Belgariad: Difference between revisions
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Before we get into this entry, [[Interactive Narrator|I'd like to tell a story]]. A story of [[High Fantasy]].
Once upon a time, [[MacGuffin|a stone]] which possessed the power to [[Winds of Destiny Change|change destiny]] was stolen. If this "Orb", belonging to the benevolent
In pursuit of the Orb, however, followed the legendary sorcerer Belgarath, his gorgeous daughter Polgara, the humble [[Farm Boy]] Garion, and many other colorful allies: a thief, a berserker, a noble horseman, a paladin, a snotty princess, and so on.
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* [[The Ageless]]: The sorcerers.
* [[Alien Geometries]]: Belgarath has a stick with [[Mind Screw|only one end]]. He uses it to [[Mundane Utility|keep children occupied so they don't bother him]].
* [[All Deaths Final]]: Due to universal agreement of the
* [[All Powerful Bystander]]: Both Prophecies by mutual agreement. If they directly clashed, they would blot out entire tracts of existence.
* [[An Odd Place to Sleep]]: Belgarath is able to doze in the saddle, allowing him to dedicate less time for rest and remain alert for longer when it's required. In ''The Malloreon'', Garion also picks up this skill.
* [[Ambiguous Syntax]]: Lots of it, in the various written prophecies both sides are using. Also, deliberately used on Polgara by Aldur, when he says that the
* [[Amnesiac God]]: {{spoiler|Eriond}}
* [[Annoying Arrows]]: In the second book, an arrow shatters on Barak's mail shirt, something arrows are generally designed specifically not to do.
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** Garion and Torak both become enormous for the final battle. Polgara does it herself earlier.
** Also Durnik {{spoiler|when he banishes the Demon Lord Nahaz}} and {{spoiler|Poledra when she fights as a wolf against Zandramas who is in the form of a dragon}}, both in the Malloreon.
* [[Awesome Moment of Crowning]]: The Rivan King, of course. A sword drawn from stone? Check. Heralded as such by a keystone of creation? Check. Massive numbers of people bowing? Check. [[Big No]] from the girl who realized this means she has to marry you, even though she secetly wants to? Check. Awakening of a
* [[Axe Crazy]]: Urvon, Taur Urgas, and possibly Torak.
* [[As You Know]]: Happens from time to time, with a fairly egregious example in ''The Seeress of Kell:''
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** This is pretty much a standard threat issued by sorcerers throughout the novels. A fun game is to count the times Belgarath, Polgara, Beldin, and Garion threaten to turn people into toads or radishes.
** Beldin also subverts this once with a casual mention that he wouldn't turn someone into a frog, because they breed like crazy. He'd rather have "one annoying person than a million aggravating frogs."
* [[Bargain with Heaven]]: The big one is Polgara's bargain with Aldur to restore Durnik (which includes a second, internal one when Belgarath bargains with Mara to get its cooperation in the venture.) There are several others scattered through the series, though, since the
* [[Bastard Understudy]]: Harakan/Mengha to Urvon.
* [[Bathe Her and Bring Her to Me]]: In a rare gender flip, Salmissra has this done to Garion. Plus lots of drugs and poisons to make him compliant.
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* [[Big Bad]]: Torak in the first series and Zandramas in the second. Of course, the real villain is the [[Bigger Bad|Dark Prophecy]] itself.
* [[Bigger Bad]]: The Dark Prophecy. In a way, both the series' [[Big Bad|Big Bads]] were just its Dragons, as they only existed to be instruments of its will. Still counts as this though, since it's never physically confronted, and like the Prophecy of Light, has to work through earthly instruments, specifically Torak and Zandramas.
* [[Big Good]]: The Prophecy of Light. It can defeat
* [[The Big Guy]]: Several characters in the (slightly more than) [[Five-Man Band]] could qualify, but the standouts are Mandorallen in ''The Belgariad'' and Toth in ''The Malloreon''. As pointed out in the [[Five-Man Band]] section, when the Big Band (Barak, Hettar, Mandorallen, Relg, and Lelldorin) get together, Mandorallen is the only one who doesn't assume another role in the group. That's right: he's [[The Big Guy|The Big Guys']] [[The Big Guy|Big Guy]].
* [[Big Damn Heroes]]: The Big Guys that are left behind in the Malloreon get an illusionary [[Big Damn Heroes]] moment.
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** Garion gets hit with a mild version of this early on, suddenly seeing his allies as malicious strangers that he must escape from.
* [[Chainmail Bikini]]: Justified, [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]], all-around 'verted, mocked mercilessly, and in general, has just about everything you can do with a trope done to it in book four; when Ce'Nedra is off purchasing some ceremonial armor to wear while raising up an army, she says this is necessary for what the armor is supposed to help her with--and she's more or less right. Ce'Nedra, at age sixteen, was tiny and flat-chested--she can't do anything about the height, but she needed people to respect her as an adult, long enough for them to listen to her. Having the armor the right shape--even if she technically isn't--would help her audiences see her as an adult. It takes her a while, but she persuades the armorer to modify the breastplate to an acceptably female shape, and relies on his good taste for the exact dimensions. The final result works out well and satisfies all people involved, but the scenes with the armorer are fun to read.
* [[Brought Down to Normal]]: The possibility of this happening is enough to keep Belgarath [[Locked Out of the Loop]] in the fourth book after his nearly fatal duel with Ctuchik. Later, Polgara is threatened with this as a condition of {{spoiler|having Durnik brought back to life}} -- fortunately, the
** It's strongly implied, towards the end of ''The Malloreon'', that Cyradis didn't actually lose her powers.
** The Light Prophecy explicitly tells Garion that she was no longer a seer... but that she ''had'' looked into the future, and she has a ''very'' good memory.
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* [[The Devil Is a Loser]]: Torak. Sure, he's the resident evil god of the setting, but he spends all of the series and most of the backstory horribly maimed because of several monumentally stupid decisions; the main characters have absolutely no respect for him and regularly refer to him by such epithets as "Burnt-face" and "One-eye"; he has no ability to either anticipate or cope with change in the world; and he has absolutely no subtlety, sense of military tactics, or awareness of human nature whatsoever, relying entirely on brute force. One gets the impression that the only reason he was ever a credible threat was that, as a god, he has a ''lot'' of brute force to throw around, and Garion wins their final battle by [["The Reason You Suck" Speech|pointing out how very pathetic he is]] behind all the bluster.
** Revealed in the Malloreon that {{spoiler|it isn't entirely his fault - Much of Torak's mindset is influenced by the fact that he was, for a very long time, the host of the Spirit of Dark. Which is flat out described as being completely unable to change, thus the above inabilities to cope with change, as Darkness is constant, inflexible. Light is change in its nature.}}
** Also, it turns out that he was {{spoiler|never supposed to be a
* [[Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat]]: Zandramas' efforts to sway events to her favour ultimately hasten the Event she is trying to avoid. And, probably, bias the Choice against her.
* [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?]]: {{spoiler|Garion gets to add Godslayer to his constellation of grandiose titles at the end of the fifth book}}. Of course, this is explicitly justified as his purpose for existing in the first place, and he's aided by a power a wee bit higher than Torak.
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* [[Epic Fail]]:
** In ''[[The Belgariad]]'' Lelldorin manages to extend an epic fail over the course of several weeks. When he announces that he's going to get back to the main group, his beloved refuses to stay behind. During the departure and trip he manages to break her father's leg, run his cousin through the leg "just a little bit", punch out all of a priest's teeth, and cause enough assorted mayhem to get a bounty put on his head by the crown. And all of this was ''without trying''. This is also an example of [[Disaster Dominoes]]. He did successfully marry the girl in the process, though! (Only because traveling alone with her would cause more trouble.)
** In ''[[The Belgariad|The Mallorean]]'', Garion [[Got Volunteered|has to]] stop a [[Chivalric Romance|war]] threatening to [[Chronic Hero Syndrome|engulf]] the entire kingdom of Arendia. He magically summons a [[Dramatic Thunder|storm]] that helps him [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|single-handedly]] stop two charging armies in their tracks, [[Crowning Moment of Funny|force]] an [[Knight in Shining Armour|old friend]] to [[Arranged Marriage|marry]] the [[Courtly Love|love]] [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|of his life]] and resolve the dispute. He’s very [[Tempting Fate|pleased]] with his hard day’s work. A few chapters later he [[Gone Horribly Right|finds out]] that he sparked off blizzards, hurricanes, droughts and tornados right around the world, and even triggered a new ice age. It took the combined efforts of the
* [[Eunuchs Are Evil]]: The kingdom of Nyissa seems to have a lot of evil eunuchs. Considering that you have to be a eunuch to work at the royal palace, and the palace is filled with intrigue, this is a [[Justified Trope]]. Remedied in the second series when {{spoiler|[[Evil Chancellor|Sadi]]}} turns out to be <s>a pretty decent guy</s> no worse than the protagonists. And pretty [[Badass]] to boot.
* [[Even Evil Has Standards]]:
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* [[Mind Your Step]]: Belgarath has a loose step on the stair to his tower. It turns out that he put a diamond under it, in order to see how long it took for it to be ground to dust. Then he forgot he'd done so and simply developed the habit of skipping that step, since it wobbled...
* [[Mineral MacGuffin]]: The Orb of Aldur and the Sardion -- both halves of the original stone at the center of the universe and the embodiment of the power of the Prophecies of Light and Dark, respectively.
* [[Missed the Call]]: In a very ironic and somewhat sad way, Torak could be said to embody this trope for the Prophecy of Dark. It's discovered in ''The Malloreon'' that he was {{spoiler|never intended to be the seventh
* [[Mordor]]:
** Cthol Mishrak is the name of a city where the evil god Torak stayed for about two thousand years, but it's also applied to the region surrounding the city. The name means 'City of Endless Night,' because Torak created a huge mass of totally black clouds and parked them the city and its surrounding region. It really is as dark as night there, at all hours of the day. Due to the lack of sun, most plants don't grow and water doesn't evaporate quickly, leaving the place reeking of decay, fungus, and stagnant water. Torak's iron tower, which he knocked down in a fit of rage, has rusted down to a kind of metallic-reeking goop, and definite adds to the smell. The city's also far in the north, far enough for it to experience an arctic winter of extended periods of night. Put it next to an arctic swamp, and it's really miserable. Beldin described it as a suburb of Hell.
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** Zakath literally pets the cat in the Belgariad - he has a kitten which he apparently found in an alley somewhere. He spends most of his time watching it. He doesn't really say why, but as a literary device, it's effective.
** In the Malloreon the female cat has remained his companion and is now an adult though he frequently is trying to find homes for her kittens because, as Zakath himself says "She has been unfaithful to me... again." Amusingly, a female cat is called a "queen". What better companion pet for an Emperor than a Queen?
* [[Phosphor Essence]]: After {{spoiler|Eriond}} becomes a
* [[Physical God]]: Eight of them, at least in the [[Backstory]]. After Torak used the Orb of Aldur to break the world, the other seven agreed not to directly intervene lest such a catastrophe happen again. Except for UL, all of them are portrayed as fairly human. The real gods, by a more modern definition, are the two competing Purposes of the Universe, who can't fight directly and thus have to play out their conflict using the characters.
* [[The Pig Pen]]: Beldin, deliberately. He's so physically ugly that he sees no point in trying to appear neat.
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* [[Tongue-Tied]]: Asharak places a magical compulsion on Garion to prevent him from ratting Asharak out.
* [[Took a Level in Badass]]:
** {{spoiler|Durnik, twice, both at the hands of the
** In [[The Malloreon]], 'Zakath doesn't so much take a level in [[Badass]], as he does regain one, regaining the fencing and riding skills that he'd let go rusty during his time as [[The Emperor]]. Sadi is a straight example, developing from an [[Evil Chancellor]] and [[Sissy Villain]] into a capable combatant with his own [[Knife Nut|unique]] [[Poisoned Weapons|style]], becoming one of the few [[Badass]] Eunuchs in fiction.
* [[Top God]]: Ul created the rest of the gods and as a father figure, assumedly could excert authority over his "children". It's not clear whether he actually has powers that the other gods don't.
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* [[With Us or Against Us]]: Invoked by Belgarath in ''The Malloreon'', but it's at least [[Justified Trope|justified]] by the fact that there really ''are'' only two sides in the great conflict.
* [[World of Snark]]: Both heroes and villains make liberal use of sarcasm. It's hard to go a page without somebody making some snarky comment.
* [[Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe]]: The
* [[Yin-Yang Clash]]: The two Prophecies.
* [[You Can't Fight Fate]]:
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