Belgariad: Difference between revisions

The original books were followed up with a sequel series, ''The Malloreon'' (which is basically "''The Belgariad'' all over again but everyone is older", as the characters themselves quickly notice) and then much later by two standalone [[Prequel|prequels]], ''Belgarath the Sorcerer'' and ''Polgara the Sorceress'', which tell the life stories of the titular characters. All of Eddings's works are likely [[Spiritual Successor|Spiritual Successors]] of this one.

 

* ''The Belgariad''

** ''Pawn of Prophecy''

 

See also ''[[The Elenium]]'', Eddings' third series and [[Spiritual Successor]] to ''The Belgariad'' and ''[[The Malloreon]]'' - albeit with a much stronger focus on over-the-top battles and [[Bond One-Liner|Bond One Liners]].

* [[Achievements in Ignorance]]:

** Garion succeeds in bringing a horse back to life, simply because he doesn't ''know'' that it's supposed to be impossible.

* [[Cute Monster Girl]]: The Dryads are technically a race of this, but look identical to humans.

* [[Cute Mute]]: Errand, at least until ''The Malloreon'', and [[Lampshaded]] there: "I see you've learned to talk, boy."

* [[Day Hurts Dark-Adjusted Eyes]]: Ulgos.

* [[Dark Messiah]]: Zandramas to many Grolims, and the people of Darshiva. Harakan also enjoys playing this role, as evidenced by his Ulfgar and {{spoiler|Mengha}} personas, which he uses to subvert the Bear-Cult and the Karands respectively. Neither one of them really cares about the people that they're supposedly representing, and are only using it for power.

* [[The Fundamentalist]]: The Bear-Cult. [[Religious Bruiser|Relg]] starts out this way (albeit as a more positive variant), but after several books worth of [[Character Development]] he manages to lose the worst aspects of it, while remaining a deeply religious man.

* [[Funetik Aksent]]: Generally restricted to minor characters; the two most prominent examples are the juggler Feldegast, who has a thick brogue, and Th' Ol' Farmer I' Th' Tavern Wit' Th' Peg. (that's "pig", by the way.) Garion imitates the Old Farmer's accent at times when he's trying to amuse Ce'nedra or irritate Belgarath.

* [[Genre Blindness]]: The Child of Dark seems to feed from an unending stream of ignorance about the harm its [[You Can't Fight Fate|attempts to subvert the Prophecy]] do to its own cause. Then again, this is [[Lampshade Hanging|pointed out by the heroes]] as one of the reasons the Dark needs to be defeated -- it's incapable of changing or even acknowledging the need for change.

* [[Gentleman Thief]]: Silk is a prime example.

* [[Instant Awesome, Just Add Dragons]]: Averted. Dragons are quite pathetic creatures in the world of the Belgariad and in the original series they are only mentioned in one page in ''Magician's Gambit'' and even then not referred to as dragons or in fact any name at all. Their portrayal – or lack thereof – makes one wonder if Eddings's publisher demanded he add dragons just because he was writing a fantasy series and it was only done to fill an arbitrary quota.

* [[Involuntary Shapeshifter]]: Barak's hereditary "curse" is to turn into a bear when Garion is threatened. He passes the trait to his son, with respect to Garion's son.

* [[The Jester]]: Beldin's role and one of his disguises.

* [[Kill It with Fire]]: How Asharak/Chamdar [[You Killed My Father|killed Garion's parents]], [[Ironic Death|and thus]], how Garion kills Chamdar. And in ''Belgarath the Sorcerer'', Belsambar suggests throwing burning pitch into the Angarak cities.

* [[Love Hungry]]: Torak, which guides much of his motivation.

* [[Love Potion]]: [[Discussed Trope|Discussed]] in ''Polgara The Sorceress''. The members of Duke Kathandrion's court exasperate Polgara with requests for such a potion, which she notes is a [[Trope|literary device]] prevalent in Arendish epics.

* [[Mad God]]: Torak and Mara. The latter was driven insane by the grief of {{spoiler|apparently}} having all of his worshippers slaughtered in a war, while the former went mad from [[And I Must Scream|the constant, unending pain of being burnt by magical fire]].

* [[Magic A Is Magic A]]:

* [[Our Nudity Is Different]]: Relg rants about how Ulgo women tries to entice him by showing their calves and forearms.

* [[Outsourcing Fate]]: At the end of ''The Malloreon'', {{spoiler|Cyradis makes the final choice between the Light and Dark Prophecies}}.

* [[Pals with Jesus]]:

** Before the gods left the world, Belar, god of the Alorns, used to live among his "rowdy, undisciplined, and drunk" people. The admiration that Alorn girls displayed towards him [[Divine Date|didn't seem entirely religious either]].

* [[Rummage Sale Reject]]: Belgarath, intentionally -- he wants to look as unobtrusive as possible.

* [[Running Gag]]: Garion asking {{spoiler|'Zakath}} if he's sure he's not part Arendish. Comes up whenever the latter is behaving too enthusiastically in [[The Malloreon]].

* [[Sarcastic Devotee]]: At one point Garion notes that he understands now why Belgarath was so consistently irritated at Silk throughout the entire series - leadership is hard enough without someone standing behind you providing a sarcastic running commentary.

* [[Scaled Up]]: Zandramas turns into a dragon. She seems to go out of her way towards being as ostentatious as possible.

* [[Unstoppable Rage]]: When Polgara gets angry, even Belgarath keeps his head down. Polgara's explosion of rage in ''Castle of Wizardry'' (upon finding out that her father and Belgarion had sneaked out to face Torak without her) shook the entire royal palace of Riva and altered weather patterns for miles around. They go to some effort in ''The Malloreon'' to avoid a similar catastrophe. Of course, Belgarath takes a perverse interest in inspiring the rage, when it suits him. Also Barak, when Garion is in trouble; and Garion himself is goaded into this by Zandramas in ''The Malloreon''.

* [[Upbringing Makes the Hero]]: [[Invoked Trope|Invoked]] by Polgara; she deliberately raises Garion as a [[Farm Boy]] to give him a solid moral foundation for when he ends up having to save the world.

* [[Vain Sorceress]]:

** Zandramas definitely has some traits of this.