parents after being missing for a number of years but he hasnt aged at all.
 * It gets funny when a Disciple asks who won the world war, when asked which one he says "there was another one?"
 * Power Trio: Grubbs, Kernel and, the.
 * The Id: Grubbs, the most powerful magically out of them
 * The Superego: Kernel, probably the most cerebral out of the three
 * The Ego:
 * Really Seven Hundred Years Old: Lord Loss. Probably most of the Demonata. Also and.
 * Say My Name: Bran to Bec
 * Shapeshifter Default Form: Grubbs in book 8.
 * Shapeshifter Weapon: Grubbs' preferred method of fighting . Most recently, Kirilli.
 * Shoot the Dog: Too many times to count.
 * Shout-Out: In Slawter, the giant cockroach demon is named Gregor, a reference to the Underland Chronicles by Suzanne Collins. Bo even laughs at the reference, though Grubbs does not get the joke.
 * More likely a reference to Gregor Samsa from Kafka's The Metamorphosis.
 * Took a Level In Badass: Kirilli, over the last couple books, goes from an incompetent whiner to a demon-killing machine.
 * Voluntary Shapeshifting: Most recently  when they talked to Kernel.
 * Wicked Cultured: Lord Loss, to an extent.
 * Will Not Tell a Lie: Lord Loss makes a point of never lying, but he tends to speak in half-truths when it suits him.
 * XanatosSpeedChess pile up: The whole series essentially revolves around In the end,
 * Yank the Dog's Chain: When Kernel and his family finally move to a new home, start making friends with a little brother he loves,
 * You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Any and all humans who side with the Demonata.
 * Will Not Tell a Lie: Lord Loss makes a point of never lying, but he tends to speak in half-truths when it suits him.
 * XanatosSpeedChess pile up: The whole series essentially revolves around In the end,
 * Yank the Dog's Chain: When Kernel and his family finally move to a new home, start making friends with a little brother he loves,
 * You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Any and all humans who side with the Demonata.

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