Belgariad: Difference between revisions

* [[One-Gender Race]]: The nonhuman Dryads. They kidnap human men and force them to father children. This goes one of two ways: a girl will always be a Dryad, and a boy will be human with Dryad genes lying dormant. These Dryad genes can then be passed on to the children of that male - and they are, resulting in Ce'Nedra, who, thanks to dilution, is half Dryad. (It's not stated explicitly, but the implication is that the Dryads, left to their own devices, kill male children.)

** Pure dryads don't have male children. In "Belgarath the Sorcerer", Belgarath notes that crossbreeding dryads with the House of Borune did some odd things, since a pure dryad "would never give birth to a male child".

* [[Only Child Syndrome]]: A hereditary trait of the Rivan line, largely due to the interference of the Prophecy. Retconned in ''Polgara the Sorceress''. Apparently at least a few of Garion's ancestors had multiple children, but only the direct line mattered, so none of Garion's various great-great-etc-aunts and uncles ultimately mattered, and the only cousin he ever knowingly meets is from his mother's side of the family. The founder of the hidden line is explicitly the king's youngest grandson, implying that any male in an unbroken male line descended from Riva would work. Let's hope there aren't any more unbroken male lines. A direct sibling is never portrayed; while Polgara mentions having lots of children to play with in Cherek, they could've been maternal cousins or some such.

* [[Only the Chosen May Wield]]: The Orb, and as a consequence the Sword of the Rivan King due to its immense weight when Orb-less.