Artamon's Tears: Difference between revisions

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[[File:khezef.jpg|frame|[[But Your Wings Are Beautiful|Those are some fine-looking wings there, buddy.]]]]

{{quote|''I can promise a [[Grim Up North|snow-covered country haunted by ghosts]], a murdered lord, a shadowy drakhaoul-daemon [[Our Vampires Are Different|with a craving for innocent blood,]] [[All Love Is Unrequited|unrequited love,]] [[World Domination|imperial ambitions,]] court intrigue, an ancient legend about a dead emperor's cursed rubies.''}}

{{quote|''[[Instant Awesome, Just Add Dragons|And a dragon]].''|'''Sarah Ash'''}}

Gavril Nagarian is a simple painter living in the idyllic nation of Smarna, on the [[Constructed World|continent of Rossiya]]. His life gets turned upside-down one day when a band of warriors from the [[Grim Up North]] of Azkhendir [[Changeling Fantasy|approach him stating that he is the son of their recently-deceased king, and he must take his father's place.]] What follows is an elaborate character-driven fantasy saga featuring...well, all the elements mentioned in the page quote.

Mrs. Ash has also written a dual book [[Prequel]] series, ''The Alchymist's Legacy'', dealing with the youth of Estael, the original trilogy's [[The Dragon|left-hand-man to the bad guy.]] It also focuses on the earlier lives of Ruaud de Lanvaux, Celestine de Joyeuse, and Jagu de Rustéphan and how they all came to associate with one another in ''[[Artamons Tears|The Tears of Artamon]]''. ''Tracing the Shadow'' is the first book, taking place for the most part before the events of the original trilogy; ''Flight Into Darkness'', the second and last book, entails the "behind the scenes" events taking place concurrently with it.

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* [[All Love Is Unrequited]]: In the first book and for a while into the second one, anyway.

* [[Changeling Fantasy]]

* [[Children Are Innocent]]

* [[Deal with the Devil]]: One of Gavril's ancient ancestors made one, and his family is still suffering for it.

* [[Deconstruction]]: So, it turns out that while [[The Empire]] does bad things it is ultimately a force for good, that [[The Emperor]] has legitimate reasons for wanting to take over the world, that he genuinely loves the woman he has forced to marry him and eventually earns her love in return, that the [[Legion of Doom]] is made up of human beings who are generally not sadistic and many of whom just want to ensure peace and get back home, and that no-one is actually evil. [[Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism|Huh.]]

** It's a [[Lighter and Softer]] Deconstruction! It's like its deconstructing Deconstructions! Okay, the author probably wasn't thinking about that at the time.

* [[Easing Into the Adventure]]

* [[Enemy Within]] - Khezef, a [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot|vampire dragon demon]] who lives within whoever is patriarch of the Nagarian family. {{spoiler|Eugene eventually gets his own vampire dagon demon as well.}}

* [[Evil Duo]] - Eugene and Estael, though they're not so much evil as they are in the hero's way.

* [[Spirit World]]: The Ways Beyond.

* [[Super-Powered Evil Side]]: Khezef

* [[Transformation Sequence]]: Whenever Gavril {{spoiler|or Eugene}} enters his dragon form.

* [[Virgin Sacrifice]]: Drakhaouls must feed on "innocent" blood to recover after expending energy by going into their dragon form. Also, such sacrifices must be made to {{spoiler|open the Serpent's Gate and let them back into Heaven.}}

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[[Category:Fantasy Literature]]