Black Company: Difference between revisions

* [[Absent Aliens]] - No elves, dwarves, goblins, orcs, or other fantasy species. There are some ''very'' weird nonhuman creatures in the Plain of Fear, but they've got a very minor role in the plot.

* [[A Day in The Limelight]] - ''The Silver Spike'' follows the travels of Case, a minor character from ''The White Rose,'' and the adventures of the Black Company deserters.

* [[Anyone Can Die]] - Anyone can, and most do.

** Especially in last two books, their collective edition is not titled ''The Many Deaths of the Black Company'' for nothing.

* [[Crapsack World]] - the setting is an arguable one, but the age of the Domination that preceded it is constantly mentioned as one of these. Just having grown up there is said to go a fair way towards explaining Lady's outlook on life.

* [[Creepy Child]] - the Daughter of Night.

** Also Narayan Singh to a degree.

* [[Cryonics Failure]]

* [[Enfant Terrible]] - {{spoiler|Lady and Croaker's}} daughter, who is {{spoiler|Kina, Goddess of Death}} reborn.

* [[Epic Fail]] - the attempt to capture {{spoiler|Mogaba}} culminates in the whole team rushing into a bedroom in the dark, setting off a trap and starting a wild shootout that kills nearly all the comandos, {{spoiler|Murgen}}, three company wizards {{spoiler|including Howler}} and putting {{spoiler|Lady}} in a coma. As a cherry on top, Croaker knocks himself out during evacuation, trying to ram his flying pole through a reinforced window.

* [[Even Evil Has Standards]] - While the Company as a whole has a tendency to take morally ambiguous contracts, they still have standards: they take exception to killing women and children, even though one of their employers' lackeys doesn't have the same qualms.

* [[Evil Overlord]] - Played with in Lady {{spoiler|before she quits}}, who ''is'' ruthless, but genuinely tries to be the lesser of two evils.

* [[Fantastic Racism]] - The Nyueng Bao don't seem to like non-Nyueng Bao very much.

* [[Golem]] - Shivetya. {{spoiler|Also, the clay body of the Limper in ''The Silver Spike''.}}

* [[Hijacked By Ganon]]: Subverted rather amusingly with Longshadow. Given his habit of dressing in robes and a mask and not letting anyone see his face, along with the fact that one of the other Shadowmasters, Stormshadow, turned out to be a renegade Taken, Lady and Croaker assume he's someone they've faced before, probably another Taken. {{spoiler|Once they get the mask off, nobody recognizes him. Turns out his an [[Outside Context Villain]]}}.

* [[Ho Yay]] - Murgen tends to linger on descriptions of Mogaba and Willow Swan. May bleed into [[Foe Yay]] territory in places.

* [[I Know Your True Name]] - The true name of a wizard can be used to destroy their power. Thus, many wizards go to great lengths to make sure that nobody knows it, such as killing everyone who knew them before, and leaving complex misdirections as to their origins.

* [[Implacable Man]]: The most powerful wizards are all but impossbiel to kill. The Dominator only died once his body was completely destroyed, Limper kept coming {{spoiler|even when he was just an undead head controlling a golem body}}, and Soulcatcher {{spoiler|survived decapitation and carried her severed head around with her in a box for years before finally forcing Croaker to sew it back on}}.

* [[Karma Houdini]] - {{spoiler|Despite having taken part in a scheme that caused the death of hundreds, and having personally killed several people, Smeds ends up owner of a brewery, with a pile of money hidden for tough days.}}

* [[Kavorka Man]] - Croaker, who, despite being far from handsome, {{spoiler|winds up married to former [[Evil Overlord]] Lady, and attracting the attentions of her sister, Soulcatcher.}}

* [[La Résistance]] - Subverted with The Rebel, who are actually worse than what they're rebelling against. Played straight when {{spoiler|Darling and the Company take over the rebellion.}}

** Also played straight later with Sleepy and the rest of the Company against {{spoiler|Soulcatcher's rule}}.

* [[Literary Agent Hypothesis]] - The original trilogy is supposed to be Croaker's section of the Annals of the Black Company. Given his central role, his personal appearance in the right place at the right time to observe plot-essential points, and a little conversation in the third book about how his historical writing style is different from the Northern tradition in how much he puts himself into the history (i.e. write in first person), and it seems Glen Cook is trying to raise this idea.

* [[Love Redeems]] - {{spoiler|Lady}}, thanks to Croaker.

* [[Morality Pet]] - Darling for Raven. Inverted in that it makes Raven overall worse, not better. As Croaker muses in ''Shadows Linger'', Raven "concentrates" all good in him for Darling, and so acts more evil to everyone else.

* [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast]] - The Dominator, Longshadow, Shapeshifter, Soulcatcher, Stormshadow, Howler, Limper, the Hanged Man... Every villain worth remembering has a suitably intimidating name.

** In fact, {{spoiler|all the magic users}} count to some degree; the more powerful, the more this trope fits, to the point where {{spoiler|they need to be diced up, cremated, and their ashes scattered}} to prevent their revival.

* [[Old Soldier]] Croaker, and the rest of {{spoiler|the Old Guard}} after {{spoiler|they're resurrected from a decades-long magical}} imprisonment in {{spoiler|Water Sleeps}}.

* [[Only Known By Their Nickname]] - ''Everyone'' who's important in this series goes by a nickname of some sort based vaguely on their character, frequently ironically. For example: the company doc is named Croaker, and its nastiest platoon leader is named Mercy. It's a rule in the Company, because everyone enlisted must leave whatever past they have behind them. Most wizards, on the other hand, use a nickname because their true name is the source of the powers.

** Played very straight when Croaker must record his actual name, and has trouble remembering it.

** In the Books of the South we get another, the Shadowmasters- less effective overall, both because there are only four of them and because their boss, Longshadow, is too erratic to be any kind of effective leader, so that the end result is that they're ''even more'' backstabby than the Taken. They're still a major headache, though.

* [[Redemption Equals Death]] - Often subverted interestingly, often averted, occasionally played straight.

* [[Royals Who Actually Do Something]] - The Prahbrindrah Drah and his sister, as this exchange illustrates:

{{quote|'''Swan''': He's the kind of guy who's got to check things for himself. [...] He's a pretty good old boy. First prince I ever seen that tries to do what a prince is supposed to do.<br />